Young Writers Society

Olivia Brown

I stayed near the back as we walked. Something was wrong. Something felt missing. We should go back to that old clearing. My feet weren't tingling to go forward at all. By the time they finally stopped I knew that we should go back. Or maybe not back, just in that general direction.

I noticed a red bike seconds before the Eva girl walked over to it. I just watched as everyone crowded around it pulling the weeds out. Moments later they had gotten it free. Eva hopped on it exclaiming,

"It works!" No one seemed to like it as much as Eva though. Micah turned to the rest of us.

"Well now we're here, what are we going to do?" When no one else spoke up he continued. "Maybe we should make a camp for the night. Nothing spectacular, but it still looks as though it is going to rain. In fact," he looked up, "It has already started to sprinkle." As he said it I felt a drop on my hand then another on my forehead. Goosebumps ran up my arms. The temperature was dropping quickly.

"How about we all spread out and look for a good place to make camp." Everyone nodded in agreement.

"We'll just yell if we find a place." Lolli stated then spun on her heel. Within a few minutes everyone had dispersed except for me. Eva had dropped the red bike in the clearing. I absent mildly wondered if it would rust left out in the rain. Finally I walked into the forest feeling very wet and cold. I watched my feet so I wouldn't trip on any of the tree roots. This probably wasn't the best way to find anything, but I didn't want to get muddy.

That is why I ran into something. The something was soft and warm and I let out a yelp as I looked up and saw a girl. I stumbled backwards.

"Hello." She said. She didn't seem unfriendly though I instantly got the impression that she was stuck up from her name-brand clothes and perfect manicured nails. But as I noticed that she smelled good I also got a wave of emotion. I realized that she just wanted to be loved. She felt lonely and betrayed by everyone. Her controlling parents and nanny. She also wished she didn't have money.

This was a lot take in with one breath. It took me a few minutes to recover. She stood there staring. She seemed unsure of what to say. Finally I started,

"Hey, my names Olivia, but you can call me tweet."

"Hello," she said again, but this time her voice was fake with pointlessness. She extended her hand as she introduced herself,

"My name is Avril Calliope. It's a pleasure to meet you." I stared at her hand until she lowered it.

"You may know my parents they own a corporation that-"

"Wait," I interrupted, "Do you have a ring?" She paused, obviously startled.

"Yes.. yes, I do have a ring." She extended her other hand. I leaned forward and saw a small silver bird on her finger. It was truly beautiful. Much better than the gangly one I had found hours ago. For a moment I wondered if the rings all of us had found represented our personalities. I hoped not. "Why do you ask?"

"I found one this morning. All of did." She look confused at my words. "Yeah, there are more of us. We're looking for a spot to make a shelter for the night. Do you want to meet the rest?" I hadn't spoken so much for some time and somehow my mouth felt tired with the effort. Just then I heard a yell from behind me. It sounded like Austin had found us a spot.

Avril Calliope

I was sitting in my room, surrounded by large charcoal sketches I'd done, scrutinizing them, looking for patterns, preparing to hem them into a book, when I saw it; a small glint under my bed. There must be a mistake - of course nothing was under there. My room was immaculate; I didn't keep anything under there, and there wasn't dust or dirt, no loose pencils, no tossed-aside clothes, and when I'd checked this morning all of my earrings had matches; I felt my ears to make sure both of the pair I was wearing were still there, which they were. So what was the glint?

Curious, but a bit on edge for whatever reason, I reached under and felt something cool, metal. I pulled my hand back and opened my hand; sitting on my palm was a small silver ring with a tiny bird on it. My mind screamed at me not to, to throw the foreign ring away, but I slid it onto my middle finger on my left hand; it fit perfectly. When it was in place, something in my mind clicked and I realized how stupid I was being, that I should take the ring off, which I did - or tried to do. It wouldn't come off. Why wouldn't it come off?

Almost immediately, I stood up and walked out to the balcony outside my room. Perfectly normal, but utterly not - I hadn't meant to go outside. I had no idea why I was. I was going insane.

My hands and feet itched, and I swung out past the rails and took hold of the climbing trellis, and descended it. My head was filled with a buzzing siren, a blurry foghorn; what was I doing? I wanted to call out for Ellie, my nanny, who was in the kitchen preparing dinner, completely unaware of my actions; oblivious to any need to check on me. After all, she's taken care of me for eighteen years and never such an incident has occurred, not in the last eight years. And anyway, there was a security system that was supposed to be alarming her of my escape (though they told me it was to keep away thieves, why couldn't it serve a dual purpose?). But the house was silent. This was wrong, so wrong.

And yet, invigorating.

I'd never left the house by myself - not without being soon followed by Ellie. I'd never left out my balcony, never touched down and walked into the woods unaccompanied as I was now. I'd never walked for what had to be at least a mile or two, maybe more, without once looking back, without feeling eyes always on me, feet braced to catch me. For a while, I was elated at my ironic freedom - the freedom to leave alone, yet without the choice to keep going.

But the whole time my mind wept - was done screaming and had given in, so afraid, so lost of control. When I stopped, if I ever did, how would I get back? I couldn't possibly survive if I went too far - I had no training in the woods at all, no courses, no summer camping trips - and the only thing on me was my purse, and only because it was a shoulder bag, strapped across my chest and back, swinging at my side. This meant I had my cell phone, sure, but who knew if I could find service out here. The plan was to never get out of range. The planned was extremely flawed.

Eventually, I came to a clearing that had to have contained people not long ago, even I could tell that; there were a couple lit cigarettes on the ground, and the grass was long, holding recent footprints. Footprints that led back out into the woods. Half of me wanted to stop, knew I was where I was supposed to me; the other half knew that too, but also knew that I had to keep going, that the reason for being here had moved itself. So I kept walking.

Finally, I heard people, saw bits of clothes through the thick trees and underbrush. One girl, specifically, was closest - a girl with red hair who was thin, not too thin, but sickly in her slenderness like if she kept going a few more months, her eyes would darken and her hair would fall limp - more limp than it already was. I walked up to her, and finally my feet stopped. But what was I supposed to say?

"Hello." The word sounded lifeless. My tongue twitched with more words, many more, but when it came to actually forming them, it didn't comprehend my commands.

We stood in silence for a few awkward moments, and finally she spoke: "Hey, my name's Olivia, but you can call me Tweet."

"Hello," I repeated. Eloquent. I extended my hand. "My name is Avril Calliope. It's a pleasure to meet you." Olivia stared at my hand blankly until I dropped it. My heart sunk. Obviously you didn't do that with average people. After twelve years of being the outcast, could I not even disguise myself as normal? I was at a loss for what else to say, so the words slipped from my mouth: ""You may know my parents. They own a corporation that -"

"Wait," Olivia said. "Do you have a ring?"

I sucked in air. Never mind bringing up my parents - something that never seemed to aid me before; she knew something about my ring. Or did she? She sounded uncertain. But the fact that she brought it up...

"Yes... Yes, I do have a ring." I showed it to her, and she looked at it enviably - a look I was used to, but hate. Though, it wasn't not so bad while not mixed with contempt and mocking... just a lot more pitiful. "Why do you ask?" If she knew why I came here against my own will...

"I found one this morning," she said. "All of us did." All of who? "Yeah, there are more of us. We're looking for a spot to make a shelter for the night. Do you want to meet the rest?"

Just then, somebody yelled behind us. What the...?

Sorry I'm late! And sorry I didn't actually further this any. I just kind of wanted to get caught up.

Lolli


I had had enough of trekking through the woods. I wasn't in the mood to play mummy to a group of teens, and my head was starting to hurt painfully. I wanted my Vicodin, badly. I hadn't had a pill since this morning, and I usually took one every hour. Or more, if possible. My hands trembled as I lifted another cigarette to my mouth, and I burnt my finger as I feebly tried to light it.

"Here!" Why were the voices getting hazy? I stumbled towards Austin's voice. Hopefully the bugger had done something right and found us a camp. I walked into a clearing. Everyone else was there, and Austin seemed to think it would be successful to rub two sticks together in an attempt to make fire. Some girl I hadn't seen before stood next to Tweet, radiating awkwardness.

"You're a bloody idiot." I said to Austin, not really meaning to yell at him. It came out a lot more violently than I had expected, and he made a pouty face. I held my lighter over a pile of tinder, but my finger kept slipping over it. I tried again. At first some people laughed, but soon they seemed to realise something was wrong. Rain began to come down heavily, and my vision was blurring. I felt someone take the lighter from me.

"Lolli? Lolli?" Voices were cutting through the haze that was taking over me, asking me what was wrong. I felt myself shaking. My cheek met dirt.

"P...pill." I mumbled.

"Is she in withdrawal or something?"

I was furious with myself. I never let anybody see me like this. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my Prozac. Sure, it was an anti-compulsive, but maybe it would help. Everything was blurry, but I saw someone start a fire. Someone else was touching me, scared. I lifted the pill to my mouth, miraculously making it there. I bit down; swallowed.

Some time passed, and everything came back into focus. The gang was huddled around a fire, using stray branches and leaves to make a sort of lean-to. Somebody was standing over me- the ginger boy. Micah?

"You okay?" he asked. "You scared everybody." I shot up.

"Oh, bloody ha. Ha. I'm just making fabulous first impressions today. Fabulous." I could feel the moods taking over. People by the fire were noticing I was up. "Simply fabulous."

"Lolli?" Someone asked. I marched over, my eyes clouding. I wasn't weak. They all probably thought I was a spineless, feeble girl. My mind was screaming at me, my hands shaking.

They can't think I'm bad. Lolli is a goodgirlgoodgirlgoodgirl SHUT UP andshecan proveeeee it. GET A GRIP, VERTIGO.goodgirlgoodgi-

I reached my hand into the fire, grabbed a burning stick, and held it.


(I am very overtired, and so, you have this. Figured some weird craziness could give this beginning a little life.)

Austin Maddox

That, my friends, was why I never took drugs. Even though she was up and everything now, Lolli-Dolly still looked as though she was on the verge of death. Kind of amusing really. Besides, I was basically a mentally retarded six year old anyway, so if I took something to make me for excitable... geez, I'd be licking rocks in no time. I watched Lolli-Dolly as she shot her hand forward, then grabbed a stick from the fire. What a fearless kid. I tried not to chuckle.

"Okay, so does anyone 'ave any food, particularly sausages? I do like my sausages." I burst into laughter, but everyone else just glanced at me awkwardly. They obviously didn't get the joke.

"Why would we carry sausages in our bags?" Cat muttered with her eyebrows raised.

"I dunno. Seriously, you'd be surprised at wha' I've seen girls carry in their handbags, or purses, or whatever you Americans call 'em. I've seen kettles, vegetables, hamsters... used tampons. She were a lesbian though, so it must be somethin' they do. You name it, I've seen it in a chick's bag." I paused, thoughtful. "Except for a severed body part. I ain't seen any of 'em, but some girls must carry 'em around. The insane ones anyway."

"No, Austin, none of us have any sausages," Lolli-Dolly snapped at me.

Touchy. I threw a stick into the fire before leaning back against a tree. The sun was creeping out of the sky now, and I could feel the temperature lowering. The forest would be dark soon. Why he hell had I come here? I was so bloody stupid. Yeah, find a ring and then bog off into the middle of nowhere, Austin, 'cause you love forests, don't you? You frickin' genius. Not to mention the fact that I may have actually gone insane considering I'd been speaking to someone that wasn't even there earlier.

With a sigh, I lifted my left hand up in front of my face and inspected the ring. Hm. Weird. The eye on it was green now. I could have sworn it was clear when I found it. It was probably one of those mood ring things--the ones that didn't work, may I add. Apparently, blue meant calm on the one I used to have, and considering it was blue when I was pissed out of my mind last month, I think its prediction was kind of off.

"Psst." A whisper. "Psst."

I glanced around at the others, but none of them appeared to be speaking. The new girl was staring at the fire like she was making love to it with her eyes, the gingers were picking at some sticks along with Cat, and the others were either sighing or they had pouts on their faces. When I looked to my far left, I cursed under my breath as I spotted the imaginary girl I'd been speaking to earlier sitting beside one of the trees. She was still wearing her mouldy curtains.

When she noticed that I'd seen her, the girl waved her hand as a signal for me to go over to her. I was about to turn to the others when the girl stopped me by shaking her head in a swift motion. She signalled for me to go over to her again. Yeah, because randomly standing up and skipping over to a blank space wouldn't have been suspicious at all. After making up some excuse about dropping my iPod somewhere, I stood up. I received a couple of grunts form the happy campers, but no one protested or anything, so I went ahead and wandered over towards the chick wearing the curtains. I followed her as she took me out of the others' sight.

"I need your help," she finally said.

"Look, if you want to do some weird inbreeding shit, or whatever you call it when dead people do touchy-feely stuff with not dead people, then I don't swing that way, sorry. Girls ain't my thing. Plus, you're, like, six and a half anyway."

"No." Her voice was flat. "Besides, I'm twelve actually, and I'm technically older than you considering I've been dead a good few years." She sighed. "My name's Samantha, and I've been in this forest for a pretty long time now... but I'm not alone. There's something, well, someone else here and I need your help to get rid of them."

"... Another dead chick? Are you some kind of cult or somethin'?"

"Seriously, Austin, if you don't do something, none of you guys are getting out of here." She nodded at my ring. As I brought my hand to my face, I noticed that the eye was now a blood red colour. "And you need to do something soon."

Short post, getting some actual action going. If you haven't discovered your power or a bit of it yet, this might be a fabulous time.


Lolli

Well, the searing pain from a burning stick had brought me to my senses. Now I was just in a terrible mood and had a very burnt hand. I was trying to devise a method to snort some meth without anybody noticing and, if possible, strangle that annoying little bitch Austin. I glanced over at him, running my finger over Click. I wouldn't kill him... just punch him a little bit. Just a little. Then, I noticed something was wrong. Instead of making clever remarks in the only accent I had ever heard that was as ridiculous as mine, he was staring straight off into the woods. His eyes gleamed a colour that I had never seen eyes before. I didn't like the bugger, but I certainly wouldn't like him any more if he was going into a coma and I had to drag him places.

"Oi. Austin." He turned, slowly, his face ghostly pale. Even for him, this was weird. "Uh... Austin? Mophead? Arseface? ... Mate?"

"You kids might wan' to take up y' battle stations." He said, his humour sounding forced. I was about to get up and shake him when the air turned freezing cold, and there was a rustling in the woods behind everyone.

Eva McCallins

I hadn't tried to comfort Austin. I hadn't gone anywhere when Austin demanded us to 'go to battle stations' or whatever. No. I wanted to get out of here.

"This is just a pile of crap, you know that? This is just some freaky dream." I said to them as they scrawled around, getting ready to attack an unseen enemy. I was leaning on a tree, watching them getting ready to fight. Lolli looked over at me, a bit delusional.

"You saw that bird land on you." She said.

"It's a dream." I hissed. Other people looked at me.

"I mean, face it people! As much as you want to be special and have powers, this is a load of shit I don't want to deal with! Seriously. Can anyone here say that they've ever seen anyone talk to dead, or have birds land on them, or anything? It's a dream!" I yelled.

People sorta stared at me.

"Do you think I want to talk to dead kids?" Austin hissed.

"Do you know how many times I've pinched myself to get out of this dream?" Demanded Cat.

"It's a load of S-H-I-T!" I screamed.

I whirled around to leave. And, in front of me, was a huge, FLOATING gun.

I gulped.

"Is that a... a dead person?" Lollipop asked.

Austin, sick to the core and a pure white, nodded.

I DONT WANT THIS TO DIE.

Wahhhhhhhh.... :'(

Three days is too many days!

I'm not exactly sure how to move on from this. How are we supposed to fight things we can't see..? maybe you could give us a bit of a storyline...?

I think I have a solution actually. I don't have my laptop right now (I'm using my phone), so I'll post in a few hours! Is that alright?

Herrreee's Skinsy! (and Austin, technically.)


Austin Maddox

Oh, crap-chicken. Crap, crap, crap-chicken. I had no idea what poultry had to do with anything, but it was pretty understandable that my mind was spewing a load of rubbish. There was another dead chick that resembled a drowned rat poking a gun at me along with the other guys, after all.

"It's not real!" Samantha's voice made me jump. "The gun! It's something she died with, from another dimension, so it won't have any effect on you."

"Wha' abou' the girl who looks like she's spent her life in a washin' machine? Tell me she ain't real either..."

All of a sudden, there was a loud bang that only I seemed to hear, and as I looked up, I saw that the girl had the gun pointed straight at me. Hang on, she'd shot it... Shit, Samantha was right. As the girl's face blazed with anger, I kind of figured that she was a bit more real than her little, toy gun. Unfortunately for us, it turned out she didn't like it when her gun failed to work.

"What the hell is going on?" Lolli-Dolly snapped, glaring at me as though this was all my fault.

I didn't get a chance to answer her because the dead girl suddenly lifted her head up. Her eyes darkened, and they shot towards Avril. In an instant, Avril fell to the ground and curled up into a ball as she started groaning and jerking. If she may not have been dying, it would have been so funny. The next thing I knew, Lolli-Dolly received the same fate. Oh, shit. I pulled something, anything out of my bag. Turns out it was a packet of raw bacon.

I turned to the aggressive washing machine girl. "Do you like bacon sandwiches? I've got bacon 'ere, if you want. It's raw, but it's great quality. It's outta date by six years though too... tha' would probably explain the mould and the fact tha' it looks like a decapitated brain, but honestly, it probably tastes gre--"

"For God's sake, Austin, it doesn't want bacon!" Twitter, Tweeter, Twit-twit, Olivia, or whatever her name was snatched the packet out of my hand. She paused. With the packet still in her hands, she stared in front of her. I turned around. She was staring straight at the dead girl. "Is that her...?" she asked me, although her eyes remained in the same spot.

"You can see her?" What the actual fu--language, Austin---fudgemuffin.

Before anything else could be said, the dead girl shot her gaze towards Micah, and he was soon suffering the pain along with the others. They were going down like fricking flies, just larger with less legs... and shitting less. Seriously, flies shit loads according to one of my mates.

"It's the bacon," Samantha quickly intervened.

"I told you she'd like the bacon!"

"No, you idiot!" Someone was on their spiritual period. "It's old, it's been with you for ages, it's got your scent, your DNA, your everything on it. It allows others to see us!"

Apparently, Olivia Tweet could see Samantha too, which supported Samantha's point even further. "That would make sense... Everyone grab something of Austin's!"

Those who weren't on the floor in excruciating pain ran towards me in a very disorderly manner, if I may add. "Whoa, hang on, maybe I don't want you all swarmin' my stuff," I said, grasping my bag tightly. "I've got some personal stuff in there, and besides, some of wha' I've got in here will scare the shit out of you. At least form an orderly queue 'cause this ain't very tidy, you kno--" Eva grabbed my bag off me. Well, that was uncalled for. "Or not..."

Half of the contents of my bag were splashed over the ground when they were done, and just my luck, the majority of them either took something personal or something essential like my mobile phone. That was soon out of my mind though as something far more overwhelming overtook my concentration. My head was absolutely killing me. It felt like there were millions of body-building midgets squeezing at my brain, trying to pop it. What the hell was happening?

I began blinking quickly as my vision blurred. Samantha was calling me, but I couldn't even try to respond. Members of the group were throwing various items of mine at the guys on the floor, which seemed to give them the ability to stand back up. That was the last thing I saw. Moments later, I felt myself falling until I hit the ground. Samantha called me again. Then someone else did. Then nothing.



It's a little rushed and long, but it should hopefully solve our dilemma. Everyone can see the dead people now, so you should be able to carry on so long as your character's holding something of Austin's. As for Austin himself, sharing his power instantly drains him, and because there are so many people sharing it, it's caused him to pass out.