The life of Mr. and Mrs. Wardsworth, of number eight Primrose Drive, located in the deep suburbs of Centralia seemed orderly and mundane to an outside observer. They had an immaculate, average, two story, beige house, an immaculate, average garden with a square wooden shed with two lawn gnomes, and an immaculate front yard with green, well-watered grass constantly kept below three point five inches as was prescribed by the Community Property & Neighbourhood Standards Index.

The Wardsworths were the perfectly average, perfectly ordinary family of mundane suburbia as they often claimed to be. Yet, there was something non-standard in their family. An unacceptable deviation that kept showing its ugly head. Something that the Wardsworths hopelessly tried to contain, control and fix for an unreasonably long time. Today the deviation expressed itself by the fact that Mr. Wardsworth’s favorite tool shed was on fire, smoke billowing from its innards.

The deviation’s name was Cassie.

It was no secret to the neighborhood that Mr. Wardsworth had a daughter, the horrid, stubborn, disobedient menace that she was. Mr. Wardsworth’s face burned with embarrassment as he finished putting out the flames with a fire extinguisher that he kept inside the shed for this exact reason.

“Insolent girl. Why can’t you just be normal?” Mr. Wardsworth hissed, punctuating every word as he dragged a skinny girl by the arm towards the house, his fingers gripping into hers far harder than was necessary. His other arm held the now halfway empty fire extinguisher.

"I'd love to be normal, but alas my situation is suboptimal. Until I am granted better lodgings, things will unfortunately spontaneously combust," Cassie replied, resisting being dragged.

The left lawn gnome ignited.

"Youuu!" Mr. Wardsworth slammed the girl into the ground and rushed to save his gnome. She had already destroyed gnome number 3 yesterday. This was the final straw. He was running out of lawn gnomes.

He returned, just as Cassie was attempting to climb over a fence to escape. He pulled her down with a growl and dragged her into the house.

Once inside the house, out of sight of potential, nosy neighbors, Mr. Wardsworth grabbed the girl by her hair making her yelp.

“Not on the hardwood, dear. I just finished washing it!” Mrs. Wardsworth commented absently.

“Right, you are.” Mr. Wardsworth lifted Cassie by the hair, forcefully ferrying the screeching girl into the kitchen. Once in the kitchen, he flung her against the sink counter. Cassie caught the counter with her hands just as the rest of her body smashed into it, softening the impact.

“Do you think sheds grow on trees or something?! You won’t be getting off so easy this time, girl!” Mr. Wardsworth swung the empty fire extinguisher at the back of her head, and the blunt impact was followed by the sound of metal against bone.

Cassie curled on the floor in pain. Like usual, her mind had collapsed into itself, seeking shelter, seeking an escape from the injury. She cried and whimpered, trembling uncontrollably. Her shaking fingers, covered in blood, opened and closed, scribbling numbers into the floor on their own accord, as she wished for the pain to end.

"Did she fall down ...again? So clumsy," Mrs. Wardsworth commented with an overly polite tone.

"Afraid so." Mr. Wardsworth loomed over Cassie, evaluating whether he should hit her again.

"Disobey me again, and there'll be more from where that came from!" Mr. Wardsworth leaned in and hissed at the girl weeping beneath him.

“Now, don’t be spreading that blood around!” He noticed her scribbling hand and stepped on her fingers with a crunch. She only grunted, despite the unbelievable agony she had to be in, and he shook his head. “Why can’t you be normal!? The only thing your mother and I ever wanted was to have a normal life! How can you be so selfish?”

Cassie panted hard as he pulled his shoe away, shaking the blood off it with a lip curled in disgust.

“For Pete’s sake, get a grip. The least you could do to repay us for everything we’ve done for you is to be quiet, got it!?”

Cassie refused to be quiet. She opened her mouth and emitted an ear-piercing shriek. The square glasses of Mr. Wardsworth rattled in their frames ever so slightly at this.

“Be silent, girl!” His firm, muscular hand, covered in orange curly hair, wrapped around her mouth. Cassie refused to submit, biting into the hand with the entire strength of her jaw. Mr. Wardsworth hissed, pulling his hand away.

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Cassie tried to scream even louder. Someone had to hear her. Someone had to help her. The fire extinguisher swung once again. Sparks ignited in her eyes. She collapsed backward onto the floor, consciousness winking in and out. The hand of her tormentor wrapped around her hair, pulling her across the kitchen floor.

“She bit me! Can you believe it?! She bloody bit me!” He hissed through his orange beard.

Cassie tried to resist, tried to fight through the delirium of the concussion, but there was nothing she could do. Mr. Wardsworth was three times bigger than her and at least four times stronger. Her body banged against the dusty, concrete stairwell as he snapped open the door and dragged her into the basement.

“If you’re going to behave like this, you’ll stay in your room till tomorrow! No dinner!” He barked, throwing open another door and heaving Cassie into the cold, concrete storage room next to the furnace.

Cassie tried to rise but slipped, and the metal door clanged shut. Cassie recognized the sound of a metal bolt lock being closed. She banged against the metal door, just as she had before, but it was hopeless. Mr. Wardsworth’s footsteps faded out. The storage room next to the furnace was deep underground, beneath the kitchen floor crawl space.

The furnace began to loudly whoosh, drowning out her angry shouting and banging. A small incandescent light bulb swung back and forth ever so slightly above Cassie, flickering in and out. After a long while of yelling and banging, Cassie retreated away from the door towards her bed, a raggedy, twin mattress. Its surface was stained brown. She slid into its cold, dusty, moldy embrace. The perpetual, angry howl of the furnace was omnipresent here, disrupting her focus.

Silver spider webs flickered at the ceiling, reflecting the light of the swinging light bulb. Cassie wept, curling up into a ball. Her head pulsated with pain. She brushed her fingers against her still bleeding head, writing out numbers into the cold, concrete floor.

Numbers upon layers of numbers written in blood were covering the dirty concrete floor, walls, and ceiling of her “bedroom,” intertwined with her bloody handprints.

The light bulb overhead winked out, bathing everything in darkness, hiding the girl and her nightmarish room. Eventually, her consciousness faded into the pain-dulling embrace of sleep.

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Sand beneath her feet.

Ocean. An endless ocean was in front of her, a field of impossibly brilliant stars above it. Cassie looked at the ocean.

The water changed colors as the stars overhead twinkled, shifted as if they were alive. And indeed they were, as one of the stars descended, forming into a flying, massive, glowing jellyfish. The jellyfish floated across the sky, above the ocean in perfect silence, twinkling in arrays of constantly shifting colors. There was no noise in this dream, only endless myriads of strange, fractal jellyfish gently gliding across the sky, vibrating with colors she could not name. It was enchanting and strange.

The flock of jellyfish passed.

Cassie turned, feeling a presence behind her.

There was a girl standing there, drawing numbers in the sand with a stick. It was her… but looking far more determined, wearing a dirty safety orange vest and construction helmet.

Cassie saw that the numbers drawn in the sand extended outward, disappearing in the distance.

“Sup frontend dawg, how’s Tartarus?” Alexa asked.

Yes, the girl's name was definitely Alexa. Cassie somehow knew this name as well as her own. She suddenly lost all control as her own body moved, spoke on its own accord.

"Honestly? Kind of shit, backend. I think they gave me a concussion if not five today,” Cassie sighed.

“Well, high five for being a jolly good frontend lass, Cass.” Alexa held a hand up.

Cassie simply glared at her dream companion.

“No high fives? I can see why you’d be mad at me.”

“How long is this going to take? I’m seriously starting to lose my shit, I think. I’m this close to blowing up the entire house.” Cassie held her fingers together, leaving the tiniest gap.

“A couple of passes in the center ought to cover it. Do you mind not setting stuff on fire?”

“I’m getting irate, okay? I have to let out some steam! Last time I had any fun was when I made Martin eat a letter like a proper spy. These tools don’t get practical jokes!”

“Find other non-destructive outlets and no more pranks damn it! Stability is important till activation! Take up quilting or something!”

“Alternatively you could hurry the fuck up,” Cassie growled. “I feel like you’re taking way too long. Can we like… switch?”

“Noppers. You're unbreakable because you're not entirely me. I don't think I could endure your tragic mundanity without snapping.”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah. I’m a terrible friend to myself. Such is life. You exist while I math. Math is pain too, you know.”

“Are you saying math is more painful than concussions?”

“This kind of math, yes. I'm too full of math to even make fun of myself. Now shush and let me focus.” Alexa returned to writing numbers in the sand.

A falling star rapidly streaked across the sky. It ignited with a flash, fading in the distance.

The ocean began to retreat, exposing strange, fractal crystalline formations beneath the departing water. Both of the girls turned, watching the rapid departure of the ocean.

“Oh, sheet! We got us a breach! It begins. Would be nice if I had another thousand years or two for safeties. Alas,” Alexa said. “Try not to die. Toodles.”

Cassie simply looked back at her tiredly.

The dark ocean returned, shaped like a black tsunami as it rose.

The tall wave loomed overhead, reaching from one end of the horizon to the other. There was no escape from it. Cassie closed her eyes, accepting the inevitable, and the black water crashed into her body with immense cold and pain.