Young Writers Society

Nendros:

He opened his eyes. "Something's coming," he whispered. He could hear whatever it was approaching, anxious whispers echoing throughout the cave.

"Actually, it sounds like two somethings," his companion corrected him. She thought for a second. "I think they're humanoid." With eyes the color of polished silver, she peered into the darkness. "I'm grateful for us not being able to start a fire now," she admitted. Earlier, he recalled, she had nearly had a meltdown when they couldn't figure out how to make one (and when he revealed that, despite his appearance, he couldn't shoot flames out of his mouth).

"What should we do?" he questioned. If they were monsters, that was easy enough. She had managed to make other ones go away. But if they were humans, they couldn't turn them away. Neither one of them would be able to essentially leave them to their deaths.

He bit his lip, blood trickling down his cheek. They would certainly be scared of his appearance. He glanced the girl next to him. Though she claimed she was turning twenty-five that fall, she had to be in her late teens. Even she, the seemingly fearless girl who strangely wore pants, had screamed upon seeing him. (In her defense, he had been trying to sneak past behind her. He doubted she had known he was there until he tripped over his own two feet.)

She rubbed her chin in a musing way. "For now, you hide as far back as you can. I'll head up to greet whatever is coming before they can get to this point."

He gave a reluctant nod. "But what if they attack you?"

She grinned. "I'm not that easy to defeat!" And with that, she left him and made her way towards the cave's mouth.

"Hi," he heard her say. He took that as his cue to make himself scarce. The intruders seemed to be human from the way she was talking. "I'm Schadel Kueper. Who are you two?"

Evion Fevalda:

If this was going to be his last day, this wasn't exactly how he wanted to live it.

The sand of the beach that he was distinctly sure hadn't been around a minute ago whirled across his vision. The lapping and crashing of white-capped waves behind him indicated that he was stuck by the ocean, and the pink and orange colors that pockmarked the sky in his disoriented eyesight made clear that the sun was setting. Or perhaps rising. But the colder temperatures, which were producing the goosebumps on his skin, indicated it was going down.

And, if he didn't find anywhere to hide, so would he.

He wasn't sure where he was. The last place his dazed mind could remember certainly wasn't an ocean, nor anywhere near one. How he even got here was a much less understood matter. But he was injured. Perhaps...he had been in a battle...and somehow was summoned here? Evion didn't know what could possibly do that. It would have to take incredible magical skill, if it was at all possible; he'd certainly never heard of anything transporting a person across such a distance at an instant. Yet, that was nowhere near his most important concern - something on his leg was bleeding. He wasn't sure bad it was, as it was hard to see anything, but the severity wasn't hard to guess. Every step took a phenomenal amount of effort, and he was partly dragging himself towards the arrangement of trees in the distant. Too, of course, he was disoriented, tired, and frustrated.

Faces started flashing in front of his vision. The back of his mind registered he was hallucinating, but the rest of it urged himself forward, grasping at each image that flickered by. The mother and father his formerly overactive imagination had created, the captain of the guard, the rest of the soldiers, the green-haired girl whose life he'd managed to save, the benevolent image of his great-grandfather...

"Finally made you smile, uncle?" Evion whispered angrily, slowing and growing weaker as black spots danced at the edge of his vision. Who else would the visions help to create but the figure that had antagonized him for so long? The relative's bitter, frowning expression danced in front of his eyes, its own eyes briefly flashing red. Taunting him, threatening him. As usual.

Don't be silly, chastised the voice in the back of the wounded man's head. He already thinks your dead. He's bound to be threatening someone else, somewhere else.

The images broke apart as his sight collapsed. Weary, only a few feet away from the forest beckoning for him to join its embrace, Evion collapsed onto the sand, completely knocked out.

Ann Fletcher :
After walking into the deep woods in the island, Mage and Ann managed to find a small cave hidden among the trees. "Yes!" Ann said cheerfully, "There's a cave over there!"
She ran towards it with Mage following her right behind. The interior of the cave was pitch black and Ann doubted whether she heard someone whispering in there.
"Careful," Mage said before she could run in. "We don't know what's in there."
"Pfft!" Ann said with a grin, "Don't worry! I'm pretty sure there's no one in the-"
The sound of footsteps heading towards them echoed in the cave. Ann froze and glanced at Mage.
"Hi!" A girl who was most probably in her late teens said as she came into view. She had messy black hair that seemed to do down her shoulders and her eyes were the color of polished silver. Ann stared at her from top to toe, she was wearing long black trench coat which was unbuttoned. Her whole outfit including her tank top, jeans and leather boots were black except for the silver cross hanging around her neck.
"Hi?" Ann said doubtfully. Mage also looked stunned by the sudden appearance of another human.
"I'm Schadel Kueper. Who are you two?" She said in a slightly German accent.
"Uh," Ann stammered, "I'm Ann Fletcher and this is my-"
"I'm Magestorrow Rian. This human is my slave," He added quickly. Ann realized that Mage was trying to act that he's not friendly with humans, she thought to play along with it for now.
"Don't mind me asking, who are you exactly? I mean do you live in this island?" Ann asked curiously.

Schadel Kueper:

"No, I don't," she replied. "And from the way you're talking, I'm guessing you two also don't." She looked the two over. The girl who had asked the question was certainly human. Her owner, on the other hand, seemed to be a demon (like from one of the stories she always read).

Magestorrow nodded.

Schadel resisted the urge to lash out at him. She didn't agree with Ann being a slave, but she had grown used to hiding her anger.

She turned her back to the two. "A strange portal appeared in front of me, and I ended up here." It was a lie. She had known what the portal was - it was a gateway between her world's and the humans'. Still, she didn't know why it brought her to this island. She should have ended up in Germany, at Adam's grave.

A deep voice suddenly spoke from the darkness. If she strained her eyes, she could make out a form huddled underneath a large blanket in the back corner of the cave.

"Hello."

Both Magestorrow and Ann jumped in surprise. Schadel found the sight to be incredibly comical, and a quick laugh escaped her lips. When the two looked her, she tried to mask the laugh with a fake cough.

"My name is Nendros. Please don't come back here - I'm incredibly sick and don't want either of you two to catch what I have." He pretended to cough. It was a convincing lie, mainly because he started to actually cough several seconds later.

"The two of us met on this island," Schadel explained. "Nendros also came through a portal."

Celina Rivers :

The cold wind made Celina shudder. She opened her eyes and saw huge blue waves crashing onto the sandy shore. "Huh, What am I doing here?" She asked herself as she raised her head from the soft sand. A deep pain shot through her left arm, she immediately noticed that it was slightly bruised. Oh, now I remember, I was battling with Frost and I got thrown into some kind of portal! That's the same thing which happened to Ann, that means she must be here too!


She scrambled to her feet and rubbed her aching arm. The blue sea with foamy waves and the reddening sky was all she could see. She turned around and saw a small forest like place ahead of her. "What is this island? Hello! Am I the only living being here?" She shouted as she took a few quick steps towards the forest.
She saw a figure lying on the ground, he appeared to be a male, Celina narrowed her eyes and stopped right in front of him. "Hey you! Don't you know better than to lie down on this beach when the sun's going down? I can guarantee that you won't get a tan, the sun's setting!"

The person didn't reply, Celina couldn't see his face because he was wearing a helmet with a spike on top. But she did notice that something was wrong with one of his legs, it was soaked with blood.
The man was wearing a green-and-brown leather armor outfit partially protected by chainmail. He looked pale and lean and he seemed to be in his early twenties.

"Are you okay?" She asked as she knelt down beside him, "I think you're not okay because your leg's bleeding!"
Celina, despite being fourteen, always acted like a five-year-old. Her battle skills were amazing but she could never get over her childish attitude even though people call her 'weird'

She gently tapped the man's helmet with her fist, "Hello? weak up! I don't think it's the best idea to stay here when it gets dark!"
She had no idea how to wake him up, he was clearly out cold. she didn't know anything about how to treat wounded people.
She stood up and flew up to the sky, the cold wind brushed against her and when she was about a few feet above the ground she felt incredibly weak and her vision got blurry. She landed on the ground immediately.
Everything was spinning, but her vision got normal after a few seconds.

"Guess I'll just stay here and see if this person wakes up!" She said aloud and began to kick the soft sand with her feet, "After all, I don't want to travel alone on this weird island, that'd be boring!"

Magestorrow Rian:

Nendros' voice, though he tried not to show it, terrified him. It was unnaturally deep. There was something wrong with him, and Mage wasn't too excited to find out what.

The man finally stopped coughing. "My guess is that I accidentally read a spell when I was going through a book my friend left behind. Right after I finished reading - I have a bad habit of reading out loud - I ended up here."

If Mage focused, he could see the form of someone in the back corner, hidden underneath a blanket. To his horror, he saw what looked like folded up wing underneath it.

His heart began to race. Angels usually had calming voices, but maybe Nendros was the exception. Why else would he possess wings? "I need to speak privately with my slave," he managed to get out.

"Alright," Schadel said. But Mage didn't miss the anger briefly flare up in her eyes, which were strangely the color of polished silver, or the way she clenched her hands at her side.

Mage and Ann returned to the mouth of the cave. He made sure to keep his voice low so Nendros and Schadel wouldn't overhear them. "I think Nendros is an angel. He has wings underneath that blanket. I saw the outline of them." He started to rock back and forth, something he did when he was stressed.

"Why are angels bad?" Ann asked.

He took a deep breath. His efforts to calm himself were fruitless. "Angels don't care about humans or demons. They pretend they're good, but us demons know that they don't have an ounce of goodness in their hearts. Many, many years ago, demons weren't demons." He paused and took another gulp of air. "We were humans. But then the angels needed something evil, something for the humans to unite with them against. So they cast their magic on my ancestors, spreading a lie among the humans that God has forsaken us. That God had cursed us." He glanced over his shoulder at Schadel and Nendros, who appeared to be having a discussion of their own. "Angels will stop at nothing to get what they want. Nendros seems ill right now, so we're safe. But if we anger him... he wouldn't hesitate to kill both of us."

Ann thought for a second. "Then what is Schadel?"

"Hm...I would guess a worshipper in some church. She isn't wearing the right outfit for it, but since she's human, I can't think of any other connection."

Ann Fletcher :

Ann glanced at the two for a second and returned her gaze towards Mage, he looked pretty shocked and his face looked paler than usual. "So, what are we supposed to do now? I'm pretty sure that there are much worse dangers in this island than this angel. I can sense it, I can sense the presence of evil, dark creatures lurking in this island...Also, Schadel doesn't seem to have any powers, so if they attack us, we have the chance to fight back." She closed her eyes for s brief second and sighed.


They really didn't seem to have any other choice, but Mage's idea about Angels terrified her. She thought that angels were kind, nice and helpful creatures, but now they seemed no better than an Amarok staring at their prey.

She glanced at the darkening sky and nodded, "We'll just..." She stopped in her tracks as she saw a figure zooming towards the sky. Her eyes widened as she saw a human-like figure rising up to the sky from the beach.
Even in the dim light, she managed to identify that long, straight blond hair. and long elf-like ears. "Celina..." She muttered. "Mage! Look over there." She said in a low voice, she wasn't sure whether she wanted to let Schadel and her companion see her friend with pixie-powers, but she trusted Mage.
Was that really Celina Rivers? If so, were there more people stranded on this island?

Soul Error Arwitch:

"Mage!" he called out as he ducked down to avoid being hit by a branch. With his armor, it wouldn't cause him pain, but it would certainly be an annoyance. "Mage!" He had been yelling for nearly ten minutes now, yet his throat wasn't sore and would never be.

There was movement in the bushes. He fell silent. He could feel the Sin traveling throughout him. Even though she was far away, he could feel hers as well. He still couldn't truly control his powers, but they would be a possible way to fend off attackers.

To his surprise, a knight stumbled out onto his makeshift path. He stared at where their eyes should be; instead, there was two eerie green pinpricks of light.

The knight tripped over their own two feet in an attempt to escape from him, but in the process, his helmet went flying off.

Soul found himself staring into darkness. The armor had no visible occupant, but something was obviously moving it.

A scream escaped his lips. "Ghost!" he cried out, stumbling away from the suit of armor before him. What else would it be? In his terror, he wasn't able to notice the rock behind him.

He tripped. His own helmet hit the ground and slipped off. Still half in shock, he looked up at the ghost. A young boy's scream reached his ears.

Scooping his helmet off the ground, he rushed to his feet. "I should be the one screaming!" he yelled. He kept his helmet underneath his arm and covered his eyes with both of his hands.

"B-But you're a m-monster!" the ghost protested. He peeked through the cracks in between his fingers and was shocked to see the ghost doing the same (it had quickly put its helmet back on).

"You're a ghost!" he replied. "And I'm not a monster!"

"I-I'm not a g-g-ghost!"

He slowly removed his hands. "Then what are you?"

It did the same, and took a large step away from him. Its armor clanged as it did so, its hands shaking as they returned to its sides. "I-I was h-human. But then I w-was cursed. N-now I'm forever a kn-knight in sh-shining armor." When he didn't respond, the child (that was what he was, from the sound of his voice) quickly added, "Ple-please don't ha-harm me. I j-just want to f-find my friend."

His voice sounded desperate, and far too young. Soul knew what that was like. Being separated from someone you cared about was a hard thing to cope with, especially when you have no idea where they are. Like with Mage. And Zogin.

He put his helmet back on. He knew a grin would be disturbing, so he made do with simply sticking his hand out. "I'm Soul Error Arwitch," he introduced himself. "Since you've seen what I really look like, and since we're both hiding things underneath our helmets, I'll tell you what I am. Please don't tell anyone. If Zogin finds out I told someone, she'd kill me." Mentioning Zogin upset him slightly, but once he found Mage, he would find her as well.

The boy furiously nodded.

"I'm an automaton. Zogin didn't have too many supplies when creating me, which is why I look the way I do."

The cursed boy hesitated for a moment before shaking his hand. "I'm As-Aska. I'm l-looking for m-my friend Nendros. He went m-missing after re-reading a book. I di-di-did the same and en-ended up here."

"I'm looking for my friend Mage. His full name is Magestorrow Rian. We were attacked, and he got shoved through a portal. I threatened the man who created it into letting me through it." Zogin would say it was out of character. The person who had scared the man to death didn't feel like him. She was the scary one, not him. He was just kind of there, having no true purpose in their day-to-day lives except to get caught. "Maybe if we find one of them, we'll find the other."

Another thing he was still getting used to: being the one in charge.

Joe Collins
Joe hid behind a tall tree as he heard footsteps approaching his way. Joe panting like a tired dog, he's been running for a few minutes and not long before that he was battling against Frost. After Ann and Celina disappeared, he had no choice but to run into the portal to find them.

He heard voices coming from nearby. He clearly understood that those voices which were both male.
His heart skipped as he heard footsteps approaching right towards his hiding spot.
What was he supposed to do? He had no idea where he was and who those people were. He didn't even know whether they were human. He thought to remain hidden until he got a proper glimpse of them.

Something crawling up his back made Joe tingle, he turned his head and glanced over his shoulder.
His eyes widened at the sight of a huge spider was crawling up his back. It was furry and black like a tarantula and it was at least four times as big as a normal one.

Letting out a shout mixed with terror, he jumped out of his hiding spot and began to jump up and down, "Get it off, Get it off!"

The spider lost its grip and fell onto the ground. Joe's guess was incorrect, the spider who appeared to be a tarantula was just a harmless spider who accidently climbed his back. It crawled back into the bushes.

Joe breathed a sigh of relief as the spider disappeared. and then slowly looked at the two figures who were staring at him. His face was burning and he felt stupid. A fourteen-year-old boy jumping up and down because of a spider, that indeed sounded pretty silly.

"Um..." He said scratching the back of his head. "I'm sorry, I wasn't eavesdropping or anything, I was um...lost, and uh..."
The two males were both wearing knight armor. Their faces were covered by helmets so Joe couldn't see their expressions. The taller one was wearing black armor and the other one was wearing silver armor with some kind of an insignia on his chest plate.

He cleared his throat, "I'm Joe Collins, and I came here to find my friends, I'm not sure how to find them, but I really need to find them and get back home! "Also, I mean you two no harm, so please don't hurt me whoever you two are."
He did sound pretty cowardly, but he was too drained to fight anyone at the moment.

Soul Error Arwitch:

He exchanged a look with Aska. When the cursed boy nodded, his gaze returned to Joe. "We're not going to harm you," he assured him. "I'm Soul Error Arwitch."

"I-I'm As-Aska," his companion stuttered.

Underneath his helmet, Soul offered Joe a warm smile. "We're looking for our friends too. My friend is Magestorrow Rian, and Aska's friend is Nendros. I'm guessing you don't live here, either."

"My friends are Ann and Celina." He paused. "I came through a portal."

Soul let out a frustrated groan. He had guessed that Joe was also a stranger to the place they had been transported to, but had hoped his guess had been wrong. "We don't really have a destination in mind," he informed Joe. "But we think that if we find one of our friends, the others will be there too. Do you want to come with us?"

Joe gave a tired nod.

Soul's gaze turned to in front of them as they began walking. What would Zogin do if she was in my situation?

Joe Collins :
Although he was tired to the bone, Joe followed the two without hesitation.
He saw curious to know who these people really were? He doubted the fact whether came across time, from some kind of a medieval period.

The three of them walked silently for a while, and Joe thought to ask a question to break the created awkward silence, "So um, if you don't mind me asking, do you two know each other well? I mean do you guys come from the same world, er place or whatever?" He heaved a sigh and added, "I'm pretty sure that we're not from the same world. I came from a place called the 'Myth'.

Even thinking about the Myth academy made Joe's stomach lurch. He was supposed to defend it, not abandon it when everyone needed him the most.

But he had to come after Ann and Celina, they weren't just his friends, they were more like his family. Joe got stuck deep in his thoughts as he waited for the two knights to reply to his question.

Luke opens his eyes and immediately lets out a grunt. There was sand in his eyes. He rolls over onto his back, and sits up. Using his right hand, he rubs the sand out of his eyes for what seems like forever. When he opens his eyes, he nearly closed them again. A bright glare came off the nearly snow-white sand, the light of the cloudless sky above him casting its light upon the island. He was surrounded by a deep blue ocean. Luke could feel his breaths getting more and more rapid, more panicked. He turned around, and saw that he was facing a lush, green jungle.

He immediately stood. He ran a hand through his mahogany brown hair. He felt like he had gone swimming in a bath tub of sugar water, though Luke knew that was just from coming out of the ocean. "What happened?" He muttered to himself. His mouth was dryer than cotton, and even uttering that small sentence had made his throat feel scratchy. He cleared his throat. It didn't help.

He could hazily recall going parasailing with his dad. There were grey clouds in the sky, though they didn't think anything of it. If they got too dark, they were planning on returning back home. Dismissing the worry, they parasailed too far away. Much too far away. Much to Luke's dismay, they heard a rumble from up above. They desperately tried to parasail back to land, but the waves had grown to big.

A large wave swept the parasailing boat upside down. Luke had swung himself over the side, and stayed there, hoping to find his father. In the end, he only landed on this island, face-planted in the sand, his father nowhere to be seen.

Without much thought, Luke's feet carried him down the beach, in desperate search for his dad.

Soul Error Arwitch:

"I've never heard of Myth before," Soul said. Zogin probably had; she was more knowledgeable about different locations as a result of her being around for longer. "I'm from a world called Alium. There's three parts to it. Infernum, Medium, and Caelum. My friend Mage comes from Infernum, and I come from Medium."

"I d-didn't know ab-about other worlds," Aska quietly replied. "We j-just know of o-our own, so w-we don't have a n-name for it. I l-live in the Castle of B-Blood."

Joe and Soul stared at him. "That's a morbid name," Joe commented. Soul nodded in agreement.

Aska stared down at his feet. "Ne-Nen is fr-from the k-kingdom of L-Laetae." He seemed as if he was going to say more, but instead fell silent. The hollow suit of armor suddenly skid to a halt. "I s-see someone."

The two others followed his gaze. Down on the beach was a human boy with brown hair. He seemed tired from his sluggish movements, but at the same time seemed to be intently focused on searching for something.

"We should go talk to him," Soul decided. The three walked out of the forest and headed towards him. Though he knew it was a useless gesture, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hello!"

The boy turned. His blue eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the three of them; his gaze mainly stayed on the armor-clad Soul, and the actual suit of armor Aska.

Soul raised his hands in what he hoped meant peace in whatever world the boy came from. "Don't be afraid," he said. "We all ended up on this place, and we're trying to find our friends. My name is Soul Error Arwitch."

"I'm As-Aska."

"I'm Joe Collins."

Underneath his helmet, Soul offered the boy a warm smile. "I'm from Medium, a part of the world Alium. Aska is from the Castle of Blood, and Joe is from the Myth. Both Joe and I came here through a portal, and Aska came here by reading a magical book."

Luke puckered his lips, and turned around, walking away with his arms tight to his sides. This was it, lack of water was making him hallucinate. There was no way that any of those people were real. A plethora of strange people like that, real? No way. But nonetheless, there was still something that seemed authentic about them. Like they were actually there. Nonetheless, Luke continued to walk away.

Joe Collins :

The boy walked away without a word. Soul and Joe exchanged confused glances. Aska looked confused too.
"Can't he see us?" Joe asked aloud.
Soul shook his head. "I don't know."
"Hey, wait up!" Joe shouted as he followed the boy, "Why are you walking away? You didn't even tell us your name!"

He stopped as a dreadful thought invaded his mind, Maybe the human boy couldn't see him because he'd turned into a ghost or something. But Soul and Aska saw him, so he can't be a ghost. But what if they were all ghosts!

Joe shook away the dreadful feeling and grabbed the boy's shoulder gently, "Can't you even hear us?"