4 pm Thursday

The sign reading "Yard Sale" sparks interest in the young boy. His earphones playing a podcast. With his hunt for more dolls still in progress, he decides to drop by.

As he's walking down the street he spots a girl, looking roughly the same age as him. She walks straight past him, not looking up from her phone, in her own world. He stops and looks back, doing a double-take. He notices something sitting in the tote bag she's holding, a tuft of blonde being visible out of the bag. He moves his head around a bit, trying to get a good look at the girl he's never seen at school. She looks familiar, but he just assumes she's from a different crowd.

He steps foot onto the driveway and begins looking around, only one earphone on at this point. He finds an old book that he looks at for a bit until he turns his head, bright orange hair catching his eye. With that he walks up to the creepy little doll in overalls, thinking his head is perfect for his art project.

"Hi, Jake. 20 bucks for that. Sounds fair?" Ms. jolly asks

"20 bucks?" Jake replies unsure of the price.

"Well, it's gotta be worth 20 bucks right?"

"Hey, where'd you get this?" He changes the subject.

I have no idea. Must have been my daughter's I guess. Honestly, I don't remember. You into vintage?" She asks.

"No, I'm into retro."

"Oh, what's the difference?"

"About 10 bucks." He smiles.

She chuckles and shakes her head. "Fair enough. You know, a girl who looked around your age was here not that long ago and said the same thing. She has the other doll similar to yours, brand-wise at least. Maybe you know her." she laughs again.

Putting two and two together, he realizes she's talking about sidewalk girl. He says "maybe." and hands Ms. Jolly a ten, then they thank each other before he heads home to rip the doll's head off.

He opens the door to his room happy that he's in the comfort of it. He greets Binx and places the larger doll on his desk. After turning his back to put gloves on, he begins the process of trying to remove its head, only stating "Two heads are better than one, right?"

After struggling to remove the doll's head, Jake brings out a scalpel, ready to slice it off. He is stopped when the doll begins talking, in its robotic animated voice.

"Jesus Christ, Jake, another frickin' doll?" His dad looks at the doll on the counter.

The doll repeats its name and one of the many catchphrases he has.

"It's voice-activated. Hey, I was thinking about using his head for the sculpture. What do you think?" Jake asks his dad.

"I don't know. I'm no art critic."

"Well, I'm not asking for a review, Dad. I just want to know your opinion."

"It's cool, Jake. Still think you're spending too much time on it. Wouldn't hurt you to get out of this room every once in a while. Maybe you could, uh, ask a girl to a movie. See a friend or something. Could even ask- what was her name again? Alice?"

"Alix doesn't live here anymore dad, and plus, I never really talked to her like that."

"She clearly liked you, I mean, she punched a girl in the face for you."

"Punch is an understatement. But she's gone. Dad, friends come and go in my experience. At least the work lasts forever."

"So does student debt. You know it's almost impossible to make a living as an artist?"

"Mom did," Jake mumbles.

"That wasn't a living. That was a lifestyle, and it certainly didn't pay the bills. I did." Jake walks past his dad and sits on a chair across the room, sighing heavily. His dad walks up to Jake. " You know you're looking more and more like her every day? Speaking of which, I looked into that art camp, and I don't think it's gonna work out."

Jake stops and looks up at his dad quickly. "Why not?"

"It's 1,000 bucks, Jake. I'm sorry. Maybe next year. Besides, you don't wanna be away from me for a whole month, do you?" His dad's voice was as monotone as ever. "You remember to take your pill today?"

"Not yet."

"Well, you should take it. you're gonna need it. We're at Defcon 1 tonight."

"Why?"

"Your cousin's coming over for dinner remember?" His dad starts walking out of the room.

"Oh, shit."

Alix

Alix arrives back home at a reasonable time, and she heads towards her room, throwing her tote bag and headphones on her bed, and searching around for a spot to put the doll. Not seeing any place to put it, she temporarily places the doll on her desk, facing the staircase.

she sits down at her desk spinning on the chair in front of the millions of monitors on her desk. Checking the time she decides to stream for a bit, wanting to let her viewers know why she was gone for so long.

She heads upstairs to get food before streaming and opens the fridge, looking for anything to eat. She looks up from the fridge and closes it. As she goes to open it again, hoping that something suddenly appears, a hand restricts her from opening it.

"Alix, we're gonna be eating as a family today, so no food yet." Her mom states.

"What's the occasion?" Alix asks, confused. "We never eat together."

"Your mother invited the Evans over since we all have some catching up to do." Her dad responds.

She shrugs her shoulders and says okay, failing to hide her excitement. She heads back to her room and jumps into her gaming chair, setting up stream.

Junior

a notification appears on Junior's screen, lighting up his phone. He looks over at the phone resting on his desk and picks it up, noticing its a text from Lexy

❤️Lexy❤️: which dress should I wear for the talent show?

❤️Lexy❤️: Attachment: 2 images

The notification that attracts his attention though is one he received before. He scrolls down and reads the previous notification.

0nyx_ went live!: I'm back!

click to view  2hr

Junior's eyes light up as he rushes towards his desk and places his headphones on, turning on the stream. When the stream opens he is met with Alix talking and answering dono questions while in a completely new place. Another donation hits the screen at the perfect time and the bot reads it out.

dono 12 'New streaming room? Is this why you were gone?'

Junior looks at the screen waiting for the girl to answer. "uhm yeah I recently moved, which is why I was on a little hiatus, and I just finished unpacking, thankfully, I got most of my furniture done a while ago, so I just had to fix it up. But yeah, this is my room, which is a lot bigger now and as you can see right behind me, I got all of my music shit sorted out, so I'll definitely be doing more with that." She moves out of the way so the viewers can get a good look at what's behind her. The musical instruments set out almost like a stage, which gets the viewers excited as they start spamming the chat. "Jesus fuck guys chill, you guys are feigning over the stage. Already 3 million of ya'll and I just started streaming a few hours ago. My shit gonna start lagging again if you guys keep spamming."  Junior chuckles slightly, continuing to watch the girl talk to her viewers.

"Junior let's go, your uncle and Jake are waiting for us." His mom yells from downstairs.

He sighs and looks at the computer before getting up towards the door. "I'm almost done, mom."

He heads back to the computer. "Oh yeah, I just got her today actually. A yard sale-" He turns the computer off walking out of the room.

8 pm

Alix

Alix ends the stream after another hour and sits on her bed waiting for time to pass. She walks upstairs at the perfect time and hears a knock at the door. She opens it and sees Mrs. Evans and Devon. She gives Mrs. Evans a hug and then rushes to tackle Devon, leading them to the kitchen while talking to Devon as if Alix never left.

"Gacy dressed up as a clown though," Alix argued.

"But Alcala was on a dating show in the midst of him murdering women," Devon argued.

"Alright alright, enough serial killer talks little detectives, dinners ready." Alix's father cut their discussion short.

Alix's mom brings out the food, a simple meal, her mom decides to not make anything too special. Devon's mom strikes up a conversation with Alix. "So Alix, I heard you're famous. An influencer now, like Devon. Making videos for people."

Alix and Devon cringed at the word influencer.

"What's wrong?" Alix's dad questions their antics.

Alix looked at Devon then back at the adults and responded. "It's just... The term 'influencer' is often associated with controversial people, me and Devon just make content for people. Dev with his podcast, and me with my streams and covers." Alix stated matter-of-factly.

"And plus, our content hasn't reached a big enough audience to even be considered 'influencers'" Devon backed the girl up. "Actually wait, well mine hasn't. L is about to hit 10 mill." Devon says reminding Alix.

"No way! L you didn't tell me." Her dad states proud of her.

"Yeah, well we can't be surprised. She doesn't tell us anything anymore." Her mom states bitterly.

"That's definitely famous." Devon's mom states.

"It still sounds so crazy to hear. It's been a dream of mine to grow popular."

"Yeah, it was your mothers too, like mother like daughter." Devon's mom reminds her.

"Well, L, why don't you take Devon to your room to hang out while we finish discussing my work schedule? Later we can discuss what you wanna
do for when you hit a million."

"Okay, Papi! Music?" Alix asks Devon, pointing a finger at him.

"Absolutely," Devon responds pointing his finger back at her.

1621 words:

Authors note: posting an edited chapter at twelve gotta mean something right? I fixed all the fuck ups (except for grammar as per usual) but atp you guys should know better than to expect a grammar-checked chapter for me. I also had to cut the ch down from before cause that shit was long as hell with it. I also may or may not have gotten tired but it's wtv, I'll add it to the next ch. Anyways, enjoy the edited version with Alix's bitter ass mom

-L