Charlene

After getting that last text from Finn, I laid back on my pillow, my blonde hair spreading out around me like rays from a sun. Many people had told me my beauty was radiant, maybe it was because of my sunshine colored hair. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get to sleep, before realizing why I wasn't letting myself fall asleep. I was in a pale blue nightgown that made me look like Wendy Darling! It had slipped my mind I was wearing the thing. Quickly, I jumped out of bed and threw open the doors to my closet.

An array clothes appeared in front of me. From colorful to neutral to stylish to sweatpants, I usually thought of my closet as my personal Forever 21, which happened to be my favorite store in the entire world. Not wanting to be too flashy, I picked out a black crop top with high-waisted jeans. Well, that was the first thing I picked out. Seven outfits later, I had settled on black yoga pants with a purple dri-fit shirt. I hopped into bed, hoping I wouldn't be the last one to show up. That had happened more than once, to be honest. I pulled the covers up to my neck and drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up, I was smack dab in the middle of Walt Disney World sitting on the circular bench of the Partners statue. 

"Oh, how come she gets to cross over on the bench?" I heard a familiar voice behind me. A very familiar voice in fact. One that I had missed so much.

"Finn?" I whispered, slowly looking around, as if when I spotted him he would disappear. 

"Charlie!" He exclaimed, running up to me and enveloping me in a brotherly hug. When I was young and dumb, I used to think that there was something between us, but after Amanda and growing up I just sort of realized he was forever my brother. Besides, we wouldn't want to anger the beast that was Terrance.

I just sort of sat there, enveloped in unbiological sibling love with Finn. Then I heard a cough coming from behind Finn and in front of me. I pulled away from Finn and looked up to towards the noise, and saw something I thought I had said goodbye to over a year ago.

"Wayne?" I let out the word sort of as a breath. I was not one to have weak knees, but I was shaking. Although I was standing with a planter box between us, I jumped up and landed with one foot on the fence and the other stretching forward. I then pushed off the fence and leaped, landing in the planter. Running, I jumped and did a front tuck out of the planter, landing directly in front of Wayne. I threw my hands up into a V-finish out of habit. Realizing this was not a cheer competition, I threw my arms around Wayne. I'm sure Finn cried. Not just because of his puffy eyes, but because he was so much closer to Wayne than any of us were. Despite this, we all valued Wayne, and had missed him dearly. 

I pulled away, taking Wayne in. He looked the same, honestly. I had expected him to be some sort of vampire-old being, even though it had only been a little over a year since he had passed. Even though his face and body looked exactly the same, and he was acting the same, something was different. I couldn't put my finger on it though. 

"Are you feeling okay?" I asked Wayne.

"Yes, why?" He replied, confused.

"You look a little... Well... Blue," I fumbled over my words. Wayne just chuckled.

"Well Charlene, I can assure you, I'm perfectly happy."

"Nonono, not like that. You look like, the color blue." I looked him up and down, and then glanced over towards Finn, who also had that blue tint to him. "What's going on...?" 

Wayne looked over towards Finn, who was the first to speak up. "Well, I think we've got some explain' to do..." He trailed off, running his hand through his hair, which I realized was now thicker than it's usual Keeper clean cut. I gave him a look that said 'cut to the chase'. He sighed knowing what this meant. "Charlie, we have to go back. Way back."

"What? Back where? Backstage? Because I know the way, but I thought that-" Finn cut me off with a wave of his hand, which on a daily basis I probably would've knocked him out for, but I really wanted to go what in the world was going on.

"Back to the beginning."

"Like back in time? Now I know there's like live dolls and stuff here but I'm pretty sure-" He cut me off again, this time with words.

"No, a different kind of back. Back to the where it all started. To the basics. Back to 1.0."

"1.0...?" He laughed at me, probably remembering that I wasn't Professor Philby or Willa or some other super smart person. Well, I mean I was smart, but not super-duper lives like a geek smart. 

"Like remember these annoying blue outlines," He motioned to the bold blue line around his arm. "And not being able to just go into all clear?" My breath stiffened at this. All clear was something that we treasured more than anything, and was vital to our survival. We wouldn't be here without the quick capabilities of all clear. Well, the newer version or whatever of our DHI's had like 'on demand' all clear, but when we were younger and this thing has just started, we had to do this ridiculous train light thing to get there. I remember Finn being so good at it while the rest of us struggled, which is probably why he didn't seem to worried. Either that, or it was just his calm demeanor.

"So... We have to go back to the train at the end of the tunnel thing?" I asked, making sure that I was right and hoping I was wrong.

"Yeah..." Finn trailed off, knowing that it was going to be a lot more of a challenge for me than for him. He probably was trying to feel compassion but deep down was most likely relieved. 

I took a deep breath in before holding my hands above my head and leaning back into a bridge. I pushed forward onto my stomach, and just kind of lied there defeated in the middle of the hub. Finn squatted down and sort of awkwardly patted my hair. I frowned and squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to remember all the things that I had to deal with now in 1.0. 

"It's must more comfortable standing, Miss Turner." Wayne piped up. With a small sigh, I did a push up into a sort of burpee style jump upwards.

"Well no need to show off." Finn muttered, to which I responded with a glare.

"Jealous much?" I huffed.

"Sureee." Finn drew out the last letter.

"Children." Wayne caught our attention.

"Right, I'm supposed to be asking questions. What in the world is going on? Why am I here???" I rattled off a list of a million questions, of which they answered. What I got from the little Q&A session was those replacement Keepers couldn't handle the heat of the job, things are getting rough, and now the others and I have to come back and fix the mess those rookies left in their wake. Wow, I'm so 'excited'. 

"So, yeah." Finn finished when they were done with the explanation spiel.

"Always fixing rookie mistakes." I remarked.

"Not to mention our own," Finn and I cracked up.

"But what do we do now?" I asked.

"We wait." Wayne replied. 

Hi friends!

I hope you all liked this little chapter. Charlene is here! Yay!!! I attached the music video of Sabrina Carpenter's Can't Blame a Girl for Trying  at the top of this page. Because A) Charlene says at some point in this chapter "When I was young and dumb..." and it got stuck in my head and B) Although we all know the true Charlie is Olivia Holt, Sabrina still reminds me of how Charlene could be.

I'm watching the news as I'm writing this, and they are talking about the usual stuff that makes me disgusted with the human population, but also featured a bit about my school district and how we need to build yet another high school, which will be the fourth to our district. While that's great and all, I wish that people could just stop building homes around us! We have 1,200 students in our middle school (6th-8th) building, and it was built in the fifties. Like thanks for a high school, how 'bout a middle school??? And stop coming to our district maybe???

Haha, sorry for my rant, you probably don't care. You probably just want me to post the next chapter actually. I know, I know, I'll get there, don't chu worry. In the meantime, tell me what you think will happen next? Who do you think the first villain the Keepers will fight will be? What park? How will the other Keepers react to 1.0? Let me know in the comments below!

xoxo

~bcruzy_02