Ridley got dressed for the day to head out and hopefully make some money. Today’s ensemble was a pair of blue jeans that were too baggy and a green flannel button-up.

  My cousin must have been a lumberjack in his young teens. She thought, as she threw on her backpack that had been set out to dry. Then she packed herself a snack and some water.

  As she was leaving the apartment, she purposely ignored her mother, who was sitting on the old dumpster couch. Ridley remembered having to check it over for rats and bedbugs. Her mom was watching her shows on her cell phone. Ridley could hear the peaking dialogue coming through the cell's tiny speakers. Some fake doctors were dialoging about the mysterious symptoms of their patients. Then within two sentences the doctors had switched to their own overly dramatic personal issues. Classic medical mystery garbage. Ridley found it depressing to watch her mother zone out of life daily.

  Ridley didn’t think her mother was a bad person per se, just a bad mother. It seemed like she was stuck as a nineteen year old, perpetually unsure of what she wanted to do with her life. Hopping between jobs that would have her excited at first, then depressed when they weren’t what they seemed. The fact that she decided to have Ridley instead of abort her was something Ridley was obviously glad of. It somehow seemed odd that she had to be grateful to her mother for her very existence though.

  Ridley left the apartment locking the sun-rotted door behind her and hit the broken sidewalks of her neighborhood. As she walked, she began to wonder how best to destroy $250 worth of stuff without getting in trouble. Stopping by a large trash can near the sketchy park Ridley peeked in to see if there was anything to break. The sun reflected off the glass of an empty beer bottle. If you recycled them they would be worth a few pennies. As an experiment she smashed the bottle on the inside of the trash can so as not to make a mess. She checked her quest again, but nothing had changed. Ridley speculated that it had to have actual value to an individual.

  Ridley knew that breaking lots of smaller things was far more likely to get her caught than one large expensive things. The easiest expensive thing she could think of to break was electronics. Additionally she would most likely get in bigger trouble at a small business rather than a big name store. With that thought in mind Ridley decided to head for the closest superstore roughly three miles away.

  She was used to walking everywhere as she had no car yet and that was likely not going to change soon. So far she had managed to save a whopping $120 after a year of savings. All of it was from doing odd jobs for neighbors. If the world had placed her in a position for that to change then who was she to argue with its methods? Was she not potentially fulfilling the very world's desires by destroying stuff?

  She walked into the supermarket parking lot almost an hour later feeling butterflies in her stomach. It wasn’t too busy as it was a Saturday morning. She walked through the sliding doors and glanced at the dollar-item bins they put near the front of the store. She approached them trying to look like a person who had no interest in the deplorable art of vandalism. The tiny fake plants and crayons didn’t hold much appeal though. Trying to look normal never felt right. She continued to wander around a little bit by going through the women’s clothing section. That new clothes smell made her want to buy stuff but she wasn’t about to leave that easy of a trail if she were to get caught. Also, still poor.

  As she passed the cute crop tops a familiar voice hit her ears. “It would be fun to wear these after the game when we go out to eat.”

  The three tall and fit girls were standing in a circle looking at a low cut shirt with some kind of animal print on it. Ridley was still confused as to why it was currently popular to dress like a cougar. The three all carried sports bags full of equipment. Ridley recognized them as some of her adoring fans from school who all happened to be on the softball team. The leader of the little clique was Amanda. She put the shirt down and moved towards some shorts that matched.

  It was a well known fact that Amanda had her sights set on Jared, but it was unlikely anything would happen as Jared preferred girls that didn't look like truck drivers.

  Seeing them made Ridley hesitate. They would sometimes push her around and threaten to get violent, but so far they hadn’t passed that line. They all made it plain as day that they crushed on Jared. So they would be extra pissed at Ridley right now for damaging the goods.

  According to some mysterious stat window, Ridley was strong. She was able to toss Jared around like a rag doll. However she didn’t yet know if it had anything to do with activating an ability. She also didn’t know if she was hallucinating everything. Thinking it through she decided to take a gamble on the human need to not break the law in public. A risk that would have the three unknowingly help her.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Just as she was about to move she felt her limbs freeze up with fear.

  “Wouldst you be a coward child?” Ridley asked herself.

  She felt compelled to move out from the clothes she had subconsciously hidden behind. She started down the aisles that would put her passing about 15 feet away from the gaggle of girls. As she got to a point where they could see her clearly between the coat racks Ridley stopped for a second and looked at them until one of them noticed her. The girl tapped Amanda on the shoulder and pointed at Ridley. Amanda turned and gave a small sickly smile.

  “Why tiny, what are you doing out of the madhouse? You wouldn’t want to miss a round of your crazy pills.”

  Ridley smiled in return and flipped them the bird. It was an uncomfortable gesture as she had never done it before.

  “Funny, I thought you were into tiny things. Like what’s hiding between Jared’s legs.”

  Childish but effective as the girls went red. Ridley turned to walk briskly towards electronics, she looked back to see Amanda’s whisper to her friends. Ridley couldn’t make out what Amanda said to her goons, but she assume it was something cliche like, “We’ll make her regret that! Get her!”

  Ridley made sure to stay just far enough ahead of them to make it to her destination. They were too embarrassed to run through the store so the awkward parade of girls all moved at a brisk walk. Bullies held an odd sense of priorities. Not causing a scene in public apparently was one of them. Ridley marched to the electronics section and turned to face the softball goons.

  They slowed as they approached Ridley knowing there wasn’t anywhere she could easily run off to. Amanda, sneered as she spoke, “You poor little tramp. People make fun of you a bit and you just snap. You went way too far attacking Jared like that you psycho, know your place.”

  As she said this she reached out to grabbed the front of Ridley's shirt. A classic bully move that she was fortunately expecting from her vast experience. So Ridley was confident Amanda wouldn’t expect what came next. She threw herself backwards as hard as she could when Amanda's hand was just close enough to touch her shirt.

  Not only did she throw herself hard, Ridley also threw her elbow back behind her right into the center of the most expensive big screen TV on display. Sticker price $1,899.99. Her elbow dug into the screen making a series of snapping noises as the plastic layers yielded before Ridley’s elbow and made way for the oh-so sensitive electronics.

  Ridley felt… ecstasy.

  As she pulled her elbow out she heard the small fragments of plexiglass and circuit boards spill onto the floor. Ridley looked down to see her arm was a bit sliced up, and it made her chuckle. Her body was shaking with energy, she wanted to howl, she wanted to take a bat from the goons and smash up every tv, computer monitor, and phone she could find. She wanted to conduct a symphony of shattered glass. She wanted to wait for a store attendant to confront her and shatter his jaw just like the rest of the cheap trash standing before her. Then a window popped up interrupting the stream of malevolence.

  ^

  Quest update!

  Therapy is expensive:

  You have suppressed your anger too long, it’s time to blow some steam.

  Objective: Break at least $250 worth of property

  Total value broken: $1899

  Current quest rewards:

  -1 xp per $1 value broken

  1899 xp

  -1 silver per $100 value broken

  18 silver

  Time remaining: 28 hours 32 minutes

  She got ahold of herself and she felt her thrill turn into nervous energy. As she looked at Amanda, she could see her looking around nervously as well. She was likely realizing that any security guard—or whatever you call the person watching the cameras—would think Ridley was just pushed into a tv worth almost two grand. Ridley took a cautious step, then ran toward the nearest emergency exit screaming “Don’t hurt me AMANDA!” as she passed an employee, she continued running. The three snapped out of their momentary disbelief over what Ridley had done and once again started following her.

  Ridley slammed the opening bar on the door triggering an annoying shrieking alarm and ran out of the building. She continued running between the buildings to a back alleyway. Checking behind her, she saw the goons were gaining and certainly going to catch up. They were athletes and likely ran every day at practice. Ridley herself was not a runner. The only marathons she participated in were movie-based. Ridley’s breathing was definitely getting heavier as she pumped her legs for all they were worth. She guessed strength didn’t mean cardio. That was likely an endurance thing. Her heart was beating through her chest and she stopped and leaned back on something. Ridley shook as she heard one of the voices say, “Let’s break her arm.”