Quantum Dissolve, Prelude.

Eight year old Kimber Allison ran out of the Elisa Jack elementary school, covered in (someone else's) blood, tears and snot streaking her face.

"They're all dead!! They're aaaalll deeaaaadd!!", she kept screaming.

Dusty awoke.

"Fuckin memories...fuckin life", he mumbled.

Dustin "Dusty", Irwin lay on his fold-away bed in his rat hole apartment staring up at the ceiling.

It was all but decided at this point.

Maybe the world was too fucked up to fix.
Maybe nothing we do matters.
Maybe ideals are pathetic past a certain age.
Maybe what "you're supposed to do", is sell out, and have your dumb safe little life.

Dusty shook his head for the fiftieth time this afternoon, and whispered "I just can't do it", for the thirtieth.

"If it doesn't matter...then I can do what I want anyway", Dusty grumbled.

He rolled over, and looked at the costume draped across the kitchen chair.

Black jeans, black workboots, black sweatshirt, black flak vest, black leather gloves, black fanny-pack full of toys, and...the mask.

"Yeah, fuck it, I'm doing it".

He nodded, rolled back over, and went back to sleep.

The Jade Shade he would be.