SAMANTHA’s GAMBIT

By S.R. Weaver

ISSUE #1 The Broken Flute

PAGE ONE ( 5 Panels )

Panel 1. Packaged Ramen noodles is resting in the cabinet. The cabinet is as dark as a cave. A little bit of light shows through, hinting at a light in the kitchenette.

Caption: Ramen is on the shelf, it waits
To be slow cooked.

Caption: On the shelf, it waits
To be simmered in the pan,

Caption: Simmering in the pan.

Panel 2. It is a two bedroom apartment. The mother takes out the Ramen noodles from the shelf.

Panel 3. SAMANTHA and JKOVO are sitting at the dinner table. The mother is dolling out food. The father is reading the newspaper. The headline on the newspaper eludes to the Northern alliance winning territory over the Southern alliance.

SAMANTHA: Meatballs again mom?
MOM: As it always will be, as the war lasts.

Panel 4. Soldiers on the battle front are being dished Ramen noodles on the battle front. The military cafeteria’s only light is that of the bombs going off on the battle field.

Caption: The rations of the war lifts
Heavy young spirits.
On the hot pan it lifts,

Caption: And tosses and turns on eye,
Simmering on eye.

Panel 5. JKOVO is slinging his past in SAMANTHA’S direction. The father briskly restrains JKOVO’s arm.

JKOVO: Don’t play with your food Sammy.
SAMANTHA: How about not fling Spaghetti at me.
FATHER: If you keep slinging those, that’s all you’ll ever eat.

PAGE TWO ( 4 Panels )

Panel 1. The father and mother are arguing about whether to talk about the news at the dinner table. JKOVO has finally stopped slinging his Ramen noodles at Samantha.

FATHER: Did you hear about this one guy that--
MOTHER: Can it Harold, that will gross out Samantha. She barely eats now.
FARTHER: This is important news going on.
MOTHER: I would rather mow all the grass in the lawn.

Panel 2. SAMANTHA, JKOVO, and their parents pack their bags to move to the Northern Union in order to evade the electro-magnetic bombs being dropped. The bedroom is empty, with visual elements of JKOVO’s childhood memories having imprints that remain.

JKOVO: I don’t want to move.
SAMANTHA: We don’t have a choice bro.

Panel 3. All of them are riding down the road in a hurried motion, while flying wing jets are dropping bombs. Crowds of people are developing infections in the impact zone of the blasts.

SAMANTHA: All my childhood friends...
JKOVO: At least with have Ramen.

Panel 4. We cut to a snapshot of the interaction of them in a car. The interaction is slapped with a Ramen noodle brand promotion.

BANNER: Brought to you by Ramen Sensei.
BANNER: The best food rations you will ever eat in the apocalypse.

SAMANTHA and JKOVO: Shut up Ramen Sensei!

PAGE THREE ( 3 Panels )

Panel 1. FATHER is driving the car. MOTHER is reading the newspaper. The paper is slightly yellowed. JKOVO has ear buds plugged into his ears. SAMANTHA is trying to sleep, despite the buzzing in the window.

MOM: Sammy, are you still...
MOM: Having a hard time with Ruby at school?

Panel 2. MOM wakes up SAMANTHA abruptly.

SAMANTHA: Mio nio vichi yonei pierui.
MOM: I just don’t want you to have problems.
SAMANTHA: Everything will be fine!

Panel 3. The whole family parks in the parking lot of their new home. A more advanced version of a trailer park, while parked spaceships have landed on the transformed desert made to be more livable for humans.

FATHER: We’re home.
JKOVO: This is very different...
SAMANTHA: From what I’m used to.
MOTHER: We’ll get used to it.

PAGE FOUR ( 4 Panels )

Panel 1. Samantha gets out of her Japanese style futon, and rolls it up. The room is barely lit by the morning sunlight. An bedroom in a two bedroom motel, in the northern colonies of Earth II.

Caption: Samantha slept in late night,
She lacked goodnight.
Under all the starlight
To her there was no sleep
Under the lamplight.

Panel 3. She hurriedly boarded the flying wing school bus. The pilot was careful to avoid the bomb headed in the direction of the bus. The sky is a radioactive green color.

Caption: Morning wind soars
by the loose windows...
bomb overhead.

Panel 4. Samantha is hiding away from her school bully in, because Ruby had also immigrated from the Southern district of Earth II. The school walls were heavily cracked do to the powerful sound waves, and sometimes it was a struggle to maintain an electrical power supply for science experiments.

Caption: At school she waited in
school restroom, to
Scared to fly in class.
All the crowd staring at hair
she wore black.

PAGE FIVE ( 3 Panels )

Panel 1. Samantha is pushed to the floor from behind as she exited the restroom. Behind her is a red headed girl a head head taller.

SAMANTHA: I wasn’t expecting you in there.
RUBY: You never do. Catch you later.

CAPTION: Samantha wanted tardies
Over a paperwad
In the class, the class of Chad
Named Ruby two clogs
As mean as a starving hog
Oinking long.

Panel 2. The teacher after class scolds Samantha. The window in the class room, indicates that the two suns are about to go down in the radioactive green sky. The ground is shaking.

TEACHER: This is the second time you were late.
TEACHER: Is it Ruby again?

Panel 3. Samantha is hiding something behind her back.

TEACHER: Show me what you have.

Panel 4. Samantha shows her the letter Ruby wrote her.

TEACHER: Oh! I see! I will talk with her.

PAGE SIX ( 4 Panels )

Panel 1. At home Samantha’s dad is watching the evening news, while simultaneously reading the newspaper. The newspaper for local news, and the tele for colony wide news.

CAPTION: The South advances in heat,
North surrenders lab
monkeys. Military
run a muck is source of
contention from civilians.

Panel 2. Mom tries to get Samantha’s attention.

MOTHER: Lets talk about that...
SAMANTHA: Not right now mother.

Panel 3. A panel of the letter to Samantha hand written.

RUBY: Dear Samantha, by the time you get this letter,
RUBY: you only have twenty four hours till I'm going
RUBY: to kill you, say your prayers.

Panel 4. A picture of Ruby having a normal day after school.

CAPTION: Sincerely, Ruby.

SAMANTHA: But what the teacher didn’t know...
SAMANTHA: Was I forged the letter.
SAMANTHA: Anything to get her out of class.

PAGE SEVEN ( 1 Panel )

Splash page. Samantha is having a normal day in class. Ruby is missing.

SAMANTH ( thought balloon ): Hook, line, and sinker. Its gone perfectly, Rudy is going to be gone in no time.

PAGE EIGHT ( 2 Panels )

Panel 1. Dad is watching the morning news.

SAMANTHA: Why aren’t you driving us to school?
DAD: You didn’t feel the shaking honey?
DAD: We’re going to have to move again...

Panel 2. Dad points to Samantha’s bedroom to pack her bags. The ground is trembling again with the shake of soldier’s boot steps.

SAMANTHA ( Thought Balloon ): OMG, what did I do!
DAD: What’s wrong honey?
SAMANTHA: I wonder if Ruby died in the explosion.
DAD: Who knows, why do you care?

CAPTION: Samantha, shaken up from the last thing she did to Ruby, weighed heavily on her mind for the rest of the school year.

PAGE NINE

Splash panel. Samantha school is blown up. Her school teacher is reported to have died in the explosion on the morning news.

PAGE TEN ( 2 Panels )

Panel 1. Samantha is on her way to meet a new friend, Susie, who she had met when she moved neighborhoods yet again.

CAPTION: We got a new air conditioning unit issued to us.
CAPTION: But nothing cleans the stench of my misdeed from my memories.
CAPTION: I made a promise to myself...

SAMANTHA: I heard you play the flute Susie.
SUSIE: I used to, my orphanage parent snapped it.

Panel 2. The image of the broken whistle burned in Susie’s mind.

CAPTION: And like the whistle, life was broken in countless ways.

PAGE ELEVEN ( 5 Panels )

Panel 1. The road that led out of the gas station is abandoned, with all the cars that were once present in disrepair. The sky is a radioactive green, with parts of the dome that made the colonies live able for humans, slowly evaporating the artificial atmosphere. A tidally locked planet, this gas station existed between the two colonies on different sides of it.

Caption: Samantha slept in an old shop.
An old car station.
The floor cracked.

Panel 2. Samantha broke into the abandoned hotel that existed as part of the same building as the station, where old space truckers would ship logistics supplies from different parts of the colony. But now the tracks were naturalizing into broken parts on the landing site, which bled into her hotel room.

Panel 3. Samantha is dreaming about her team: herself, Rachel, and Susie as they created medical dispatcher division. Susie and Rachel carried the medication and the needles. Samantha gives them barking orders at attention.

Caption: The eternity of sleeping
In an old shop.

Panel 4. The busted window bled in a small amount of light from the station lamps, bleeding neon blue into the room.

Caption: The glass was broken in pieces, blowing in the cold wind.

Panel 5. Cold air breezes o\ver Samantha’s face. Her neck is slashed, from her attempting to slice her own throat. But all this does is effect her ability to speak, without opening her wound. The neck is wrapped with a cloth to stop the bleeding.

Caption: The nights were so cold, but the long nights even colder Where she slept.

Caption: Part Samantha. End