[Alex Black's Point of View, age 15]

I chuckle as my character on the screen jumps over the assaulting panda bear and smacks it into the ground with an impressive thud, effectively reducing my opponent's health bar to nearly nothing.

"Oh! Come on! How is that even possible?" Johny, my dear friend, complains.

I chuckle. "Don't be a sore loser, Johny."

I know that he hates losing. He always has. I would know. We've known each other long enough.

"You know, ..." Johny mumbles a moment later, his mind not on the game at all. "Normally I'd complain about how you never let me win. But you can have it today."

"Wow! Ok… Is the world about to end?" I ask as I pause the game and look at him worriedly.

"Well, perhaps not the world, but this might very well be our last game together," Johny says in wat feels like a mixture between embarrassment, awkwardness and loneliness. "Damn, I still can't believe you're moving… And why did it have to be so far away? You need to drive two hours to get there! Two!! And I can't even drive a car. I just don't get why you have to go…"

"It's not me that has to go. It's my dad. His research on the energy source he's studying has reached a standstill and now they want to try if exposing his energy source to another one will have any effect. But that isn't possible in the research facility here, so he has to relocate. And where my dad goes, I go," I explain to him for the fifth time. There's more to the story than that, but I'm starting to suspect that I already used too many difficult words, even though I had slimmed down my original explanation. I watch Johny heave a heavy sigh.

"Seriously, Alex, I thought your dad was a doctor. Well, I mean the type that heals people. What's he doing researching energy?"

"Well, my dad's a smart man," I say with a shrug. "But I don't think the human body ever was his forte. Did you know that the two of us are the only humans he's ever treated? And I don't think he would have accepted your strange case of narcolepsy if your dad hadn't offered to pay big bucks for it."

"Hmm…" Johny hums in dislike, but I can tell he's accepted the idea now.

"Aren't you afraid?" he asks after a moment of silence.

"Not really," I say. Honestly, I'm a little surprised by the question. What was there to be scared of?

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"Dear, God. I feel terrified in your stead!" Johny says dramatically as he hugs his own shoulders. "A new town, a new house, a new everything! What if you get lost on your first day of school? What if no one wants to be your friend! What if they suddenly start chasing you because they want to eat your brains?!"

He holds out his hands in front of him and says the word "brains" in a zombie-like manner.

"Idiot!" I laugh as I punch zombie Johny playfully in the shoulder. And then his words sink in. Am I afraid of an unknown place? Perhaps I should be, but I’m not feeling it. I know that I have a good head on my shoulders and I don’t think that I’m socially awkward, since I get along with everybody who lives in this pinhead of a town… I’ll probably be fine!

"Well, at least you'll be free of this boring hellhole, right?" Johny laughs sourly as he rubs his shoulder where I had punched it. I feel a smirk curl my lips as I see him rub the sore spot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a sadist and I don't hurt others. The punch to his shoulder hadn't been hard at alI. I doubt it would leave a bruise. The reason why I smirked is because I feel like I have grown a lot.

You see, when Johny and I met each other, we were both admitted to a hospital. I was the weak child, always on death's door. Johny was the one with the severe case of narcolepsy. We were both very physically weak at the time. But from the two of us, at least he could get out of bed on his own. When I was well enough to be discharged, I made a point of working on my physical strength. And now, I am proud to say that I'll be trying for my black belt in Judo soon.

"It's not that bad here, is it? I like living here. If my dad didn't need to relocate for his job, I would have stayed here until the end of my days."

"Psh, tell me one good thing about this place!"

"It's home."

Johny stared at me for a long moment. He didn't like losing verbal conversations either, but he knew that it wasn't worth attacking the thing I cared for. Certainly when he was a part of it.

"Well, if you say it like that," he muttered unhappily.

"Don't worry so much. It'll all turn out fine. Now come here and concentrate on the game. Beating you is no fun like this."