January's story thing 2

It's not such of an impressive name when you know how we got it. We saw two things on some lady's shirt, Half-Dime, like for a nickle and dime store, and close by, the word Nation. It read pretty well so we decided to use it.

So that was the band. I sang and played guitar, Aaron was on drums because he was like a fucking octopus with drumsticks, that one girl was on bass, Leah was on keyboard, Stephanie was on back up guitar and any girl vocals, and then Michael did all our stage effects and was like a manager. He was more important than I gave him credit for.

Come to think of it I'm pretty sure that one girl's name was Emily but don't quote me on it.
We weren't very original. In fact we were not original at all. We were simply a cover band at first, as awesome as we were. Somehow we were able to juggle that between school, being superheros and life.

Speaking of that, I don't actually remember having parents. I'm pretty sure I had them, I mean obviously I did, but they didn't play an active part in my life. The story was more about Stephanie at that point than me. It was a long time before the focus changed to me but we haven't gotten there yet.
Seeing as the story was NOT about me, and I didn't have much choice in the matter, I was what you would term the 'love interest.' Ugh. Makes me hurt to say that. Funny thing is, it never went anywhere. I mean... you'll see.

Things were okay for a while. I liked singing, I loved playing music. It was okay for years. But somehow things got darker after that.

I don't remember a lot of what happened. It's more like bits and pieces. I am not sure if that's on purpose or not. Some bad things happened, a couple of us got hurt. Do you know how hard it is to keep your anonymity while in the hospital? It was nearly fucking impossible. We got through it though. A lot of it was me sneaking in and healing them while they were in there. If I didn't mention that before, I controlled water so I guess somehow that meant I could heal. I was pretty good at it too.

So we got out but things were harder after that. Stephanie was really... bothered isn't the right word, scarred maybe. It was hard for her to go out and do what we always did, especially when recurring bad guys started to show up. Fuck I think I'm getting ahead of myself...

In that time together, before things went bad, we got pretty close. I couldn't tell you how long that time was, or even how old we were. It's like trying to sort through the pages of a book and put them back in order when you've never read the book before, and the page numbers have been torn off. But it was safe to say that I loved her, even though I wouldn't have put those words to it.

Okay I think I'm caught up now. But after everyone got healed, after we were all as back to normal as we could be, the band got bigger. We started writing our own music though I'll be damned if I can remember a single word of it. That's when the same person started showing up.

He didn't seem like trouble most of the time. He ran away, or he hid, didn't do anything major. Until... Until one day he did.

It was two things, two parts. I haven't ever put this in words and it hurts. It hurts remembering it on purpose, even though I said I wasn't going to skip anything. I'm holding my guitar as I tell her what to write, it's one of the few good memories I have left from back then. But it's not a shield and I should stop procrastinating. Fuck...

The first part was in a park. It was winter. But I could control water and ice, that didn't bother me. He was there, and he was an archer. He told us to meet him there, in the snow. It was dark. Something... happened.

I am pretty sure I deliberately fucked up the details here. I don't remember much other than trying to protect Stephanie. I fought with some lame-ass sword made of ice that wasn't supposed to ever break, but it did. It shattered. We used to have a chart, of where my arms were cut. It looked like... I don't know. I can't really make a clever analogy here. It looked like it fucking hurt, and it should have killed me. But it didn't. I fought my way out of the hospital like I was fighting my way out of hell, and thought that was the end of it. That was only the first part thought.

I said there was a second.

It was a few weeks later. I was all better, physically. But the archer was still out there. It was night again. We didn't learn that history repeats itself yet. I really wish we did. There were more of us. I think we were all there, the time that he told us to meet him again. We thought it would be safer if we could all work together.

But last time he was there, actually there at the park. This time he was missing, because we were all stupid fucking teenagers and no one remembered that he was a god damned archer, and he didn't have to be there.

He separated us from each other, made it too far for us to be able to watch each others backs. By the time any one realized what was happening it was too late. An arrow to the heart. Not to me, but to Stephanie. It should have killed her instantly but it didn't. She stayed alive long enough for me to know I failed. That I couldn't heal her, that I couldn't even tell her I was sorry. She died in my arms and there was absolutely nothing I could do to change it.