Chapter 1
Artemis Galchowen was going nowhere fast. At the age of 23, he was fired from his job as a theatre consumptions stand steward. At the age of 24, he was living with his two cousins, who worked for the second most successful auto dealer in the nation. At the age of 26, he was kicked out of their house for destroying their $200,000 Mercedes while on a drunken rampage.
At the age of 29, he was working at a secondhand manga book shop and also worked at IHOP for a few more bucks. He lived at Cricket Slope Farms development in a tiny condo with his two supportive friends, Zeke and Megan.
And on June 28, 2008, his entire life went upside-down- well, okay, it already was, but now it was really bad. And on June 27, 2008, he hadn’t even expected it. He woke up to his average ‘Bad Boys’ ringtone alarm on his phone, which started at 10:00 each day.
That day, he woke up at 12:00.
Galchowen took out a butcher’s meat hammer sitting on his nightstand next to his phone and started smashing the phone into puny mechanical cubicles. Tiny blue sparks started bleeding out of the poor communication device. He threw his light green cotton blanket off his overweight body and got up into an upright position. Normally this would take him until 12:15, but today he had a job proposition for his boss at the manga store.
He wanted a raise and to have his rank moved to Vice-president of the store, which was roughly around 20 ranks above his current one. He stared deeply at the opaque colored wall at the other side of the room, which just stared right back at him. He took a yawn, and decided he could take another couple of minutes to rest.
That day, Artemis was supposed to get to work at 1:30 for his private meeting. He ended up getting to the meeting at 2:46. The manga store was just down the block from his condo.
He stalked through the door and sat down calmly in the chair opposing his bosses’, down at the other end of the 7-foot long table. He had a small smile just barely big enough for his boss, Jeremy Jedidiah, to see. Mr. Jedidiahs lips curled up and pummeled to the rock hard floor that was his cleft chin.
Artemis twiddled his thumbs and gazed around the room. It was fairly large, business-like, but with a homey feel to it- there was a sink in the back, with cups, some cabinets filled with onion rings, pretzels, and other snacks, and two vending machines, one for chips, one for water.
He pointed at the chips vending machine, and asked, “Want some?” Jeremy’s eyes began to turn into peas. Artemis had an unsure face. He got up and pulled out a crumpled dollar bill, and struggled to stuff it into the machine. He typed in his order and waited for the chips to drop into the slot below. The chips were close to taking a trek into Artemis’ unhealthy body, but they got stuck, almost magically. His face got tense. He started muttering some words that his boss could not hear.
He pounded his fist on the machine, but the chips just wouldn’t drop. He started screaming and his face became red, revealing his crooked teeth. He began laying into the machine with brutal kicks and punches, and the machine fell over to its left, knocking down the other machine next to it. Galchowen fell to his knees and started crying. After a good half of a minute of this, he got up, jumped onto the chips machine, and started stomping on it.
The machine was eventually demolished, and Artemis shoved his hand into it and grabbed two bags of chips. He tried opening his own, and finally tore the bag in two, and just stared at the mess. Then he shrugged his shoulders and managed to properly open the second bag. He slid it across the table to Jeremy, who happened to not like that brand of chips, and then sat back down, put his legs on the table, and crossed them, and gave Jedidiah a nice smile.
Jeremy was unexplainably cross. But he counted to ten, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Artemis… people don’t like you.” “Well I can’t do much about that, now can I Sir?” Artemis replied, “Well, Artemis… yes, yes you could. Whenever you come to work, a new sense of aggressiveness is instilled in the other workers.” “Well,” said Artemis, “I like to give people more character and personality, so to me, that’s a trait.” Jedidiah shook his head and squinted his eyes. “Trust me, Artemis, it isn’t. You’re fired. I’ll see you in court, I hope you can pay for that vending machine.”
Galchowen was literally thrown out of the pink- painted shop and his belongings he had left behind in the cash register were tossed out to him. He shook himself off, then walked away without even looking back at all. “Eh, it wasn’t that good a gig anyway.” He muttered. He decided to go to IHOP to see if he could get a few extra bucks for being early. He didn’t. So he left IHOP, too. But not before he was told by his other boss to dump out a bucket of strange red waste he found in the back of the restaurant. He dragged the bucket of garbage with him home that way the cops, which were all over the place, wouldn’t give him a ticket for littering.
Once he was there, he decided to dump it into his neighbors water pipe, which was totally exposed out of the ground, because he hated his neighbor. Once that was done, he went through his back door into his dining room and grabbed a bag of Doritos from off the counter. Then he sat down onto the tree bark brown couch to the left of his pal Zeke.
“How was today?” His close friend asked. “Quite good, actually, I only got fired from one job today.” “Wow, impressive! Usually you’re temporarily banned from both each couple of weeks, but today you only got fired from one? Great! Which one?” “The manga shop.” Artemis replied. “Oh. That place was a dump anyway, they tried to act so businesslike even when they’re not. Don’t worry about it, man.” Zeke said, in a sort of befouled voice. “Trust me, I won’t.” Artemis chuckled.
Artemis played video games until 1:00 in the morning and then fell asleep after eating so many wheat bagels.
12:00 the next day. Repeat the first two steps. Go outside (Artemis never eats breakfast or brushes his teeth or hair.) and find yourself surrounded by strange, almost unconscious people stumbling past you, enormous, flying bat-like creatures soaring past you, and the sky tainted red. Try it. Artemis yawned, used to such a kind of sight, and set out to take a short walk for “exercise”. That’s when he realized what was going on. Normally, the stumbling people would have halitosis, but today their breath smelled like blood and flesh.
Artemis gasped, and saw that the ‘people’ around him weren’t human. They had bulging heads and one was actually picking up a park bench by just moving his sheer hand upwards. Artemis stared at this specific man, dumbfounded, and woke up fast enough to dodge the bench, which the man had thrown at him with a flick of the wrist.
Artemis fled from the mob of what he believed to be demons and monsters back to his condo. He screamed like an 8 year old and Megan dropped the platter of tea she was carrying over to a coffee table.
“What the Hello Kitty is wrong with you, Artemis?!” Megan shrieked at roughly around 200 decibels. “Th-th-th—zombies,” Artemis gasped. “Zombies? Oh for god’s sake Artemis, that was fine china I was carrying!” “You gotta believe me, Megs! They were lunging at me, they wanted to tear me to pieces!” “This better be good, or I’ll be cooking your vocal chords on the grill.” Megan unlocked the door, opened it, and looked outside, turned around and faced Artemis. “Y’see? Nothing! Absolutely NO z-“
Megan was then swiftly launched forward into the wall behind Artemis by a Camaro, which had been flung directly into the front of the house. It smashed through the condo and the hood of the car fell off, as the alarm of the car began beeping.
This time, Artemis screamed like a 5 year old.
Artemis Galchowen was going nowhere fast. At the age of 23, he was fired from his job as a theatre consumptions stand steward. At the age of 24, he was living with his two cousins, who worked for the second most successful auto dealer in the nation. At the age of 26, he was kicked out of their house for destroying their $200,000 Mercedes while on a drunken rampage.
At the age of 29, he was working at a secondhand manga book shop and also worked at IHOP for a few more bucks. He lived at Cricket Slope Farms development in a tiny condo with his two supportive friends, Zeke and Megan.
And on June 28, 2008, his entire life went upside-down- well, okay, it already was, but now it was really bad. And on June 27, 2008, he hadn’t even expected it. He woke up to his average ‘Bad Boys’ ringtone alarm on his phone, which started at 10:00 each day.
That day, he woke up at 12:00.
Galchowen took out a butcher’s meat hammer sitting on his nightstand next to his phone and started smashing the phone into puny mechanical cubicles. Tiny blue sparks started bleeding out of the poor communication device. He threw his light green cotton blanket off his overweight body and got up into an upright position. Normally this would take him until 12:15, but today he had a job proposition for his boss at the manga store.
He wanted a raise and to have his rank moved to Vice-president of the store, which was roughly around 20 ranks above his current one. He stared deeply at the opaque colored wall at the other side of the room, which just stared right back at him. He took a yawn, and decided he could take another couple of minutes to rest.
That day, Artemis was supposed to get to work at 1:30 for his private meeting. He ended up getting to the meeting at 2:46. The manga store was just down the block from his condo.
He stalked through the door and sat down calmly in the chair opposing his bosses’, down at the other end of the 7-foot long table. He had a small smile just barely big enough for his boss, Jeremy Jedidiah, to see. Mr. Jedidiahs lips curled up and pummeled to the rock hard floor that was his cleft chin.
Artemis twiddled his thumbs and gazed around the room. It was fairly large, business-like, but with a homey feel to it- there was a sink in the back, with cups, some cabinets filled with onion rings, pretzels, and other snacks, and two vending machines, one for chips, one for water.
He pointed at the chips vending machine, and asked, “Want some?” Jeremy’s eyes began to turn into peas. Artemis had an unsure face. He got up and pulled out a crumpled dollar bill, and struggled to stuff it into the machine. He typed in his order and waited for the chips to drop into the slot below. The chips were close to taking a trek into Artemis’ unhealthy body, but they got stuck, almost magically. His face got tense. He started muttering some words that his boss could not hear.
He pounded his fist on the machine, but the chips just wouldn’t drop. He started screaming and his face became red, revealing his crooked teeth. He began laying into the machine with brutal kicks and punches, and the machine fell over to its left, knocking down the other machine next to it. Galchowen fell to his knees and started crying. After a good half of a minute of this, he got up, jumped onto the chips machine, and started stomping on it.
The machine was eventually demolished, and Artemis shoved his hand into it and grabbed two bags of chips. He tried opening his own, and finally tore the bag in two, and just stared at the mess. Then he shrugged his shoulders and managed to properly open the second bag. He slid it across the table to Jeremy, who happened to not like that brand of chips, and then sat back down, put his legs on the table, and crossed them, and gave Jedidiah a nice smile.
Jeremy was unexplainably cross. But he counted to ten, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Artemis… people don’t like you.” “Well I can’t do much about that, now can I Sir?” Artemis replied, “Well, Artemis… yes, yes you could. Whenever you come to work, a new sense of aggressiveness is instilled in the other workers.” “Well,” said Artemis, “I like to give people more character and personality, so to me, that’s a trait.” Jedidiah shook his head and squinted his eyes. “Trust me, Artemis, it isn’t. You’re fired. I’ll see you in court, I hope you can pay for that vending machine.”
Galchowen was literally thrown out of the pink- painted shop and his belongings he had left behind in the cash register were tossed out to him. He shook himself off, then walked away without even looking back at all. “Eh, it wasn’t that good a gig anyway.” He muttered. He decided to go to IHOP to see if he could get a few extra bucks for being early. He didn’t. So he left IHOP, too. But not before he was told by his other boss to dump out a bucket of strange red waste he found in the back of the restaurant. He dragged the bucket of garbage with him home that way the cops, which were all over the place, wouldn’t give him a ticket for littering.
Once he was there, he decided to dump it into his neighbors water pipe, which was totally exposed out of the ground, because he hated his neighbor. Once that was done, he went through his back door into his dining room and grabbed a bag of Doritos from off the counter. Then he sat down onto the tree bark brown couch to the left of his pal Zeke.
“How was today?” His close friend asked. “Quite good, actually, I only got fired from one job today.” “Wow, impressive! Usually you’re temporarily banned from both each couple of weeks, but today you only got fired from one? Great! Which one?” “The manga shop.” Artemis replied. “Oh. That place was a dump anyway, they tried to act so businesslike even when they’re not. Don’t worry about it, man.” Zeke said, in a sort of befouled voice. “Trust me, I won’t.” Artemis chuckled.
Artemis played video games until 1:00 in the morning and then fell asleep after eating so many wheat bagels.
12:00 the next day. Repeat the first two steps. Go outside (Artemis never eats breakfast or brushes his teeth or hair.) and find yourself surrounded by strange, almost unconscious people stumbling past you, enormous, flying bat-like creatures soaring past you, and the sky tainted red. Try it. Artemis yawned, used to such a kind of sight, and set out to take a short walk for “exercise”. That’s when he realized what was going on. Normally, the stumbling people would have halitosis, but today their breath smelled like blood and flesh.
Artemis gasped, and saw that the ‘people’ around him weren’t human. They had bulging heads and one was actually picking up a park bench by just moving his sheer hand upwards. Artemis stared at this specific man, dumbfounded, and woke up fast enough to dodge the bench, which the man had thrown at him with a flick of the wrist.
Artemis fled from the mob of what he believed to be demons and monsters back to his condo. He screamed like an 8 year old and Megan dropped the platter of tea she was carrying over to a coffee table.
“What the Hello Kitty is wrong with you, Artemis?!” Megan shrieked at roughly around 200 decibels. “Th-th-th—zombies,” Artemis gasped. “Zombies? Oh for god’s sake Artemis, that was fine china I was carrying!” “You gotta believe me, Megs! They were lunging at me, they wanted to tear me to pieces!” “This better be good, or I’ll be cooking your vocal chords on the grill.” Megan unlocked the door, opened it, and looked outside, turned around and faced Artemis. “Y’see? Nothing! Absolutely NO z-“
Megan was then swiftly launched forward into the wall behind Artemis by a Camaro, which had been flung directly into the front of the house. It smashed through the condo and the hood of the car fell off, as the alarm of the car began beeping.
This time, Artemis screamed like a 5 year old.
"Gwen,Gwen,Gwen!" Ms.Barton said as I was asleep in history class."What?" I said when I woke up."had a nice dream?" "S-sorry Ms.Barton,it won't happen again"."let's hope not." She said. When the bell rang to go to lunch,my best friend,Marlon came up to me."What happend back there?" Marlon asked.To tell you the truth,I've always had a crush on him.I always had a feeling he liked me back."Nothing,nothing at all,i was just dreamin." "What about?"he asked with a smile."I'm not telling you!" I said with a smile.When we went back to class,Ms.barton wanted to talk to me."Gwen,you have been sleeping in my class far to long". "sorry Ms.B,I havent been myslef lately." I said with a frown."OK,first of all,dont call me "Ms.B",and you must go to sleep on time." She said with a light smile."sorry,it hared to fall a sleep in my house." well then...ther is only one thing to do...you need to,wake up..."
You’re keeping me up at night as day breaks
It’s all for you
Yeah that’s what you do, got me feeling so blue
When will you see
You have to let it be
When will you see just how much you really mean to me
Why is it just so hard to send that card
When do you think you’ll be able to understand
My love might be killing me
I hope you realize I’m just a fool
Damn! You’re so cool
When do you think you’ll understand
You drove me to a far off land
When will you see
I can’t just let it be
Come on try to set me free
When will you finally understand
I care about you
I’ll tell you that firsthand
You have my heart and my life
I hope soon I’ll get a chance to be your wife
I hope soon you’ll see, you mean the universe and the galaxy to me
It’s all for you
Yeah that’s what you do, got me feeling so blue
When will you see
You have to let it be
When will you see just how much you really mean to me
Why is it just so hard to send that card
When do you think you’ll be able to understand
My love might be killing me
I hope you realize I’m just a fool
Damn! You’re so cool
When do you think you’ll understand
You drove me to a far off land
When will you see
I can’t just let it be
Come on try to set me free
When will you finally understand
I care about you
I’ll tell you that firsthand
You have my heart and my life
I hope soon I’ll get a chance to be your wife
I hope soon you’ll see, you mean the universe and the galaxy to me