Generation Three - Chapter One/ Prologue

"Can't liiiive - If living is without yoouuuuu. I can't giiiiive  - I can't give anymooore. 
I CAN'T LIIIIIVE-"

Just like most other nights during the week, I was at my favourite spot in all of Brooklyn Hights. It wasn't a nightclub or pub, where most of the guys from school went with fake ID's, but the karaoke bar just past the bridge.

And like most other nights, two middle aged women murdered the songs I'd grown up with. Tonight, they sang "Without You" by Mariah Carey. Very badly, I should add.

Even though this was a normal night at the karaoke bar, I kept coming back. Why? I'll explain that in just a moment, but first let me tell you a bit about where I come from. Bit of background never hurt anybody, right?



I suppose I should start with my parents. Unlike me, they weren't from Brooklyn Hights, but from a small town called Riverview, which was miles away. They had often told me and my sister how Dad had helped design the house, and how it had been Mum's dream ever since she'd been a teenager. It was a pretty neat place to live, 'though I was planning on maybe giving it a bit of make-over.

Dad was an architect and interior designer. He didn't earn quite as much as Mum, but he was pretty popular in the city! He even knew some celebrities - not the kind that got famous through shows like SimBrother or SimStar, but the kind that was in movies. Big movies. The kind that lived in mansions, with gates and butlers.

If we wanted to, we could have afforded stuff like that, because Mum was just as famous as any of those stars. She was a very well known superstar football player, and earned a crazy amount of money!

Somehow both of them were still going, even though they were old. No idea why they hadn't retired yet, they'd certainly reached the age for it.



Then there was my younger sister, Amelia. Or Amy. She hated it when I called her Amelia, so I kept ignoring her nickname. We were both pretty artistically talented, but she was more of a painter. Her paintings were rubbish, but she spent a lot of her free time at the easel getting colours all over her shirt. Which then got Mum mad, but Dad thought it was great.



She wasn't too bad, as far as little sisters go, but she had weird beliefs! I mean, yeah, sure, she was only seven, but talking dolls? Same size as her, and only she could see them?

I remember when she told me. "Puzzles asks if she can play with Wiggles!" That wasn't too weird, you know? She was a little girl then, she was supposed to play with dolls. Just, maybe she exaggerated it a bit.

"Sure, just grab her. She's in my room somewhere." You should have seen her, she actually rolled her eyes at me.

"Nu uh, silly! She really wants to play with her! Like, pillow fights and stuff!" Amelia looked really insulted, like I was the one that was going crazy.

"And how are they supposed to do that? It's just a toy, stupid."

"NU UH! Doesn't Wiggles walk around? Puzzles does! Puzzles is right here, can't you see him?"



"No, sis. I can't. I really can't." She acted all insulted when I wouldn't play her game, and stormed off.

The thing was, we both had those dolls. Mum and Dad said that they didn't know where they'd come from, but someone had sent us both one each. They looked really odd, but I had loved mine when I was a kid.



I'd called mine Wiggles, or later on Cherry. She had always been there as far as I could remember. I had taken her everywhere when I had been Amelia's age, even to school. No one else had a doll like her, and I had actually been pretty proud of her!

But now? Nuh, I was too old for that stuff. Can't say that Wiggles had ever done any of that stuff Amelia's Puzzle had done. I'd never seen her walk around, or bring me tea or stuff like that. How would she? She was just a doll.



Besides, I had other things to do. Mum and Dad had gotten me this awesome home lab for my birthday. I was really good at chemistry and other sciences like that, and I thought my teacher had maybe suggested it. She said I had a knack for these things.

Either way, it was brilliant! I spent all of my free time in this room where we had placed it. Really, it was a little too red for me, but it didn't really matter. I could give the room a make over some when. Maybe when I was doing the rest of the house. Anyway, for now I was just happy to mess around with it. I hadn't come up with anything useful, and definitely nothing that I'd let anyone drink, but it was just a matter of time, and a matter of mixing the right ingredients and not having it all explode in my face.

But it wasn't my number one hobby. It wasn't the reason I was down at the karaoke bar as often as I was.

You see...



... ever since that one day when Dad had taken me here for the first time ever, I had wanted to become a singer. That fateful day had been just after my birthday. I had never sung in front of people I didn't know before, but Mum said how I had always sung to Wiggles, so I had been pretty excited.

I was real good, too! The crowds were small, of course, usually no more than three people plus the bartender and proprietor at the same time, but it was a start. And best of all? They were clapping and cheering for me! I mean, yeah, sure, they probably only did that to be nice, and because it was a fun setting rather than a professional one, but it felt amazing!



I had it all planned out. There were clubs at school that I could do, like, I could join the music club to learn some instruments, or I could join the drama group and get better control over my voice. Or maybe both! And maybe I could convince my parents to buy me a guitar one day!

And then, after school, the proprietor in this bar was sure to give me an audition at least! By then she would already have heard me sing and improve for some years, she was sure to give me a shot! There were other places where I could perform, too, and in no time I'd be one of those big celebrities Mum knew in person, and who commissioned Dad to build them a new arboretum and posh stuff like that.

Imagine that-

Rhys Blackwood. Singer.

Pretty cool, huh?

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Wishes fulfilled

Sing karaoke