Young Writers Society

Rya

He made it mad, we were going to die. I was sure of it. Not a doubt in my mind. I had started hyperventilating, my fingers dug into his shirt. I could feel my nails pull at his skin through the material and he cringed. He moved and for a moment I thought he was trying to shift away from me.

"D-Don't move! Please! I don't want to fall." I stuttered.

He was trying to find someone who could shoot the darn thing. I knew I couldn't. Even if I wasn't on the brink of insanity I probably couldn't. I was better at building the weapons then using them.

"Calm down." he snapped. I could hear the pressure in his voice.

So I wasn't being ridiculous for being so afraid. Everyone was afraid. I didn't know who took the gun from him... but there was a sharp screech and a flop. I peeled my tear stained face from his soaked shirt and looked down at the dead beast. I sniffled and loosened my grip.

"I-is it safe to go down?" I asked quietly, unsure if he had heard me or not.

Kendra

She had just hurled the piece of bark when she suddenly remembered the gun she had holstered to her belt. Quickly bringing it out, Kendra started to shoot at the beasts, her hands shaking as she did so. The first one hit a beast point blank in the head - it suddenly stopped barking, with a loud drawn out screech that almost frightened her.

Someone climbed up on the branch behind her, and for one precarious moment, Kendra thought her branch would break and fall with her on it. But it didn't, and she climbed up even further onto a branch that looked sturdier. Cocking her gun at the beasts, she stabilized her shaking hands and started shooting, as if nothing else mattered.

Cat:
Damn. She was going to have to save their asses. A few had managed to kill some with guns they carried, but that was the easy way out. Shaking her head, she crawled to the edge of the branch, still hidden by the foilage. The beast had started backing off slowly, moving into teh shelter of the trees. Ha! There was no shelter, so they were probably setting up an ambush. Not in my presence buddy. she thought, dropping a few feet to teh next branch and swinging slwoly from branch to branch till she hit the ground. Snatching her Garantua dagger out of its place, she hissed and slid it back into place. This was going to take a bit more.

Sighing, she crossed her arms behind her and drew out her swords. They werent that long, but there double edges and curved blades made them deadly...to anyone. She had lifted them off of a guy when he had been takin down and had destroyed the beast who did it. That same guy had happened to be Jess's best friend. Jess went crazy afterwards, killin gevery beast in sight. He refused to talk about it afterwards. Gripping the handles, she slid through teh shadows, casting her eyes about searching for the kids. They were scattered about, most in the trees.

Slowly, she made her way behind the creatures, the blades criss-crossed behind her. There were three left, one alpha and two females. Contrary to believe, the females were more visious than the males, so she crawled up behind the biggest female. Her long hair was secured tightly to her head, its length wrapped around it, making her look like a guy. Her breats and slim figure outlined by the leather she wore revealed that she was a girl. It was pretty quiet, so she quickly looked for the spots she would hit on each beast, marking their deaths. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

One...two...three...Cat opened her eyes and let out a loud scream, sounding like a female panther and ran towards the female, jumping on its back and slicing its throat before it had a chance.

The other female jerked around, its yellow eyes glowing bright. It opened its mouth, revealing three rows of poisonous teeth. One of her old mates had seen the endd of those and had died three days later in excruciating pain. Snarling, Cat jumped of the dead Khayerp's back. Gripping both handles in one hand, she slid a dagger from her side, spinning in a circle and launching it at the unsupsecting male, hitting in dead in between the eyes. It dropped to the ground, orange blood soaking into the ground.

Circling back around, she circled with the other, smaller female. Its blue fur stood on in, giving it a cat like appearance. Cat laughed, making the creature hiss. She watched it foot work and noticed it was bleeding from a wound in its legs. Gunshot most likely. Cat hated guns and refused to use them. They were weak and they were the sissy way out. Cat like the gore of a one on one battle.

The female had already taken one step and thats all Cat needed. Faking an injury, she dropped to the ground, rolling and landing on her side, slipping another dagger out and dropped her blades. The creature jumped, its jaws wide as it snapped at her. Taking no hesitation, Cat rolled over a moment before it reached her, slicing its throat open and recieved the blessing of being showered with the orange blood. Rolling over onto her hands and knees, Cat stood and calmly walked to the dead male and snatched her dagger out, wipping the blood on her leather pants. Turning, she searched the trees. She heard the rumbling before she felt the impact. A Psaritcal , a winged manlike bird, landed on her shoulder, its wicked claws gripping her shoulder.

Crying out, she dropped to her knees, trying to shake the creature off. She heard a shot ring out a moment before she collapsed, falling into the blackness. Psarticals claws were laced with poison, not deadly to human, but they could knock them out for a bit. Just long enough to devour them. Herlast thought before she sunk into the haze was that the damn freshies were on their own now. God help them.

Alright, it was just the end of the trimester and I got nailed with tons of homework and projects so I couldn't post. Could someone bring me in?

*Singer, I'm not trying to be mean but that is a pain to read. Would you mind dividing up your paragraphs a bit more?*
Rya

I panted and gripped the branch. I wanted to go back to the domes. It was safe in the domes, but since there were no windows in the pod we didn't even know which direction home was.

"Pod destruction in T-minus one minute." warned the robotic voice.

The man who had let me grip onto him for support quickly hopped down and pulled the girl into the tree. I covered my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, though it was loud enough for me to to hear the distant countdown.

Five....

Four....

Three....

Two....

One....

A loud explosion shook the trees and rattled us right to the bone. I trembled and moved my hands from my ears to the tree trunk.

*HA Short post. Don't you feel ripped off? You better be happy, Bian.*

Apologies for being so freaking cliche! xDD
>>Clove<<

Lodged in a mass of thornbush and some unidentifiable alien plant, thick with vines, I continued my search for the rest of the group. I silently chided myself for having ever left in the first place. Even though I knew better than they did not mean I would be better off alone. A deafening boom came from the direction opposite from where I had been looking.

Lovely, smart one; you wasted all this time walking away from your target. Fuming at myself, I abruptly turned around, a few thorns tearing at the skin of my arms and cheeks. It's not fun to be searching the woods for nothing, especially with blood leaking from stinging cuts and no familiarity with the place. There was something cold and clammy that I could identify around my ankle. I thought it was probably mud.

By the time I managed to get out of the bush, my arms were nearly white with skinny lines of frayed skin. I took a step forward, promptly pulled back by the foot, landing face down in the dirt. My first instinct was to flip over so my back faced the ground and I faced my attacker; a vine.

Rather than beating myself up even more, I allowed myself to laugh this time. This place was getting to me. I leaned down and tugged gently to pry off the vine.

It held fast.

In fact, its coils tightened on my ankle. That was unexpected. Another vine coiled itself around my left arm, just as another took my right, and yet another took my left thigh. I screamed, at the top of my lungs, and luckily no other vine tried to wrap around my mouth. Plants have no ears.

Sadly, some are carnivorous.

Ben~


Ben wrapped his arms around the tree when the pod exploded sending debris into the air. A piece of pod slammed into the branch he was holding on to with such force it snapped the branch and he was sent careening towards the ground which was shrouded in the dust from the explosion.

The air was knocked out of him as he hit the ground and gasped for air only to be rewarded with thick smog that clogged his lungs. He coughed and spluttered as he sat up. Now that the dust was settling he could see around him. He jumped when he saw one of the beasts leering over him and scurried across the ground in a crab walk style. The beast did not pursue and now that he had time to process what he saw. The beast had not attacked because it was dead. Part of it was still on fire and it's body was contorted in a odd position.

Ben sighed with relief, and looked up into the tree he had fallen from. The girl he had climbed up with was still up there and safe. That was good he told himself. They were all safe for now he noted as the others came down from the trees to access the damage. The other creatures were dead too except for one that lay on its side in obvious pain as it growled. It tried to get to it's feet. It's leg appeared to be broken and could not get up. The girl that had been in the tree with him pulled out her gun and shot it in the head. "Stay," she said.

Ben felts slightly bad about the creatures death, but out here he did not have the option of being so emotional about animals. Back in the domes he had been a vegetarian due to his aversion to hurting animals.

"So is everyone okay?" Ben asked looking around at the group.

"No, I'm not. None of us are." Rya snapped.

Ben just smiled. "Well we are all alive so I say we're all good."

"Well, I'm not sure about her."

Ben looked over to see one of the boys holding the girl that had valiantly tried to save them.

"She must be a old Exile, although I doubt much older than us," said someone.

"Wait, is someone missing," Ben asked doing a quick head count.

> Ender <

I looked around the group, making my own little head count - yup, one missing. Oh, well. Whoever was missing was either too weak or too stupid to survive even ten minutes out here. But still, a person's a person. "Yeah, we're missing one," I said. "Should we split up and find him or her?"

More than a few faces looked at me as if I was crazy - why would we split up, with heaven-knows-what waiting just around the corner to munch on us? A couple did start wandering off in different directions, though. Slowly.

I walked away from the tree that had saved our lives and cut my way through the bushes. Somewhere, far away, a loud hiss-s-s-s sounded, followed by a boom. I didn't know what to think of this - maybe some survivors with explosives. I prayed that this was the answer.

"Hey!"

A voice called from just beyond a rough patch of brambles. I ran around it to find a girl - a pretty girl, I guess: you know, red head and those bright eyes - trapped by vines. At first I thought that it was comical, her being 'attacked' by plants. Then I noticed that the plants were cutting off her circulation. Whatever she had done, this plant was mad.

I pulled out one of the knives from the pod and started hacking away. As I cut away at the vines, more slithered across the ground and reached for the both of us. Slicing the vines that were now trying to strangle me, I pulled her to her feet and pushed us both away from the plant. We watched as it's tendrils felt around for it's prey, then slink away back into the bushes.

The girl got up and dusted herself off. "I could've gotten out of there," she said. "I just needed a knife, or something to beat it off..."

I laughed heartily. "Yes, and I suppose you were going to bake a cake while you were at it?"

"What does that mean?!" She scoffed. "I was PERFECTLY fine in there and- "

I cut her off. "Look, it doesn't matter. The point is, you're safe now. You're welcome." I started walking back in the direction of the pod. Soon, she was following me. A few quiet moments passed, then she mumbled "Thanks."

I didn't know what to think of her just yet.

>>Clove<<

"Thanks."

I had mumbled the word reluctantly under my breath, but a slight nod of acknowledgement and casual, "No problem," said that he heard me. There was nothing more I could say on the topic, as that would involve discussing my previous state of helplessness.

My arms and legs were red and sore from where the vines had held me. All I felt like doing was fidgeting behind him, tracing my fingers over the sore parts of my wrist and hand.

"What's your name?" I asked finally, unable to stand the silence.

"Ender, you?" Ender...that name was interesting, like some sort of space hero. Of course, that was silly.

"My name is Clove." And the rest of our walk continued in silence.

Zephyr

A voice called out to the group a few minutes after we'd all split up, the sound echoing through the trees. "I've found her!"

I looked around to follow the noise, watching as other people emerged from where they'd been searching, and pretty soon we were all congregated in the clearing once more. Another head count was quickly done, this time with an approving nod from the boy who seemed to be taking charge as leader. His name was ... Ben?

A silence settled, and a boy called Ender called out. "By the way guys, some of the plants in the forest seem pretty ... angry, so everyone keep an eye out for carnivorous brambles, okay?" An awkward ripple of laughter followed this, and an perturbed expression spread across Ben's face momentarily, only to be replaced by a more determined one.

"Right," he called out. "Who managed to get some supplies? Come to the front if you have any, otherwise, stay in the group and watch out for any more beasts or whatever."

Checking I still had my bag intact, I made my way to the front, showing my supplies of food and a blanket to the leader. He looked pleased for a moment, but my expression remained grim. "With this amount of people, this food would only last a day, maybe two. We need to go into the forest and find a steady supply." I hesitated for a second, my gaze flickering to the carcasses that scattered the clearing. "And as gross as it sounds, we're probably going to have to try and eat those things."

Ben~

He wanted no part in a leadership position, but at the moment he seemed to be the one with the most of his faculties still in tact so he went against his layer back nature and started to suggest things. He refused to think of it as giving orders and he said his requests with as muck kindness as he could muster.

"We will all stick together, but in the event that we get separated, I want everyone to have a partner. This person is to never leave your side. This of course is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree."

No one said anything. Ben decided to partner with the girl that had climbed the tree with him, and the boy that had found the missing girl partnered up. Ben looked around to see who the others would pick.

"By the way, my name is Ben," he said to the girl.

"Kendra," she said taking his outstretched hand.