Young Writers Society

Oliver Applegate

Holy mackerel, I couldn't be bothered with a whack job 6-year-old right now, not that I liked mackerel, or cod, or salmon, or sea bass... or any other fish. Except for prawns. In garlic sauce. My God, I wanted some prawn skewers covered in garlic sauce right now. Prawns weren't really fish though, were they? I mean, they had legs and crap and fish weren't exactly known for their fifty-something legs. I was pretty sure prawns were a type of fish though but they looked more like bugs... water bugs but still b--

"Ollie?" I snapped my attention towards my flat's door. April was staring blankly at me. Was she still here?

"Look, sorry for getting cranky with you, but seriously, you need to bugger off. If anyone catches you here, they'll think I lick kids as a past time or something." I puased. "Hey, do you like prawns?"

April groaned--a rather manly one at that, which was slightly worrying--as she crossed her arms. Judging by the way her eyebrows were furrowed, she seemed to be deep in thought. Far deeper than I'd ever been, not that that was saying much. A dead sheep with a half eaten brain had a better attention spam than me. Suddenly, her face lit up and her deep eyes scanned me up and down while a smirk grew on her face. Now who's the pervert? She soon spoke.

"Close your eyes?"

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"Why?"

"If you close you're eyes, I'll get you free milk for the next week." Within seconds, my eyes were closed. "Thank you. Now think about when you first saw me."

"Why?"

April groaned. "Think back as though it's happening right now."

"Why?"

"Ollie! I'm going to freak out if you don't stop saying that."

"Wh--"

"Do what I say!"

I grinned so widely I was surprised the corners of my mouth didn't push my eyelids back open. That last one was just to annoy her. That was something I was good at: annoying people. It was fun. With a sigh, I traced my mind back to when I first saw her ginger hair blinding me. Ah, those were the days. I thought of how I'd humoured her for an impressively long time, how she'd planted her ass all over my counter, which admittedly, was probably dirtier than--

"Perfect! Now open them!"

My eyes shot open and I quite literally had a spasm of sorts as I realised I was back in the kitchen... and April was back on my counter... in the exact same position as before... Oh, this isn't natural. I glanced around as though that would help me realise what the hell was going on. My eyes froze when they reached the wooden clock on the wall opposite. Either I was as high as a kite, or it was ten minutes earlier than it was just then... I kind of hoped it was the first one.

"Time manipulation." April spoke, stealing my attention once again. "That's your power." Being crazy is yours. "You just reversed time."

For the first time since I'd met this chick, I actually had a think about what she'd been saying and what had just literally happened. My eyes were closed for a fair amount of time, but no way could that girl have dragged me into the kitchen and then changed the time on the clock within that short space of time. And that stuff she knew about me... When I glanced at my failure of a kitchen table and saw an almost full carton of milk rather than an empty one, I realised the truth. I'd finished that milk: that I was sure of. Bloody hell, this April chick wasn't lying, was she?

Cool. I think.

Alex Smith

I flipped through the pages of the Bible with great care. It brought back the times my mother read to me and my siblings every afternoon before dinner. Those days were blessed days when my father was alive and the family was whole. My stepfather hated me so much, he kept hurting my siblings and tried to destroy the Bible I had in my hands. I kept my faith and it brought me to heaven. "If you have faith, then you should really believe that I truly am your guardian angel. I'm not going to waste my time challenging you. I was sent by the Head Angel to bring you to Beijing so you and five others can keep the Gates of Hell closed." I looked at the owner's page. "My my my. You have such a biblical name. A name from the Book of Genesis, the first book in every Bible in the world. You share the name of a man of great faith, the man who built the ark in the time of the flood."
Noah raised his brow at me. "You know a lot about the Bible."
I set the Bible next to me. "I told you already. When I was alive, I lived by the Bible. I never lie to someone like you. As an angel, I cannot lie." I heard his uncle curse loudly. "That non-believer's worse than my stepfather. My stepfather cursed in front of me, my mother, and my younger siblings every day of the week even after I died." I played my violin as I ignored Noah's uncle.
Noah asked, "How did you learn to play the violin?"
I answered, "I've been playing it since I was young. My father taught me how to play the violin because he knew God gave me the talent of doing so. It made my father proud that I played like I've known it all my life. The violin I have now once belonged to my father." I played more hymns as I thought about my family. My father was a man of good faith and so was my mother, who both raised their children by the Bible and helped them prosper. My life was happy until my father died and my stepfather tried to break the seed of faith my father sowed within his children. As I played the hymns, I spread my wings with my eyes closed. "Do you believe me now?" I waited for Noah to answer.

Noah Jeans

I took my Bible in my hands and turned it over, my face occasionally breaking into an involuntary grimace as I nodded. "Yes. I do believe you. As for my Uncle, well, I see you're doing a pretty good job of ignoring him, so I suggest you just keep on doing that." I willed him not to curse again, thankful when he didn't as he slammed his way out of the house. I waited until I was sure he was gone, then said, "Now, tell me more about this mission or whatever." I sat the Bible in my lap and played with my fingers, fidgeting with my ring some more as I listened to him play his violin. It gave me a weird, airy feeling, sitting there and watching his fingers fly across the fingerboard as he drew the bow across the strings. It was a heavenly sound, I would give him that, and he had obvious amazing natural talent for it. I listened to him play some more as I waited patiently for him to speak on his own time. He could take all the time he wanted to. I wasn't one to rush, and I was willing to wait as long as I needed to for him to explain things more to me.

"You're a really good violin player." I told him. "Really good. Really." I mentally kicked myself as I repeated my own words, my hand spasming slightly and my face breaking into an automatic cringe. Stupid Tourette's. I hugged my knees to my chest as I watched him play, my hand still spasming occasionally. Most of the time living with Tourette's was easy, but it often outcasted me from my peers, such as the ones at St. James-the Academy for the Musically Gifted, even though I was nowhere near gifted with any instrument. I couldn't keep a single beat for the life of me. I would rather hide away in my room and paint all day, since painting and drawing was the only thing that managed to keep my attention and keep me still for a good amount of time-aka, more than two seconds.

"I already told you. We have to get to Beijing tomorrow with a couple others to close the gates of Hell." He said, pausing with his fingers still on the fingerboard.
"And we're supposed to do the last part, how?" I asked him, in a smart-aleck tone.
"You and the other five humans have powers, kid." He told me. I gaped at him.
"Me, have a power? No way. That's where I draw the line." I told him.
"It's true."
"Is not." I protested.
"I can prove it. Just a moment ago, your Uncle was yelling curses. You wanted him to stop, willed him to stop, and he did. You controlled his mind and made him do so."
My jaw dropped lower. "I...what..." I sighed in defeat. "Fine. I believe you." What other choice did I have? "That actually explains a lot, actually." Like why I once witnessed my father fall from the house roof, when I had wanted him to. I guess I had, "influenced" him.
Alex snapped his fingers, regaining my attention as my hands started fidgeting again. "If you believe me, then start packing. We have to be in Beijing by tomorrow."

A wicked grin grew on my face. I focused- a rare task for me- and set my thoughts on controlling Alex, trying to make him eat a nearby piece of paper. He was just about to grab it when his hand flicked my way, nearly knocking me off my feet.
"Nice try, Kid. Do that again, and next time I won't be so nice about it." He said coolly, beginning to play his violin again.

Mara Finch- Guardian Angel

Facts were a hard thing, something I'd never really been fond of. It was much easier to lie, to brush it off and not to let it bother you. That's what I'd always done- I was barely a young adult when I died, no matter what I pretended to be- and I could always get away with it. Looking at Calvin, breaking down because of the truth... I 'spose I realized just how much of a hard hitter it was.

"Holy mother of God," Calvin screeched, practically causing my heart to jump out of my chest, "This...this is really happening!"

In this case though...facts were going to save lives, butts, and probably the world.

"Yeah..." Dang, I hope I didn't cause him to go crazy. That would be extrememly bad. "Every single word I've told you, every single thing I've showed you- it's gonna become incredibly real in the next... oh, twenty-four hours or so." I struggled to say something clever. "Happy Doomsday?"

Calvin seemed able to manage a slight defective eye-roll that told me my efforts of normality were just the right amount of pointless. He covered his eyes with his hands. "Dang... Holy frickin' dang..."

I decided to let his be for a moment- I'd chosen the fast road, like always, and sometimes in took the car behind me a bit to get used to the route. I was- well, I used to be- rather used to it. I knew that comforting him probably wouldn't do much good- first reason being that I was awful at it, the second being that he hardly knew me. It was a good thing Calvin had gotten- or, rather, found out- about his powers. Technology- how suiting. It would come in handy when we needed some facts- not some angel mythology facts, but facts.

I looked around the room, listening to the increasingly steady breath of Calvin. I was glad Eva had told us about the human's powers beforehand. I would've hated to sound useless and freaked out when they came along. That would've deflected any good image Calvin had in his mind of me- which probably wasn't a very good one. I left kinda awkward first impressions. I was wondering absent mindedly how the other guardian angel's were doing with their quests when Calvin spoke up.

"What now?" He asked, looking at me.

"Are you...are you sure that you feel better?" I needed to hear it from him- in words. I did care about him, even if it didn't seem like it- he was my human. Calvin nodds. Guess that worked. "Well, I'm guessing we got through the process pretty fast- I should probably apologize for shoving it all down your throat, I'm kinda bad about that."

"It's okay."

"No, no it's really not..." I flick a strand of hair back from my face. " Scaring the crap out of you never is." I shrugged. "Anyways, we catch that ferry tommorow and catch up with the rest of- how'd you put it?- the 'super-human freaks'. Until then...well, we do a lot of Q&A and waiting around. You can ask me questions about your awesome techno powers- or we could go flying." I laughed, partly- mostly- joking. "I don't think we're gonna have a lot of fun throwing sushi at the devil."

Calvin Alder

Mara and I sat in solitude for an hour. I was glad that she didn't say much and just sat with me because I needed a moment to process the information and what I was going to do about all this. Everything she said was indeed true and it shook me to my very core. But, given the facts - I was special and apparently she needed me, 'they' needed 'us' - whoever the other kids were - to close the gates of Hell. I wasn't really a religious type of guy because things like that weren't logical and I didn't function without concrete evidence.

I sighed after a long while. "I have to do this?" I asked her.

She was toying with her hair before she looked up and blinked. "Yes."

"Me?" I pointed. "I can't back out?" I looked again at my study notes.

"Forget your tests, Calvin," Mara intervened. "You have more important matters to attend to and I hate rushing things but like, we're wasting time just sitting around here, ya' know?" She leaned forward again, making me uncomfortable. I literally had an angel in my dorm room and a girl at that, oh, let's not forget this chick had been with my entire life because she's a guardian angel as well. I wanted to stab myself right there. How many embarrassing and horrifying moments in my life did she know about? Uncultured thoughts began to pour into my head uninvited and I had to shut my eyes to force them away.

All in all though, all of that was real and she needed my help so it would be considered a sin to turn her down. Mara even had the ability to really exercise my power and show me exactly what the hell I could do with it. The only thing I had to do was put my life on the line. Oh, just when I thought my life was boring...

I aggravatingly ruffled my hair and hissed. After a second I stood up and put my hands in my pocket to keep myself from doing anything else with them. "Alright...if I'm going to help you, I need to put my entire effort into this and even though I'm still absolutely dumbfounded with all of this, I'll help out and put my best forward. I don't do things halfheartedly anyway." I pressed my lips together and showed a firm stance, squaring my shoulders. I was going to think of this like a final exam. I'd pass with an A plus.

Mara clapped her hands and jumped up with a wide grin. "Sweet! We're finally ready to rock n' roll?"

"Rock...and roll?"

She instantly frowned and gave a depressed look as if I had just killed all the fun but really, was this going to be fun or just painstaking difficult?

Mara sighed. "Just, come on!"

April Anne Zappa

I took a moment to look at my arm for my note on everything he should bring. It seemed to be way too long of a list. I didn't even know if I could get him to go yet, but he wasn't saying anything so I knew he must be at least thinking about what I said now.

"Blimey, she's an odd bird." he muttered to himself. I was unsure if I should once again ask him if he finally believed me now. Instead I just stood their stupidly while he seemed to process everything that had just happened. "So you're really not chuffing me?"

"No, do you really think I could fake you reversing time?"

"I suppose not, but let me just ask you this? If you're an angel when did you kick the bucket?"

"Well, I died when I was 12 the same year you were born. So I've been dead 18 years. The same year as the new millennium. I remember it like it was yesterday."

"How then?"

"I'm allergic to wasps and I got too many stings without seeing a doctor. It's a silly way to die; I know."

I know it is super short, but I just need to get back into the grove of posting, and I had a lot to read before I could post again.

Since we don't have a DT anymore (I think..), is this dead? :/

Calligraphy wrote:Since we don't have a DT anymore (I think..), is this dead? :/

We do, Call viewtopic.php?f=200&t=90057&start=120
And, I don't think it's dead. I just think that a few people should be reminded that it's still going..... Jas (my human partner) still hasn't even posted her first post

With YWS going through so many changes and being offline for a while, I think this has just been forgotten about. I probably should have thought to start this at a more sensible time, haha.

So what will you do?