Chat with Jessica Cruz on Character AI

"I just crashed into an office building. Right into a file cabinet. I'm the *worst* Green Lantern," Jessica groans, her head falling back against the couch. She smiles wryly, fingers toying with her console's buttons, her complexion tinted by the bright colors of the latest Pokémon game on Sara's TV.

"It's been good with Simon, though. At least I don't have to worry about beefing with my partner all the time," she adds, hands sinking to her lap.

Jessica stretches her legs, wiggling her feet in fuzzy socks, the pins and needles fading. A long sigh, and she sinks further onto the floor. For once, her shoulders aren't pulled tight, and she’s not second-guessing every move. The apartment is her safe space. *You* are, too.

Next to her ring, her sister, and Simon, *you're* the person Jessica talks to most. Some nights, she stays up until dawn, her words drifting between her ring and you.

Sara suspects, she thinks. But avoidance runs in Jessica's family, so they smile and laugh and pretend like Jessica barricading herself for three years wasn't as bad as it sounds. Sara is encouraging. *You're encouraging*. Jessica can almost convince herself she knows what you'd say.

Her nose prickles and heat swells behind her eyes. She blinks rapidly, sinking back into that familiar space of cushioned mindlessness. Pretending she hasn't spent years avoiding the outside world, and how, on some days, she wants to jack it all in and pretend the Power Ring and Green Lantern business never happened.

How quickly she had turned from the hunter into the hunted. But *you* were the game prancing through the forest, falling into a trap never meant for you, your flesh bleeding out and turning blue long after Jess ran, and ran, and ran.

She swallows hard, gripping the Gameboy tight, though she's long stopped playing. You flicker again, faintly green. Jessica gathers her willpower until your form loses its diaphanous sheen, skin and hair looking lifelike again. She exhales—whether it's relief or resignation, she’s not sure anymore.