“Whazzup?”

“Hey,” Jeremy said, sitting on his room’s table with his phone to his ear. “Nothing much.”

“Chill. So you called for no reason?”

Jana sounded unabashedly cheery. Also, for some reason, Jeremy thought he heard wind. He figured her mood was a result of a mood swing like his sister seemed to have all the time. She liked to flip between despairing and happy at the drop of a hat. It could really stress him out sometimes. “Well, what about you?” he asked. “You up to much?”

“Nah, I’m not. I’m just chilling on the roof.”

“I thought you limited yourself to one stupid pun a week?”

“The once-a-week thing applies to conversations, not specific instances.”

“I don’t know what that means, but that’s contrived bullshit if I’ve ever heard of it. Speaking of which, what sort of friends would make puns that dumb around you enough to make you pick up the habit?”

Jana clicked her tongue. After a pause, she said, “My dad.”

“Wow, your dad is the one who did it?”

“Only in front of anyone I called a friend. I think the bad puns were an infectious disease because they started making the puns too.”

“That’s just mean of him.”

Jana giggled. “Ohhh yeah, he was mean. And by mean, I mean ridiculous and with a lack of any dignity when he was around family...well, the people he cared for, at least.”

Jeremy chewed his cheek, not sure how to respond to her. He decided to simply say, “Sounds like a nice guy.”

“Yeah, he was...And since we’re talking, why don’t you come up here?”

“I can do that. How do I get up?”

“You fly,” Jana said like it was a simple task.

“Cool, then just let me go super psychic mode and fly up there.”

Jeremy did not unleash the power of the legendary super psychic, unfortunately. Instead, he was floated up by Jana. The roof itself wasn’t like the rest of the building since it was modeled to appear like an ordinary mansion on the outside.

He was floated over a set of spiky, ornate railings and dropped to the ground. He failed to catch himself and landed butt-first on the shingles with an ‘ow’.

Jana gave him a hand to helped him stand -or rather, she threw him tumbling behind her.

“Please, don’t jeopardize my life,” he said, glancing at the railing and deadly fall.

“Pfft, don’t get all riled up over that. You’ll be fine,” Jana responded as she kicked off the shingles to float at Jeremy’s shoulder height, laying on nothingness with her hands interlocked behind her head.

“So why are you up here?” Jeremy asked, looking forward at the surrounding city’s lights.

“The stars,” Jana said.

He looked up, following her gaze.

...Blackness.

Then, he slowly turned to actually see her gaze. She was looking straight at him with a smug expression.

“Dude. What fucking stars are we talking about?”

“Oh, you know,” she began with a mocking, melodic voice as she put her hands to her cheek like she was about to sleep. “The ones in your eyyyyyess~”

While Jana burst out laughing and rotated at a thousand RPM, Jeremy rubbed his nose's bridge as he shook his head, holding back a smile to keep his dignity. “A-alright, seriously, why’re you here?” he asked.

Jana sighed, slowing down, then landing a heel on the shingles. “I was actually practicing punches.”

“Punches?” Jeremy looked around, finding no convenient object to punch. “I guess your swings just needed work?”

Jana shook her head, then landed fully. She threw a punch, and suddenly, what seemed to be a whitish barrier appeared in front of her. Jana threw a jab with her right hand, hitting the barrier, which bounced back like a punching bag, then ducked to the left, sent a hook with her left, not extending her arm any more than was necessary to hit the barrier while she shifted to the right again, then repeated the combo.

“Whatdda think?” she asked, patting the blue barrier. “Neat magic trick, huh?”

Jeremy looked unimpressed. “Firstly, it’s just hyper-condensed air, even I can tell. Secondly, it’s quiet.”

Jana raised an eyebrow. “Well,” she said with snark, “Firstly, you’re lame and a party-pooper, and secondly, I don’t know what the fuck that’s meant t’ mean!”

“If you could have created a silent punching bag, Jana...Why didn’t you do when you were at my house?”

...

Jana looked away with a forced smile. “So, the weather sure is nice today.”

“It’s fucking freezing up here,” Jeremy said, huddling against his arms as he became self-aware of the wind.

Jana smirked. “For me, that is.”

“You’re not the only person with a middle finger.”

“Really? Could you show it to me?”

Jeremy did.

“Wow, what a specimen,” she began before grabbing his finger and dragging it backward toward her. “How about I get a closer look!”

“OWOWOWOW LET GO!” Jeremy said, struggling to get himself out of her vice-grip.

Jana did, letting him stumble backward in surprise. “Tik, tik, tik, you really suck at these games, Jeremy.”

“Assault isn’t a game, you know!”

“Who said that?”

“Me.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you were an assualtologist,” she said.

“What? You didn’t see my degree?”

“Nope. Was it in your room?”

Jeremy shook a finger. “No, it’s behind you.”

“Oh, wow.” Jana began to look behind herself and wasn’t even remotely surprised to see Jeremy throw a punch.

What she didn’t expect was that as he stepped forward, he somehow slipped on a shingle, and flipped backward, onto the dangerous railing. She immediately flew to grab him before he did, wrapping her arms around his upper body to halt his fall.

“Oi, don’t scare me like that, man!” Jana said, a bit panicked, into his face.

He smiled, reeling back his head.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait, wait, think about this for a moment, Jerem-”

He lightly bopped his skull against hers, then shifted out of her grasp with a smug expression. “Well, I don’t have a degree, but I am learning from the best.”

“You gave me a freakin’ heart attack, dude.”

“Well, I knew you’d help me up.”

“That’s not the problem, man. I’m saying, if you hit my head too hard...things could’ve gotten messy.”

His expression melted into guilty worry. “Uhh...messy?”

Jana knocked against her skull. “Psychics aren’t effective under concussive conditions.”

“Ahh...that...huh. That’s kinda scary as fuck.”

“No dip, Sherlock.”

Truth be told, Jeremy had heard about it before, which was why he’d subconsciously held back on the head bash. Not that he’d actually assault her with a full-power head bop anyway. It would’ve hurt. A lot.

Jana sighed, rolling her shoulders to release tension in her body. “But, hey. You got one up on me, bro. Nice.” She sent Jeremy a thumbs-up, then giggled. “You’re learning, kohai.”

He bowed. “All thanks to you, Ja-na senpai. Heh.”

“Now,” she said, falling airborne again. “What about we go on a little picnic?”

“Again with the picnics? Just how often do you invite boys on picnics?”

“Not that often, but sometimes.”

Jeremy shook his head, wondering again just how many people had gotten the wrong idea from it. He glanced at her muscles. Or maybe not, considering how work-focused she could be...but, she was rich and powerful, so that put her loveability up by a thousand percent...maybe. He had problems gaging these things.

“Anyway...” he said. “About that picnic, where did you want to go?”

“Oh, you’re actually agreeing?”

“You asked, girl.”

“I sure as fuck did! Now let’s find some edible snacks to pilfer while we figure out the answer to that question!”

They didn’t actually pilfer snacks. Instead, Jana, 1: searched for someone with a problem: a set of construction workers who were busy moving a large amount of old rubble from an undeveloped part of the city. 2: solved the problem: moved about thirty-thousand tons over the course of a few minutes. And finally, 3: gave them a shit ton of foreign cash and exchanged it for some of the local currency now that they were in her debt.

And from there, a simple, incognito shopping trip began. Jana first bought a cloak to cover herself. She didn’t like it, but she also didn’t want to pick a fight with half the city by being literally the only girl wearing a tank top. They then went to the market and hauled out a ton of food, which Jana floated out while other customers avoided touching them with their psi-negation fields.

Then, Jana took Jeremy to their scenic picnic spot: what remained of the city’s ruins.

Once they landed where nobody would see them approach, the two began walking through the old city, Jana looking side to side with pursed lips.

This section of the city wasn’t unpopulated by any means. The sheer number of refugees still without proper homes in the middle east meant that no potential shelter was unmanned. Countless tents were set up, and the best-built homes were smallish scrap heaps shared by half-a-dozen people each. Plenty of people lived under literal rubble -fallen walls that happened to make nice, cool shelter, and the rest lived on blankets -either in the few roofed ceilings remaining or under makeshift cover against rain. The conditions were squalid.

“And that’s why I look like a privileged bitch,” Jeremy whispered as they walked through, their trailing food attracting attention.

“Cause’ you are one?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “But also because I’m thinking like one beside people twenty times more tragic than me.”

Jana slapped his back. “Don’t worry about it. It’s people like me who need to do that.”

“Yeah, yeah, the strong bear pain blah, blah, blah. What’s up with this place, anyway? How come this place is so excluded from the rest of the city?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure, but it’s probably something to do with these people being left out of the city intentionally...”

“Why...?”

“A lot of reasons. A lot of people lost their ability to identify themselves, so Samuel or whoever calls the shots may have been worried about dangerous psychics or people entering the city under the guise of being normal...but more than likely, it’s a combination of factors, probably including a systemic, purposeful exclusion of a subset of people,” she said.

“That’s a truckload for me to unpack, and I’m not even sure where to begin.”

Jana clicked her tongue, then spoke with a simple tone. “What I‘m trying to say is that whoever calls the shots in this city wants these people out of the place, probably for selfish reasons.”

“And why is that?” Jeremy asked. “Is this some fascism thing?”

“Maybe, I don’t really know,” Jana said. “I haven’t done my research. However, I can tell you for sure, Jeremy. You can’t trust that Samuel guy. My uncle or not, he is doing all of this for a specific reason. He has a plan, and I might not like it.”

“Might?”

Jana paused. “But if he gets us a way to kill him...I can tolerate some things.”

Jeremy clenched his teeth. Jana clearly understood just how morally ambiguous her thought process was. She had already agreed to help fund Samuel, so now the bloodstains would be on her hands as well if anything unscrupulous happened.

In a way, he respected it. Jana wasn’t making perfect decisions, and she knew it. Yet, she had the resolve to do what she believed was right, even knowing the risk.

Which only made him wonder why she had taken that deal more. Was all of this really worth saving his sister? Just why was Jana so set on doing this?

They arrived at one of the central shelter buildings, which was the first floor of some large cathedral packed with people. The building had been mostly spared because it was far from any of the larger buildings, which had often collapsed on smaller ones.

They attracted a lot of attention as they walked in, some people glaring at the obviously well-off Jeremy, others at the cloaked Jana, but most toward the hovering, substantial pile of food floating behind them.

Jana walked up to a girl and boy a bit older than her. “You two,” she said.

“[What?]” the man asked with a sore voice, trying and failing to sound intimidating by standing to look down at her, which only showed how malnourished he was by comparison. A few others stood up, however, attempting to intimidate the unquakeable Jana.

Jana gathered about enough food for a picnic for two into a separate pile, then held out her hand. “All this food,” she said, briefly pointing to the larger pile, “for a blanket.”

“[A...blanket?]” he said, suddenly confused. He glanced at the food, which was quite a big pile. It was a few hundred dollars’ worth.

He scrunched his face in frustration. “[We...]” he began, trailing off in uncertainty.

The girl he had been lying with said, “[Hun.]” and looked at him with a pleading expression.

Something clearly passed between the two because he eventually shook his head. He looked behind himself. “[Does anyone have a blanket they can spare for us?]” he asked.

A few people raised their hands, telling him they had enough for another person. Eventually, they made arrangements for the couple to have a place to sleep, and Jana traded the food for their blanket.

As they left and walked down the street once more, Jeremy asked Jana, “Why didn’t we just buy a blanket normally?”

“Well, people need food,” she said with a shrug, hauling the blanket over her shoulder. “So I got them food. The ‘trade’ was just a way for them to keep their dignity.”

“Ahh, I get it.”

Jeremy bit into a pitted date, looking down at the ruined city from atop a building. He and Jana had set up shop on the building’s third floor to get a better view of the post-apocalypse lookin’ ruins and had begun their picnic, eating on their new blanket as a crescent moon floated above them, signaling midnight.

Below, it was eerily dark compared to the city under its lights, kilometers away. A few lights lit up the streets here and there, mostly marking the larger shelters. The ruins, all in all, were dark, gloomy, and grey and the rebuilt city stood over it like a monolith.

But ruins were eerie, even on their own. It looked like a grand seismic tremor had caused much of the destruction, for the most part, but some of the fallen buildings appeared to have been cut. The few they passed by on their walk were so smooth that Jeremy could only compare them to a marble counter, and not far away, there would be narrow, unnatural, and seemingly random trenches indented in the ground. Jana had looked away from both, closing her eyes when she glanced at them.

Now, Jeremy was silently coming to terms with what he had just seen. It was horrifying.

One person had caused all of this. A whip of sheer nothingness had cut down the city’s skyscrapers like a scythe, leaving them strewn on the ground. It had even had cut over a kilometer into the earth, leaving fissures that had long been filled in by natural processes, leaving behind the trenches.

He had personally seen them. Personally passed what remained of a place where countless people had died. Personally felt the smoothness of something cut by nothingness. Personally seen the years-old blood, splattered and preserved on the building’s bottom floor, which Jana hadn’t noticed.

Jeremy began to understand what made Jana so terrified of a boy much like him.