Going Nowhere

'...Like omigod, it was so thrìlling!'

'Come on then, tell us more! What happened next?'

Marcia couldn't believe it, even though she had seen it coming since Claire called the night before to tell her everything. They had been fellow outcasts for the past year, being the only "normal" girls left, and now... She glanced towards her soon-to-be-former best friend. Claire happily recounted the occurances of the past weekend, during which she had finally been transported to a parallel world and thus earned the admiration of all the other girls who had already experienced similar adventures before.

'Were there dragons?' Janine chirped. Last summer, she had been taken to a fairylike world as the unwilling bride of an exceptionally -one might even say: immoderately- large dragon; a fate from which she had unfortunately been rescued by a most exaggeratedly handsome elflike hero.

'No.' Claire shook her head. 'There weren't. And no unicorns either,' she added with a respectful sideways glance to Julie, who on her adventures had been watched over by a unicorn prince with whom she had a blood-bond, no less! She was the only girl to have encountered unicorns, a fact that would pretty much make her prom queen by default.

As Claire continued to revive her adventures for the benefit of her audience of newfound peers, Marcia couldn't take any more. She gathered her pens and notebook and headed off to the library. Nowadays it was the most quiet place in the entire school, as everybody used the ever-expanding computer room for their research. Dumbasses! Marcia didn't trust any information found online for one bit, and therefor avoided the internet like the plague.

As she entered the school building, she heard a condescending snort. Turning around, she saw Tabitha leaning against the fire extinguisher, looking at the assembled girls outside.

'So another one tumbled into some netherworld, did she?' She shook her head and looked at Claire. 'Like it's some big deal.'

Tabitha had never been taken to another dimension either, but then again, she didn't have to. After all, she was dating a vampire.

'Look at them!' the girl continued. 'They dally off to some enchanted lala-land for the weekend, and when they come back it's like it was the single most important event of their lifetime and everyone they just happened to come across had more significance than people they've known all their life! Pfah! True significance is found in things that are forever...' Tabitha's mascara-encircled eyes glazed over as she caressed the bitemarks on her neck.

'Hey, sup?' As Tabitha's trusty sidekick Bethany joined them, Marcia felt her stomach do its usual rollover and rushed off before she got sick. Like Tabitha, Bethany was romantically involved with the undead - except that her boyfriend was a zombie and he didn't suck her blood; no, he literally ate her flesh! Bethany would shrug it off and say he "only nibbled" and "love wàs pain", but it still made for some pretty nasty wounds! Besides, you heard stories about zombies and how they never had long-lasting relationships with humans...  

As she entered the library Marcia slammed the door shut behind her, leaned against it and did her breathing exercises. Soon, she started to relax. Here, she was alone – the last sane person in a bastillion of lunacy!