Young Writers Society

CHAPTER 1

“I'm open!” Yelled Terry Ritter, running away from Nicholas Stone. Connor Hale threw the ball, but Nick intercepted it and ran for a touch down, but was stopped when Ian Dover tackled him. All the boys on the red team cheered and ran in circles.

“It's not that much farther,” Muttered Paul Goodman, crouching beside Nick. “You can do it. So here's what will happen. I'll hike it to Nick, then Nick will lateral it to Terry, who will attempt to go in for a touchdown, but will really just lateral it again to Nick, who will score. Got it?” Both boys nodded. Paul smiled. “Let's go!” The boys yelled a war cry, and got into position.

Everything went as planned, Paul hiked it to Nick, and Nick lateraled it to Terry, but when Terry attempted to lateral it back, it was intercepted by Daniel Hitch, the biggest kid in their group. Daniel ran it back to the other side and scored a touchdown. He slammed the ball down on the ground, and ran in circles, cheering. “That's the game! That's the game!” All the red team boys cried. The blue team boys frowned.

“What was the score?” Nick asked, and Paul checked, but quickly responded, “You don't want to know.” Nick tried to push his way over Paul to see the notepad on which is was written, but Paul was much too big for Nick to handle. Nick huffed. “At least tell me how many touchdowns we got.” He said with his arms crossed. Paul made the number one with his hand.

“Maybe I don't want to know...” Nick muttered. The three boys from the red team came walking over, holding the football triumphantly. “We schooled you again!” Connor boasted, pointing a finger at them. They did a war whoop and ran around the blue team. Terry glared at them and waved his hand as if to say, Forget you. The blue team stop circling, and stared gloatingly at the blue team. “Okay, we're done.” Said Ian, smiling. They stood in silence for a second.

“Do you guys want to play Capture the Flag?” Paul asked. They all shrugged. Connor shook his head. “I'm all gamed out, sorry.” He went to go lay down on the couch. “If we're going to play, we need one more player,” Daniel said, coughing a little. They all knew who that extra player could be. “Levi! Levi Vasko! Do you want to play Capture the Flag!We need another player!” Paul yelled.

A loud “No!” came back. Paul frowned, but otherwise showed no care. “Well, we can't convince him now.” Paul said. “He must be on, like, 'Super Nova level ultra mega'” He mocked. Levi Vasko was a big video game person. He knew almost everything about every game. And so, therefore, on lock-ins such as the one they were having on that night, he would never play sports games.

Those were the seven Pre-Teen to teen boys in Mr. Goff's Home for Foster Boys. Ages 12-14, their names were-In age order- Paul Goodman, Connor Hale, Levi Vasko, Daniel Hitch, Terry Ritter, Ian Dover, and Nicholas Stone. They all had a close bond, and had all come to the foster home together, at the same time. The mysterious thing about all of them, is that none of them remembered anything before thirteen month ago. They had been found in a dumpster in an alley, sleeping.

They were then sent to Mr. Goff's Home for Foster Boys, and had lived there for over a year. The gang of boys had instantly taken to the mansion instantly, partly because it had a lobby big enough to play football in, and the entire house was great for hide and seek and capture the flag.

They stood in silence, as they thought of ideas. Nick snapped his fingers in excitement. Nick was the smallest and youngest member of the team. It was hard to play games such as football because of his size. He was by far the best football player, when playing against fair size differences. But four-foot-five isn't so great against kids like Daniel.

“How about we play Steal the Bacon?” Nick said. The other boys stared at him. He would get demolished in Steal the Bacon, unless he went against Daniel, because then Nick had a size advantage.

“Are you sure you want to play that?” Paul asked incredulously. Nick nodded and gave a thumbs up. Nick knew it was probably a stupid idea, but he went with it anyway, as he wanted to prove himself many times. Paul ordered them to line up, and he gave them their team and their number.

“Since Connor left, I'll be a ref, to even out the teams.” He pulled his whistle out from his left pocket, and blew on it hard. He waved his hands to let them know that they needed to get to their appropriate sides. They moved with such hustle, Paul thought that they we're going to march through the wall of the other side.

“The Bacon is my sock!” He cried loudly, and threw his left sock in the middle. He rushed back before calling the numbers.

“Number one!” He screamed, and Daniel and Ian raced towards each other. Ian grabbed the bacon, but Daniel caught up with him on his way back and tagged him. Paul waved his hand towards the left. “Point goes to Team one! Number two!” Nick and Terry charged, hitting each other in the middle like two rhinos in a fight. Nick was knocked backwards, but from the force, Terry kept going until he stopped, ten feet away.

Nick got up and stood over the bacon, waiting for Terry to get up. He jumped up in a flash, and dashed towards Nick, who ducked out of the way and sprinted back to base. Paul blew the whistle. “Two points Team one! Overall score, three to nothing! Number one-”

“Bathroom break!” Terry exclaimed, and waddled to the bathroom in the living room. Nick frowned. Paul tapped his toes on the ground. After waiting for what seemed forever, they heard the toilet flush. But they didn't hear the door open. They waited for another minute, and then decided silently to check it out.

The gaggle of boys marched to the bathroom, and passed Levi in the process. “Have you seen Terry?” Nick asked from the back. Levi shook his head, staring intently at the screen. It seemed dull to Nick, who preferred sports video games, to shoot aliens or zombies or whatever he was fighting. “What are those?” He asked.

“Zombie Aliens.”

Nick shook his head and caught up with the rest of the boys. They pounded on the door. “Terry! Come out! Stop reading your book!” They were yelling. After knocking and kicking came to nothing, they decided to manually unlock the door. Daniel took his pocketknife out, and placed it in the crack of the door. He jerked up, and the door flew open. The peered inside cautiously.

Terry wasn't there.

“Terry? Terry?” Nick called, cupping his hands over his mouth. “Where are you?” They turned to Levi. Paul silently walked up behind him, and the placed his hands on Levi's shoulders, and yelled “Boo!” Levi screamed and dropped the controller. Paul jumped to the console and pressed the “off” button. He triumphantly pumped his fist in the air.

“Hey...” Levi said. “You guys stink. I was just about to get this checkpoint, after a very hard level of excruciating and painful tortures.” Paul waved his said side to side, covering his ears.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, same excuse every time. Where's Terry? He went into the bathroom but didn't come out.” Levi furrowed his eyebrows and crossed his arms. “I already told Nick. I don't know. I thought Connor was in the bathroom, not Terry.”

Confusion hit all of them like a sledgehammer. There was nobody in the bathroom, but there were supposed to be two people. So how did they vanish? Dazed, all of the boys stumbled to the bathroom, and looked around. Nobody.

“Here,” Nick volunteered. “I'll go in and use the bathroom. I'll find out what happened to them.” He closed the door on them. After a second, the toilet flushed. Nobody came out. “Nick?” Paul asked, nervous. “Are you in there?” Silence. “Nick?”

They opened the door. Nobody was there. Daniel moaned. “Oh no,” Levi said, wringing his wrists. At that moment, Nick jumped out from behind the door, and said, “Roar!” They all screamed.

After they recovered, they seemed all relieved. “What happened?” Paul inquired, cocking his head. Nick shrugged. “Nothing. I walked over to the toilet, like this, flushed the toilet, like this, and then walk-” He was interrupted by a loud wailing sound. It was like a baby whale had gotten stabbed and cried out in pain.

They clapped their hands over their ears, and dropped to the ground. They winced, and the noise only got louder. Out of stupidity, Nick chanced a glance at the toilet, and saw that a tornado of water had risen out of it, and little tendrils were reaching out all over the room, as if it was trying to find something. He marveled at this giant funnel, swirling over his toilet.

One tendril made its way slowly to Daniel, and the moment it touched him, five other tendrils enveloped him in a watery bubble. He screamed as the bubble was lifted up, and pulled towards the tornado. He struggled and punched the bubble, but it seemed to have no effect. Terry was pulled inside the funnel, and then he vanished. While they stared in horror, other tendrils had already found Levi and Ian, and as they were getting dragged in, one discovered Nick.

He kicked and kicked, but he couldn't free himself of the bubble. It was like the outside of it was steel. He screamed, even though no one would hear. And gradually, he was pulled inside the tornado, and then he blacked out.

Nick woke slowly. His head hurt, his eyes burned, and his body was soaked. That was all he knew or cared about. He groggily rubbed his forehead to make the headache go away. It only made it worse. His breathing quickened, and the movement in his chest made it burn. He laid as still as possible, and even though half awake, he could make out two shadows standing over him. He opened his eyes gradually.

Terry and Connor were staring down at him. His ears were filled with water, and he heard a loud ringing noise, but he could understand what they were saying.

“He's gotten the worst of it.” Terry muttered.

“I don't know, Levi looks pretty bad too.” Connor replied.

“I find it stupid that someone would install a fire-blasting defense system here.”

“But where is here? We came here through a toilet! We could be anywhere!”

“I don't think so. We didn't black out like these guys did, so I think it's about the same time as we left.”

“As in... No time has passed?”

Terry nodded. “Exactly. Judging by the position of the sun, it's about eight in the morning. It was two o' clock AM when we left. I think we're in the Atlantic Ocean.”

“I remember hearing something about All drains lead to the ocean. That was a good movie.”

Terry sighed, and moved out of Nick's peripheral vision. Connor made funny faces at Nick. Nick might have laughed, except for that he was too much in pain. When Connor went of sight, Nick widened his eyes, and slowly looked around, not moving his head.

He was in some form of forest, but what he had thought were pine trees turned out to be palm trees, and the ground was riddled with roots. The sky was clear, although he could barely see it for the leaves of the trees above him. A crab scuttled over his waist, igniting the burning feeling. He grimaced but made no noise.

The warm breeze was tropical and soothing. He smelled it calmly, and it made him feel better. To take his mind off the pain on his skin, he played songs that he liked through his head, like Bob Marley and Bon Jovi. Most people though it was strange that his two favorite artists were Reggae and Rock, but he he didn't care. His best friend Paul had the same favorites, but for different reasons. He was darker than the rest of the boys, so he imagined one of his parents had been Jamaican, while the other American. So he picked Reggae and Rock as his favorite music.

As he played the music, his eyes drooped, and he fell into sleep.