I guess 8eing lame pays off, when dying a hero's what get's you killed

“Hey, Addison!” My brother Kevin called. I immediately ran to my room. I was 10. I knew what was coming. Five years ago, Kevin had gotten into anarchy and biochemical weapons and a bunch of other things that made the house smell like sulfur. But most notable, he liked alchemy. And I was his lab rat. The first thing he ever did to me was test the acidity of certain things he’d created and their reactions to human skin. I have chemical burns all up my back from that. I was six at the time.

The next time, I was nine. He was testing an airborne chemical by locking me in my room and snaking a line under my door. I coughed until I couldn’t breathe, and the room was filled with a faintly pink smoke. I passed out from lack of oxygen, my brother aired out my room, and set me in my bed. I woke up a few hours later with a massive headache. When he came back in to check on me and see what his experiment had done, all he could do was stare. My eyes had changed. One was red, one was purple, and they could see more than light. I saw into Kevin’s mind. For the next week, Kevin’s only project was fixing it. He never did really fix it, but he made me a special pair of glasses that kept me from seeing into peoples’ heads. It was probably the nicest thing he ever did for me.

Since then, I had ingested dozens of chemicals and toxins, been injected with viruses and drugs, but never once did Kevin unleash the pink smoke. Most of this was by force. I always had a bruise from either Kevin or my dad beating me. My mom was never around. I was the youngest, and the only girl. I was practically bait.

This brings us to now. Ten years old, cowering in my closet under a coat.

“Addy…” Kevin cooed. He walked quietly into my room and tore the coat off me. I screamed. He grabbed my arm and stuck a needle into it. Whatever he injected me with burned like fire as it coursed through my body. He smiled maliciously at me as my eyes rolled back and I went limp in his grasp. He let me fall back in the closet. He was timing how long it would take me to wake up.

He was kind of a sadistic bastard.

An unpopular, but really nice, girl takes a really good picture of herself and posts it on Facebook. She gets two likes, and five comments, two of which are really mean comments about her clothes. Another girl who is well-known by everybody takes a bad picture with her cell phone in the girls bathroom at school. She gets twelve likes and fifteen comments, all that say "u r soooo pretty :)" or similar. The first girl saw this and vowed to not take another picture of herself until she figured out how to look like the popular girl.

A guy gets bullied and beat up by some other guys in his class because he's gay. He's gone to the councelor, all of his teachers, and the principal, but they don't do anything about it. His last post on Twitter is "Good bye, everybody." The news in the morning is a story about a teenage boy who "fell, jumped, or was pushed" off the overpass. The story was all over school that day, and the bullies were proud to think it was their doing.

A nerdy girl posts a video on YouTube of herself singing her favorite song. She's an amazing singer, and she's really proud of herself, so she posts a link on every social network she can and waits. The only people who watch the video are her best friend, her family, and her crush. Her friend told her that "I always knew you were a good singer!" That made the girl smile. Her family and crush didn't say anything, but the next day she found the video re-posted on Facebook, with the caption "Look at this loser try to sing!" Her crush had posted it. She immediately broke down in tears.

A boy has no friends because he is condemned to a wheelchair. He was born with one leg, and the other didn't work properly. That was the only thing wrong with him. He was smart, nice, funny, an otherwise perfectly normal kid. His dad had died fighting in Iraq, so it was just him and his mom. Other kids made fun of him because she dropped off and picked up her son at school everyday, and gave him a kiss. They thought it was funny to put sticks in the spokes of his wheelchair. He's homeschooled now, because he told his mom about what happened to him every day.

You laugh, you scoff, but these things happen, and it's horrible. What happened to "All men are created equal"? Does that not extend to young people? What happened to childhood innocence? Where it didn't matter what you looked like, if you gave your cookie to the kid that didn't have one, suddenly you were best friends. I miss that. I miss being able to be who you are and not being laughed at or made fun of for it.

Life is, in all of it's mystery and glory, nothing but a game of chance. A flip of the coin, a roll of the dice, take a number and we'll get to you soon. You may have though of this before. Then again, you may have not. It's chance. Nothing but a twisted and evil, yet fair game. The proverbial double-edged sword, if you will.

It is chance you are reading this. It is chance you are even able to read. Everything in your life can be, or has been decided by a coin hitting the palm of your hand (or the ground, if you're bad at coin flipping). Pick a card, any card. If it's red, you are. If it's black, you aren't. And for most everything in the world, that is how it is. Even Steven, 50/50, yes or no. There is no gray area for almost anything.

You are or you aren't. You do or you don't. You have or you haven't. You will or you won't. There is no in-between. You are a girl, you don't wear glasses, you have broken your arm, you won't die tomorrow. It's chance you look how you look, live where you live, like what you like, do what you do. Your life could have been completely different if that coin landed heads-up instead of down, or your die landed on a four instead of a one. You life may have been altered exponentially by buying that thing you just bought, or reading that book you just read.

But what does all this matter to you? Exactly. It doesn't. Or, maybe it does. What do the tea leaves say about it? The fact is that everything you do, touch, see, hear, and say could, possibly, play a part in your future. It all depends. Depending on what depends on you. You are who you are because of things that you've done. Or thing's people think you have done.

It is chance that I'm writing this. It's chance that I had this thought. Pull a slip of paper out of a hat and do what it says. And what's more, it is chance that anything that ever happened in the past, is happening in the present, or will happen in the future, will affect everything else. And it is all a game. Right and wrong, win and lose. Heavy or light. Do or do not. Balance and chance. Chance and balance. These are the things that make the world go round. Think about it, it's true.

The world, everything in it, everything that's every happened to it, or around it, or inside it, is nothing more than a simple, easy, fair, double-edged, yes or no, do or don't, 50/50, game of chance. You can embrace it, or fight it. Only chance can stop you.

And then it all stopped, and she was left suspended in nothingness, trapped in time and space, a prisoner in her own world. Nothing. Nothing but darkness. Nothing but the endless, maddening black that surrounded her, encasing her, holding her up. No light reached her eyes; no sound reached her ears.

"Where am I?" she thought. "Could it be that I'm Alice, in the rabbit hole, or Lucy in the wardrobe?" she pondered a moment, fearless of the horrible dark emptiness. "I see nothing. I feel nothing. Maybe I am nothing?" she asked herself. She was cradled by the cold, yet she felt warm all over. She smiled into the vast space.

A hollow echo called her name. "Who goes there?" she called back, but she made no sound. Her name was called again and fear slowly crept its way into her heart. She couldn't tell which way was up, down, left or right. She began to panic but was unable to move. "Who's there?" she yelled again, but the darkness ate up her words.

She realized what was happening and a tear rolled down her cheek. Her name was called a final time so she closed her eyes, took one last deep breath, and let Death take her away.

It really was the perfect plan. Marcus had broken Sel's heart too many times, and the gang was about to have their revenge. No one was sure how long Selina wanted to do this, but it was longer than anyone could remember. The guys were positioned outside Marcus' house, except Farren and Bailey, who were on the roof, and Ryan, who was around the corner with his dad and a pick up truck. In front of the house was Selina, holding packets of ketchup, Chelsie right behind her with more, Jade on Selina's right with a squeeze bottle of the red goo in either hand, J.J. behind her, who just HAD to participate. He was holding more squeeze bottles of the stuff. Quil, on Jade's right, was holding a pump bottle. Della was beside the doorbell, waiting for the signal to ring, and Maddi, being a hippie, was not there. "Let's blow this hot dog stand," said Sel, and there were a few chuckles at the stupid pun. But Della rang the doorbell and quickly got out of the way, and opened her umbrella, just in case.

It didn't take long for the target's mom, Mrs. Kelly, to answer the door. The gang tried to be inconspicuous about their weapons, but Mrs. Kelly was oblivious to the threat. Everyone smiled, and tried not to laugh, and Selina, trying hard to keep a straight face, said in a dangerously sweet voice, "Good morning Mrs. Kelly! I don't suppose Marcus is at home?" "Yes, he is," replied Mrs. Kelly, still oblivious to all the ketchup," I"ll go get him." Farren and Baily noted a scuffling upstairs. Marcus apparently knew what was coming and tried to hide himself. "Maarkiiee!!!! Some of your little school friends are here! Come down!" Marcus peeked around the rail of the staircase. When he saw Selina smiling as though she was poisoned honey, he shrank back in fear. Selina's smile grew wider. Mrs. Kelly marched up the stairs and grabbed Marcus by the ear. She dragged him down the stairs and his friends, Braden and Ashton, unknowingly followed. "Bonus!" whispered Chelsie triumphantly, still crouched behind Selina.

Mrs. Kelly tapped him on the head and told him to go play. She shut the door when all three boys were on the porch, and they were pretty obviously creeped out by the smiling people. Suddenly it rained down a bucket-load of tomatoey condiment, Bailey having emptied her bucket on Marcus' head. "FIRE!!!!!!!" screamed Chelsie suddenly!

It was total chaos! The sky seemed to turn red, and Marcus and his posse were covered just enough to look bloodied. But so did Della's umbrella. Everyone emptied their weapons rapidly, and two minutes later, they were all out of ammunition. Selina looked around and nodded. Everyone dumped their weapons and ran. All except Selina, who took one last ketchup packet and emptied it square on Marcus' nose. "And that's for turning me down," said she, through gritted teeth. She stomped on his foot and ran. When she got to the get away truck, there were high fives all around. Through laughter, Selina exclaimed "That went perfectly! It's too bad Maddi's a hippie. She might have enjoyed it." Everyone giggled at the mere thought of Maddi being there. Even if she wasn't a hippie, they all knew she wouldn't show. "All in all," said Quil, "it was a pretty good day."

Sel leaned in and kissed Ryan on the cheek, even though they had all been hit with a fair amount of ketchup. "Thanks for the ride." Selina left Ryan, surprisingly, blushing, as she hopped into the truck bed and they drove off.

There they were. There were no other cars on the road now. The moon was low and full, and Jade couldn't take her eyes off it. Farren didn't notice. He was staring a Jade. He wanted to speak, but the silence seemed to suppress words. He did not know what to say. Instead, he silently, gently, slid his hand into hers. Her gaze quickly shifted from the moon to Farren. She did not know what to say. The tension left her eyes, and she leaned her head back on the seat. She smiled, and rolled her head to look at Farren. He looked back at her. They sat in silence, for there were no words to be said. This was one of few perfect moments, and Jade and Farren both knew, it wasn't the last. There they were, in almost complete darkness. Farren wrapped his arm around Jade and she fell asleep on his shoulder. "Yes," Farren thought, "this certainly isn't the last."