Three weeks had passed since I first approached Jennifer.

Or Jen, as I'd called started calling her now. It wasn't my idea. She'd blurted it out one day, and I wasn't about to refuse an offer like that from a cute girl like her.

Not that I like her or anything. Well, I do like her. But I don't like like her. At least not yet. I've never been in a romantic relationship before, nor have I ever been in love — outside of a couple of small crushes — but I'm reaching that age where basically everybody and their sister seems to be dating everyone else. So maybe it's time for me to find someone like that too. I wouldn't mind it at least.

And It's not as if Jen makes a poor option. Not only is she pretty, but she's also smart, kind, and funny. She might be a little odd, yes, but that's part of her charm — I'd say.

Over these past three weeks, I'd gotten to know her relatively well. At first, she would just help me out with my studying after school, but after a week that developed into walking part of the way home together. Sometimes we'd even stop and get something to eat.

She always picked the place we ate at. It was one of three conditions she had set up in regard to eating out. God knows why you needed rules for that.

The first condition was that we always study while we ate. I didn't really want to use all that time with her studying even more, but she was adamant about me needing to study more so I'd conceded.

The second condition was that I paid — which she said was only fair considering she helped me out for free. I had more than enough money, so I didn't mind.

The third condition was that we find places that were empty of people. I'm not sure why that was so important to her. Despite her being a loner like me, she wasn't a shy person. But it didn't mean anything to me whether other people were present or not, so I agreed to that too.

Right now, we were heading home from one of those food excursions. This time we'd eaten burgers at a small grill that Jen chose called 'Jolly Bear's Burgers' — named in honor of the superhero Jolly Bear.

He's a lot scarier than his name makes him out to be.

We were walking down the side-walk of a well-off suburban neighborhood with large villas strutting out behind high hedges. We were discussing our latest math test, which I — Thanks to Jen's help — managed to get a B+ on. Jen was in the middle of explaining one of the last questions on the test when it happened.

A large bang rang out from behind the next street corner. Not long after, a large black figure came flying through the air.

The figure landed on the asphalt with force, sliding several meters and tearing up the street with it before it finally came to a stop.

It was soon followed by a bronze blur that touched down in front of the lying figure. I had no idea what the creature on the ground was, but I instantly recognized the other bronze figure.

It was Gold Rock — a superhero with elemental powers that let him control the earth itself.

Gold Rock moved to grab his opponent when something dark flicked at his side. A clangor like the church bell sounded out and the second after his body was flying uncontrollably in my and Jen's direction.

I froze for a millisecond. My brain worked overtime to assess the situation. Finally, after what felt like ages — even though barely a second had passed — I gathered enough of mental faculty to grab Jen and try to jump out of the way of the large mass moving towards us. But I reacted too late.

I'd just grabbed Jen's arm when the bronze-colored mass that was the hero's body was about to slam into us and turn both of us into roadkill. Suddenly, the ground moved. The pavement we stood on reached upwards and closed itself around me and Jen in an instant.

A large thud resounded throughout the structure of our newly-formed enclosure and a dent formed in the pavement's walls. Then everything turned silent.

Both of us lay on the ground inside our little fortress — which I now noticed had formed in the shape of a dome around us. We didn't have much room to move around. Nor did we want to. We just lay there, waiting. Jen's face was turned away from me, so I couldn't see what kind of expression she was making.

Loud noises rang out outside our barrier at frequent intervals. Roars that made your blood freeze were met with bangs so loud that they would probably have shattered our eardrums if the dome hadn't protected us. The sounds of battle kept on coming for several minutes, the roars much more frequent of the two, until it suddenly went quiet.

The dome around us fell apart and seemed to melt into the earth, revealing the battlefield around us.

The intersection where the black figure had first appeared was where the majority of the damage had occurred. The asphalt had been torn asunder and bent street lamps lay across the ground covered with some kind of green goo that had melted large parts of the metal. In the middle of the intersection lay the black-colored creature.

It was large. At least two and a half meters long, with an elongated head that was missing eyes — but more than made up for it with its large mouth which was like that of a shark, filled with rows upon rows of teeth. It had large scales covering the entirety of its massive body — which was like that of a bent forward humanoid — with a broad scorpion-like tail that lurched all the way up to its head. It didn't require a genius to figure out that the tail was probably what had knocked Gold Rock towards us earlier. Many of the creature's scales had been ripped off its body and its green insides were leaking out onto the street, melting through the ground.

Hunched over next to the now-still creature was Gold Rock. With a body that would impress even a contest-winning weight lifter, he projected a sense of reassurance and strength — or at least he would have if he hadn't been dripping with the aforementioned goo. But at least whatever acidic properties it had didn't seem to affect him.

Underneath all the goo, his entire body was covered in bronze-colored muscles and — except for his nether regions where he wore black spandex boxers — it didn't look like he wore any clothes at all right now.

Jen was the first of us to stand up. Gold Rock was still staring at the creature and didn't mind us. Following her example I also tried standing, which didn't go that well at first with my legs feeling like they were made of spaghetti. After taking a few breaths and getting my bearings, I managed to stand up without stumbling.

Just then, Gold Rock turned towards us. After another glance at the creature, which I assumed was dead, he stood up and began walking in our direction with long, confident steps.

"Are you alright, kid?" He said as he glanced over Jen — who was standing beside me — and locked his gaze at me.

It seemed like as if Jen was about to say something to him, but changed her mind and stayed quiet instead.

"Yes, we're fine. Thank you very much." I said.

He stared at me with a weird look on his face.

Maybe answering in such a pointed manner was a bit too rude in this situation. He did just save our lives after all.

"Err, that's good, kid." Gold Rock said and turned his head to look at their surroundings. "Sorry for the mess here. I tried leading that sorry excuse of a xenomorph to a less populated area before I kicked its ass, but it didn't really go as planned." He laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his shiny head. Then he flashed a bright smile at us. "But you were never in any danger kid, so it's fine. You can always trust that good 'Ol Gold Rock will protect the little guy!"

"Gee, thanks..." Maybe if he wanted to lead it to a less populated area, he should have avoided residential areas in general. I didn't say that though, as he were the ones that just saved me. Although it seems he was at least partly at fault for our lives being at risk, to begin with.

Gold Rock turned around and moved over to the beaten-up corpse of the creature. "Well, I've got lives to save and asses to kick. I'll be taking this ting with me and move out now. Stay safe kid — and remember. Don't do drugs!" He grabbed hold of the limp body and I watched with amazement as large swaths of the road started moving and filling up the holes. Focused on the self-repairing road, I almost missed when the ground itself almost opened itself up and swallowed both Gold Rock and the black creature, followed by a rumbling sound that reverberated from the underground that quickly escaped the scene.

I stood there dumbfounded. I'd seen some of what he could do on the news, but it was an entirely different thing to see it in real life.

Then I heard a gasp from my side. Turning around, I saw Jen with a gleeful grin on her face.

"That was so awesome!" She yelled out as she shook my shoulders. "Did you see how fast he put up that dome around us? I thought we were dead for sure, but then, bang! In an instant, it was there! I wish he hadn't blocked our view entirely. It would have been so cool to see the entire fight!"

"I guess you're a Gold Rock fan, then?" I said as I took her hands off my shoulders and started walking, dragging her with me. The police or a clean up crew was bound to show up soon. I didn't want to waste time with them. Gold Rock would report the incident himself anyway.

"Huh? No, not really." Jen said and let herself be dragged along. "He seemed like a bit of a tool, to be honest. I mean, did you see how he just ignored me like that? I was like, 'What's his problem?'. But that doesn't mean he hasn't got some really cool powers. Who wouldn't get excited after seeing that?!"

"I suppose you're right. I think I was too focused on the fact that we nearly died to be that excited. But I see what you mean." I said. Then I looked down at Jen's arm and noticed that part of her sleeve had a hole in it and her skin was colored red from blood.

I stopped walking and held up her arm, looking the wound over. "Are you okay? That looks like it hurts quite a bit."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Nah. 'Tis but a scratch."

I gave her a questioning look. "Really? If you say so..." I let go of her arm and started moving again. "By the way," I said as she caught up with me. "Why the old-timey English? Is that one of your references?"

She looked at me with incredulity. "You mean you don't know that one?"

"No? Should I?" What was it? A famous quote?

"Ni?"

"What?"

She looked at me with a flustered face. "Sorry, never mind. it was just some stupid joke from a movie."

"Aha, I see. Sorry, I don't watch many movies. I think I've told you this before, but during my spare time, I don't do much except study and sleep. Now that you're helping me study after school, I just use the rest of the time to sleep even more."

"Right. You mentioned that." She mumbled.

After that, we stayed quiet for a while as we walked.

"By the way. What's a xenomorph?" I asked.

Jen shook her head at me. "Of course..."

A majority of the remainder of our walk was sent with me listening to Jen talk about space bugs erupting out of the stomach of some Hurt guy, and something else about rabid killer bunnies.

To be honest, I lost track of whatever it was that she was talking pretty quickly but I pretended that I was following, nodding when she said things and sometimes going 'Oh' or 'Ah',

It was beautiful outside today. The sun was shining and not a cloud could be sin in the sky. In the background, the chittering of the birds blended in with the traffic around us. We passed by a park where a bunch of kids was playing football, shouting and yelling at each other as they scored.

Despite not really understanding what it was that Jen was talking about, I enjoyed talking with her like this. It was a nice change from our usual talks that were about nothing but school.

We were walking on the sidewalk with the road to our left. Cars passed us by as Jen walked in front of me, enthusiastically talking about the flying speed of different kinds of swallows — god knows how we got there — when I heard a loud shout of warning from the direction of the park. From the corner of my vision, I saw a ball moving towards the back of Jen's head. I was just about to yell out a warning when it hit her.

When it should have hit her. When it did hit her.

What I saw contradicted everything I knew about conventional physics — or anything else for that matter.

I saw how the ball flew towards her head and, just as expected, hit her before bouncing away. I saw how she let out a yelp of pain and surprise and stumbled.

I also saw how the ball flew towards her head and, against all expectations, went through her head — bouncing a few times on the sidewalk before lodging itself in a bush.

Both of these scenarios played themselves out in front of me at the same time, and both looked as real as the other. I knew the ball couldn't have gone through Jen's head. And I knew the ball couldn't have divided into two separate balls of the same size. Yet that's exactly what I saw.

A strong sense of nausea filled me, and an intense, mind-numbing pain flared up in my head. A pain like none I'd ever felt before — like a thousand different knives were being pressed into my skull from all directions. My vision blurred and felt myself stumbling to my left.

I heard a loud sound. I couldn't make out what it was. All I knew was that it was getting closer at a frightening speed. I think I also heard someone scream my name, but then the searing pain in my head got even worse and I lost all ability to focus.

I felt someone push me. Wind blew past me. A loud honking. Then, all of a sudden, the pain was gone. So was the nausea. I'd stumbled forward from the push, landing in the middle of what looked like the road. My knees and hands were all scraped up, but I didn't care about that. I turned around to see who'd pushed me.

It was Jen. She lay on the road behind me with a panicked look on her face. Then I saw what it was that had made that loud sound earlier.

It was a large truck. And it was moving towards her at full speed. I didn't have time to react. It didn't stop. The truck kept driving. It didn't break.

And then it hit her. I couldn't stop myself from closing my eyes. People were yelling and I heard the horns of other cars approaching. Realizing where I was, I forced myself to open my eyes. What I saw wasn't what I expected.

I'm sure I heard the truck hit her. Yet there was no blood on the ground, and the truck still made no effort at stopping. It just kept on driving as it honked — as if it hadn't just run Jen over.

I forced myself up, noticing in the process that my knees and elbows were covered with blood. A car was breaking as not to run into me. My heart beat like crazy. A headache more akin to a normal one began pressing onto my head as I ran to the sidewalk. People all around moved towards me, asking questions like "Are you okay" or "What happened?".

I closed them off. Ignored all of their voices. I turned around and looked at the road, at the spot where Jen had lain. Her terrified face from just before the truck hit her was etched into my memory.

But there was no body. No blood. No sign of her at all.

The people around me weren't acting as if they'd just witnessed someone's death. They were acting like Jen didn't even exist.

Why? And why was there no body? Why was there no blood? Why were they just ignoring what had happened to her?! I couldn't take it anymore.

"WHY ARE YOU IDIOTS ASKING ABOUT ME!? A GIRL JUST GOT HIT BY A TRICK, AND ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS WHETHER I'M OKAY?!" I roared at the mass of people that had gathered around. Those closest to me flinched away, and all of them had confused looks on their faces. One of them, a large man with hairy arms and a thick beard, grabbed hold of my shoulders and stared at my face. "Son, what are you talking about? There was no girl there. The truck was about to hit you, but you jumped away just in time. Are you alright son? Did you hit your head?"

He looked me over for any injuries. Normally it would have felt intrusive, and I'd have stopped him. But at the moment, I barely recognized what he was doing. I was trying to process his words.

'There was no girl there' he'd said. But that didn't make sense.

I'd seen her. I'd talked with her. I'd known her for weeks, and I'd been in her class for months.

Then, something clicked in my mind.

I had a girl in my class with top grades and looks, but no friends. I had a girl in my class who always sat in the back of the classroom and studied, never talking to anyone and always leaving the classroom last. A girl who insisted I never talk to her during school. A girl who had insisted I be the one to order and pay whenever we ate out.

I remembered the first thing Gold Rock had said — the words I had blown off as those of a stuck-up jerk. 'Are you alright, kid?'.

Not, 'Are you kids alright?'. He said kid. Singular. As in, one person.

My thoughts stopped there, as the pain grew once again and everything started spinning. A voice kept talking to me but I couldn't understand a single word as everything moved faster and faster. And then, everything went black.