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[color=gray][b]Star City, California[/b][/color]
November 4, 2019 [b]5:15PM[/b]

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[color=gray]The Glades were a ghetto. The degraded result of what could have been once upon a time an upstanding neighborhood. Gangs moved in and since reduced it to a ruin full of drug-dealers, prostitutes, stoners, and bums. The only type of people one would expect to inhabit a hell-on-earth like a festering wound that refused to heal. And still…innocents still found their way there like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.

Alice was a young brunette, a teenager about high school age. She had taken the wrong bus; gone down the wrong turn; as she quickly realized on dismount. Her brows rose, green eyes expanding in surprise when she realized the city bus hadn’t dropped her off where she had intended. She turned her head to watch the bus go speeding down the road, her hand reaching up to remove the headphones that vigorously whispered the latest pop junk people her age listened to.

“Well shit,” she cursed. [i]Now Mom is going to freak out.[/i]

She was going to be late, and her mother was too much of a worry wart not to call her when six o’clock rolled down. She removed her cell phone and glanced down at it: 5:15PM. She then noticed that she had zero bars. [i]Fuck my life.[/i] Alice glanced around at the dirty neighborhood that surrounded her. This was one of those instances she had heard about where one [i]wound up[/i] in the hood. She hadn’t been expecting to go there, but she [i]wound up[/i] there as though hoods just spontaneously appear like a Silent Hill portal. There were bums warming their hands before a burning barrel, two shady males wearing hoodies and with their hands in their pockets were strangely staring at her from across the street, a scantily dressed woman went seductively walking by in her stilettos, her hips swaying to a sensual rhythm—wait, was that a man? Alice crossed her arms, embracing herself as the chill set in. She was not in her comfort zone. Quickly she walked over to the bus schedule on the wall, staring at it to see what time the next bus would arrive: 5:35PM. Good. She had to wait it out for just a little while longer.

Alice sat upon a splintered bench, surrounded by glass walls that had vulgar, obscene, and gang symbols spray-painted, painted, and Sharpied all over them. There were globs of dried gum that colorfully decorated every corner of it in some sort of disgusting décor, and trash—old fast food wrappers, Styrofoam cups, and a smashed liquor bottle—was at her feet. To comfort her, she slipped her headphones back into her ears and bowed her head as she continued to tremble, waiting patiently for the bus. She peered down at her phone, typing in the passcode to unlock it. She could at least play a game. As she started matching gems in Bejeweled, the two men who had been watching her from across the street were suddenly standing before her.

Alice happened to notice their shadows out of her peripherals and with a gasp her head snapped upwards. She removed her headphones and stared at the men who were smiling at her from beneath their hoodies.

“You lost?” one of them asked.

“I-I just got off at the wrong stop. The next bus just comes in a few minutes,” she replied nervously.

“Hell yeah you got off at the wrong stop. You know who owns this bus stop? The Black Kings own this stop, and you know who we are? The Black Kings. If you’re sittin’ here, it ain’t free.”

Alice quickly removed her purse from her shoulder and started fishing through it. “O-okay, I’m-I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I don’t have much.”

She found a five dollar bill that she handed to one of the thugs. The thug raised the bill to his face, bottom lip turned upward in disappointment.

“I might be able to get a few bags with that,” the other thug muttered.

Pocketing the bill, he reached down to roughly snatch the bag from Alice, wrenching it from her hands.

“Hey! Stop!” she exclaimed.

The thug raised his hand threatening to her, causing her to recoil out of fear. “Bitch, I will slap you if you make me!”

Alice began crying. “I said I don’t have any more money! Please, I gave you what I have. I just want to get on the bus and go home!”

The thug fingered through her bag, scowling through all the makeup and junk he found. The other thug muttered, “What you expect her to have? She’s just a kid. She ain’t got shit.”

“She looks like a rich girl.”

“I swear I’m not rich!”

“Shut the fuck up!”

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The thug paused. His eyes briefly went wide and then he glanced over to his partner. “What the fuck did you say?”

His partner blinked. “I didn’t say nothing.”

“I thought I heard you say that’s not how you talk to a lady. Look man, she’s sitting at our stop so she has to pay for the privilege.”

“Man, I’m telling you. I didn’t say nothing.”

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The thug lowered Alice’s purse. His right eye twitched a little as he started looking all over: up, down, left, right…his partner noticed his odd behavior. “You…all right man? You tweakin’ or something?”

“I…I don’t know. I’m hearing voices all of a sudden.”

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Dropping the purse, the thug grasped his head and cursed: “Fuck! I can’t make them stop!”

Alice quickly snatched up her bag and scooted down to the far end of the bench away from the men.

“You’re freakin’ me out man,” the other thug nervously whimpered.

Suddenly, the thug’s head snapped to the right as blood and a tooth went flying from his lips. The other thug jumped back in fright.

“OH! WHAT THE FUCK!?”

Suddenly the thug’s head snapped left and then right again. He stood there wobbling in a daze before his hips abruptly rose above his head. His whitey-tighties were stretched and hanging in the air on what looked like to be nothing at first. The wedgie made the thug shriek like a girl, sending the other one fleeing in terror.

“Fuck this ghost shit!” the other thug exclaimed.

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The thug was dropped flat on the ground. Alice stared with her mouth agape in awe, unsure what happened to him herself. Gazing down the sidewalk, she heard the other thug groan out loudly in pain as he crumpled over in a rolling heap with his hands between his legs. She felt a chill, and it hadn’t been the cold weather. Was there really a ghost? Her attention was directed to the first thug that was on the ground as she watched a five dollar bill rise out of his pocket. Squinting to look closely, she saw that it was carried by a small bug. The bug flew closer, hovering before her holding the five dollar bill.

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Alice screamed and naturally her hand swung out, slapping the fly out of the air. The bug struck the glass wall with a spark before it plopped upon the ground. The next bus pulled up, the bus driver having gawked at the two unconscious men lying ass-up on the sidewalk. Alice quickly fled onto the bus as it pulled off back down the road.

The bug man was lying face down on the cement almost ironically like the two thugs he had put there. He groaned softly, his wings buzzing in spasms. [color=aba000][b]“First day on the job…fail.”[/b][/color]

He continued to lay there until he felt strong enough to rise to his hands and knees. He peered down at the five dollar bill and sighed. [color=aba000][i]I forgot women hate bugs.[/i][/color]

He felt bad for still having the girl’s money. Now he felt like the thief. Rolling the bill up, he rose to his booted feet and tucked it under his arm like a poster. [color=aba000][b]“Ugh, I’m calling it a day.”[/b][/color] What a lame start.[/color]