Jump 244: Imaginary Friend

Jump #244: Imaginary Friend
>Two of Wands (Dominion): Coming to grips with the impact of past decisions, considering the current state of affairs, and developing a plan of action.
>Identity: Secret Keeper (-50)
>Drawbacks: Darn Cussing Dang ... (+100), Trauma Victim (+200)
There's no need to be foul-mouthed, especially around a six year old. Even if that kid has been through some pretty terrible stuff.
>Why's The Sky Blue? (Free, Secret Keeper)
'Glad you asked, kid. Let me dig out a prism and a flashlight, so I can teach you! It's super neat.' Because the trick is to keep it fun.
>Sweet Dreams, Teddy (1150)
Never, never underestimate the value of being able to get a restful sleep.
>Get 'Em, Hobbes (550)
Well, I'm not a stuffed tiger. More of a stuffed dragon. But oh, one percent of my strength at this point should be quite useful. And one percent of my speed... well, let me put it this way, I'm still going to be breaking the sound barrier if I have to move quickly.
>But I Don't Wanna Go To School Today (250, Secret Keeper)
Being able to grant one of my mental perks annually is an -insanely- useful thing, even if it remains limited to only one use per year.
>Your Favorite Storybook (Free, Secret Keeper)
The Monster At The End Of This Book. Best book for a young kid ever.
>Refilling Snappers (200)
I remember having fun with these when I was a kid, whenever we'd dig into the leftovers from each Fourth of July as the year went on. A little fun can go a long way.
>The Tome (0, Secret Keeper)
Being able to have someone's life story in a book is an incredibly useful thing. I'll be holding onto this one, believe me.

I'm not going to go into detail about what happened to the kid before I got here. There are some things that should be kept away from others to worry about. Simple fact is, though, the kid got dealt a bad hand. My whole purpose here was to help the kid recover.

Being able to keep the nightmares at bay was the first step. Knowing how to talk to the kid, be a friend who can be trusted. how to help the kid work through the issues... that was the second. Being able to help them just go out and have fun though, that was the most important part.

This jump wasn't something that you'd see in the papers. Bill Watterson wouldn't have gone putting us in the funny pages, it wasn't THAT interesting. But thanks to being able to walk in dreams before I got here, I got to bring the kid with me and all but have a second life for a few hours a night in Konasse, which existed only in dreams during this jump. (Honestly, if I'm going to be imaginary, why shouldn't the city be imaginary too?)

The most interesting thing that happened during this jump, though... well, sometime in sixth grade, the kid came home from school. I'd typically kept a dragon form, though by this point the kid wasn't taking their stuffed toy of me to school with them in their backpack. They came home and saw the door ajar before they got onto the porch, and something just didn't feel right to them. And so I told them to trust their gut, head to their friend's house down the street, and ask their friend's dad to come to the house with them to check things out. Or maybe just call the cops.

While they did that, I went up to their room and possessed the (rather well-worn) stuffed dragon that I'd typically be, and checked out the house. I found some asshole robbing the house - they'd jimmied the lock on the back door in broad daylight. When I slammed the back door, the asshole panicked and ran upstairs. You see, the bathroom had one of those little balconies that old houses have for inexplicable reasons, and he was going to try to jump off of that in order to get home - onto the lower roof next door.

But this was an old house, and the bathroom balcony over the garden wasn't what it was cracked up to be. The railing was loose, you see. And when one loses their balance because they slipped on some misplaced stuffed animal, it's no surprise that they're going to go tumbling down. By the time the police got there, the asshole was in the back garden with a broken leg and a couple of cracked ribs, doing a very poor job of crawling out of the garden while the dogs went nuts barking at him. Turns out the asshole was indeed the next door neighbor, not a nice man. Not at all.

By coincidence it seemed that his imagination started playing tricks on him too, when he made bail and got out of jail. He kept seeing things out of the corner of his eye, hearing things in an empty house. One day he picked up a book he'd never seen in his kitchen and it was his autobiography, all his sins remembered, every deed and misdeed in black and white. Poor bastard couldn't take it, went off the deep end and ended up being committed.

Sure, I was limited to a fraction of my power. Applied properly, they delivered above and beyond the intended results. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.