When I crossed the street and all, I felt sort of like I was disappearing, only this time I was disappearing. The crosswalk had collapsed, blacktop falling in around me like marvelous, comforting piece-y walls. Instead of walking straight toward the flashing walk signal, I was descending on cement stairs below the streets; I couldn't see a godd** thing, but the underbellies of my galoshes collected my nerves for use as fuel in steering me forward.

And the moment I allowed the descending cement rectangles to guide me, the underground shaft's walls fell outward to reveal dark chocolate and angry red cliffs, Central Park's ducks looming overhead. A harsh breeze was scaring my hair and unexpected face, and I saw them, the soft, pale warm-blooded fingers that gripped the ledge. When I stumbled off the side of the steps, I hurried, and my body turned numb when I looked over and into the dangling eyes creviced in the hanging familiar face. My purple lacy hands reached out in need and squeezed the palms, yet in the very exact motion, my hands met in the middle when the checkers in the girl's eyes, Jane's eyes, spread to devour her face and body, quickly eating her, evolving her, and the godd** rose red and black textured child's play discs were all that was left of her body, falling, clacking together, and falling.

My head felt a tingling sensation as I felt the blood sprinting around, and I smelled metal, the kind of metal that invades your nose after you stub your toe and you can smell the color of nausea. Sickly yellow tints faded in and out of my vision and I kept traveling down the underground steps when I heaved over and gripped my gut where six checkers sliced open my flesh, and they stayed lodged in between my skin and sticky blood.

A red shape loomed and paced back and forth until the stairs came to an end and my familiar hunting hat came into view, atop my kid sister Phoebe's head. Only she wasn't a good, she was grown up, and all I could think about was the girls on the bus, and how I didn't know what would happen to all of them and all I wanted to know is what would happen.

'Phoebe, are you okay? Where the hell are we?'

Only I stopped asking questions because through yellow eyes, I saw the blood permeating through her clothes and felt a magnetic pull yanking the checkers out of my gut as the discs wedged themselves within hers like children's bullets. I saw more blood coming from slices within her palms and I rushed to her, wrenched her tiny fingers open and saw a shattered record's pieces she had been holding so tightly until the sharp edges had dug through her hands like tunnels.

I started backwards and began to cry but Phoebe was smiling. It'll depress you, when someone smiles and it's the last godd** thing that person should be doing.

I attempted to put my scared emotions to rest and reached for a red checker toward the left side of her belly, holding her hand. The game piece finally lay in my hand, and I brought it closer to my yellow tinted vision to see. Instead of noticing the ridges, instead of seeing the licorice red it shines throughout the game, I tried to rub the words off the best I could; I put it under my godd** shoes and stomped until I couldn't feel my body anymore. But the words were carved and permanent, the checker's 'F*** you' wouldn't erase, couldn't erase, and Central Park's ducks flew over top of us, not South, but in circles.