Young Writers Society

There was a monster sneaking up on Baba.

Baba was too occupied fighting other ones to notice, but all Lira could do was stare as it approached. She was also slowly getting swarmed by a small percentage of the monsters, but her eyes could only focus on the monster approaching Baba.

Instinct kicked in.

She finally found the strength to move as she darted over to where Baba was, cutting through the monster coming up from behind with a swift swipe of her key. Something felt different now as she tried fighting the other monsters - it felt like the battle on her island.

She didn't question it.

She was just happy she wasn't so scared of fighting right now.

Kate found this new fight more annoying than anything else. She could have just done nothing, wandered away at a leisurely pace and forgot this whole fiasco was going on, but these little...well, one was human for sure, knew Levi. And three was better than one.

She jumped into the fray, smashing through the little shadowy things left and right with little regard for her own safety, because, well, she didn't have to worry about that kind of thing. That was until one latched onto her from behind. Claws dug into her back and she shook the thing off. A horrible ripping sound sounded as it was torn away, and Kate momentarily froze. Her eyes glowed red as she whirled on the creature, and it was dead in a second. She couldn't remember if she used her weapon to kill it.

Lira only caught the end of the attack - Kate destroying the monster - but she could tell what had come before it from the gash in Kate's sweater. "Are you alright?" she worriedly asked, swinging her key into another one of the monsters as it lunged at her.

Kate was furrious and making no attempt to hide it.

"I'm just fine," she growled as another creature fell victim to her 'just fine' levels of wrath. The sunglasses were doing nothing but giving the vengeful red glow of her eyes a violet tint through the blue lens by now, and she was becoming annoyed at them. She was half tempted to rip them off and use the broken glass of the lenses to aid in her quest to be rid of these horrible little things.

Baba scrambled and pounced with renewed vigour. Now there were three of them. The swarm stood no chance.

---

In the middle of the settling dust cloud, Baba's head snapped back and forth, scouring the street for any signs of black wisps. Smokey little fingers curled up from the cracks, thought twice, and withdrew. Baba stared fixatedly for about fifteen seconds, still poised for action, until they decided it was safe.

"That's it." Baba sighed gladly.


With that, Baba loosened up instantly, and jogged up to Lira, merrily put an arm around her shoulder.

"Lira! Lira Lira! you saved Baba there, didn'cha? You did so good!- And Kate-"

Oh. Kate looked livid.

Maybe going through with the praise would cheer her up?

"Kate was very scary." said Baba, with a warm smile.

Kate didn't appear to hear. She was hyperventilating, despite the fact that breathing was redundant in the first place. She yanked the sweater over her head, sending her glasses clattering to the ground, and fumbled with it, finding the rip on the back. Her hands shook as they closed into fists around the fabric. She didn't say anything.

Baba saw the rip in Kate's sweater, and was moved. It was so sad. Always sad, to see something torn. Baba patted Lira on the back, and jumped aside to ruffle through the pockets of its overalls for the right coloured thread. Midnight blue, purplish blue, no, no no...there! eggshell blue! Baba whipped out the spool, and a needle, and rushed over to Kate, and her poor, poor sweater.

"Baba can fix it!" said Baba. "Baba is a real good sewer, you won't know the difference."

Baba stood, needle and thread in hand, itching to rectify the tragedy.

Kate clutched it reflexively to her chest as her gaze darted reflexively to the little creature. A needle, thread. She took a shaky breath. It won't be the same, part of her insisted, you've ruined it and now it won't be the same.

She closed her eyes, the glow shining through her eyelids. She wouldn't care. She would want it repaired.

Cautiously, Kate extended the sweater toward the creature with the needle and thread.

Baba accepted the sweater respectfully, and sat down on the street kerb. They pulled off their thick gardening gloves, and looked bemusedly at their hands, seemingly surprised to find flesh on the bones.

Quickly Baba moved on, and began to carefully stitch, neat and measured little stitches, like a machine. Baba settled into a meditative state.

Creating new things was fun, but there was something special about mending old things. Baba felt that to mend something of yours was to make it specially yours, more than it was before. To mend something of a friends' was to give something of you into a piece of them. It was a type of giving that they carried with them for years to come. Even if you rarely saw one another, or drew apart entirely, the stitches would remain.

Baba didn't know Kate very well yet, but it wanted to thank her for her help. And something broken deserved to be fixed.

"Here ya go," said Baba, presenting to Kate the newly mended sweater, "S'all done."

It was as they said, the stitches were barely visible.

The sweater began to flutter and twitch in Kate's arms after a moment, and wriggled like a cat in her grip. That was more visible.

Dagnabbit. Baba had done it again.

Kate almost screamed. That felt like the appropriate reaction. She resisted the urge, however. That wasn't an impression she was going to grace these people with right after meeting them, no way. Her eyes, however, gained back the glow they'd lost when she calmed down.

She tightened her grip on the sweater, confirming that there wasn't some creature or other trapped inside it. She hadn't thought there was, but that was where her mind went at first.

She fixed the little creature with an icy glare, "What did you do you do to it you incompetent little imp," she growled.

Baba put their hands over its mouth, and stepped back. Kate's eyes were glowing fierce. Oh, they'd made a mistake. They'd made a very bad mistake.

"Baba is sorry!" Baba yelped. "It's just a little animation spell, Baba didn't mean to- it happens, sometimes, when Baba fixes things. It'll wear off! ...in a few minutes." Baba rushed out the words.

"Maybe less?" they added meekly.

Lira had been content watching the exchange - too out of breath from the fighting to really contribute - but now felt like she had to do something to help the situation.

She approached Baba and Kate, eyes nervously lingering on the sweater.

"Is there any other way to stop it?" Lira asked.

Baba sheepishly shook their head, looking down so the brim of their big straw hat flopped over their eyes.

Kate's eyes burned, "You mean to tell me, that you made it like this permanently?!" she growled, really ready to scream the moment one more thing went wrong.

She glanced between Baba and Kate.

When she spoke again, her voice was calm and soothing. It wasn't demeaning in the slightest, but it was the voice she had used with some of the kids sometimes on the island.

(Lira tried not to think about how they were gone with the rest of her world.)

"It's not permanent," she reassured Kate. "Baba said it should only last five minutes at most. We just have to wait for that to end."