Young Writers Society

Levi faltered.

He...hadn't ever really questioned that before. It just had always had that name; he had never once considered why it would be called something like that. He glanced over at his computer screen. In the game, that kind of name made sense. It was meant to be the final level of Minecraft, in a way.

But outside of it...

"It's just the End," he said. "It's part of a game."

"A game," Elias echoed in thought. His eyes brightened as he smiled. "Can I see?"

He glanced at his computer screen.

"Later," he promised. He would show Elias Minecraft eventually, but now wasn't the right time to. He would have to wait until the memories of today - and of his powers - were little more than a distant memory. The last thing he wanted was for Elias to figure out his secret.

Elias spent a second or two staring at Levi, trying to figure him out. He was hiding something...

"Sure, okay," he said with a smile, shrugging and dropping the thought altogether. "So, about that phone thing..."

The rest of the night after Elias's arrival in Levi's time - and his version of Earth - was thankfully uneventful. The next few days were a little more hectic, but that was expected. They spent most of the weekend out of the house, with Levi trying to give Elias a crash course on every basic thing a normal boy in 2019 would know. He also worked a little extra magic (tech stuff, and not actual magic) to get some kind of record of Elias transferring to Addington High for the foreseeable future. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was still tiring.

Elias's need for a change of clothes was solved by a bag of old hand-me-downs that Levi had barely touched; the phone issue was solved by a brief trip to the center of town on Sunday night. Levi knew Elias wouldn't have the slightest idea how to use his phone, but he also was sure their classmates would want to exchange numbers. It was the least he could do to help him fit in.

Now, of course, was the final test.

It was early Monday morning. Not even Juniper was up yet. Levi had been staring at the darkness of his ceiling for the past hour; he really needed to get the guest room set up so he didn't have to keep sleeping on a cot while Elias slept on his bed.

Giving a little stretch, Levi got to his feet.

Technology was amazing. Why didn't Earth have any of this stuff?

Elias remembered when he got his phone. He probably spent a whole day swiping away on the magic-like glass screen, arranging the pictures called "apps" and taking what Levi called "selfies" with the camera. (Levi didn't appreciate it when he tried to take a million selfies with him, though.)

Levi gave him his phone number and had texted him occasionally, but Elias hated texting. The words on the keyboard weren't even alphabetical! How could anyone type anything so fast and know where any of the buttons even were?!

He was also so slow to figure anything out. It took him ages to figure out how to swipe, and it took even longer to figure out how to use any of the apps and figure out what it was even for. Elias somehow ended up on the app store and downloaded the most popular ones since he was trying to get a hold of things, and that was when he found his first addiction.

Candy Crush.


He laid on Levi's his bed, blanket over his head as he was playing Candy Crush for far too many hours. He couldn't stop. He. was. obsessed.

Elias heard some shuffling in the room, but he paid no mind to it, continuing to play the game at the lowest volume, figuring Levi would wake him up if he needed to get up.

There was a noise coming from underneath the covers of his bed.

Levi turned. If he squinted, he could just barely make out some light slipping out from underneath the covers. His mind immediately flashed back to the previous night - and how Elias was practically glued to his phone while playing Candy Crush.

Crossing his arms, he waited a few more seconds to hear more of the very quiet background music.

...That was definitely Candy Crush.

He grabbed the covers and pulled them back to reveal Elias, already awake and engrossed in another round of what had to be his favorite game.

"It's time to get up," he said.

Suddenly the covers over his head was removed, and Elias squinted and braced for the light to engulf his eyes, but it was still fairly dark. His phone screen was a lot brighter than the room.

"Uggghhh Leviiiiiii," he moaned as he set his phone down and rubbed away the tiredness in his eyes. He didn't realize how tired he was until he stopped paying attention to the game.

"Why are you getting up so earlyyyyy?"

Levi rolled his eyes and went to turn on the light.

"It's not that early," he said. This was nothing compared to how early he had to get up once - it was barely 5:45 right now. He had been able to get up at 4:00 before.

He flicked on the light.

"Come on," he said. "I know you're addicted to Candy Crush, but we have to get ready for school."

Elias groaned as Levi turned on the light, acting as if it would melt his eyes. He was about to complain some more and revel in the fact that he was now accustomed to the life of technology, but as soon as he said the word school, Elias perked up and opened his eyes in excitement.

"School! That's today!" he said as he jumped out with a grin, almost shaking the phone off the edge of the bed. "First day, whew. What do I wear? What classes do I have? Can I be with you? When are we leaving?"

Levi couldn't help but give a little smile when he saw how excited Elias was about school. He had assumed Elias was going to be like Juniper and drag his feet while getting ready. The sudden burst of energy was a surprise, but it was very much a welcome one - especially with the lack of excitement that usually accompanied being a month into the school year.

"We should have all of our classes together," Levi told him. He had pulled some strings. Elias might have been able to survive on his own for a class or two, but Levi didn't want to run the risk. "As for clothes, you can wear whatever you want."

As if to prove his point, he went over to his dresser and started to dig out his usual outfit: a collared white shirt and plain dress pants.

"We still have some time before we need to go," he added, "but I'm usually out of the house by 6:30 on regular school days."

"Cool!" Elias said as he also bounded for the dresser, reaching for the exact same outfit. "We'll be twinning, then."

He grinned, about to change here and there, but then paused when a logical thought lodged in his brain. "So, uh. Is there anything else I should know about school?"

Elias's question went unanswered as Levi stared at the outfit that Elias had grabbed. If Juniper had been in the room, she would have likely made fun of him for having enough of the same kind of outfit for Elias to twin with him in the first place. But all he could think about was how strange it would be to have someone wearing the same exact outfit like him, especially when his outfit style was a more unique one in the school. Most of his classmates didn't dress the same way he did.

He reached into his dresser and switched out his white shirt for a light blue one.

"Almost twinning," he corrected.

He shut the drawer and turned his back to it.

"There's nothing else," he said. "We have the same classes, so you can ask me any questions that come up while we're there. And all of the teachers will know you're a new student, so we won't have to worry about them expecting that you know everything we've already covered."

Elias pouted a bit when Levi was against the idea of twinning, but he was too excited for the first day of school to care too much. He was going to meet more people! Go to new places! Learn new things!

Well, the last point was probably unlikely, but that was beside the point.

"Cool cool cool," he said and then started to slip towards the bathroom so he could spoil himself with a morning shower. Levi had a fancy "shower head" that enabled him to have pressurized water, and it was soooo warm.

"I'll take a shower, but I'll meetcha for breakfast when I'm done?" he asked, but didn't wait for a reply before he closed the door.

After they both took showers and narrowly avoided Juniper's seemingly endless slew of questions at breakfast, the two headed off for school. Juniper was riding in with a friend; he was grateful for that. Levi wasn't sure he could keep handling all of her inquiries about Elias and how he ended up staring with their family - she had gotten so desperate for information that she had tried bribing them with bacon and chocolate chip pancakes.

But now they were almost at the classroom, and Levi knew they wouldn't have to worry about detailed questions coming from his classmates. They also wouldn't have to worry about his classmates for a bit; he made sure they got to school early.

But when he slipped inside his homeroom with Elias in tow, he discovered that he wasn't the only one who had decided to come early: Charlotte Hart was sitting in the back like she always was, eyes looking down at her phone.