Ugh.

Why was she so indecisive?

Selena looked up from her algebra for the fourth time that minute, to glance at the screen of her phone that was sitting on her bedside table. He wasn’t going to call her – she had no doubts there. But should she call him, or should she just do what he was doing and...forget all about it? But she just couldn’t do that, that wasn’t what she was like. Sailor Eos was different – as soon as she’d henshined up, she was instantly more confident. No-one knew who she was, only that she was a glamorous soldier of justice, tasked with protecting Destiny City from the evil Negaverse. Sailor Orion...that had been completely different. Or at least, that was what the teen was telling herself. Sailor Eos was a different person, it was almost like it was all in her imagination. But Damian was very much real, and very much a problem at the moment.

Wincing softly, the dark-haired girl uncurled her legs from underneath herself where she was sat on her bed, reaching over to place her workbook on the desk. She was giving up on the algebra – she wasn’t concentrating anyway. The textbook soon followed, as did her calculator and pencil case, Selena perching herself on the edge of her bed instead. Hands gripped the edge of her duvet tightly, another glance spared to her phone. Nothing.

Was she surprised?

No.

Giving a loud groan of frustration, she swung backwards, dropping herself back onto the bed, laying herself down with her feet now vertical in the air. Hands over her head, she closed her eyes for a few moments, watching colourful shapes dance across her closed eyelids. And then a flash of orange caught her eye, followed closely by two pale gray eyes not unlike her own... The freckles were what gave it away as Damian’s face came into view, Selena’s eyes snapping open as she shot up into a sitting position, though soon regretting it as she experienced a head-rush, head falling forwards into her hands to steady herself. She groaned again, sitting up straight once she was sure she wasn’t going to faint. Why was this so difficult? It shouldn’t be – she never should have gotten herself into this situation. She blamed Damian for getting the two of them locked in that cupboard. But was this now just her, reading too much into it? Selena was a romantic, however – anything that was even vaguely of an intimate nature brought dozens of questions to her mind.

And making out in a cupboard most definitely counted as ‘intimate’.

She snatched her phone from the desk, opening her contacts list and flicking down it until she came to his name. And then she just sat there, staring at it, finger poised over the ‘call’ button. Scottie was downstairs – she’d have to be careful, incase he heard her. Selena loved her uncle dearly, but she didn’t want him hearing her private phone conversations. Especially not when they involved sorting out certain ‘situations’ such as that she had to sort out with Damian.

Standing, she opened her bedroom door and peeked down the upstairs landing. She could hear the familiar buzz of the TV downstairs, with the tell-tale sound of gunshots where Scottie was likely playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Okay, he was preoccupied. Closing her door again, Selena turned and leant against it as she pushed down on the green phone button, before pressing the machine to her ear. It beeped once, twice, and she thought it was going to go through to voicemail before he finally picked up.

”Hey Selena, what’s up?”

It took her a few moments before she finally blurted something out, “O-Oh, hey Damian! I just, uh...wanted to talk. You doing anything or have you got time?”

”Uh, nope, I’m game. Hit me – what did you want to talk about?”

The girl’s thumb was in her mouth by this point, Selena sucking away on it like a toddler in a rhythmic, soothing sort of way. She sighed softly, “Well, basically...”

It all happened so quickly. She was about to start talking and suddenly it felt like some sort of wave had slammed into her, except it had then gone through her, instead of taking her with it. Either way, Selena didn’t have much time to think it over, not even having time to scream or exclaim her surprise as her eyelids suddenly felt ridiculously heavy. She collapsed onto the ground with a loud ‘THUD!’ that alerted her uncle downstairs – but it was too late. The girl was already deep, deep asleep. Her phone was disconnected, and all Damian would have thought was that she hung up – the phone had hit the ground, and the force of the impact had jolted the battery out of it, cutting the power.

Scottie rushed upstairs and tried to revive the sleeping girl, but there was nothing he could do. He called an ambulance, but even then it took a good half an hour to arrive – seemed the hospital was inundated with emergencies, all of them in the same area of the city, all of them just suddenly having collapsed and not waking up. Selena was taken to Destiny City Memorial, along with all of the other victims.

Little did she know that she’d be waking up soon, however. And not in the way she thought.