Young Writers Society

Kaelynn quickly shoved the bag of cash under another rubble place and overheard the conversation between everyone. She then stood up, dusting off her pants, and headed over.

"I've seen ghosts. They aren't all alike, you know. They have different personalities, like living beings, but they also have the ability to mess with our perceptions," she explained. "Ghosts don't want to be seen so they do little things, such as knock off your hat or something." She then looked over at the rubble. Kaelynn still needed her ghost bag, but without the right equipment, it seemed impossible to get ghosts.

"If I were able to find my bag, then I could find something much bigger than the ghosts I've seen. I just know it," she said to herself.

Bo blinked in return. Everyone else’s conversation about ghosts was going in one ear and out the other. “23... why?”

"...yeah, no. We haven't met yet," Raiden said, rubbing his chin.
"Sorry 'bout that. Hey listen, could you do me a favour? If I ever get...like, freaked out or something, could you...uh, tell me to remember the lake house? If I think about it I calm down, but sometimes I can't remind myself about it," he said, with a warm, awkward smile.

"I don't think I could forget that if I wanted to, considering this entire moment will probably be seared into my brain since there's a werewolf, and possibly, ghosts, and you who... almost sound like you're from the future which is lowkey freaking me out but I'm trying not to lose my cool in front of a bunch of strangers because I again, don't know where I am and have no idea what's going on." Bo replied in what felt more like one big long sentence without breaths in between. Though there was an odd sense about Raiden that... felt... comforting. Because Raiden seemed comfortable around Bo, even though he really hadn't met the guy before.

Bo's squinted. "So uh. Lake house. Sure."

"Yeah, it's what I do when I'm lowkey freakin' out like you. Take a few breaths, and, in my case, remember that lake-side house that I went to once. The gentle way the lake shifted and the fresh smell of flowers carried over the hill by a soft wind...I guess you could say it's my happy place," he said, patting Bo on the shoulder. His eyes then widened in remembrance.
"Oh yes, my name's Raiden, by the way. I forgot to say, in the muddle of things."

“Raiden.” Bo repeated. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. At the moment, nothing really made sense. So he tried to take Raiden’s advice. Think of a happy place. No. That wasn’t what he said. Not just any happy place. Your happy place, Bo.

Bo took in a deep breath and briefly closed his eyes.

In your father’s arms -

Okay, that didn’t help. It distracted him, sure, but that memory was too marred by recent history to hold the same weight of happy peacefulness or whatever it was supposed to bring to calm him. Instead it just made him sad. And a little mad. But at the very least, now he was a little less scared.

With nothing of interest to see in any of the rooms, Taber ran back to where the conversation was. Getting a little tired, he placed his hands on his knees and panted. Staring up at Raiden and Bo, he said, "That's cool! I love happy places. I went to a lake house once. Or, is it was more like a lake mansion? Super big, everyone was friendly, got to spend a lot of time with my girlfriend. Eremia..." his smile faded for a second, then snapped back into existence. "Also, what's a werewolf? Am I a werewolf? I'm a wolf, but I'm not sure I'm a were."

“I don’t know either,” Bo replied, somewhat emotionless as the numbing feeling of shock and denial began to sink in again.

"I mean...maybe?" Clarice said, looking Taber up and down in a way that was slightly less hostile than before. "It's not the night of a full moon, but I've known cases of werewolves becoming trapped within their wolf form."

A realization dawned on Clarice: she didn't know when the next full moon was. It'd been years since she'd not known what day in the lunar cycle it was — the days were tied to the rituals her family made her perform, so she'd always known which day it was. But now that she was away from all of that, she'd forgotten. "Speaking of which, when is the full moon?"

Taber rose up to his full height and scratched his head. "Maybe I'm not a were?" he said. "I'm not stuck as a wolf. I can change whenever I want; I just don't feel like it. But I'm also not entirely a wolf? Also, hello! I'm Taber! Unless I said that already?"

"Nice to finally meet you, Taber. Not sure, ...uh...sorry I didn't catch your name?" he ended, looking toward Clarice, attempting to answer her question.

Kaelynn turned away from the rubble and looked at everyone. A wild idea formed in her head. "Hey, why don't we go around the room and introduce each other and one fact about us. I'll start. My name is Kaelynn Meadows and I like ghosts." She paused and asked, "who wants to go next?"

"I'll go," Sebastian said, who had been silently observing everything with Issac in an attempt to take in all in. There were so many different things to comprehend, and he had been struggling to keep track of all of it. Gabriel wandering off into another part of the motel certainly hadn't helped. "I'm Sebastian Kueper." Hopefully none of them would realize how similar he looked to Levi Kueper, esteemed politician. "I ended up here because our GPS stopped working."

Issac gave a look that wasn't quite a smile. "I'm Issac Drake. I enjoy studying the supernatural, but I don't take much stock in most of it-"

He was interrupted by the sound of Gabriel snickering as he popped his head out of the room he was in. Sebastian didn't even know how a snicker could manage to be so loud. "My name's Gabriel. Gabriel Eberhardt. And I'm a bona fide demon hunter." He was smirking as he spoke. Issac looked bemused. Sebastian groaned. He used every single opportunity to call himself that, even though all three of them knew that it was very different than what the word suggested.

Clarice raised an eyebrow. Of all the things she'd expected to encounter in the desert, a demon hunter had not been one of them. From what she understood, they were rather rare nowadays.

"My name's Clarice." She said, after Gabriel finished speaking.

Taber liked all of the names so far. Very fitting for nice people, he thought. Hopefully he'd remember them. "And I'm Taber," he said. After a moment's silence, he realized it'd probably be a good to state his last name, like the others were doing. Except, he didn't have a last name. He wondered if he should steal his girlfriend's name, but decided that'd be rude, since her family was royalty and all. He'd just have to lie and sound convincing. "Erm, Taber Lastname?" Whoops.