reflection ● jason grace

Hollywood blows

"You're not real," Daria murmured, tilting her face away from the boy in front of her. "And even if you were, you're a traitor to the legion."

    "But you want me to be real anyway. Don't you, Daria?" Atticus Blake strode around the empty whiteness, a smirk on his face. She didn't know why he had shown up in her dream, and she wished she didn't care so much.

    "No," she lied. "Get out of my head."

    "Are you sure you don't want to join me, Daria?" He got up close to her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder like they were old buddies. "It's a nice life. We'd get to do whatever we want. I know you're tired of training all the time."

    "Leave me alone, Atticus," she spat, more out of desperation than conviction. She loved him. As a friend, as maybe more than that. That's why she knew that if he pressured her hard enough, she might give in.

    "We won't lose, if that's what you're worried about." She pushed him off of her, crossing her arms and trying to glare as fiercely as she could under the circumstances. "Your friend, Jason, he doesn't stand a chance against our master."

    "Who is it?" She was getting tired of asking the same question, but they needed answers. "Tell me."

    "A gift for you," Atticus agreed, his grin sickeningly sweet. "Like our shared poetry. I think about you often, In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye."

    Which is the bliss of solitude. Wordsworth. "Stop playing games."

    "A game of two willing participants, is it not?" Atticus paused. Daria got a good look at the face she hadn't seen in two years. It was both wiser and more cruel. "You will see me again, I expect. Take care." He placed a slip of paper in her hand before vanishing in a gust of wind.

    Daria took a deep breath, unfolding it. On it was written 'The one you seek is neither god nor monster. He is older than Jupiter himself.'

    "Daria," someone shook her shoulder. "Wake up. We're in Los Angeles."

    She opened her eyes groggily to see Jason looking at her with a confused expression. "You were asleep for six hours. Nathan thought you died."

    Daria looked at the shaggy haired boy who sat across the aisle. She didn't know if he could hear their conversation, but he gave her a thumbs up.

    "Last stop," the driver announced in a gruff voice. "Los Angeles downtown station."

    "Thank you!" Clara said brightly to the driver. Daria wondered if he was smiling under his lumberjack beard.

    "I'm hungry," Daria announced, stepping off the stairs.

    It was about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Daria stretched, her limbs not yet fully awake. The pounding in her head was gone which was good. Now she hoped that it wouldn't return as they climbed up to the Hollywood sign.

    They didn't have any money left, but Nathan convinced them to let him shoplift from the local Wal-Mart. Clara had protested, but Daria thought it was pretty funny.

    Now they sat in a park, eating both the rations they had packed and whatever the son of Mercury had picked up. It wasn't much of a scene; by 'park' she meant a 10 meter strip of grass with a picnic bench on it, but it was still outside.

    "So," Daria said, setting down her bagel. "I had a dream."

    "Cool," Nathan said next to her. He was stacking potato chips between two slices of bread and Daria was tempted to try it.