A Bad Joke: Chapter one

the sky at night is gorgeous, with all of its stars. they sprinkle across like flour accidentally thrown onto a black shirt. I stare up at them as my sister, Josy, trails after me. She keeps looking back, as if waiting for our mom to call us in. Which probably won't happen because our mom thinks that we can read her mind and will expect us back when she wants us back. For a minute, I look along the shoreline of the lake. There typically isn't any debris, but it's interesting when it is there. Josy once found this gorgeous necklace that enables her to record audio onto it. You can't tell if she is recording though, so it's sometimes hard to confide things to her. though, she insures me that only she or any of her descendants can use it. I still don't know if I trust that. I don't see anything on the shoreline tonight. Which is unfortunate. I've never gotten anything but I think that having a magical item would be cool as frick. I mean, we're not supposed to have magic items that are super powerful, but our mom and dad are the best doctors that the Shidmhy dynasty has had. My mom was born in Roundsun but my dad is from a place called Stanford. He fell into this world. "Gabby, we can't stay out here all night," says Josy "why not?" I ask "Dad's taking us to an escape room tomorrow! we don't want to be late!" says Josy "I'm sure we'll be fine," I reply, flippantly. "You don't know that!" says Josy, "I get that you're in your whole I hate my parents phase but I want to do this with dad!" "Suck up," I reply without thinking. "Excuse me! ahhhhh" Josy screams in frustration and storms away, up the path to our house. pah. thirteen-year-olds. I go back to looking at the sky. It's a half-moon tonight. I think maybe the first quarter?? idk, I forgot about that stuff. We learned it at school once but we aren't the moon kingdom. I sit down in the sand. I can't believe that Josy got mad at me for that. I mean, shouldn't she be rebelling too. PLus like, she's thirteen. she should be rebelling too! Something slams into me from behind. It feels weird as it passes into my body. I don't know what it is. Something about it is tiring and feels like a hundred thousand years pressed onto my shoulders. falling back, sand flies into my hair and on my face. I can't bring myself to care as I am pulled into sleep. * * * * I open my eyes to a space full of yellows and blues. It's confusing because everything is hazy and there are bubbles streaming everywhere. Besides the bubbles, it's what I would imagine anyone with glasses would see without them. there's a woman in front of me, with gorgeous blue skin and an ombre colored dress that draped over her. She smiled at me with this weird motherly look before gesturing to a sword. "Gabby the sword is all yours! " says the woman, her grey and red hair swirling in the water. the sword is silver and glows a golden-blue color. I walk up to it and it lifts easily in my hand. It's an old sword, from at least the start of the Sun Kingdom as we know it today. It's gorgeous as it hums something to me. but something feels off, like I just signed a bad contract. As I look at the sword, it seems to stop shimmering and more nicks and flecks appear on it. "What is this? A bad joke about how much I like ancient swords?"

This animation is a continuation of: