Young Writers Society

Perhaps you're taking a walk, or maybe you just woke up, or, perhaps, you were running from your parents and stumbled upon it. Either way, you find yourself at a park - a huge, elegant playground sprawls over wood chips and a swing set gently twists in the breeze nearby. A playroom is in a building next to it in case of rain and there's any toy a child could hope for.

Please, no characters older than sixteen.

Engel pulled his thin, moth-eaten jacket around him as snow fell about his person, boots slipping on the ice that coated the cobbled road. His lips were blue and he shivered in the freezing weather. His pace was slowly beginning to get less determined and confident as warmth was leeched from his body.

He stumbled over to the bench and sat down, feeling himself begin to go numb. He just wanted to close his eyes. . .

No. He knew what happened to people who went asleep in the cold and never woke up.

Maybe just for a moment...?

~**~

The blond boy rolled over and promptly fell off the bench, starting as he hit the ground and sitting up abruptly in the green grass. He was sweating from the heat exuding from the golden sun high above and blinked in surprise - where was the storm?

He glanced around to find himself sitting on the edge of a large structure with tubes made of a material he couldn't identify. It was brightly colored, though, and strangely appealing. He shrugged off his coat and stood.

When he awoke, he found himself very, very confused. The last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his old little bed, the thin covers wrapped tightly around his body. Now he was laying on something soft and green, and he could feel sunlight dancing across his face. He pushed himself off the ground and looked around in a combination of bewilderment and awe.

Where was he?

How had he gotten here-

Was that grass?

He dropped to his knees and ran his fingers through the soft green thing underneath his feet. He had seen it in his books, and he very faintly remembered seeing it before the cave. Which was a long, long time ago, so he didn't remember much.

"I'm on the surface!" he exclaimed, his voice high with joy. He let out an excited little giggle as he threw himself back into the grass and stared up at the sun shining above him. He was really on the surface! He had dreamed about it, of course, but it was one thing to wish for something and another to believe it would really happen.

When he was satisfied with rolling around in the grass and looking up at the sky, he got to his feet again and eagerly looked around. There was a large structure he didn't recognize and a building nearby, but, more importantly, there was a person!

He darted over to the person and peered up at them from behind his cloth. "Hello!"

The German boy looked down at him with surprise. Are his eyes...glowing? What is this place? Why is that...thing blue? What is it? And how, exactly, does he understand the greeting with clarity despite his lack of knowledge of what he suspects is English?

"Hallo. Where are your parents?" he asked in German.

He woke up, laying on the grass. That was weird, he last remembered sleeping in his bed at home. He faintly remembered his mother getting into the bed with him. Oh well, they must've taken him somewhere for the day.
He rolled over and stood up. Looking around, he was met with the sight of a playground. His eyes fell on two other boys who seemed older than him. His smile grew, and he waddled over to them.

As he got closer, he realised they didn't have tails. Now, who would walk around a playground without their tails? He had to investigate. He marched up to the boy without a cloth on his eyes (which was weird, but he didn't question it) and slapped his butt.
"Hey! Where's you tail?" he asked rather loudly.

"I think they're dead," he replied quite earnestly. If they were alive, they wouldn't have let the gods take him away. But since he didn't really remember his mommy or his daddy, he didn't really mind it. Not too much, anyways.

Now that he had answered the first boy's question, he turned to the second one. He looked really little. "Why did you hit him?" he asked, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly. "My books don't have that."

Engel spun and slapped the other kid. Not very hard - certainly not enough to leave a bruise - but enough to hurt. "Nein, no touching!" he snapped.

"I'm looking for his tail-" and then he got slapped. He glared back at the bigger boy, holding his cheek.
"JUST 'CAUSE I D-DON'T HAVE A TAIL DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN SLAP ME, OKAY!! MY MOMMY SAYS I'M SPECIAL!!!"

He looked behind at where a tail might be hiding. Finding none, he turned back to the other two with a big, toothy grin on his face. "I must be special too!"

"No one has a tail!" Engel protests in rapid German. "People don't have tails! Where are your parents? Why don't you go back to them?" The questions are directed at Raiden.

Raiden heard him speak in German (although he didn't know what German was), but he understood it somehow. He didn't question it. He stroked his chin.
"Maybe you're one of those hoomans that the adults always talk about," he mumbled.

He looked between Hero and Raiden, then swayed a little, suddenly very lightheaded from the abrupt movement of swiveling his head between the two of them. He fell back onto the bench with a thump.

"Are you okay?" he hurriedly asked, rushing to the boy's side and grabbing onto him. He got close to his face and stared at it from behind the cloth covering his eyes. He couldn't see anything different, but that definitely wasn't a good thing. "That's not normal, right?"

He shrugged him off, though he didn't put much force behind the movement - it was more like a suggestion of 'please get off me.'

"Ja, I'm fine," he said, glancing over at the slightly younger boy. "I just got sick is all, and it'll just take me a little bit to get better."

He plopped down beside the boy, leaning in close to him again - though this time he mainly clung to the boy's arm and didn't stare into his face. "I've been learning to make healing potions! Maybe one of them can help you feel better-"

His face fell.

"I don't have them with me," he said, pouting. He continued to lean on the boy's arm, though - it felt good to have contact like that after not having it for so long.

He laughed, which devolved into coughing. "What are you, a witch?"