Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tara looks at her watch, impatiently tapping her foot on the pavement. "Are they opening any time soon?" she mutters to herself. "They" was the brand new cafe, Dream Haven. It was supposed to be a place where anyone who wasn't "mainstream could congregate and discuss.....whatever. Sudden cheering erupts from the front of the crowd, and looking up, Tara can see the owner, Marcus Venoy, standing on a balcony, above the crowd. She covers her eyes and shakes her head, muttering to herself, "A person could get blinded by that hair." Marcus's hair was a painfully violent shade of pumpkin orange. It was horrendous! Tara listens as he speaks, not really hearing the words. She sighs as the crowd finally moves into the cafe. Looking around, she grumbles, "Today just ain't my day, is it?" Every seat in the house was taken, and Tara had to sit on the floor, but at least, that way, she could get away with sitting directly in front of the stage. The first person to get up on stage was a tragic looking girl with her face painted white, except her lips and eyelids, which were black. She wore a pair of black, baggy pants, crisscrossed with chains. Her shirt was a webbed monstrosity, covering a black tank top, and she wore the most interesting thing around her neck: A spiked choker.

"Ode to a Ring," she begins, in a monotone, yet depressed voice.

"Ode to a ring

You encircle, entangle, and destroy me.

I yearn to you

You shall end my pain, and show me the life

And the light that I will know.

Take me now, sweet metal, surrender my will

And I will be whole."

Then the girl bows, to a great amount of applause and snapping fingers, and takes her seat. The next person up was a nerdy looking guy, complete with pocket protector and glasses. Rolling her eyes, Tara gets and heads to a different part of the room. She passes by a couple, and happens to hear the question, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?" She quickly speeds by him and pretends she didn't hear that. She leans against the bar and orders a Diet Mountain Dew, then thumps her head on the bartop.

"You annoyed with all this crap, too?"

At the sound of the male voice next to her ear, Tara snaps her head up, slamming it into the speaker's face. She whirls around to start yelling at the guy for getting too close to her, but upon seeing him, finds she can't speak. She was looking at a guy who loomed about a half-foot above her modest five foot eight inch height, with black hair, golden eyes, and broad shoulders. He was currently rubbing his aristocratic nose, finely arched brows drawn together in frown of pain. Looking at her, he removes his hand and smiles gently, before extending his hand and saying, "Sorry for scaring you. I'm Tom, what's your name?"

Tara stares for another minute, before extending her hand and saying, "Tara. Nice to meet you, Tom."

Tom smiles, "The pleasure is all mine, Tara." He looks around with a wry expression, "It a shame we had to meet in a mess like this, though."

Tara nods, "I know. I expected to be able to come here and discuss serious issues with like-minded or unlike-minded adults, and I find myself in a place full of teenage wanna-be goths." As she finishes her rant, she takes a sip of her pop.

Tom peers at her, "What kind of serious issues?"

"Oh, Communism, Wicca, gay marriage. The normal stuff," she tells him with a cheeky grin.

Tom laughs, then says, "True Communism is a good thing, I learned Wicca from my mother, and it's their lives, not mine."

Tara's smile softens, "Cool."

An eighteen year old girl sat in a metal chair on the stage in the gym. Her deep, dark, brown eyes scanned the room. The room was full, every seat taken. She was only halfway through her graduation ceremony when she started to fiddle with her class ring.

The ring was a silver color and had a diamond stone. The right side of the ring had an impression of the National Honor Society and above the symbol was the number 2006. The left side had the impression of a guitar, microphone, and drum set with the words Music, and about the impression was the name Katelynn. The girl smiled as she moved her thumb over her smooth diamond stone. Her stone didn't have a special cut, it was carved to have a bulldog face in the middle of the stone.

As she looked at her ring she started to think back to her childhood as her and her best friend, Spike, licked tootsie pops intending to answer the question, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootise Pop?" They would always loose count after twenty and give up.

A roar of clapping tore the girl away from her memory. One of ther classmates went to recieve their diploma. A sudden wave of terror went through her as she noticed that this was the end of childhood for her.

When her name was called she did everything she could to keep from crying. She took the piece of paper and held it close. She had done it, she finished school. Katelynn smiled as she headed off the stage and walked with her parents to the lunch room. A sense of pride went through her.

Later everyone was standing in the lunch room waiting to be congratulated for finishing high school. The girl stood close to her mother and her friend, Ashley, as people came by shaking her and Ashley's hands saying, "Congratulation girls."

Katelynn let her eyes drift around ther room. The boys stood smiling in their black robes, and the girls stood crying in their neon orange robes. As she spaced off at the colors she started to think again.

Her and Spike had been best friends for what seemed like forever, and it pained Katelynn to know that she couldn't attened her best friend's graduation. If their graduations would have been on different days Spike would be standing next to Katelynn now holding her head high showing her pride. Katelynn laughed as she pictured her best friend in a gold robe with a necklace of safety pins around her neck. She smiled at the thought and then spotted her father.

The girl smiled at him and he nodded to her. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Use today wisely and make some memories kid," he told her as his strong arms embraced her. She didn't know it then, but he was right. That day was the first of the rest of her life and she lived it right.