---Sixteen years after the Campbell family massacre---

 

Evan Campbell, the infant son of genius Robert Campbell, has been in the care of his grandparents from his mothers’ side since that fateful night. He remembers only fragmented sounds, though, in his dreams, his imagination more than makes up for that. At least twice a week, he sees his parents brutally murdered and is unable to do anything to help them. The dreams aside, Evan has grown up to be a normal sixteen year old. Well…almost normal.

 

Even at such an early age, Evan is already as smart as his father. With his grandparents being quite well off, He was able to finagle them into turning the basement into his own workshop/lab. His intelligence comes with a price, though; a loner for most of his life, Evan keeps to himself, having very few friends. Suffering constant ridicule from the popular kids and jocks, Evan rarely leaves his home, aside from school. Occasionally, he finds himself in a brawl with his tormenters, normally due to his inability to allow them to pick on someone other than him. Skinny and weak though he may be, Evan can’t help but try to help when someone else is in danger. Unfortunately for him, this results in him taking the beating, instead of the other person.

 

Through these brawls and other various torments, two people have stuck beside Evan. Amy Riley and ‘Violent’ Jay Bruce, both his long time friends since the first grade. Amy is right in the middle of the popularity ladder, while Evan is all the way at the bottom. Jay, though he too is a jock, always assists Evan in his fights when he is around. Jay is an avid Insane Clown posse fan, more so of Violent J, hence his nickname. Jay lives with his parents in a modest home. They give him whatever he wants, so he’s never had to work for anything.

 

Amy, however, is a pacifist by nature. She detests any form of violence, be it yelling, or physical in nature. She has, on several occasions, attempted to stop Evan from interfering, though he never listens. Amy lives with her father, her mother having passed away four years ago due to lung cancer from a history of heavy smoking. With her mothers demise came a passionate hatred for smoking of all kinds, as well as a dip in lifestyle. Her father took his wife’s death quite hard, resorting to drinking heavily to drown his sorrows. Without a second income, he was forced to sell their home and move himself and Amy into a cramped apartment.

 

---September 16^th, 2008, 5:37 PM, Evan Campbell’s Home---

 

A knock at the doorbell brings Edward parker out of his television induced stupor. Evans grandfather gets out of his easy chair and walks to the door, wondering who it could be, as he has no living relatives, other than his wife Jessica and grandson Evan. He looks through the peephole and spots the red hair of one of Evans friends, Amy. He opens the door, noticing that she is with another one of Evans friends, the only other one, to be exact, Jay. Before they can say a word, Edward speaks.

 

“You already know where he is.”

 

As Edward moves aside, Amy and Jay enter the house, heading straight for a door in the middle of the house, located just under the steps. Amy opens the door, allowing the loud guitar riffs from Metallica’s Broken Beat & Scarred to blare into the rest of the house. The two teens quickly walk down the steps and shut the door behind them, immediately cutting the sound off. Edward heads back into the living room and sits in his easy chair, his ears still ringing from the blast of music.

 

Amy and Jay descend further into the basement of the house, the music growing louder with each step. Amy finally rushes down the staircase and over to the stereo that is blasting the music, running passed Evan, who is hunched over his L-shaped desk, busy working on something. Amy shuts the music off, blanketing the room in sweet silence, until Evan breaks it.

 

“Please don’t turn my music off.”

 

Amy moves away from the stereo, closer to Evan now. She hops up on an unused portion of desk, legs crossed in front of her, looking down at Evans current project, what appears to be a set of steel headphones. She watches him for a moment, before responding to his earlier remark.

 

“Kinda have to. It gets hard to talk with Papa Het yelling. Whatcha workin’ on?”

 

He begins to tighten down a screw that holds the speakers in place, grabbing the screwdriver from behind his ear while answering her.

 

“Steel headphones. I got tired of mine snapping. Don’t think these’ll be very breakable anymore.”

 

From the stairwell, Jay’s voice speaks up.

 

“Yknow, you could’ve just bought you a customized non-breakable set, instead of wasting your time building one.”

 

Evan sets down his finished steel headphones, spinning his chair around to look at Jay, nearly ramming into Amy’s knee in the process.

 

“If I were to buy a set of custom headphones, then I wouldn’t get the enjoyment and satisfaction of making them myself, now would I?”

 

“Well…no, I suppose not. I still don’t get why you wanna make everything yourself, it’s so much easier to just buy stuff…”

 

Evan just shakes his head, knowing that he’ll probably never get through to Jay. Suddenly remembering something, he swivels back around, now facing Amy again.

 

“I just remembered, I finally finished your ePod. This thing holds as many songs as you need it to, its got a 1 Terabyte hard drive, has excellent sound quality, much better than the Real iPods have, even allows you to stream music from any radio station or computer within a 2,000 mile radius. Made you a set of headphones too. “

 

Evan looks down at the drawer that contains the items he spoke of, noticing that Amy’s crossed legs are currently hanging in front of said drawer. He looks at the drawer, and then up at Amy, raising his eyebrows expectantly. She rolls her eyes, sighing at him as she does, before spreading her legs apart, allowing him access to the drawer. He reaches out and grabs the handle, pulling the drawer open. He bends down and begins to rummage through it, a thought entering his brain at this point. With Amy sitting on his desk and him bent over in front of her while her legs are spread like that, he could have a perfect view of her…

 

Evan continues to rummage through the drawer, but allows his eyes to slowly drift upward, hoping his hair will conceal the movement. Finally, he locks on to a streak of white in a sea of the blackness that is Amy’s skirt. As his rummaging slows, Amy readjusts her skirt, hiding the white from view, startling Evan into quickly averting his eyes. He pulls out the device and headphones, spinning around to Jay, his face red as he shakily speaks.

 

“H-Here you go, one ePod, ready for musical enlightenment.”

 

Evan swivels back to facing his desk, with jay on his left side, Amy on his right. He notices that Amy has closed her legs again, relieved and saddened at the same time. Seeing Evan doing nothing but staring at his desk, she questions him.

 

“So, what are we doing now?”

 

Evan shakes his head, coming out of his haze, looking over at her, remembering what he saw, his face turning red again, looking away before answering her.

 

“Well, I need some air, so, I’m going outside for a bit.”

 

Evan quickly gets up out of his chair and heads to his stairs, handing the ePod and headphones to jay as he moves passed him. Amy hops down off Evans desk and follows him up the sitars, as does Jay. As the trio moves towards the door, Evans grandfather Edward shouts to him from the living room.

 

“Be back before midnight!”

 

This elicits a shout back from Evan.

 

“Yeah yeah, just don’t turn the alarm on.”

 

Evan opens the door and heads out into the cool evening air, his two compatriots right behind him, Jay shutting the door. The trio begins to make their way down Evans front sidewalk, Evan leading them, Jay on his left, Amy on his right. They take a left turn once they reach the main sidewalk and Evan turns around to face his two friends, walking backwards now. Evan stares up at the sky, hands in his pockets, before he suddenly snaps his head down, now looking at Amy.

 

“I think its time we get going, Dorothy.”

 

Amy looks confused for a moment, before a wave of understanding washes over her, her face reflecting it with a smile.

 

“To Oz?”

 

Evan smiles in return, before looking at Jay.

 

“You ready Tin Man?”

 

Jay rolls his eyes, shaking his head in defeat, knowing that he won’t be able to stop himself from playing along.

 

“Okay Scarecrow…to Oz!”

 

Evan moves to Amy’s right side, linking her right arm with his left, while Jay does the same with his right and her left, the trio now stopped on the sidewalk. The three friends look at each other, each one smiling, before beginning in unison.

 

“Weeeeeee’re….Off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz!”

 

All at once, the three begin to skip down the sidewalk, all the while continuously singing the song.

 

“Because because because because because….because of the Wonderful things he does!”

 

After finishing the song, the three nearly collapse in a heap, consumed by their laughter. As they begin to untangle themselves from each-other, a feminine voice pierces the evening air.

 

“Hey!”

 

The three teens look across the street and quickly spot another teenager, one that attends their school, Stacy Hamilton.

 

Evan mumbles to his friends, clearly not pleased with her arrival.

 

“Oh great...here comes the Wicked Witch.”

 

No sooner than Evan speaks these words when another shout, this time from a masculine voice.

 

“I thought we told you not to come around here anymore Campbell!”

 

Two more teenagers step up behind Stacy, mountains of muscle, each one wearing a football letterman jacket.

 

“And her flying monkeys.”

 

Stacy and the two male teenagers, Randy Thompson and Dwayne Copeland, begin to cross the street, not bothering to look out for cars, their arrogance making them not care for anyone else’s safety. Evan, Jay, and Amy pick themselves up off the ground and face Stacy and her friends, not wanting the next few minutes to happen, but having no way to avert the situation. With Evan at the front of his group and Stacy at the front of hers, the two groups of teenagers stare each other down, until Randy steps passed Stacy and grabs Evan by his collar, pulling him close to him, nearly lifting him off the ground.

 

“Did you not hear me Campbell? We told you to never come around here anymore! What do you think you’re doing here?”

 

Jay and Amy step forward and are about to begin yelling at Randy, until Evan raises his right hand, waving them off. As he begins to talk his way out of Randy's grasp, he slowly reaches into his right pocket, his words keeping Randy from noticing.

 

“Just chillax…we don’t want any trouble. We just went for a little stroll, didn’t realize you owned this part of the country. Now, I suggest you let me go.”

 

“And what if I don’t?”

 

Evan removes his right hand from his pocket. Now on his hand is a metal band surrounding his palm with a spike in the center of it. Evan reaches up and touches the spike to Randy’s neck. Almost immediately, Andy releases Evan and drops to the ground as an electrical current passes through his body. Andy grinds his teeth together, holding in a scream as the electricity flows through him, standing his hair straight up. After only ten seconds, Evan removes his hand from Randy’s neck, drawing the electrical current back with it. As soon as the current leaves his body, Andy drops forwards, lying on the concrete, very unconscious.

 

Dwayne pushes passed Stacy and kneels down next to Randy, checking on him, a frightened look on his face as he stares up at Evan.

 

“Hey man, what the fuck did you do to him?!?”

 

Evan stares back at him, a dark grimace on his face.

 

“The same thing that I’ll do to you if you keep screwing with me.”

 

Dwayne pulls Randy to his feet and begins dragging him away, not wanting to get the same treatment, leaving Stacy by herself. She watches the two football players run down the block, one dragging the other, and shakes her head.

 

"Worthless."

She turns back to look at Evan and his friends, stepping towards them.

 

“You don’t have the balls to do that to me.”

 

Evan slips the device back into his pocket, backing up towards his friends.

 

“No, but She does.”

 

Amy steps forwards, a scowl on her face, and slaps Stacy hard across the face, nearly knocking her to the ground, leaving a bright red imprint of her hand on Stacy’s face. With tears welling up in her eyes, Stacy turns her back on Amy and calmly walks away, at first. After a few steps, she breaks out into a sprint, heading the same direction that Dwayne and Randy did. Amy turns back to Evan and Jay, a small smile o her face.

 

“That felt good.”

 

“It looked like it did.”

 

“Okay, I’m gonna ask what I’m sure at least me and Amy are thinking. What was that thing you used on Randy?”

 

Evan pulls the device out of his pocket and slips it back on his hand, the metal spike in his palm. He holds it out for the both of them to see and begins to explain it.

 

“Just a little something I’ve been toying around with. It sends a small electrical shock through the spike and whatever it touches. Not enough to permanently damage or kill, but enough to, well, shock the crap out of someone. Only carries a single charge though. I think that’s plenty, did you see the look on their faces? I doubt they’ll be harassing us any time soon.”

 

“You might have to make me one of those, could be real useful on the football field.”

 

Evan stashes the item back in his pocket, looking over at Jay now.

 

“I don’t think so. No, I think this one stays with me. I don’t like the idea of too many people being able to zap anyone they feel like needs it.”

 

“I agree. Okay guys, it looks like it’s about to start raining, we should get home.”

 

“Yeah. I’ll see you two at school tomorrow.”

 

Jay walks away from Amy & Evan, heading back to his own house, while Amy & Evan walk together. With both of their houses on the same street, they didn’t have to split up. Evan walks with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the sidewalk, while Amy crosses her arms in front of her, warding off the bit of cold that the rain brought with it. Evan sees this out of the corner of his eye and takes his overshirt off, leaving him in a black Metallica t-shirt. He drapes the overshirt on Amy shoulders. She gives him a smile and puts it on over her clothing, immediately driving the cold away. The two continue to walk in silence, stopping once they reach Evans house. Amy starts to give Evan his shirt back, but he waves her off.

 

“I’ll get it back from you later; it’s still cold out here. I’ll see you at school.”

 

“See you.”

 

Just as Evan turns to walk to his house, Amy touches his arm, prompting him to turn back to her. As he does, she leans in and kisses him lightly on the cheek, before sprinting off towards her own house, leaving him standing there a bit perplexed. He watches her until she reaches her house, the rain drops begin to fall, waking him from his stupor. He heads into his own house, grabbing the handle of the door. He swings it open and a sudden siren nearly makes him jump out of his skin. After a moment, he reaches around the door and flips the siren off, silently cursing his grandfather. As he stomps passes the living room, he hears his grandfather chuckling to himself behind his newspaper. Evan opens the door to his room in the basement and walks down the stairs, slamming the door behind him.