Young Writers Society

For centuries, the Winfield family manor stood on the same spot; overlooking the small city from its cliff like a parent or a big sibling watching over the little households in the valley. The children of the first Lord and Lady Winfield all took charge of their family home with honour and ran the estate and the city with firm and cold, but just and kind hand. Much is known about the family, yet even more is told by the townsmen - up until seventy years ago, when the young lady Cassandra was found dead in the gardens, without a mark on her body and with nothing to tell of what caused her death. The town mourned for a week, along with the Winfields and their staff locked in the manner - and when the week passed, and the townsmen approached the maner to meet its owners, the Winfields were gone without a trace.

Since then, they have never returned.

The manor was turned into a hotel, keeping its place on the cliff high above the town, attracting visitors from all around the world. Some come to run away from the world, others to admire the view and service. Some wish to be the ones to put some light on the old mysteries, and some believe in stories of creatures and beings haunting the hotel and the area around it. When the mists come in the late summer and the cliff is cut off from the town beneath it as if it suddenly rose to float on a cloud, it is told that the old portraits come to life, all signals are lost and death and pain await for those who try to leave the manor... and the ghost of Cassandra Winfield still walks in the gardens, calling for young women and children to come join her in a game. Those who do, the story says, are never seen again.

This year, the Silver Wind Hotel is especially well visited, and the reason lies in another mysterious tragedy; a month ago, a woman of around Cassandra's age was found in the room she'd been renting, dead without a trace of any sort of trauma to her body or mind. Inevitably, it attracted the investigators and those curious to connect it to the past, priests who spoke of the devil in the manor's walls, adventurers and snoopers, eccentrics and artists - as well as, of course, those strayed from the roads due to the thickness of the mist: strangers no one knows anything about, scientists or travelers without particular destination, even families.

Some know of the stories, some are yet to find out - but all of them now have no choice but to be a part of this story themselves, for even if they try to leave, they will be turned back by someone of the staff. And told they should consider themselves lucky one of them got to them before someone - or something - else did.
*

Welcome to official Storybook of the month of March!

Jump in at any point, submit a character via the form on the side and start discusing the possible turns this story might take.

While this Storybook has elements of mystery and horror, its point is primarily to create a character-driven story of mixed genres, hence don't hesitate to make your character a mad scientist, time traveler, ghost, a wizard or whatever comes to your mind - do make them look human, though, at least at first, as we are in the real world and no one knows other people's secrets.
Seeing as the hotel is cut off from the rest of the world now, its staff will see to host dances and different activities to entertain the guests, but apart from that as some possible plot points, we'll strive to create the story primarily from character relationships and personalities we cook up.

You can use this template to write your character's profile, but feel free to modify it as you wish or use a free form as well. You can add more secrets or whatever to your profiles later if you get an idea during the story, in which case just tell us in the DT about those changes when you make them. Also, do keep in mind that, while we as writers can read each other's profiles and know some secrets, our characters would most likely know nothing about each other at first.

Code: Select all

Name:
Age:
Appearance: (you can just use a pic if you wish)
Personality:
History:
Other:

You can use these as a sort of guide - the staff being self explanatory, guests the ones who are for one or another reason already living there at the start of this storym and newcomers those just arriving to the hotel.

Mr Ward | Room 41 and other places
*

She was smiling at him from the picture; her eyes locked on his, her lips just hauntingly curled up as if she knew something she didn't want him to know. Even looking at the colourless photograph, he could imagine the tone of her skin and the shade of her eyes, as clearly as if she was standing in front of him again.
It's all my fault. With a sigh, he closed the album and locked it in the drawer again, glancing at the music box. He should put that away as well, make it stop playing the same notes over and over again, let the small brass dancers in its center rest for a while - but he couldn't. As silent as it was, barely loud enough to be heard over the pounding of rain against the windows, the melody kept playing, pulling him into some forgotten times, to some forgotten people.
It's too late.

He shook his head slightly, checking the watch. It wasn't yet dinner time, but he knew the dining room-- no, the hotel's restaurant - was already prepared, even though most of the guests were still in their rooms. With the storm raging outside, it was very possible they would end up with more souls at the dinner tables than they currently had as guests - and if Mr Ward was allowed to take a guess, he'd say those would soon enough become permanent guests as well, especially once they see the mists surrounding the estate. Like a blanket, so comforting and beautiful. He smiled a bit to himself, shook his head again and turned to leave the room. He had nothing to do in it anyway, not anymore.. not ever. His lady never minded, calling him even when she needed some tiny job done which she could've just called her maids for, but it was never his place to stay in here longer than a few minutes.
"A few minutes is a long time," he muttered to himself, leaving the room and locking the door behind him. The music box was still playing, he knew even though he couldn't hear its notes anymore.

With a slight smile, a polite warm one he always showed his guests, he flew down the stairs and greeted the receptionist, approaching the southern window. He could see the road from there, disappearing behind the curtain of raindrops, and a single lamp casting light on the front porch.

"Mr Ward?" He turned to see one of the maids' face. "Misses from 16 asked if she could be driven into town in the morning."

He glanced towards the stairs, before returning his attention to the window. "I'm afraid it can't be done, not with this weather. The road to the valley is steep and slippery, and it's nearly impossible to see people or other cars in these conditions. She will have to wait for the nicer weather again.. it will come eventually." He smiled a bit, meeting the girl's eyes. "If she has any comments on that, do direct her to me, though I'm sure you can get her to understand."

"Of course, sir," the maid chirped, her brow furrowing as his eyes narrowed at the window. "Is something the matter?"

He stayed silent for a while. "On the contrary," he replied then, nodding slightly at the window and the world behing the glass. Through the rain and mist, as two tiny dots in the distance, he could see the lights - two lights of an approaching vehicle, leading its occupants towards the only place with open doors and warm beds. "Make sure to prepare the third floor. We have new visitors, and we surely need to make sure they enjoy their stay."
*

Summer stared blankly out the window of her family's SUV, wishing she could sit in the front seat. Younger siblings were so annoying, especially when they bickered and begged to 'go potty'.

Blowing a stray hair from her face, Summer reached to the seat next to her and pinched little Pete's cheek.

"Mo-om!" he howled, "Summer's picking on me!" The little boy, who looked like a chip off of their dad, tried in vain to punch Summer's arm, but he wasn't doing much damage.

"Wow, Pete," teased the second oldest, Drew. He looked a lot more like their mom, since his hair was on the curly side, and he had inherited her incredibly photogenic cheek bones and nose. "You're such a tattle tale."

"Am not!" Pete yelled. He was six, and at that age when tattling was the greatest sin a person could commit. And Drew, being nine and well past that, knew exactly how to get his brother's goat. Summer thought them cute, and was that glad she refrained from picking fights.

While their mother started on a tangent meant to drive the boys' attentions away from their quarreling, Summer poked at the bobby pins in her hair. She had hoped her braided crown would stay intact until bedtime, but it didn't look that that would happen. Pulling the pins out, she tried to think about the library at home, and the days she could spend in the hotel researching etymology. Happy thoughts.

After a short, scenic drive up a winding cliff-side road, the family pulled into the parking lot of the Silver Wind Hotel. Due to her parents' excessive talk, Summer already knew more than she cared about the old mansion. It had been owned by the Winfields until around the start of World War II, when some lady there disappeared without a trace. And, like the freaks they were, Summer's parents thought they could figure out what happened to her.

"What do you think, Summer?" her father asked, opening the car door.

Summer shrugged. She'd rather spend her summer vacation at home, or even on some exotic jungle excursion, not here, in an old manor house. If Summer knew one thing, it was that this summer would be the worst so far.

Just then, the family heard a loud splat from the top of the car. Then another. And another, and soon, the only audible sound was that of rain slamming into the ground. Their luggage in tow, Summer's family raced into the lobby to check in. Since it didn't seem like they would go outside for a while, Summer only hoped for one thing: that the Silver Wind had wi-fi.

Ellyon, with his feet crossed under him as he read, noticed a guest register lying on the table. It had been almost empty when he'd arrived here. Now it was bursting at the seams with names and details, among them: Summer Gladson, Newt Thomson and Scarlett Jones. The door behind him creaked open and Mr Ward entered. He gestured a 'hello' to Ellyon as he passed and hurried through into the main building. Ellyon glanced at the door, remembering the first time he had stumbled through it.

Ellyon had creaked open the stubborn, unreasonably stiff door. The door was a few hundred years old, Ellyon judged, given that doors this grand just weren't built any more. It had been cared for, though. Someone had shown it affection. Like the headstone of an ancestor, this had required upkeep to maintain its condition but nobody was going to complain.
As Ellyon wandered through the entrance hall of the house, he realised that this unquestioning care had, until recently, had been applied to the whole building. He strode toward a reception desk that faced him as he entered. Above the desk was a mirror which he avoided the accusing gaze of and tried to liven his lazy brown hair, which had been slumped by the damp atmosphere of the mist outside. There were a few names on a register list that was lying haphazardly on the desk but it was mostly empty.
Ellyon shook his head and dispelled a shower of water onto the floor around him. The rain had stopped long ago, before the mist. The damp air, however, had caused his hair to retain all the moisture from it. Well, until now. It was all flying to the floor. Ellyon ambled towards a slightly less grandiose door set into the right-side wall of the reception hall, since it was apparent that nobody was here to receive him. Just as he reached for the doorknob, a pale muscular man with a short blonde ponytail entered the room from the opposing door. Ellyon considered asking him for help but something about the man caused him to decide against this. He quickly whirled through the door and emerged into a long corridor.
At one end, Ellyon could hear the buzz of a massed crowd. He crept along the corridor towards the sound, pausing only to glance at curious, abstract art that was hung on the walls. The commotion sounded more like hysteria the closer he got and by the time he'd reached the room it was emanating from, Ellyon had managed to convince himself that an alien had just crashed through the room's roof.
As it turned out, the disturbance was rather more sombre in nature. There was a young woman lying limp in the middle of the floor. Her hair was stiff and draped around her pale shoulders. Her eyes were closed but Ellyon suspected someone had done this for her. There were five people in the room and - wait. One of them was the quiet man from the reception hall!
"Who're you?" asked a man who was crouched next to the young woman.
"Ellyon - Ellyon Kendie. My, um, car - broke down. A few miles away. Just before the start of the mist," Ellyon mumbled, not wanting to take too much attention from the woman. Ellyon pointed at the still form in front of him. "Is she... ?"
"Her name is Emily and I - I can't think about that right now. I'm Mr Ward, by the way."
The man turned from the woman with a look of guilty relief on his face and offered Ellyon his hand to shake. Ellyon nodded and shook it. The man's grip was strong but his face was worried - which made sense, given there was a dead girl about a foot behind him.
"Arvid," Mr Ward turned to the tall, quiet man from the reception, "Could you show this young man to a room? I'd do it myself but I have to ... see to Emily. Jennifer, how long ago did you call the ambulance?"
Mr Ward whirled around to face the woman he'd called Jennifer, who appeared to be a maid. The tall man, Arvid, didn't say a word, just nodded the affirmative and ushered Ellyon out the door.

Ellyon's stomach muscles clenched as he shot into a sitting position on his bed, trying to wrench the image of the girl on the floor from his mind. On this thirty-first night since he'd arrived at the Silver Wind Hotel, as he now knew it was called, he'd officially spent a month here. A whole month, and he was still no closer to home. Home was a long, long way away from wherever he was.
Ellyon rolled over and slipped on a jacket and some shoes over his pyjamas, which he'd rented from the hotel. He shimmied on a dressing gown from his room's wardrobe and strolled out the room. Of the thirty-one nights, he'd slept all the way through ten of them. Tonight, as on many nights before, he was going to go take a walk, see if he could clear his head. There was a slight difference tonight, however. That morning, the guests had just begun to flood in, one after the other. He would have to be quiet if he started wandering around tonight, Mr Ward had warned him. He wouldn't want to be mistaken for a ghost.
He snuck out of his room and his eyes began to adjust a little to the murky blackness of the corridor. He wasn't particularly keen for them to do so. The darkness was cosy. It meant he didn't have to try and cope with where he was. It basically meant he could procrastinate to his heart's content.
Ellyon turned left at the end of his corridor and emerged into the library. Of course, light would have made it easier to read, but the cool glow of his watch's light was enough for him. Ellyon selected a thick paperback about interplanetary politics and snuggled down into an armchair.
He flicked on the light from his watch - the batteries of which had had to be swapped out at least seven times since he'd got to the hotel - and in its soft circle of light he spotted a young girl, sat in an armchair a few feet away from him . She looked about primary school age, just about to start high school. Or elementary school to middle school, whichever country her school was in. Her skin was tanned and her brown hair was up in a bun. Her eyes were zoned in on a book in front of her and she reminded Ellyon of himself at that age, the epitome of absorption in a paper adventure.
"Hello," Ellyon whispered, "What's your name?"
The girl didn't reply. Ellyon would have been offended if he hadn't been totally certain that he'd have done the exact same had the roles been reversed. He returned to 'Dune' and Paul's adventures in the Arrakis desert.
"Summer," came a reply from the armchair opposite.
"Huh?" Ellyon emerged from the world within the pages.
"My name. It's Summer," the girl explained, "Sorry, I was finishing my page."
"What are you reading?" Ellyon asked.
"Eragon," Summer replied, "You?"
"Dune. Eragon good?"
"Yeah. Dune good?"
"Yeah."
And they were done. Ellyon smiled and returned to his book. He was fairly certain he'd just made a friend.

Scar Jones

Scar pulled on the straps of her black and white polka dotted backpack and took a deep breath. She wasn't sure where to go and was feeling ready to settle down a little bit. She wanted to find somewhere to stay for longer than a couple days. Somewhere hidden and mysterious where people wouldn't think to look for her.
She'd already traveled so much over the past weeks that she doubted anyone would be able to track her this far, but she still wanted to get somewhere away from the well traveled road.

So she bought a bike and started pushing through the foggy morning along whatever road caught her fancy. Robert Frost would be proud, she thought to herself as she turned down an old road that looked like it hadn't been driven in ages. The road wound through the forest like something from a book, though probably in the books there would have been rays of sunlight dripping through the leaves instead of rain. Scar wondered to herself why she hadn't thought to buy a raincoat instead of an umbrella, but decided to attempt to ride one handed anyway.

Of course her bike crashed when the first gust of wind pulled the umbrella to the side, and the handlebars bent to an un-rideable angle. Angry and cold, Scar left the bike on the side of the road and peered through the trees, suddenly a little bit less sure about taking the road less traveled. Then she saw a flicker of light and in a fit of sponteneity decided to cut through the trees. She walked for a while in the darkening woods before emerging into the well trimmed grassy yard of a huge mansion. She trudged through the garden, half-heartedly trying to keep from destroying all the roses with her wet boots, until coming up to the front of the building.

She was a bit disappointed to see the driveway and the sign announcing the building as a hotel, but decided that secluded or not the hotel would have to do. Besides, she needed to get out of the mist and get changed into dry clothes, if any of the clothes in her pack were still dry.

The door creaked as she pushed it open and walked up to the reception. "I need a room, please." She asked. The receptionist asked for specifics, but Scar just shook her head and shivered. "I need a hot shower and a bed. I don't care what else the room has. Give me the cheapest room with a shower and a bed."

She was handed a set of keys with the number 7 on a wooden key chain. She moved through the hallway and found the room, just a small twin bed and a desk and chair. She pushed off her shoes and dropped her backpack before stepping into the shower without even bothering to take off her already wet clothes.

Newt fiddled with his thumbs as he sat on a park bench muttering random words. Brushing his floppy brown hair out of his eyes, he stood picking up his leather bag with him. The bus stopped on the curb and opened the doors just for Newt himself. He stood leaning against a cold metal pole tightening the leather gloves protecting him and everyone else from the fires he produced.

The bus stopped again only opening the doors for him. Newt stepped out onto the dark sidewalk and into the mist. He walked up the steep hill and to a hotel rumored to be haunted. The one and only Silver Hind Hotel.

He opened the double doors to milling people and a receptionist looking rather bored.

"I-I have a res-reservation," Newt stuttered his blue eyes staring right into the receptionists.

"Name please?"

"N-Newt T-Tomson."

"Ah, here you are, room 9"

"T-thank y-you."

Newt walked to the room the dusty air clinging onto his clothing. The leather bag was laid onto the bed and was immediately opened. He placed the test tubes and science kit onto the dresser along with his leather gloves. Newts hands heated up and turned a light red color as soon as they were exposed.

"D-don't s-shoot," His hands were vibrating, "D-don't."

Too late. His fingers shot out red hot fire that danced onto the carpet. Newt gasped and grabbed his gloves putting them on as he stomped out the fire.

"N-no mo-more,"

The rain had lessened to a wimpy drizzle, pattering uselessly against the roof. Since her parents were more busy kid-wrangling her brothers than actually getting out for clue-hunting, Summer had oodles of time to herself. In a fit of boredom, she had climbed every single set of stairs she could find, and peered through all the mist-blocked windows she spotted. In addition, she opened all of the unlocked doors she came across until finding the library.

Several chapters after settling down in a humongous armchair to reread Eragon for the millionth time, a stranger called out to her. She almost hadn't heard him, being smack dab in the middle of a page, but she couldn't let a stranger think she was rude. This wasn't her brother, after all.

"Summer," she said upon finishing her page.

"Huh?" he said. The person looked like a high school student, maybe college. His dark hair hung over his eyes, which Summer found weird. Of course, all the boys at her school had for some reason decided to get army cuts this year, and she had gotten accustomed to it. The paperback in his lap was ridiculously thick, probably as big as the Gutenburg Bibles.

"My name. It's Summer. Sorry, I was finishing my page."

"What are you reading?" he asked. His face seemed to lighten at the prospect of conversation.

After exchanging book titles, both returned to their reading for the next few hours.

The next day, it finally stopped raining. The mist outside blocked just enough light that there were no sharp shadows in the gardens. And so, being tired of the dusty indoors, Summer smuggled Eragon out of the library and read outside.

She lounged on a swinging bench, completely absorbed in her book until a strange character started creeping around the rose bushes in front of her. He looked about the age her parents were in their wedding photos, and even more professional. (Her parents had gotten married in the very most casual clothes of business casual.) Fingering nervously at his tie, the man peeked around the garden, crouching to examine every single rosebush and garden gnome. As he stood up to grumble irritably, wisps of flames flicked from his hands like chameleon tongues, setting the roses on fire.

The man shrieked before spotting Summer, who had loudly shut her book and was now gawking unabashedly at the scene before her.

"N-n-no!" he cried, rushing towards the bench. He grabbed Summer's shoulders and shook her gently. "What did you see? P-p-please tell me you didn't see-"

"Am I hallucinating?" Summer asked, trying to scrunch her face away from the man.

He paused for a moment, his thick glasses sliding a tiny bit down his nose. "Y-y-yes," he said, "of course you are. I'm sure."

After watching the fire-man stumble away, muttering to himself about flame-induced hallucination, Summer scurried indoors to get some water. She'd been out there for hours; she must have been dehydrated.

Sinead Crinamorte - Arrival

Sinead relaxed in the seat of the taxi, watching a drop of rain slide down the window. The driver was a nervous man in his late forties or early fifties and was perfectly happy to talk about his family and make the odd remark about how she was going to a bad place. "You really shouldn't be going there," he said, for the twenty second time. She turned, giving him a slight smile, "I have business there." Noticing his not quite convinced look she continued, "I would love to hear more about your grandchildren. You said your oldest has just started school." He beamed brightly and went back to his monologue, giving her a chance to rest.

When they were still a while away he stopped the taxi. "I'm sorry, but this is as far as I go." She nodded her thanks, paying him and grabbing her bags. She had packed lightly, still not owning much in this time. She stood for a while, watching the taxi speed away, then turned and headed deeper into the rain, towards the hotel. She had heard about it a while ago. People spoke of it in whispers. Apparently it was haunted. And no one who went there had ever returned. Most people dismissed the rumours, but still stayed away. But this could be her best chance of returning to her own time. The future was nice, but it wasn't home.

She eventually reached it. It was a formidable building and there was something about it that warned you to stay away. Shrugging it off, but checking to make sure she still had her gun, she entered. Inside it was warm, almost cosy. The lobby seemed like something out of another time, more comforting than most modern hotels. There was a large, oak desk with a guest book on it. She went over and signed her name in a flowing script. Maybe her and this place weren't so different, after all they were both from another time.

When she looked back up a man, in his thirties, wearing a suit was standing behind the desk. Strange, she hadn't heard him come. "My name is Mr Ward. I own this hotel." She nodded, as he smiled and handed her a key. "Room 5," he said, "I'll have someone bring up your bags." She took the key and headed up the staircase to the second floor.

The stairs creaked under her feet, a reassuring sound. The top floor was lined with doors, windows dotted between them. As she walked past the window she glanced outside and saw it was still raining. She reached room 5 and unlocked the door, entering the room. It contained a double bed, a desk, a wardrobe and a couple of armchairs. There was a window, with a windowseat under it, against the far wall. The wall on her right had another door that led to the bathroom. She sat in one of the armchairs, relaxed and deep in thought.

Eventually she stood, tucking her gun into the waistband of her jeans, at the back and left the room and locking the door behind her. She dropped the key into the pocket of her coat and smoothed down her green shirt, pulling the hem over her belt. The heels of her boots clicked as she walked back down the stairs and down a corridor to the library. She entered the room, retrieving a copy of War and Peace. The book was old and well read, surprising for such a long book. She sat in one of the chairs, curling her feet under her and opened it, quickly becoming immersed in the story. The secrets of the hotel could wait.