Penelope (Penny) Miller's Story

Penelope sits under a blue tree, as she usually did entering this world. She sighs deeply thinking about her life in the real world. She wasn't very well liked there, had no friends and when she did go into public, girls her age would make fun of her because of the fact she is homeschooled. This was the only place she felt at home.

Opening her book she silently sat under the tree and focused on the story she held in her hands. She smiles as she gets into the book, truly seeing what was going on in her mind.

Elora was swimming in the golden river that seemed to sing, ignoring the beautiful world around her. Elora loved this world, and often wished she never need leave. She felt much more at home in this world than in that of her real life. She was laying on her back, her head barely above the water, her loose shirt flowing around her slim frame.

Often times, Elora would look for creatures here, in this world, but today, she just wanted to be alone, in this golden river. Often times, Elora would try and make her dreams last as long as possible, but usually, they were no more than four or five hours. She hated that she had to work so much, but it kept her free from that hell of a home.

As she swam to the edge of the river to pull herself out, she saw a blue tree, and a girl sitting under it with a book. Elora was curious, so she pulled down the hem of her shirt-dress and walked over to the human looking girl.

"Hiya," She said, plopping herself down near the other girl. "I'm Elora. Who are you?" She asked bluntly, wringing out her hair away from this other girl.

"Hiya. I'm Elora. Who are you?"

When she hears the unfamiliar voice, Penelope looks up nervously from her book and spots the girl speaking to her. Her eyes are wide. No one had ever talked to her in her dreams. In fact, she had never even seen anyone in her dreams besides her before. She didn't know anyone that she would have liked to share her dream world with in the regular world. She pauses for a moment before speaking.

"H-Hello...I'm Penelope."

"Y-Yes, I'm real..." Penelope says nervously, "I-I've never seen anyone else here before..."

She strokes her hair nervously fiddling it in her hands as she looks down at the grass under her feet.

"I-I don't know if I should..." Penelope said quietly, looking up at Elora with worry in her eyes. She never trusted people. Not with the way she was treated in the real world.

"I don't think anyone else would be around me. Maybe we're the only ones, I wouldn't mind that."

"I always come here. Nobody ever talks to me or bothers me." Penelope sighs, "I like it that way."

She picks her book up and places it on her lap.

Penelope blinks, not really knowing what happened. This type of behavior she was used to, but never here.

"Why do you think I'm stuck up?" she asks quietly. She had never had this long a conversation with someone before. It was completely new to her.

"Oh...no one wants to trade places with me." she says quietly, "I'm just some freak homeschooled girl. This is the only place I get peace."

Penelope sighs. She didn't have any real friends, so she didn't know what they were like.
"This is better than my life."

Elora laughed out loud. "Oh so your home schooled. Big whoop! I got kicked out of my house, have 3 jobs, go to high school, and have an apartment. My dad beat me within an inch of my life then told the judge I attacked him with a butcher knife. My younger brother is God knows where because he ran away and no one cares, and my older brother shot himself in front of me! You think your life sucks? I'd rather have parents who cared enough to home school me and be a freak then be the girl everyone knows almost died because her dad is an alcoholic asshat and her mom is to doped up to do jack shit about it!"

Elora was breathing heavily, tears pooling in her eyes. "I bet you anything you've never had to pay for one thing in your life. And I don't mean shoes or clothes, I mean bills and a funeral and a missing persons investigation that the private investigator gave up on two weeks into it," Her voice was eerily quiet compared to her last yelling cession. "I'd give anything to have parents who cared enough to buy me nice clothes, nice books, home school me," She gestured to Penny as she spoke. "And your worried that some people think your freaky? News. Flash. The world is full of freaky people, doing freaky things, living freaky lives, who still have friends,"

Elora turned her back on the girl once more. "Sorry to have wasted a bit of your dream, Penny," She said, voice still the eerily quiet tone it had been through the end of her speech. "Didn't mean to intrude..." As she began walking off, she stopped in front of a large rock. Elora kicked it as hard as she could, two small splash marks from tears plopping onto it's jagged surface.

Penelope looks up at Elora as she walks away. She looks down and remembers something. With a slight smile she stands and closes her eyes. Next to her, a piano appears. She steps over to it and sits down on the bench. Her hands slowly lift to touch the keys and lightly land on them.

"This song..." Penelope says quietly, "I want you to hear it..."

Before she plays, she says one more thing, "This song...always makes me happy. I've always wanted someone to hear it." After a moment of silence, she begins to play the song

Tamako watched two girls she didn't know, both around her age, talking just outside her hut from behind a tree. After the two conversed for a bit, one of them seemed to get upset and start yelling, before telling the other about her home life. As the upset girl began to walk away, the quiet one seemed to magically summon a piano and start playing a song, bringing the upset one to tears.

She sighed as she turned away from the two. "Now's probably not the best time to go introducing myself," she mumbled to herself as she opened the door to her hut.

Aron

".....Round up the shadow bugs, and get moving, NOW."
"Roger that.", Aron said, speaking clearly into the microphone. Aron didn't want to stop just sitting under the shade of the tree near him, but if it was Brendan Getsus, things needed to be done. Aron looked around, making sure he had everything, then pulled out the paper map from his pocket as well as his compass. Once he knew where he was going, he started to walk.

Aron was completely disgusted with the work that he had to do. Getsus had told the assistants that the shadow bugs couldn't do very much damage, but Aron had seen them kill other animals and wildlife. Aron couldn't help but feel guilty almost every day, like he was carrying the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars all on his back. He didn't dare talk about what he felt with Getsus, for fear that he would go back to the slums of his old life.

Aron continued to walk, not completely sure where he was going, until he heard the beautiful sounds of a piano. This made Aron extremely curious, and he followed the sound until he came across two ladies located under a blue tree by a golden river. Aron tried his best to hide from the two girls's view. He hadn't heard such a beautiful song in ages, and slowly, Aron began to forget what he was doing.

Brendan

Bendan could hear his assistant, Aron's voice saying, "Roger that." on the other side of the line. Brendan then walked out of the room, and noticed his son, Jason, alone out on the front porch. Brendan sat next to him, and said,
"hey, sport. watcha doin? Wanna have some lunch soon? the cook's making some sandwichs right now."

Penelope smiles as she finishes her song.
"I'm sorry...about before." she says after a few moments of silence. She sighs, "I don't talk to people much, so I'm not used to kindness." She closes the piano and turns to Elora, pushing the blue hair from her face. Her hand is still on her beloved piano.

Shen was running through the woods when he saw 2 girls standing next to a piano. How weird... a piano out of all things. A girl with blue hair seemed to have been the player, seeing as she was sitting on the bench. A smaller one had blonde hair and cat ears and- Well wasn't that just great? Some creepo was spying on all three. Shen walked over in the middle of their circle. He just pointed at the guy behind the tree and said, "Oi. I think you guys have a visitor." He smirked, not caring if everyone else was wondering who the hell he was. "And you, Blue Hair, have a hair in your face... it's bugging me." With that, Shen tucked it behind her ear before running off into the forest.

Aron was embarassed by the random stranger's comment. Aron walked out from behind the tree, and embarassingly said,
"I'm sorry....it's just.....i couldn't help but listen to the beautiful song you were playing....just now....you did a great job....."
Aron looked around for a while, then slowly started to speak.
"Well......i guess i better be....on my way....."

Tamako watched as two more people came onto the scene, one of them saying a few words and running off. The second one came out from behind a tree, seeming embarrassed and quiet. He looked as though he were a young adult, slightly older than herself. Deciding it would be too soon to come out, Tamako decided to watch the three from a distance, curious as to what any of them were doing there, especially the man.

Nemui opened her eyes, as a figure left the cave. She could smell his scent on her and realized she felt a little warm. Did e pet me!? He tail poofed out a little as she jumped up. "That stupid!..hey." She walked to the entrance of the cave. "He left his pale here." She looked off into the distance, amazed that the boy had already made it to the tree line of the forest. "Hey!" She called out, though it was obvious that she was too far away for her little voice to be heard. She looked over at the pale again. I could just keep it, but what would I do with a pale? Plus it's not even shiny and I already have two different colored ones. The little cat let out a small sigh, she might as well try to return it to him.

A dark purple light surrounded her for a moment before she was standing on two feet and clothed in a little black dress. She picked up the pale, half full with water, and started running towards he tree-line where the figure had disappeared. "Stupid human." She muttered to herself as she reached the tree-line, thankful that it had stopped raining and was starting to get warm again. She continued walking through the forest before the sound of a piano could be heard in the distance. Nemui, now a little girl in her human form, turned her head in the direction of the sound, her ears pricking forward. It was a beautiful sound, though not even close to the sound of her bell, but still pretty.

She made her way through the trees, then spotted someone standing behind a tree a little further off from where the piano sound had been coming from before it stopped. Nemui narrowed her eyes a little. Something about this persons scent wasn't right. It made her feel uncomfortable. She dropped the pale and changed back into her cat form as she leaped up a nearby tree, then hopped from one to the next with the help of her wings before landing on a branch above the strange human. She looked over to where she watched as the person she was pursuing walked off into the trees away from two girls, one who had been playing the piano. She'd catch him later, right now she wanted to know who this person was. "Hey" she said, climbing onto a lower branch just above the boy, "You don't have the same scent as the other humans from this world. Where the heck are you from?" She said, her tail waving back and forth slowly and her ember eyes narrowed.

Penelope looks at all the people standing around her nervously. She keeps her blue hair out of her face as per the one boy's request. She notices the blonde boy appearing from behind a tree and blushes slightly because he was secretly watching.
"O-oh...thank you." she says, "d-do you want me to play another song?"

Aron nodded as the blue-haired girl said thank you. She then continued, saying,
"d-do you want me to play another song?"
Aron nodded again, and said, "Sure, if you want to. I...."
Aron then remembered what he was supposed to be doing. He couldn't help being distracted; music was one of his hobbies.
Just when he realized he was going to be in HUGE trouble with Getsus, a talking cat seemed to make matters worse.
"Hey"
she said, climbing onto a lower branch just above Aron,
"You don't have the same scent as the other humans from this world. Where the heck are you from?"

Aron tried to think of something to say, but he couldn't. He was working with the enemy.
"I'm sorry." he said to the cat above him. Then, Aron quickly fled into the forest. He knew he shouldntve been slacking off.

Shen ran as fast as his body could carry him. His vision was getting blurry, but he forced himself to stay conscious. The vision had sapped away the last of his energy, and now he was fighting on pure willpower alone. He made it back to the group he had seen before. All were sitting around, talking as if their world weren't being torn apart right in front of their very eyes. Shen was panting wildly, but he caught is breath and said, "LISTEN! SHUT UP AND LISTEN! ANOTHER VILLAGE IS ABOUT TO BE BURNED. MORE LIVES ARE GOING TO BE LOST!." His voice commanded attention, and even though he was exhausted, his voice was loud and firm. He looked each person in the eye as he said, "Look, I know you don't know me, and I know you Dream Walkers have no idea what is going on but... If you don't want this world to waste away, you have to listen and you have to help me."