"Uh, yeah. Sure," Asher said, smiling.
No! I'm losing her! Benny thought. And to his own best friend too! "Uh, maybe we could do something after school instead," he said, trying to win her heart.
"Good idea," Zachary said, misreading the situation. "I wouldn't mind doing something together if you don't mind, Asher," he said.
No, that's not what I ... Benny thought.
"Sure, I guess," Asher said, though she wasn't exactly sure what she was agreeing to. Was it to see a movie with her old friend and his new friend? Or was it to play a video game with them instead? It was true that she did like fantasy, but she wasn't all that much into gaming. Regardless, she felt like she could endure it, just to hang out with Zachary.
======
"This is where it happened," Jay said, pointing at the Goth club, not realizing that his nails were now covered in black polish.
"Yeah, I know this place," Simon said, also not realizing that he too was wearing make-up, in the form of black eyeliner. "Though ... it feels like I shouldn't. I mean ..."
"There you two are!" came the voice of a young woman. They both turned and saw a Goth woman stomping towards them, obviously pissed off. At first, they had no clue who she was, but then a name popped into both of their heads - Grace Littleton, who went by the name Grave, as she hated her given name. Currently, she was wearing a typical outfit of hers - a tight black T-shirt with the logo of her favorite band (Astarte) on the front, a leather miniskirt, ripped fishnet stockings, and military-style boots. Her hair was dyed black, she wore dark eyeliner and eye-shadow, her nails and lips were painted black, and she was pale as hell. She actually looked no different than when she had left the police station a while back, except that she was now at her finalized age of 25, almost exactly one third of her original age. "You know how long I waited at the fucking police station for one of you to give me a ride home?"
"Police? What did you do this time?" Jay asked, although he wasn't quite sure he knew anything about this woman, other than her name. But he felt like he should. Like they were close friends or something.
"Nothing," Grave said defensively. "I ... just broke into this lady's house."
"Grave, what the fuck?!" Simon said.
"Look, I don't even remember doing it, okay? When I realized that I was there, I was even wearing the woman's clothing. And it wasn't even something I'd wear. Too professional and tight-laced. Weird as fuck, right?" she said.
"Wait, that happened to you too?" Jay asked.
"What do you mean?" Grave asked.
"We had that same experience," Jay said, gesturing to himself and Simon. "At first, we thought it was because of this girl at the high school, that she was pranking us both, but what are the chances that she'd be pranking all three of us? Do you even know a girl by the name of Sabrina Johnson?"
"No. It doesn't sound familiar," Grave said.
"Then what could be causing all of this?" Jay asked, still needing to figure out the truth.
"Can we ponder about this later?" Grave asked. "I just got let off the hook for breaking into that school teacher's apartment. I want to have some time to unwind, ya know?" she said, before heading into the Spiked Pit.
"Wait, it was a teacher's apartment you broke into? Which teacher?" Simon asked, following his friend into the club, unaware how his hair was now shoulder-length, the tinge of color now creeping further up his strands of hair, looking just like the color of pink that the original Sabrina Johnson had.
Jay still wanted to figure out what was going on, but he also wanted to hang out with his friends, so he quickly headed into the club as well.
