Life wasn’t exactly worth it. A lot went into even attempting to live and don’t even try to live well. This was a reality for Larson, the young highschool boy who found nothing even remotely interesting or worthwhile in all his seventeen years of living.

Said male stomped through the hallway as fast as he could, ignoring any of the kids who were in his way until he finally got outside the school. He kept walking until he got far enough away that he couldn’t hear the gym class that was outside. He let out a big breath and screamed at the top of his lungs; “Worthless planet!”

The resonance scared away any birds and surrounding animals leaving him completely alone, “all these weak as hell beings who have nothing better to do besides worry about other people!” He began to stomp around leaving imprints of his raw anger. Larson eventually got to a tree, which was subject to his abuse. He harshly placed his palm on the trunk shaking some of the leaves off, “I wish I could just kill them all!” he growled. He then punched straight through the tree leaving a hole through its trunk.

The tree then shook and began to tumble over until it hit the ground with a loud thud. Larson sat on the now broken trunk despite the splinters that dug into his pant leg. “Maybe I should just kill everyone on this planet. I don’t know who would even try and stop me, or even if anyone could.” He said with a smirk.

As he vocalized his thoughts, he was suddenly halted by the sound of someone approaching. He had heard them before, but decided to ignore them considering it to be just some unfortunate passersby. Larson assumed the tree falling would have been enough to scare anyone away, but this person kept approaching. He looked out to see who it was and saw a girl pulling the zipper of her jacket up. She appeared to be somewhat familiar to him; but at the moment, everyone was all the same—worthless.

He got up and yelled to her. “What the hell do you want?”

The girl halted, but continued to walk forward after a second. “Um… do you think we could talk?”

“No.” He curtly responded going back to the trunk.

He kept his peripheral eye on the girl, she eventually got to him and stopped beside him. He growled and got up to stand in front of her. He stared her down, taking note that he did recognize her now that she was closer.

This girl was in some of his classes, being no more noticeable than a dead spider lost in the corner of their classrooms. He was wondering why she was even approaching him when he assumed she didn’t interact with anyone, let alone someone she didn’t know.

 “What part of no don’t you understand?” He practically hissed at her.

“The ‘no’ part…”

Her soft retort didn’t pass Larson by as he glared even harsher at her.

The girl looked off and fiddled with her nails. “I-I mean.” She began again with her eyes averting his. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

Larson looked her up and down. “As if some scrawny idiot would waste my time. I don’t know what you want, but I’ll kill you if you don’t get away from me.” He got closer as he spoke his promise.

However, the girl remained in front of him.

“Well, that’s just it. I overheard that you were talking about destroying this place.”

Larson was confused to say the least. He hadn’t yelled that part, so he was curious as to how she heard him.

“But I can’t let you do that!” She said.

Her words and actions seemed to oppose one another.

“Oh? Care to explain why I should give a shit about what you think?”

“Because I might have to kill…” She paused, looking puzzled. “No, I mean at the very least, incapacitate you until I can get you to listen to me.”

Listening to her talk, Larson laughed at the absurdity of the conversation.

“You must want to die or something!” He calmed down hearing her say nothing. “No? Then where does all that confidence come from? It’s a false one in any sense and I’m tired of talking to you.” Larson’s fist rose in the air, taking aim at her face.

Right as he made contact, he didn’t hear her yell or even flinch. Instead, his hand was grabbed by hers, her grip tightly around his knuckles.

“What the-”

She had blocked him with the palm of her hand and now held his fist tightly.

“Wow, you really are like me!” Almost like an excited toddler, she spoke as if nothing was wrong. “But you’re being kind of crazy right now.”

“The hell are you talking about!” Larson, being unable to move his arm, raised his leg to kick her.

In that same moment, she simply lifted up her knee to block his kick. Her free hand moved to punch Larson in his side close to his stomach. He coughed up blood after the impact.

The hell is going on!

Larson didn’t have time to think about anything else when he felt her hand grip his neck. She squeezed as tightly as she could, her thumb was nearly piercing his skin.

“I’ll let you go if you promise not to hurt anyone.” The girl spoke calmly.

Larson gripped her arm and tried to twist it off.

She sighed. “That’s not going to work, I promise you. Try something else!”

Larson let go of her arm and started to step backwards. One of his legs remained forward, however, and he tried to trip her up as she moved closer.

“Oh, now that’s a smart idea. Though, you should know we can see things before they happen… or is it that we can react so fast it doesn’t matter?” She questioned herself.

As she spoke, Cassie was able to step over his legs no matter how hard he attempted to trip her. They were walking backward and Larson could feel his breaths turning shallow.

What the hell is wrong with her!

Despite his best efforts, this girl didn’t seem like she was going to give up anytime soon. Larson figured he’d die to her and that wasn’t something he was planning on. So he stopped moving, conceding to her power.

“Oh, I can let go now!”

Larson fell to the ground and took big, deep breaths. He coughed until his breath came back, all the while the girl remained in front of him patiently waiting. He rubbed his throat feeling the indentations of where her thumbs once were.

“So… you know what we are then?” Larson’s voice was hoarse.

“Not really. I don’t really know what I am—or what I’m not—I just know that I’m… something!”

Larson shook his head and sighed. “If you don’t know what you are, then why would you think to approach me? I could have killed you.”

“Yeah, that was a possibility, but I knew I was stronger than you.”

Larson glared. “What?”

“S-sorry if that sounds, um…” The girl paused and it didn’t seem like she was going to talk again.

How exactly was she stronger than him if they were the same species? Could it be that they weren’t? Was it possible she was another being entirely or was she simply just stronger than him?

“Cocky!” She suddenly said, getting his attention back. “I was thinking like conceited or something, but that wasn’t right. So sorry if that sounds cocky, but it’s the truth.”

Larson crossed his arms. “And how’s that?”

“We’ve had a few classes together and I was able to assess you. I always knew things others didn’t; I figured I was just too smart or something, but then you came around! So I started to follow you. One day, I heard you talking about fourth dimension beings. I don’t really know what that is, but it’s not human. So I knew I had to be something like you!”

“You sure do talk a lot.”

Cassie shrunk under his words. “Yeah… I guess so.” She gave him an awkward smile.

“But, I know when to quit. I lost to you, so I guess I won’t destroy anyone or anything.” He said with a slight grumble. “But let me ask you something; why do you care for Earth? I’ve seen you around school and it’s not like you have something dear on this planet.”

Cassie looked off. “You’re right that I… don’t really have anything dear to me here, but this place has some good food, some of the people here are beautiful, and…it’s like a little ant farm.”

“Huh?”

“I mean, these guys do all sorts of stuff that makes no sense.” She began. “So it’s fun to see what they’re going to do next. It’s like a TV show or something!”

Larson simply had no more words for her. Eventually, she got closer to him and held out her hand.

“My name’s Cassie, what’s yours?”