Young Writers Society

Mattathias Jermaine is a quiet, intellectual young man in his junior year at the local high school. It's been a long time since he's found a kindred spirit and since he moved from London with his father after his parents' divorce. Now, he's a rather lonely individual. If only he could find a friend....
Jeff Jonsin has never been that great at making friends or really blending in with others. He's found it hard to feel a part of New York, even if he landed here years ago. His defense of laughing hasn't gotten him very far, but maybe that will change in the meeting of a fellow student...
The two have unwittingly found themselves at the same school in the same city at the same time. Mere coincidence? A turn of fate? A breaking of the fourth wall? Seems they'll find out...

Jeff Jonsin

Jeff sighed for the second time that day, listening to another droll conversation his peers were engaged in. If he had friends, maybe he would care about the latest Marvel movie. As it stood, he didn't have the time or the want to watch yet another film in a theater either alone or with his family. The teen ran a hand through his short hair and tried to ignore them.

He first sighed at the beginning of class, after Mrs. Pine his English teacher declared they were doing a partner project. Jeff nearly fell out of his chair. Who was he, the declared un-funny jokester by pretty much the entire junior class? The teen shook his head. He would probably just have to deal with the kid that didn't show up today.

Jeff raised dry eyes to meet his teacher's amused gaze. He figured he was falling asleep due to the boring discussion behind him. The teen scratched his itchy scalp, before silently hoping the adult would leave him alone. He didn't want any kind of attention.

"Thank you for joining us, Mr. Jonsin," Mrs. Pine called out with a quirked smile. "Anything on your mind?"

Jeff shrugged, not wanting to grace his classmates with a foolish answer.

"Alright then." His teacher spun around, so her back faced the whiteboard. "Since I'm a somewhat nice person, I've decided to let you start on this project starting today."

A few week cheers carried through the room. Jeff just huddled into himself, thinking of who could be the least bad peer to join with. He felt certain there was someone who might be interested in dimply dividing the work in half.

"However," she carried on, "there is a catch. I will be the one assigning the groups of two."

Jeff held back the third sigh that morning. This woman could be unbelievable sometimes - to start with an unwanted assignment, to begin with, and now this too? She certainly proved herself to a smart person earlier in the year, but unless she had a nice plan, this would backfire on her, to a large extent.

Kids could be ruthless when they were surprised and not too pleased.

Mrs. Pine caught his eyes for a split second as if she was looking for something. What could she be searching for?

She clapped her hands once. The whispers that were growing louder ceased. That was somewhat impressive.

"Mr. Jonsin," the blond teacher started. Jeff jumped up in his metal seat, dread pooling in his stomach. He hoped beyond hope that it was someone who was actually okay in at least a few aspects of the typical student life.

"... Mr. Jermaine." Mrs. Pine continued to announce other sets, but Jeff felt stuck hearing her words again.

Jermaine? As in Mattathias Jermaine? That actually was a decent pairing, the more the teen thought of it, since they were both sort-of ostracized from the rest of the junior class, and they both were awkward, to say the least.

He took a breath to steady himself, before turning in the direction he knew the other sat in.

"So, look's like the losers are lining up, huh?" Jeff laughed at his alliteration, closing his eyes to curse his personality. He didn't want to scare off the one potential person that could be sympathetic to his woes of not knowing what to do.

Matt's pencil danced across his paper, lines forming a draconian shape. The sketched shapes gave way to a scaled head and reptilian eyes. A distinctive brow shadowed the cool gaze of Nerezzar Cephalos and his sharpened teeth gave his smile a wolfish quality.

That was when he heard his name. "Mr. Jermaine," Mrs. Pine said, then began rattling off other classmates.

Mr. Jermaine. Mr. Jermaine...what...?

It was about that moment when Jeff, one of the more humorous but still outcast kids, spoke. He had a few friends who he sat with but even among them Matt could always tell he was a bit of a third-wheel.

"So, looks like the losers are lining up, huh?" Jeff chuckled, and there was a moment of confusion before Matt put things together: the list reading, Jeff's interaction with him, the calling of his name. They must be partners for...something.

Matt laughed awkwardly. "Y-y-yeah, guess so," he smiled a little and put down his pencil. "I-I-I-I m-missed th-the assignment," he stammered. "We're...p-partners?"

Jeff Jonsin

Jeff nodded, pulling at his collar. He chewed on his lip, trying to think of what to say next. The teen mentally shrugged. Might as well start the conversation himself.

"Uh, yeah," Jeff muttered. "It's some project we can start today." His voice trailed off. He looked at his fellow peers all excitedly talking around him and Matt, feeling even more weird than he had before.

Thankfully, Mrs. Pine walked by right then, handing them both a piece of paper.

"On here," she said, holding up her stack of handouts, "are all the things you'll need to know and do for this project. Don't worry too much about it. It's all about working together with your partner."

Mrs. Pine paused at that statement, a glimmer of something in her eyes - hope? Amusement?

"Perhaps," she continued, "this is what you need to get to know each other more, as well." His teacher strolled back to her desk at the front of the class. "Feel free to ask me anymore questions!"

Jeff groaned mentally. He didn't really want to get to know anybody better, even if it was someone like Matt who seemed decent enough.

He figured he should view himself somewhat lucky though, to have landed the guy sitting next to him instead of the many pratically bullies that inhabit this classroom, let alone the entire school.

He looked down at the piece of paper. The project seemed pretty straight-forward, about a shared interest between the partners.

"So." Jeff cleared his throat. "Do you have anything in mind for this? 'Cause I really don't."

He laughed again, wincing at his words.

He skimmed the paper. The assignment was a short story depicting at least one of the listed themes. It had to be collaborative and have elements from both writers, and they needed to write with distinctly different voices. It could alternate sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, or be split into different parts for the different partners to write. It was due in the form of a revised draft in exactly one week.

"Well, I guess w-w-we could start by figuring out genre and then going from there...?"

A genre, huh? Jeff chewed on his lip, thinking about what would be fun to write. He hadn't read a book in a while, which he blamed on school and not on him being lazy, but either way, he figured super long science-fiction space fights were not an option.

He looked over the set of themes and ideas. Romance didn't sound that interesting to him, probably to do with his lack of ever dating, while basing a story around a secret sounded somewhat different, but rather difficult. He could enjoy a good coming-of-age book, especially if done in a unique way.

What if they mixed teenagers maturing with a sort-of modern sci-fi feel?

"Hey, Matt," Jeff said, startling the poor guy into catching his gaze. "Do you like sci-fi at all? I was thinking maybe making a futuristic story with like teenagers becoming adults, and all that."

He paused. "Of course, if you don't like that, we could change! I, uh, just thought of that."

"I love science fiction," he smiled. "Fantasy, too." His eyes lit up. "Oh, we could do a crossover! Would we want teens to be adults and be expected to act as such with some new rule? Or should we have them be spoofed in time?"

Jeff grinned back. Matt being excited for this made him both relieved and curious. What else brought this typically shy kid to life like that? He wanted to see more of him talking without a worry.

"An new rule sounds pretty cool, actually." Jeff hummed in thought. "The time thing would be fun too though, especially, 'cause it's fun to make our own version of the future."

Jeff grinned at Matt. He was happy he got partnered with this guy. However, deciding between having teens conform to some alien idea or putting them way into the future was a tough choice.

"Agh," he muttered. "Let's do in time. There're a lot of things we could do with that. What do ya say?"

"I'm down!" he agreed. "What if they go forward in time and they wind up encountering this magic dude who's the only one who can send them back? And they have to seek him out and in the end it turns out he was the one who brought them there in the first place?"

Jeff felt himself nodding before Matt even finished speaking. "That also sounds way neat! I love twists like that."

He peered down at the paper once more, taking in the fine details. "So, it says here it has to be more than a thousand words, which is totally doable. I think a great way to start is to form some characters since I think we've got a decent semblance of a plot, thanks to you!"

He nudged Matt gently with his elbow. "You've got a great brain for this."

He shook his head and looked down bashfully. "N-not r-really, I just wr-wr-write a lot. Actually, I-I've even got a character i-i-in mind for the magic dude." Mattathias opened his backpack and dug out his sketchbook, flipping through page after page of characters before landing on the one he was looking for. It was labelled "Nerezzar Cephalos - Human Avatar." The image was of two figures standing back to back with similar heights and similar builds. One one side, the character was in a draconian form - bipedal, with claws, wings, and a tail, with long horns jutting from the back of his head and a wolfish smile that was framed by a muzzle and reptilian eyes under a browridge. At his back was the same character in human form. He had dark hair and reddish eyes - a little like Matt himself - and wore a dark suit. His hair was long and in a braid down his back and his build was strong and lithe like the draconian that took up the other half of the page.

Jeff's eyes popped wide open at the drawings.

"Woah, Matt, those are awesome!" The figure was a great version of a magical user or the like. He could totally see him as the trickster sort, and maybe even try to teach the main characters a lesson. "You're a really good drawer! I'd hate for you to see any of my stuff."

Jeff chuckled. "So, we've got a dude with magic, and a sweet plot. I'm guessing we could go for a couple of regular peeps from the same high school, but we could give them cool personalities. Like, I dunno, have them be more down-to-earth so we actually like them?"

He shrugged. "What would you rather do?" Jeff didn't want to be making any big decisions without the other's input. That wasn't fair to Matt.

He grinned. "Thanks, it's what I do through class most of the time. I like the idea of r-regular people and putting them into a fantastical setting. It'll be m-more relatable to our audience, too."

"For sure!" Jeff shook his head. "I'm pretty lucky to be here with you."

He scribbled out a few thoughts of Nerezzar potentially meeting the main characters. The options included the magic user simply popping into the real world and them noticing, or him deliberately sending them to the future.

There seemed to be so many ways this story could go. He wondered if someday he and Matt could end up continuing to write this tale after the assignment is done.

Jeff could ask about that later, though.

"So, I guess we need to figure out when we can get together and actually write this."

"I mean, I'm free pretty much every day after school. I haven't got much," Mattathias said. "Except on Friday I'm, uh, g-gaming with some, er...friends. I'm free on the weekends too."