Young Writers Society

Tintern was usually quiet at 2 am in the morning, and tonight was no exception. Street lights flickered and hummed on Main Street, reflecting against the darkened windows of shops. Over the years modern chains had slipped in among the Tintern’s small-town eateries and stores, the new stepping into the old. On that corner was the coffeehouse Toasty Bean, nestling close to a Qdoba. Over there sat the faded, 50-year-old local hardware store, a block away from a 7-Eleven.
The two figures walking down Main stole glimpses into each shop they passed. They crammed their faces up to each window. Were those faces? The street lights fell against the two figures oddly, twisting the shape of their bodies. One stood tall and lanky, slouching to peep into the stores. It walked with a staggered gait, stepping heavily over the worn, cracked sidewalk. The other squatted low and wide, a small head perched on its beefy shoulders, yet it moved lightly across the ground, skittering paces ahead of its gangly companion. Its skin was blotchy, purple-and-yellow – or perhaps it only seemed that way in the light.
They spoke to each other, though they spoke with trills and chimes and a cadence that didn’t fit the flat rigidity of English.
“Keep up,” the squat one said. “You move slow.”
“I do not move slow,” the tall one responded. “You move too fast. I am carefully studying my surroundings, while you simply brush past them.”
“There is nothing to see right now,” the squat one said. “There is no light, no people, nothing…” It stopped moving, considering its next word. “Nothing productive.”
“Is your mind always on productivity, Qiejc?” the tall one said. The name sputtered through the air, sharp at both its beginning and end. “Now is as good a time as any to explore. I believe there is a saying… yes!: ‘Stop and smell the roses.’”
“Now is not a good time to explore,” the squat one said, a twist of impatience in its voice. “We have a job to do, and a place to be. And it is dark. So move faster.” After a moment, it added: “Please.”
Gradually, the tall one increased its pace until it stood next to its short companion. “How polite, using ‘please,’” it drawled. “Your English must be improving.”
“Quiet,” the squat figure clipped. Lithely it scuttled forward and the tall figure followed. Together they cast strange shadows on the sidewalk, the street light touching their mottled skin, their pointed faces and warped forms, before sliding off them entirely. In an instant the two figures were gone, leaving Main Street quiet and empty.
Well, not entirely empty. Through the window of a parked car, tucked just out of sight near the Toasty Bean, a person stared into the night. They’d been asleep until two voices walked past, accompanying the sound of uneven footsteps. There’d been a feeling in their chest, in their lungs, that had made them look out the window just in time to see the figures pass, then vanish beneath the street lamps. The person blinked; maybe they didn’t know what they saw. Maybe they hadn’t seen anything at all.
Still, the feeling lingered… but it had been a long night. The voices were probably just some lucid dream, a leftover hallucination from the party they’d been to. The person rolled over in their car seat, snuggling a beanie close to their chest. Soon the world melted away, just as the figures had beneath the streetlights.





The alarm screeched like a demented parrot, killing the silence that had so peacefully inhabited the dorm. Against their will, Robin opened their eyes a crack. Above them was the dorm’s cottage-cheese ceiling, painted a pasty gray, with a smiley face scrawled in a corner with permanent marker. Robin had put it there on their first day of college.
Robin closed their eyes.
Eight am classes suck.
Groaning, Robin rolled out of their bed, eyes still closed, and fell to the floor. The pink fluffy blanket they slept with followed them, flopping with a flumph over Robin’s head. It was so fluffy. So soft. So warm…
“Robin.” A gruff voice broke through the alarm’s assault, hoarse from sleep. “Get off the floor, man.”
“No.” Robin hugged the blanket tighter around them.
A pause. Then the blanket was ripped off of Robin’s head. Robin’s eyes shot open. Something faintly clicked and light flooded the dorm, streaming directly into Robin’s eyeballs.
“Aghhh, Jesus, turn that off,” they yelled, covering their eyes with their hands.
“C’mon, man. Wake up,” the voice said again, throwing the blanket back onto Robin’s bed. Blinking and squinting, Robin could make out the disheveled silhouette of their roommate shuffling across the room.
Robin shut their eyes again. “I hate you.”
“Well, there’s nothing I can do to change that.” The silhouette flashed Robin a sarcastic smile before ripping open zir closet, letting the doors bang against the wall.
“Jesus, Cat, people are still sleeping,” Robin said, pulling themself up from the floor.
“Whoops.” Their roommate ruffled through zir clothing for a moment before pulling out a long black skirt. Robin stalked towards their own closet and opened it, taking care to be as quiet as possible.
The mirror attached to the closet door was cracked. Right. Robin had forgotten about it. Sure, they could just “fix” it like they did yesterday, but a permanent solution would be better. Cracks didn’t go away when you pretended they didn’t exist.
As always, Robin scanned their current appearance, fixing any mistakes they could see. Their hair wasn’t reflecting the light properly, their eyes were a little too big, their chest needed adjusting… all of those errors in the illusion were addressed and corrected. Finally, Robin’s default body stood in the mirror, all the kinks ironed out. All the flaws were “fixed.” The illusion was set.
It was second nature for Robin now. Back when they were still learning how, creating the illusion of a normal body throughout the day had been exhausting. Now it was as easy as putting on a pair of clothes. Keeping the illusion was easy, too. No one looking at Robin would know that underneath their short, Asian, 18-year-old body there was something else entirely.
Creating illusions wasn’t something anyone else could do, as far as Robin knew. Their parents had known they were special, something… different. The illusions were just more proof. The ability to make people see what wasn’t there, to hear what wasn’t there… the ability to make themself and other things invisible… sometimes it made Robin feel like a superhero. Sometimes it did the opposite.
As Robin sorted through their wardrobe, they contemplated – as they often did – if they even needed to wear clothes at all. They could just waltz outside butt-naked, wearing nothing but the illusion of a T-shirt and pants, and no one would be the wiser. Not even Cat, who had an instinct for suspicious activity. Not even Cat could see through Robin’s illusions.
Which was a really, really good thing.
“You dressed yet?” Robin glanced over their shoulder to see Cat standing in the middle of the college dorm, fiddling with a necklace. Zir black skirt swished over zir Doc Martens, one with yellow shoelaces and the other with purple. Tucked into it was a shirt with a dripping smiley face. Zir purple-nailed fingers struggled to clasp a silver necklace around zir neck.