It was about the sixtieth time she had heard Elvis's holiday hit "Blue Christmas" today, and at this point she was starting to relate to the song. "If I hear this song one more time, it's gonna be a blue Christmas because I'll let myself suffocate." She grumbled and thrust her head back into the pillow.

Her name was Jade Terasuku, and she was not suprised that this year's Christmas commute in the family Terasuku Trans-Cruiser was as dull as ever. She figured that after being in service for over 3 decades, they would have learned to give Trans-Cruiser transport modules more privacy and remove the stereo systems from individual rooms. Sure, she had only been around for nearly 2 of those decades with the Super Highway systems, but Poppa-Gramps would never shut up about them and now she knew more about the huge vehicles then she ever really wanted to. I mean, she didn't hate it, but still. Heck, in all honesty she liked mechanics somewhat, but only because of years upon years of having to share this same Trans-Cruiser with every possible member of her family resulted in Poppa-Gramp's yammerings being hammered into her skull. She didn't care if the Trans-Cruiser was the most effective way of conserving what little precious fuel was left on the planet, would it cripple the economy so badly to tweak the freaking vehicle so she didn't have to hear Elvis drone on forever and ever? Until they actually arrived at the Terasuku holiday home on America's East coast, all she ever wanted for Christmas would be to get the heck away from her family. This year was a first for her to also want to get away from Elvis as well.

Her complain-train of thought was suddenly derailed with the sound of someone repetively knocking on her door.

"Who is it?" She sighed, parting her head from the pillow just long enough to let that single sentence loose. Please don't let it be Uncle Vernim, if he offers me a full dollar to rub his sores like he did last year, I'm screwed. Oh God, I still can't unsee it...

"It's mom. What are you doing in there? We're all about to have dinner."

"Can't I just eat in here?"

"Of course not! Don't you want to catch up on things with Alice and her relatives? She just got back from college."

"Trust me, if I'm within what little visual range Uncle Vernim has, it ain't gonna be worth it."

"...Still scarred by the sore incident, Sweetie?"

" Aren't you?"

"No- we got it all cleaned up from the rugs after all, right? Besides, you did get that full dollar for doing so."

Jade did her best to imagine the whole Super Highway exploding beneath their wheels to keep out the images from the Sore Incident. It was reasons like Uncle Vernim that made her afraid of riding the Trans Cruiser, not those "Road Pirates" the Higway Patrol Force occasionally yanked out from beneath the roads during the holiday traffic season. It wasn't that she disliked her family, it was just that... She couldn't put her finger on it. They were just family, really. A really, really uncomfortable family, though. It was either Poppa-Gramp's endless blabbering about mechanics and engineering things designed for the Super Highways, Vernim and his ability to always scrounge together an impossibley gross job that came straight out of a B- comedy, or her parents whoms hearts were most definitley bigger then their brains. The first impression they would leave were usually more then enough to scare off every guy she had met for the past 8 years.

"Well, I'll just tell them all that you're feeling car sick, okay Sweetie? I really hope you change your mind, though. If your dad remembered to yank all the stuffing out of turkey before he cooked it this year, it's sure to be a feast- with less scorch marks!"

Jade mumbled and nodded to herself. "Okay mom, we'll see where it goes!" She could practically hear her mom smile from behind the door- she was so predictable that it freaked her out. "That's the Christmas spirit, dear!" Jade smiled through her teeth as though her mother could somehow see through that door. "I do my best to get more into it every year, mom. I'm happy to hear I'm doing well!" She heard her mom give a happy laugh in agreement. Once the sound of the laugh had safely floated away, her smile took a 180 flip into a puckered frown. "Bah-humbug."

Jade rolled over on her bed and gazed up at the ceiling and her well-placed poster of the star from Intensive Care VI. The shirtless man with the huge cleft chin was fending himself off from a group of asylum patient zombies with only a gattling gun, the beautiful girl he had rescued at the end of the third movie was hiding behind his legs. She sighed. "Man, what I wouldn't give to be in your shoes. Killing something would be a welcome escape from this real life horror movie." Without thinking, Jade tied up her long turqoise hair into twin ponytails and closed her yellow eyes. Quietly, she began to zone out, the rumbling of the massive Trans-Cruiser wheels and the sound of Elvis' Blue Christmas endlessly droning on in the background fading from existence.

The snow fell peacefully outside, seemingly immune to the chaotic holiday bustle within the rolling home. For the first time since they set off on the holiday exodus 2 days ago, everything seemed relaxing to Jade.

There are many one in a million chance things that could happen in that next moment. The bridge could have finally given in under years worth of pressure and collapsed, plunging them into the cold ocean below the Super Highway. A meteorite could have come burning through the thick clouds above and blown the Trans-Cruiser into as many fragments as there were snowflakes falling from the sky. The Loch Ness monster could have risen from the beneath the frozen ocean surface and devoured the vehicle like a pack of uletide sardines. Heck, if she was lucky enough Uncle Vernim might have suddenly aged 300 years in an instant and never ask her to rub his sores again. But nope, in that one moment, out of the billions of things that could have happened, it had to be that... Nothing.

Instead it was the next moment that the right side of the mass bridge happened to explode into huge chunks.

Ironically, it felt almost exactly how Jade had imagined it earlier when she was fighting off the haunting memories of Uncle Vernim.

Well, what do you guys think? Want part 2?