Chapter 1 - by Adrian

RESPAWN Chronic

Halden looks at me, his intensely curious and equally dreamy green-grey eyes cutting into my black ones.  He's a sevvie, and the only reason I hang with him is because he's a break from life at home.  He's a good kid.  A little annoying, but otherwise just plain friendly.  It does weird me out how focused on death he is, with the RESPAWN machine around these parts, but I guess if a person is so enthusiastic about something, and you want to hang with them, you just gotta go with the flow.  His dad is the RESPAWN inventor, so I know where he gets it from.  But with his fascination of death comes a sort of unreality about him.  Even when we play video games he always insists on dying, and then shouts real loud, "RESPAWN!", making his voice have a southern twang to it.  Since we're busy though, there's no time for games.

"These are the rules," Hal says, eyes ablaze.  "Georgia font, okay?  We're going to share this program.  It cost my dad a hundred bucks..."

He goes on and on about how specific the book has to be.  It has to be in our own words, like we're talking.  It has to be in his favorite fonts, Georgia and Futura.  We have to write at least one page a day.  When putting our names after the chapter titles (not that I'll have one), we have to use all lowercase letters.  We have to be completely honest with ourselves, and swear never to look at one another's entries.  And it's okay to use slang, 'cause it helps show our personalities.

"And so, yeah, that's it," Halden chirps, pride shining in his eyes.  I want to call him a death geek, but then I might make him sad and then be all alone again.  "Let's  get to it!"

At first I protest this, because I don't really want to be trapped in a house with a crazy sevvie all day, writing.  Halden is much more fun outside, where we do a lot of things because a) I'm an active person, and b)  Halden will do whatever I want him to do because of his unafraid, optimistic nature.  But I eventually give in and write down these few paragraphs because he's acting so hopeful, and he's giving me that puppy-dog face of his.  Also because I think I'm the only friend he has, and I don't want to disappoint.

Author's Note

Sevvie - seventh grader, slang in my school district. Don't know if I spelled it correctly.