Hey there,

Been a kinda meh week, writing wise specifically, I couldn’t seem to get into the groove until yesterday really. I just sort of muddled through it a little bit not quite sir where I was going but it’s getting there, it’s taking shape.

Specifically in part two I started getting into it and feeling the story a bit more. I think the plot overall is pretty good, you have like an A plot and a B plot and then they progress separately and then intertwine and come together at the end. I think this one might be better received because there’s a lot more stuff happening and maybe it’s more or less convoluted than the first one haha. More characters more villains, tonnes more villains.

Remember this was meant to be two books so it has as many boss battles as a fucking videogame haha. Villains coming out of my ears, I ripped one right out of a lovecraft story while I was writing the synopsis so you know he’s racist! No, he’s a weird zombie thing, his personal opinions on the other races will not be divulged. Although I have a sneaking suspicion he hates fish people but so do most people in this book.

Come to think of it this whole series is about literal race wars, in fact most fantasy books are, jesus fantasy is racist haha.

But I still have a fair bit to proof read, I’ll clean up a lot of it there but I’m happy the direction it’s going, we’ll just have to wait and see. Now here’s more of this fill- I mean great content from Diana in the dark again but better.

See you…

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Whatever the esoteric message of the photocopy meant, I didn’t have enough time to make any sense of it.

A tight popping cracking noise of a microphone being tapped and tested sounded, then a nasally voice filled the whole room. “Folks, can I have your attention please?” Principle Maria Petro said.  She stood looking down from the balcony, dressed a little like a character from the fifth element in a leopard print onesie?

Cat suit? What are those called? It actually fit with the neon space jungle theme.

She was a short stodgy woman with a nest of badly dyed hair that resembled ramen noodles. She stood under what looked like a brightly-lit star gate or arch, her hair done up as high as it would go.

Thankfully it was a high ceiling, without any fans or low hanging lights. Her face was a perfect mask of confidence and years of stored up aggression from dealing with the most spoiled kids on earth. All the make up in the world couldn’t cover up those frown lines.

“Ahem, good evening, everybody, I hope you’re all having a great time.” Pause for effect. Looking down at her subjects, expecting an answer or maybe an uproarious applause. Ms. Petro cleared her throat and continued on without it. “It’s my pleasure to announce this year’s senior prom queen and king.”

I made my way back over to Paul, strategically elbowing people in their solar plexuses. Solar plexi? Swimming through the crowd, only spilling about half the contents of each cup on other people’s rented shoes. I handed him one.

“Thanks.” He smiled for a moment, then stood bolt upright and his eyes got a little wider.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Err…”

“Don’t say shit!” a coiled voice hissed.

“Wendy?”

“No, it’s the fucking tooth fairy!”

“What are you?” Paul asked looking over his shoulder, but keeping his neck stiff.

Wendy stepped out of his large shadow and poked him in the side with that deadly DG purse, her hand inside it.

I imagined not clasped around her lip gloss. Her hair was coming undone, rogue strands now sticking in places to her patchy fake tan, running from the sweat.

“Brodie stood me up!” she said, shooting me a glare like it was my fault. “They’re about to announce it now, and the queen needs a king, got it?” She spat through her expensive bridgework. “So I’m just gonna borrow yours, you got a problem with that?”

“Err…” I said, eloquent as ever.

“It’s okay, it’s cool,” Paul said as he tried his best not to look as stiff as Frankenstein’s monster with a hand up his ass.

“Walk.” Wendy was still glaring at me.

Paul seemed as if he was resisting the urge to raise his hands like a hostage and started to pad slowly toward the balcony stairs.

There was no direct access to the stage.

Wendy poked him through a set of doors, and they disappeared—hopefully to reappear on the other side of the star gate in one piece. There was an awfully long pause and silence that followed.

“I’m happy to announce—” Principle Petro unsealed a sparkly envelope, very glamorous. She unsheathed a gold piece of card. “This years prom king and queen are…” Sudden sounds of a scuffle could be heard behind her, then a dull pop and another before a shrill scream.

The room froze trying to recognize the din.

Wendy burst out onto the stage, the small pistol in her hand. A ruby red stream of blood flowed from an obviously broken nose.

Paul was nowhere to be seen.

“Gimme that!” She snatched the studded prom queen tiara from Principle Petro’s hand, and shoved the woman out of the way. She tried to pin it to her head with the gun still in her hand. Once it was level, she scanned the room of all the faces still frozen in stunned silence.

Her existence was now a morbid curiosity, a downward spiral, a car crash happening in slow motion.

She saw me looking up at her. Part of me wondering if Paul was still alive, but the other was distinctly darker, and couldn’t keep my smirk at bay. Here I was, a peasant in the crowd watching a debutante fall face first in the mud, and I couldn’t stop the muscles in my face tensing into something like a smile.

“Fucking bitch! This is all your fault!” Wendy screamed and aimed the small weapon. She started firing wildly into the crowd I happened to be mingled in. The tiara drooped down and tangled in her hair as she cried.

Luckily this was probably her first school shooting, in her hands that little pistol was about as deadly as a spud gun and there was just far too much confusion to hit anyone in particular.

The crowd predictably woke from their frozen morbidity, erupting into a flurry of fight or flight lizard brain comprehension. They stampeded toward the nearest exit. Climbed all over each other so as not to become the lucky recipient of a nine millimeter kiss blown from a killer queen.

My first instinct, unlike that of a mere prey species, was not to fight or to flight but to hide and wait. Watch and see. I told myself I couldn’t leave without knowing what happened to Paul. He wouldn’t abandon me, and I couldn’t let my mask slip off completely without at least trying to save face. What kind of girlfriend would I be if I just ran and melted into the maddening crowd of lurching farm animals, leaving him to bleed to death?

The exits were currently expurgating a constant stream of furious humanity. The true meaning of an ancient Roman vomitorium now fully realized. Another fortuitous exit was marked out for me with a sign above the alcove that read, “The glow zone.”

I broke from the herd and darted for the exit, looking up to make sure she noticed I was distinct from the throng. She cursed in Spanish and fired a warning shot over the bow of the balcony, missing and chipping the horsehead ice sculptor. “Go Trojans!”

Wendy banged the guard rail of the balcony and disappeared into the back.

I pushed past a door with a porthole in it; it flapped shut behind me like a saloon door, screeching loud.

In the laser arcade equipment room, racks of laser tag sets hung from multi-colored racks glowing with the magic of LED. An instructional video on game safety was playing in a loop. A middle aged Hispanic man with a shaved head and set of terminator sunglasses appeared on screen, instructing me on how to safely clip on one of the vests in a succinct monotone.

Thanks but no thanks, a glowing piece of plastic on my chest wouldn’t do me much good in a gun fight.

Never bring a glowing plastic laser gun to a gunfight, Diana.

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