Young Writers Society

Normal has never been a word that quite fit Mira; she's rarely had the same interests as her peers, and rarely had any of them as friends. While those may have been the ordinary ways that people are abnormal, Mira is different in another way - she discovered that she could cast spells in seventh grade. They don't always reach their full potential, but magic runs just as much through her blood as it does with her very small circle of friends.

Bo, on the other hand, has been using magic for a very long time. Over the course of a few dozen decades, Bo has been mastering his powerful magic with the help of his mentor and friends in the secrecy of their underground guild. Though once too afraid to use it, now he's one of the strongest and experienced mages among his students and peers.

Unfortunately, neither of these two magic filled people coexist in the same world. Bo lives in the world of Nye, where magic, among humans, is strictly outlawed and feared. And Mira lives in the humble town of Wildegate, Connecticut, where magic isn't even known to be real by most.

But Nye is known to mysteriously draw people from their realms. The magic living beneath the surface has a will of its own, and sometimes, for reasons unbeknownst to man, it chooses a wandering soul to "visit" for a time. Whether fortune or not for Mira, she seems to be one of those souls.

Needless to say, it's very jarring when she finds herself thrown into the new and strange world, as earth-like as some of the flora may be. It probably doesn't help that she's been drawn into the middle of a storm where Bo is practicing his magic - which involves lightning, if I haven't mentioned before.

So yeah. That'll be loud and flashy. Good luck Mira.

Thunder roared above him and the rain came down hard, pounding against the cold rocks and stone. Bo climbed up the side of the mountain with deliberate movements, careful not to slip on the slick rocks jutting out of the ram-carved path. When he finally reached a small plateau - mostly flat as it jutted out slightly from the mountain - he stopped and took in a deep breath.

Most people would've felt sick and cold after hours of trekking up a mountain in the middle of a storm, but Bo never felt more alive. Lightning crackled up in the clouds, and he could feel the energy within him respond with an invigorating wave of renewed strength. He leaned back his head and smiled, closing his eye as the rain continued to soak into his clothes.

After a few seconds of resting and enjoying the chaotic swells of the storm, he finally let out a big long sigh and looked out over the mountain, taking in a few calm, deep breaths.

Though standing, he was meditating for a time. Letting the thunders of the storm fuel him like a heartbeat.

And then, he finally made his move. With a graceful sweep of his arm - his whole body following in one fluid motion - he aimed a bolt of lightning into the sky, letting the sparks of electricity flow out of his arm and his hand. As the energy released into the sky, a roar immediately followed, and he smiled. As if the storm was responding, it sent it's own bolt of lightning down into the forest below.

With one beautiful display of light, he then began to send out more streaks of lightning into the sky, even going so far as to make shapes and dragging the electricity like a ribbon in the air. He danced with it and spun around with a peaceful grin.

This was where he felt most at home. In the middle of a storm.

The rain pounded against her skin, and her dyed light purple hair clung to the sides of her face in thick, wet strands. She had just been sitting her room, reading through her magic book - she shouldn't have been soaking wet. But now she was standing in the middle of a very strong rainstorm, and she came to the horrifying realization that she didn't know how she had gotten there or where there even was.

It looked like she had ended up in some sort of mountain. She could feel the wet rocks underneath her feet, and could make out a path that seemed to have been made by nature and not humans. But there was just one problem: Wildegate wasn't remotely close to any mountains.

She took a deep breath as thunder ominously rolled in the distance. Okay. So she had mysteriously ended up in another place. That was weird and a new thing, but there had to be a logical explanation for it. Maybe she had accidentally said a teleportation spell when reading, and it had gone as wonky as it always did? Or maybe she touched something that she had gotten from Baines's Antique Shop, and it had brought her here-

Her breath caught in her throat when she realized she wasn't alone.

She was standing on a small plateau. And when she turned her head very, very slowly after hearing someone breath from right behind her, she found herself staring up at a giant of a man. She had never once seen anyone that tall; even Schadel, who had to be at least six feet tall, would have been smaller than him. He didn't share her leanness, either - this man was muscular. Very muscular. If that hadn't been terrifying on its own, he was dressed entirely in black and had a nasty scar running across one eye.

There was also the fact that lightning was running up and down his arm.

Mira's eyes widened. The thunder boomed overhead again as she darted to the nearby path, absolutely terrified of what would happen to her if someone who looked so dangerous caught up to her.

Bo had to be honest. When he climbed up the mountain, which was admittedly, not an easy feat, he had not expected anybody to be up there with him. So, not surprisingly, he was very startled when he saw a girl come into his sight, only to flee just as quickly as she came. Like a switch turned off, the streams of electricity and the bluish light from his eyes faded, and he jumped back a step. He looked around to see where the girl had gone.

"Hello?" he asked, yelling out into the rain. "Who's there? Are you okay?"

The concern in the man's voice admittedly threw her off a bit, but she still had little knowledge on who he was. Normally she didn't think much about stranger danger, but this man was a stranger who definitely could put her in danger with the lightning he had been wielding before she ran away down the mountainside, so she was making an exception.

She started to mutter the words to a spell that should have dried the stones that she was stepping on by taking the water off of them and making it into a ball beside her; it was a water transference spell. But it only resulted in making the ground slightly less slippery. Her sneaker stepped on a particularly wet rock in front just as a cry of frustration began to leave her lips, and it quickly became one of terror as she lost her balance and went tumbling down.

She tried to think of some spell - any spell - that could help, but her mind was drawing a blank. Her only thought had been to use the spell that had just failed. Now she was helpless and sliding down the path that snaked around the mountain, and her terror only grew.

That was when the darkness showed up.

Wild strands of it began to emerge from the pitiful ball of water floating in the air beside her, and shoot out from the ground underneath her. It wrapped around her wrists and her ankles, holding her in place before she could slide even more.

Bo stumbled after the girl as fast as he could manage without slipping and falling off the mountainside, but his heart nearly stopped when he saw her tumble. In a panic he began to hurry, momentarily losing his footing and sliding, but recovering as he leaned back and grabbed onto the rocks beside him for support.

“It’s dangerous out here!” he said, fully aware that she was probably more afraid of him than the storm, but the warning came out anyway. “I’m not going to hurt you! I’m coming to help!” he shouted, voice fully of worry. “I mean - I know you don’t know me and don’t-“

And then he saw the whisps of darkness. They grabbed her and held her still, keeping her from falling further. All in one moment, his panic dissipated, and a different kind of anxious energy took its place. He’d never seen a magic quite like that, but was it possible... she was a rare mage with a rare element? He hurried up, finally just a few feet away from her. As he got closer, he got a better look at what the young girl was wearing. From what he could tell, she had dyed hair, and was wearing a lot of jean material. It was kind of strange clothing, and didn’t look quite like anything he’d seen before.

At that moment, a memory resurfaced in his mind: a vivid picture of the mountain, of this moment, of this girl. A flash of an image in a dream. Deja-vu, except it wasn’t chance.

She was supposed to be there, and so was he. For what, he didn’t really know, but all he could presume was to help her first and foremost. She looked scared, and lost.

He reached out a hand for her to take.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said again. “You need to get off this mountain and out of the rain. My name’s Bo. I’m a mage.”

Even though she didn't want it to be there in the first place, the darkness jostled her around so she was in a position where she could easily take the man's hand. She hated how it always seemed to have a mind of its own - hated how it was there in the first place - but the moment she had spent suspended had given her a bit of clarity. She hesitantly grabbed onto the hand extended to her, unsteadily getting back to her feet.

The wind howled all around them, and the rain continued to pound against her skin. "I'm Mira," she said, finally managing to find her voice. Bo still looked incredibly terrifying in the middle of the thunderstorm, but his tone was comforting. There was all the fact that he was a mage - she hadn't heard many people call magic users that before, but she also didn't know that many magic users to begin with. "I do magic, too."

As she said this, the darkness retreated in the ground, and the ball of water beside her splashed back down onto the path. She turned her head at the noise and gave it a look, frustrated that it hadn't even been able to hold its form for the five minutes it was supposed to.

She turned back to him. "And, yeah, I do need to get off of the mountain." She gazed down the side of the mountain, her heart dropping to her feet when she realized how tall it really was. She didn't want to betray how helpless she felt, but her skin went pale and her eyes widened slightly.

Bo laughed a little as he looked down the mountain alongside her, holding jer steadt with her hand in his. “Yes. You do. It’s a long way down though, and unfortunately, there aren’t any shortcuts. I can help you, though. If I got ahead of you, I can lead the way and catch you if you slip again, unless you know how to do your magic stuff all the time! I dunno how much you uh, can do.”

Her face flushed in embarrassment at his comment; her magic was absolutely horrible, and she certainly wasn't going to risk placing her trust in it when it was so likely to fail her again. "I think I'll stick with your help," she decided.

Bo smiled. “Okay,” he said with a small nod, before passing her cautiously and then steading himself, extending a hand again to lead her. “We’ll take it slow, and wait til we find a rythm. If you need to rest just let me know. There are some spots that have shelter along the way so if you want to wait the storm out, we can do that too.”

She nodded. "Okay."

She grabbed onto his hand, scanning the path ahead of them for one of the shelters that he was talking about. None were in her immediate line of sight, but she just had to trust that they would find one sooner rather than later.

Bo led her over the rocks with confidence steps, but in his heart he felt anxious trepidation, ready to shoot out a hand he moment she was to fall. Fortunately for them both, she didn’t lose step so dramatically that she fell down the mountain. She was doing just fine, actually.

It was a few minutes before they found shelter, but it came. In the side of the mountain were some rocks jutting out above the path, and a boulder that made a wall and blocked the wind. The space tucked into the mountain, far enough from the edge to feel secure from the raging storm. With both of them sopping wet, he pulled her in gently, making sure that he was the one on the outside, closest to the edge and the downpour of rain. He waited for her to get in safely before fully retreating into the shelter with her and plopping down onto the rocky floor with a sigh, wiping strands of wet hair our of his face.

He looked over to Mira, and laughed a little.

“So what’s your story, Mira? How’d you end up here on the mountain in the middle of a thunder storm?”

She was torn between continuing to stand or sit down, but ultimately chose the second of the two options; she didn't trust her wet feet too much after almost falling down a mountainside. She mirrored Bo and wiped her own strands of sopping wet hair out of her face, but didn't give a smile in return - she was just too startled by everything that had happened in what couldn't have been more than the past ten minutes.

"I, uh, don't know," she admitted. It would have made her seem crazy if it wasn't Bo she was talking to, but he knew magic. Magic could explain this. "I was just reading in my room, and then I found myself standing right near you."

Bo couldn't help but chuckle a little, but he quickly composed himself, clearing his throat and pounding a fist to his chest as he forced the laughter away.

"Magic is really inconvenient like that sometimes, I guess," he said, pulling his legs up and crossing them. He leaned forward a little towards her.

"Sucks though. Where are you from? Maybe I could help you get back there?"

"You have no idea how helpful that would be," Mira said, breathing out a sigh of belief. "My aunt has no idea that I have magic, and I really don't know I'd explain disappearing for a long period of time or ending up somewhere else."

She tried to get herself a little more comfortable, but it was difficult when every inch of her body was wet. She settled with just crossing her legs and leaving her hands in her lap. "I'm from Wildegate. It's a small town in Connecticut, a short distance away from South Haven." South Haven normally wasn't the best point of reference, but there was that popular ghost show that had filmed an episode in one of the abandoned buildings, so most younger people tended to know that town at the very least.