• Even with all the lampposts lit, the streets remained as quiet as the night itself, letting the generous amount of light go to waste. It was in the early morning hours; the three AM range to be more specific. Though the world seemed scarce or life at that time, it was still early for a dilapidated house resting on the grass, only several yards away from an unused sidewalk and the lifeless dark street beyond it. The two-story house gave an illusion of abandonment. The shingles of the roof were vastly stripped and missing, and the roof itself seemed to have sunken in not unlike a malnourished horse. The windows were dusty; little remnants of dried blood and written cries for help were buried under a decades-old collection of dust, grime, and the pitiful corpses of insect who did not lead a long, fulfilling life. Even the walls, grey in color, suffered neglect, as several colors of spray paint depicted intricate graffiti that told the horrifying tale of the previous owners of that house. A single light shone through one second-story window, giving proof that among the unsteady foundation that the decrepit, unsound house rest, there were signs of life.
    Wren sat at her desk by the window, quietly slaving over a pen and paper, cranking out what looked to be a script of some kind. Her uniquely natural blonde hair fell lazily over her shoulders and back, curling rebelliously away from her being in an unruly fashion. Her bangs curled obediently, framing her pale cheeks. Her vibrant blue eyes cast an unrelenting stare at the work before her, writing as feverishly as her hands would allow for her pace lasted only a short while longer before she set her eyes on something else that piqued her interest; the large, unoccupied desk belonging to her other house mate. It sat on the other side of the room, littered with scrap paper, art supplies, an unused mp3 player and bags upon bags of wax juice bottles and Rudolph’s churros.
    “Where is that jackass?” wren muttered to herself, looking forward at the wall before pushing back her chair to get up and search for this “jackass” she mentioned. She meandered though the large, lifeless house. The bare, rotted floorboards creaked under her feet as she went down the stairs to the rest of the house. She first looked in the kitchen. Her eyes scanned the dirty linoleum floor, the old refrigerator and the empty counters. There was no “jackass” here as far as she knew.
    She then ambled into the living room. The large room was put to little use. There was nothing but an unused fireplace, a coffee table littered with dirty dished, and old couch crowded with stuffed animals and an expensive, 56-ince Plasma HD television that hung against the wall between a tower of a top-of-the-line surround sound system. After scanning the stained walls and flimsy floors, she moved on to the kitchen. Black and white tile spread across the floor. The counters were stacked with unwashed dishes and empty potato chip bags. A small girl was slaving away at the mounds of dishes, looking pathetically undernourished, and her ankle chained to the pipes under the sink... She looked at wren digging through the cupboards in an attempt to find her co-worker.
    “Um… Miss Wren…” she said meekly. “I… I haven’t eaten in a while…if I could keep track of the days... I might guess about a week…. When will I eat next?”
    She was answered with a hard hit to the nose. Sending her back against the counter and dropping the plate she was cleaning.
    “What is this nonsense, Michi!? You’ve already eaten! Didn’t Alex feed you!?”

    “N-no ma’am!!” she whimpered, holding her arms in front of her face, “she hasn’t been in here!”
    Wren blinked for a moment, now pondering where Alex could be if she wasn’t feeding the “interns” like she was demanded to. Without as much as a preoccupied grunt, she walked out of the room, now deep in thought.
    She bounded back up the stairs, checking to see if her “jackass had retreated to their own room. She swung open the door obnoxiously, only to be net with one of the messiest rooms in the household. An unmade, queen-sized bedsat under a slanted wall, cluttered with a plethora of various anime posters taped to it. Tapestries, depicting her favorite anime, video games and the characters belonging to either category were intricately placed on otherwise empty walls. A large vanity was placed in front of a rarely opened window with a large wacom tablet sitting in front of a keyboard. The keyboard then sat in front of a large computer monitor. On one side of the monitor, slept a large computer tower with a blue light emanating through it. On the other side, there sat an elite model of a scanner/printer. The bed mentioned before was dirtied with crinkled drawings, half-eaten papers, and several thick language translating dictionaries that included languages from Japanese to Finnish, to even Chinese and Arabic. They were not English to language, though. They were German to language. Assuming the person she was seeking was not there, she left the room with a frustrated sigh, slamming the door.
    She no longer cared about the whereabouts regarding the other resident of the household; it now became simply a matter of principle to find them. Her next destination was her room.
    “If she’s in here, god so help me…” she muttered as she opened the door.
    The sight to behold was a severe turnaround from the previous rooms. The bed was draped in a black cloth hanging from an ebony canopy, but it still didn’t disguise the pattern of neon green and pink dinosaurs on the comforter of the bed. The room had plush pink carpet and the walls were covered in neon and glow-in-the-dark stickers. Stuffed animals and plush dolls lined almost every surface in that room. She was aware that her room had remained untainted and was satisfied.
    There was only one place left to look. She opened the door to the basement. When her bare feet touched the cold ground, she shivered, and walked into the empty basement’s opposing wall. She pushed aside the stone wall, revealing two secret doors made entirely out of titanium with a keypad security lock embedded into it, right next to a thumb print scanner. Pressing a series of buttons quickly and pressed her thumb print on the scanner. The hydraulics in the door hissed before opening, giving wren access to another set of stairs, these stairs were made with cold metal, giving wren an uncomfortable sensation on her feet. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, however, her feet landed in something wet and warm. Looking down, she discovered she was standing in a pool of warm blood. Rolling her eyes, she continued on, sliding her feet against the metal in an attempt to quickly clean them off. She encountered another door of the same model, but these opened just as she approached them. She stepped into the room angrily.
    The Room she stepped into looked like a high tech sweatshop. Rows and rows of teenagers and young men sat chained by the feet to a chair bolted to the floor, forced to stare at a WACOM tablet and computer. At the front of the room, a man stood pacing back and forth. He had shoulder length hair covered by a hat similar to the ones worn by the Nazis so long ago, with a strict uniform to match; from the uniform shirt, down to the military green pants stuffed into black boots. He was even adorned with an armband on his left arm; but instead of the generic Hakenkreuz on the band, there was a smiley face. He held his hands behind his back, holding a dangerous looking whip with both hands.
    “HEY, JOE!” Wren shouted, getting the stolid man’s attention. He looked up, his bored blue eyes void with interest.
    “What?”
    “You know, you could clean up your messes once in a while. Blood isn’t THAT hard to get off of metal.” She pointed to the bottoms of her pajama pants that were stained with blood.
    “It’s not my fault she won’t stop bleeding. She should know better.” Joe shrugged. Len Almost disregarded the comment.
    “Have you seen stupidface? She’s being stupid and invisible.”
    The Man named Joe pointed to the heap of flesh that the pools of blood were coming from in the first place. The one she had been looking for was found. A boyish girl sat on a pile of dead bodies, crumpled in pain, holding her face as blood as red as her hair came Pouring out of the wound and onto her hand and freckled cheeks.. Her other Silver Eye was filled with tears. The blood stained her button up shirt and loose denim black pants.
    “Es hurts!” she yelled mannishly, her Voice heavily laced with German Accent. Len looked at her, and then looked at Joe.
    “Why haven’t you helped her stop bleeding!?” she demanded an answer.
    “She wouldn’t learn her lesson if I did.”
    “Touché….” She added. She walked over to Alex and pulled her hand away from the wound. Upon closer inspection, she could see that not only was her eye completely missing, but she was chained to a corpse of a slave who was cemented to the Floor and Starved to death.
    “What in creation happened to you…?” wren tried to say without laughing.
    “Sie intern Cannibalized Mich!” She said, obviously distraught. Lorne wren, smiled a little, suppressing her amusement by holding her forehead in her hand, closing her eyes.
    “How did you manage that?” She said, her voice quivering with the urge to chuckle.
    “I was feeding zee interns, und one broke free of their chains. Und So I am without mein eye.”
    “You’re not getting it back.” Joe Said plainly. An Intern Stood beside him, happily chewing on an unidentifiable object. Even if you couldn’t necessarily see what it was he was eating, the blood smeared on his face could allow even the severely Dim to take a fairly accurate guess.
    “I take it this is the culprit?” Wren surveyed the intern, peering at his dirty blonde hair and smudged glasses. He was fairly rubenesque for an intern. Despite the tortures and grueling hours he was forced to endure, the boy seemed rather tranquil; content even.
    “I like his spunk.” Joe said, a rare energetic tone seasoned it.
    “IT WAS MEIN EYE!” Alex shouted in exasperation.
    “It’s not like you don’t have another one. Get over it.”
    “YOU get over it.”
    “Ladies!” wren shouted, diffusing the tension between them, “Joe, stop talking to Alex, she needs to get her end of the work done.”
    “I would be able to get my work done faster if I had mein other Eye.”
    “Tough Kitties. Now get upstairs and get to work.”
    Alex sulked, and sauntered upstairs slowly. Through the rest of the night, the two of them slaved over page after page of comic until the last few pages were sent to the intern’s to print. On the title it read:
    The adventures of the ceiling ninja: Drawn by Alex whitticoax, Written by Lorne Wren.
    With The comic done, the only thing left to do was pack everything into the back of the Car with the rest of the supplies. Finally, they were all prepared to go to comicon for the First time in their careers.