Now, from what I just told you, you must be thinking that this is a messed up but cute story so far, right? Well, of course it is! I’m a Magical Girl, after all. Even if I have had many times to get my hands…dirty.

…

 

....

…Have you ever heard the expression “the calm before the storm”? This is what my story is. Still, you guys asked for the entire story, so don’t expect me to skip…

…Especially when things take a turn for the worst.

 

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. . . .​

 

 

I reached down and picked up the manual. Despite the manual looking like some deluxe magazine, it weighed much more than I expected. I soon found out the reason why.

I decided to sit on the grass and, since I was in the shade, safe from the sun and the public eye, I saw no reason not to start reading now. So, with a sigh, I opened the first page and instantly noticed a large space in the middle of the page with a white magical wand glittering despite having no light touching it. At the end of the short wand was a big golden star, though the star looked more like a pencil-drawn star since the star wasn’t filled.

I frowned and took the wand out of the small space it was in. Once in my hand, I realized how heavy this was. It felt like plastic, but I had a feeling it was so much stronger than any metal I know of. It also felt ridiculously nice to the touch. I had to wrestle my arm away when I realized I was rubbing the wand on my cheek. It truly was a magical wand to make me me lose control like that—there was no other reason that could explain what just happened.

I placed the…my wand on the grass beside me and prepared to flip a page…

…Then, I looked back at my wand.

After picking it up and putting it in my lap—yes, I was sitting criss-cross-applesauce style—I flipped to the next page, which, to my irritation, wasn’t too far back. That storage area for the—my wand didn’t take up a lot of room.

The page I’d turned to was white.

Just white. It had no words on it.

So, after realizing I was still at the beginning of the book, I flipped to the following pages. I nearly had to calm myself when I saw those pages were also white. I swear I don’t have that bad an anger problem. I was just mad about getting hit in the face by a heavy book. Anyone would get mad from that, right?

Well, anyway, I flipped to the next page and saw that it, too, was blank. I turned the next and then the next and then the…next.

At this point, I decided to start skimming through the pages of the book, trying to find any words. When I reached the last page, the very end, I stopped. All the pages were blank, not a trace of ink on them, except for the last one, which had the words in size-eleven Arial font:

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Every second, there is a sucker born.​

 

I closed the book, stood up, and tossed it into the sewage drain thingy that ran underneath the freeway like an outside tunnel with a shout of rage. When I finally calmed down, I noticed that I’d grabbed the—my wand, stopping it from falling on the ground when I stood up . I eyed the wand with a slightly stunned, slightly admired look.

“You’re a scary thing,” I told the wand before I focused back on the spot where I’d thrown the book.

Upon not seeing it right away, I searching for it more deeply, cursing the fact that even in a new body, it seemed most of my vision relied on movement.

“I’ll admit it, old man. You got me. You got me good,” I hissed while searching, admiring his craft.

What interrupted my searching was the feeling of two soft something wrapping around my left leg right above my ankle. I screamed—cough cough—shouted in surprise, and looked down, ready to punch whatever animal thought my leg was a snack. However, instead of an animal, I saw was a soft-looking plush rabbit with no eyes and a big puppet-like mouth full of large cute sharp teeth. Although it had no eyes, I could tell it was looking up at me, giving me a look of a lonely dog and a lonely little kid all mixed into one.

I never knew a heart could melt without, you know, actually melting before. Not saying my heart melted, mind you. No. I just happened to find the rabbit plush extremely cute for some reason.

So, with a sound unbefitting of me, I scooped up the plush into my arms and gave it a nice warm hug, rubbing my cheek against it. The only reason I did this was that I was caught unprepared, okay? N-Not like I’m ever like this.

Anyway, after two hou—twenty minutes of playing with the rabbit plush, we stopped playing, exhausted. It was a lot of exercise playing with that cute rabbit plush for twenty minutes, I tell you. Sometime, when we were playing, the rabbit plush had gotten me the book. It somehow had managed to not only find but get the book without me seeing it. That stealthy side of it only added to its cuteness.

Seeing as I had nothing in mind on what to do at the moment, the only thing I thought to do was to lay down again and reread the “Instruction Manual.” Maybe the man hadn’t left all but one page blank but had instead written in the book using some kind of secret ink. Though I had no means of telling if he did, I was getting somewhat desperate.

By some amazing stroke of luck—not, it was clearly magic—the first page I opened after the big storage hole thingy now had words written on it. The words were even helpful, surprisingly. It told me four important things: one was that, as a Magical Girl, I was naturally extremely tough. If I wasn't, the weight of my wand falling on top of my head from that height would’ve crushed my skull and killed me, sending my soul back to the man so he could then do some tweaks and actually make me a Magical Girl before sending me back. Luckily, I was a Magical Girl, so that didn't happen!

…

 

'I wonder if I can get away with kicking his balls?'

…Moving on. I also learned that my wand could extend at the press of a button below the star. The following paragraph said, “grapes ken,” while thinking of returning to normal, would change my outfit and my eyes and hide my wand from prying eyes.

The last thing I learned was the name of what I now know is a Mascot, and not a plush rabbit, the name being Dukha. Strange name, but I kinda liked it. The name had many meanings apparently, one being different from the more common one.(Whatever that is) Also, I learned that Dukha could hide themself, which meant they were visible to those they wanted to see them. Except for the man and me, though. The man made a point by bolding that part for some reason.

And that was it. There was nothing else on the other pages. No extra and probably more important instructions, no apology for trying to kill me...again, no monster hunting guide, and pretty much nothing about how to be a Magical Girl.

“So…want to get something to eat?” I asked Dukha, who cocked their head at me in response. 

 

If you couldn't tell, at this point I was pretty much done with the instruction manual bullshit.

Also, I know I probably got it wrong, but I say Dukha as Duke-hah, sounding like some kind of island chant. I’ve never been to an island like Cuba or Hawaii before, so I don’t know if I sound racist or stereotypical or not. I hope not.

Back to Dukha, I took the head tilt as a yes, I got up, ready to try saying the words to change from my Magical Girl outfit, which I never got a look at but knew it was white and yellow. Before I did say those magical words to make my outfit f, I realized something. Something pretty important that kinda made the world go round, no matter what people thought. You know the stuff, right? Yeah, I don't have any-

“Fuck, I don’t have any money. Dammit!”

And so, the first crisis of my new life wasn’t anything magical, but was the real world moving fast and kicking me in the ass.

​

 

. . . .​

 

 

“Jane! We got ourselves a new recruit!”

Jane jerked awake at her boss’s yelling. She was running the night shift today, but since she had to cram everything in last night for her test, sleep had finally gotten to her. It was lucky her boss yelled and didn’t walk into the dining area of the little ice cream shop they ran. If she did, she would catch Jane in the act.

Jane was also lucky that no customer had come into the shop too, since they might leave a bad review. But, since Jane was a light sleeper, she heard what her boss had just said.

'A new recruit? Who would want to work at an ice cream out in the middle of nowhere?' Jane thought as she stood up and walked into the staff area.

Jane made her way down the small hallway and into her boss’s office. Like the rest of the story, mainly the dining area, her boss’s office was orange and peach white. Waiting behind the clean, dark-oak des was her boss and a weird person.

Jane’s boss was the same as always: navy blue dress jacket, a white button shirt underneath, bushy yet neat short orange hair, a wrinkly yet strict face, and lips red with lipstick. Her entire attire screamed classic old business boss.

The girl beside her was way different. She looked young, but at the same time, one could tell she wasn’t a child despite being small like one. She was built like a model except for her assets, showing her young age.

If Jane had to guess, she thought the girl was eighteen years old with yellow eyes,bordering on being orange-yellow with some orange hints in her iris; a beautiful but strained smile, like she wasn’t used to smiling but it looked pretty nonetheless; long light-yellow hair tied into long twintails, the hair tie being golden-yellow stars; jean overalls, a yellow shirt with long sleeves with magenta stripes and jean shorts, and light blue and black sneakers with white highlights and colorful electric blue and hot pink socks with black stripes, like some eighties punk.

Like Jane first thought, this girl was weird. She looked better than any young model she’d seen like she was some anime or comic character, but was dressed between a country girl and a punk rock girl, and was a new recruit at some nowhere ice cream shop despite looking wealthy. How was any of that not weird?

"Jane, allow me to introduce the newest member," Jane's boss said, getting right to the point.

The girl stepped forward and bowed a little, her hand clutching her left arm folded behind her back.

“Greetings! My name is Gabriel.” The girl introduced herself, her voice cute yet formal.

'Never knew the name could belong to a female,' Jane thought before dismissing the name. A name is just a name, after all.

“You’re in charge of getting her situated. She’ll be staying with you in the front,” her boss explained curtly, leaving no room for argument. “When Makuza comes in for work tomorrow, I’ll inform her.”

With that said, her boss opened the doors to her office, a clear invitation for them to leave. The two needed no further prompt.

“I hope you two get along well!” Their boss yelled at them as they left. Jane didn’t bother to respond, but Gabriel turned around quickly and gave her two thumbs up.

“So, what made you want a job in a place like this?” Jane asked once they were behind the counter and out of earshot from her boss.

Gabriel tilted her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You look like some model, and this is an ice cream shop smack-dab in the middle of a freeway between two cities miles apart from any civilization. It’s a pitstop, in other words.”

Jane turned to face Gabriel, her arms crossed across her chest.

“So, tell me what a girl like you is doing out all the way here for a job.”

Gabriel was silent for a moment before she burst out giggling.

“Ah, well, I need money and a place where I can stay without a lot of people around. When I saw an oversized ice cream shop in the middle of nowhere, I jumped at the chance," Gabriel explained once she settled down. 

“Ran away from home?” Jane asked while pulling up a stool beside her own swivel chair so that Gabriel could sit.

Gabriel jumped swiftly onto the stool before answering.

 

“Something a little more complicated than that, but yeah. I guess you could say that.”

Jane frowned a little, though she said nothing on the matter.

“Well, if you like eight dollars per two hours, then you’re in the right place.” Jane said, turning and resting her head on the counter.

Gabriel narrowed her eyes slightly. “…Isn’t the minimum wage seven dollars and thirty cents or something an hour?”

“She makes it up by giving us ten dollars every hour on Friday," Jane said with a small shrug.

Gabriel decided to make no comment on the matter.

 

Jane, after a bit more lazing around, got up with a sigh.

“Now, let me explain how to use the ice cream machines.”​