Young Writers Society

Elias clapped his hand once in delight. "Great!" he chirped, but then his smile faded when K—erm, Levi—said his name wasn't actually K.

"Why would you lie about that?" he asked, almost sounding offended. "I mean, I thought it was kinda cool that your name was a letter, but still."

Elias sounded offended; Levi tried not to get irritated by that. Most people didn't have to balance multiple identities. That seemed to be something held constant between the times and/or realities they were both from. Levi was an outlier. He always had been one.

And he always would be one.

"It's...complicated," he relented. "I have magic. Magic isn't something everyone has, so I don't want other people to know I have it. Changing my appearance and going by another name helps me hide having magic if I have to use it."

Elias hummed in thought. "Magic," he thought out loud. "That's what kids say when they can't explain powers."

He narrowed his eyes at Levi. He was being awfully suspicious. First he acted like an adult, now he had been calling his powers magic. And why hide it, anyways? ... Well, they did establish that he was in the past, somehow. Did that mean he was waaaay in the past? Before powers? But then, hmm... magic? This hurt his brain.

He did remember one thing, though.

"You teleported," he commented. "Is that your magic?"

Because if so, that would make sense. Elias was no genius, but he was pretty sure teleportation was impossible... maybe. At least, he never met anyone who could do that. Seems like it'd break the laws of nature or something.

Magic is also what people call actual magic, Levi wanted to retort, but the urge to make the retort disappeared when Elias asked him what his magic was.

He couldn't help but let a tiny sigh out.

Elias had no way of knowing how complicated that question was. It was a question he hadn't had to answer for a long time, but the question hadn't become any easier to reply to since then. People on Earth weren't supposed to have magic; any kind of magic was going to raise eyebrows.

But his true magic - not a shared kind of magic, but a much more unique kind of magic - was something that would make the gods even more wary of him if they were paying attention to Earth.

He couldn't allow that.

"That's my magic," he confirmed. It wasn't entirely a lie; it was his magic. It just wasn't all of it.

"Cooool," Elias said, trying to think this through. "Cool cool cool."

... How did that work? He wanted to know, but at the same time, he was positive that he would have no idea what he was talking about. Levi seemed smart and was probably super sciencey. Something something space-time physics mumbo jumbo.

Elias looked around, not sure where they were, but Levi had mentioned that he would let him follow him to his home.

"Soooo," he said with the beginnings of a grin. "Can we teleport outta here?"

"We technically could," he said. Teleporting didn't have all that many limits. Add in how close by his house was, and he probably could make the trip without breaking a sweat - even with the addition of another person. "But we're close enough to my house that we can just walk, so we're going to do that instead."

If he squinted, he could just barely make out his house down at the very end of the street. The house only had a little bit of a yard in the front, but it looked like a park compared to the condos and apartment buildings near them right now.

"That's it," he said. "If anyone asks when we get there, you're my friend from school and ran into me at the mall. You're staying with me because your parents are away on vacation and couldn't find anyone else for you to stay with."

Elias eyed the house at the end of the street. It was bigger and fancier than anything he had ever seen, but as he began to walk towards it, the main subject that took up residency of his brain was what Levi said afterwards.

"Cool, a fake story! I can jive with that," he said, following along. "So, we're friends from school. What year are we in? How long have we known each other? Oh, what are my parents like? Where'd they go to vacation?"

Levi started walking towards the house.

It might have been a good idea to wait until this conversation was over to start moving, but he was worried that they would take too long out on the street. The longer he wasn't home, the more demanding Juniper would be for an explanation on why he hadn't come home at his usual time.

"We're fifteen and sophomores," he explained. Out of habit, he glanced at the building that they passed to make sure no one was lurking in the shadows of their towering walls. "We've known each other since your family moved here last year, but we haven't really talked until the past few weeks. Your parents are..."

He faltered for a moment. He almost said they were normal and left it at that, but Levi knew more than everyone that definitions of normal parenting could vary depending on the place.

He tore his gaze away from the buildings and glanced over at Elias.

"...normal. They work hard and are barely at home. They decided to go on a vacation to Florida get a much-needed break from their jobs, but couldn't take you along because you had school."

This was so exciting. Elias sometimes pretended to live a fake glamorous life in his head, but this felt real, and the story was coming from Levi instead.

"Normal parents, huh?" he mused out loud in thought as he followed along. "So what's that like? And where's Florida? What's it like there? What are their jobs? Oh, can we say they're doctors?"

Doctors was an oddly specific choice, but Levi didn't see any problem with it. The profession did seem to be a busy one no matter where he was.

"Florida is down south," he said. The two of them were getting closer to the house. He could make out Juniper's outline behind the thin curtain covering the front window. He wondered how long she had been standing there. He gave a tiny smile without even thinking of it. She said she didn't care about what he was doing anymore now that she was a high school student, too, but she was so easy to read.

"It's hotter there," he said. He turned down the driveway, mind briefly thinking about what Elias had said about normal parents. It made Levi feel a pain in his chest that he hadn't expected. "It has interesting plants and animals, too."

They were finally at the door.

He glanced back at Elias, gave him a look that hopefully said to follow his lead, and opened the front door.

Juniper was standing near the hallway now. She looking at her phone like she hadn't been waiting for him to walk inside. It was only when she heard Elias enter the house that she finally looked up. Levi and Juniper had an uncanny family resemblance - they had the same bright green eyes and same complexion. Save for Juniper's obvious preference for t-shirts and jeans, the only difference between the two of them was her long, auburn hair that she currently had thrown up in a ponytail.

"So you do have a friend," Juniper commented.

Levi gave her a look. "You say that like you don't believe me."

"In my defense," Juniper said, crossing her arms and grinning, "I've never seen you bring a friend home before."

He got a mischievous glint to his eyes.

"That's because I don't want them to meet you," Levi teased her.

"Hey-" Juniper started to say, but Levi had already grabbed Elias by the wrist and was starting to lead him down towards his room.

Elias listened intently as they approached the house, and he simply gave who he could assume to be Levi's sister a grin and a wave. She looked just like him, but a little younger. It made Elias a little envious since he wished he had a little sister, but he loved his older sister just the same and wouldn't trade her for the world.

"Hi, I'm—" he began, but then got cut off as Levi started to drag him across the big house.

"Oh, uh," he said instead as he stumbled on his feet. Levi led him to his room and cut him off from all communication from his sister. He looked at him with a weak laugh.

"She seemed nice."

Levi rested his hand on the doorknob.

"She is," he agreed. Despite all the teasing they directed at each other, Juniper really was special. She was the one who had gotten him to start trusting people again - even though she didn't know.

He could just barely see her around the corner now, watching the two of them as they entered his room.

...Maybe he couldn't entirely trust her, but it was better than complete paranoia.

Their eyes met for the briefest of seconds. She stuck out her tongue at him before walking off into the kitchen; he returned the favor without thinking right before she turned her back to him. It was only after she was gone that he realized Elias would have seen the whole thing.

Blushing in embarrassment, Levi hurriedly slipped into his room.

His room, by all accounts, was a mess. Minecraft posters depicting the End - some fanart, some official art - lined his walls. His bed was covered with plush toys. Most of them were endermen, but a few other mobs were scattered throughout them all. The rest of his room hinted at Minecraft in random ways: a tiny flower pot with a red flower like the classic Minecraft one, a papier-mâché enderdragon egg, and a little enderdragon figure he had gotten from Etsy.

"Hey!" Elias exclaimed as he pointed at myriad of art along his wall. "That's the plushie I stole!"

Sitting down in the black chair he had in front of his desk, Levi spun around to face Elias again. His gaze followed Elias's finger to the poster. That was one of his older ones - back from when he first discovered Minecraft. It was a bittersweet memory when he thought back on it now; he should have been so much farther by this point in time. His younger self would be disappointed with his lack of progress.

"It is," he confirmed. "That's an enderman. They live in a place called the End."

Elias blinked, waiting for Levi to finish his sentence. He didn't.

"The end... of what?" he asked.

These creatures were creepy looking, so he'd like to avoid them at all costs.