Young Writers Society

You've probably heard this story before: a mysterious disease starts spreading among Earth's population. Those who get infected start acting weird, and it's not long before you have a whole horde of zombies running amok. There's a few survivors. There always are. And they're doing their best at surviving and discovering how to stop the infections for good.

But there's just one slight problem.

Those stories are just that - stories. You're not supposed to be whisked from your time and world into a place where zombies are real. And that's not the only thing that's changed, either. Your clothes suddenly match any good zombie apocalypse story. You might even have a weapon on you.

Whatever the case is, you're here in this mostly abandoned city. There's zombies, of course. But there's people too. People like you. And if you want to get back to your home, you'll have to survive this forgotten landscape.

And, of course, avoid getting bit.

1. Please include a description of your character in your first post - you can throw it into a spoiler using the code down below and put it at the top of your post.

Code: Select all

[spoiler]Put your description here![/spoiler]

2. Feel free to pick characters from whatever you want. They can be from another roleplay, a storybook, a novel or even a fanfiction of yours. The world, time and plot they're from ultimately just impacts how they interact with this roleplay, so it's really up to you.

3. You can have as many characters as you want, but there'll come a point where you can no longer add new ones because it would alter the plot too much. I'll make sure to say something when that happens, so don't worry about it for now.

4. Please don't write for anyone else's characters. It's hard to predict what someone else might have their characters do, and it takes away some of the fun for the other writers.

5. You're free to have your character guess what the plot is, but don't make any plot-altering decisions with talking about with me first. You can PM me or chat in the spoilers of our posts if you have an idea - I love scheming! I just want to make sure your schemes can be incorporated into what I'm already scheming.

(I also have a discord server for roleplay scheming! If you don't use discord or don't want to join, don't worry about it. But if you want to join in on the shenanigans, here's the invite link.)

6. Don't post multiple times in a row, and make sure everyone has a chance to get a response in. There's going to be times where it makes more sense to post back-and-forth between two people, but try avoiding it unless you absolutely have to - it prevents the other writers from getting too behind and feeling like they aren't involved with the story.

7. Have fun!

The first thing that Steve registered was a sword to the throat.

Or, at least, that was what he thought it was. It took him a second to realize that the sword was actually a kitchen knife, and a second after that to realize that they were in the ruins of a completely unfamiliar building. And it took him another second to realize that he knew who was pointing the knife at his throat, even if his outfit wasn't exactly what he usually wore.

Steve blinked.

...Wait, what was he wearing? Everything felt so heavy, and it felt weird trying to breath. His assailant was reaching for his face now; Steve honestly didn't feel like protesting.

He just got out a quiet, "Brian?"

Brian faltered.

"Steve?" Brian replied. The weight suddenly made far too much sense. Sure, he was wearing more layers. But, more importantly, Brian was sitting on him.

"I told you it was Steve," a voice said from nearby. Steve rolled over a little bit, shaking Brian off of him so he could get a good look at the speaker. He already knew it was his twin, but he wanted to know if her outfit had changed, too.

It had.

Brian hopped to his feet, pulling Steve up with him. It took Steve a moment to readjust to the layout of the room, and to get used to standing with all of his layers. "Where are we?"

"We don't know," Brian admitted, shrugging. "I've never seen anywhere like this place before, and Alex hasn't, either. The buildings are enormous, but they're all in ruins."

Steve pushed back his hood and pulled off the mask on his face. "How is that even possible?" he whispered. "You've been everywhere."

Brian shrugged again. "I'm still working on that."

There was a pause. Brian gave them both a big grin.

"In the meantime, though, let's go check this place out!" he announced. Steve and Alex didn't get a chance to protest - he was already grabbing both of them by the wrists and dragging them towards the streets outside the ruins they were in.


It only took ten minutes for disaster to strike.

They were walking down a seemingly abandoned street when they heard a growl in the distance. Most people would run away from an inhuman noise like that, but Brian - being Brian - went running right towards it. Alex and Steve had to resign themselves into coming along.

The noise, apparently, had come from a zombie.

And Brian, still being Brian, made a beeline right for it.

Steve let out a groan. Alex did, too.

The zombie groaned at Brian the moment it saw him approach, its arms held up in front of it. It was admittedly a little slow, and its body wasn't moving nearly as fast as most of them did. But Steve and Alex still kept their distance.

"Hi," Brian said with a wave, now right in front of it. "How are you-"

The zombie responded by lunging for his arm.

And it didn't just grab it - it bit it.

Steve froze.

Alex froze.

Brian froze, too.

"What the fu-" Alex started, throwing another rock at the zombie to distract it.

"It bit me," Brian managed to get out.

"It's still biting you," Steve pointing out. He grabbed the nearest weapon he could find - a rock - and chucked it at the zombie. The zombie was stunned enough to let go of Brian, and stayed still long enough for Steve to jerk Brian back.

"They're not supposed to do that," Brian protested. "Why did did it do that-And ow. You grabbed me on the same arm it bit me-"

There was a pause.

Alex and Steve exchanged a look.

"...Why are you giving each other that look?"

"...Brian," Alex slowly said, "your skin is starting to turn green."

Brian blinked.

"Oh," he said. His voice jumped an octave as he looked down. "It...is."

The zombie started heading towards them. Instinct kicked in over confusion and worry - he jerked Brian towards a nearby building, knowing that Alex would be quick to follow. The moment they got inside, Steve barricaded the door and took off his coat.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked.

"I agree," Brian said. "What are you doing? It's probably not a good idea to stay in the same room as me right now-"

"Look," Steve said, presenting both the coat and the mask to Brian. "Chances are we're not the only ones here. If you're going to turn into a zombie, we need to stop you from biting anyone. You can't bite through the mask, right?"

Brian slipped on the mask. "And what about the jacket?"

Steve took a deep breath.

"As the infection spreads, it's going to become more obvious," he pointed out. He glanced at Alex - she seemed to understand what he was thinking. "The people we run into aren't going to be as accepting as we are. We can't let them know that you've been bitten."

Brian didn't exactly look unconvinced - his face was hidden behind the mask now - but Steve could just tell he was from the way he put the jacket on.

"Fine," he said. "Jacket it is, then."

Syl was goddamn pissed. Someone had dared to rip him from his comfortable forest in his comfortable apple tree while he was sleeping and carry him into the throes of a place he didn't know. In a goddamn building, mind you. How was he supposed to walk around safely if he couldn't see the grass beneath his feet? He didn't even know what floor he was on.

He got on his hands and knees and began to crawl, he eventually found a wall and followed it to a doorway, where he looked out and saw what the whisps led him to believe was a human, hunched over, it looked like they were eating.

"Excuse me!" He called out and watched as the person straightened themself out, and he could tell they had turned a bit to see him. "Could you help me, I'm mostly blind, and I don't know how to leave this place," The person stumbled forwards. Syl frowned. "Are you injured? Do you need help?" He shakily stood, leaning his hand on the wall so he wouldn't lose his safety.

He noticed only then that their whisps were what he could only describe as broken, and faded, something that was common when things were close to death. He'd seen it with Eli when they fell from the tower, though he'd never admit to Eli that he'd ever seen them that day.

Syl stumbled forward, reluctantly letting go of the wall, wanting to help whomever this was. "What's wrong? How did you get hurt?" The person growled in response, he was only a few feet from them now.

The person launched forward, looking almost like they leaped, but Syl couldn't tell. They sunk their teeth into Syl's arm, and Syl let out a pained yelp.

"What the fuck?!" He screamed at the person in front of him, "What's wrong with you! I'm trying to help and you just fucking bite me?!" The person lurched at him again, sinking his teeth into another place on the same arm, and Syl had had quite enough.

He summoned a piercing vine, driving it through the concrete, discovering he was on the second floor of a building by doing so, having had to drive it through two layers to get it here, and pierced the person to the ceiling, through the head, watching their whisps flicker out until he could no longer see them. He held his arm, finding it very painful.

"Help!" He cried. "Help me!"

Brian was infected. He could, theoretically, deal with that. But dealing with that was a little hard when Steve and Alex were so close by, and even harder a second later when a vine shot out of the ground.

"What the-" Steve started to say, only to get cut off by Alex giving a startled yelp. Brian was too busy accepting his fate to get as surprised as he should have been. Instead, he just watched the vine blankly from behind his mask.

There was a scream for help a second later.

The three exchanged a look, even though Brian's face was probably hard to read behind the mask. They didn't argue about what they were going to do - they all headed right for the stairs. Alex grabbed a forgotten piece of plywood; Steve grabbed a broken pipe. And Brian, who was still dealing with the fact that a zombie bit him, just brought himself.

They rushed up the stairs.

And found someone holding onto their arm, the bite marks very visible.

Brian glanced up.

"Oh," he said. "I found a zombie."

Said zombie had been pierced with a vine through the head. Brian didn't know how they had done it, but he had a sneaking suspicion that infected person on the other side of the room was responsible for it.

"Great," Alex hissed.

"I think we have bigger problems," Steve said.

"But they killed the zombie," Brian said, a slightly upset tone to his voice. "You know I hate when people do that."

"The zombie probably bit them," Alex pointed out.

Brian frowned behind the mask. "I'd bite people if they tried killing me all the time."

Syl turned toward where the newcomers had come from and stepped back from them slightly. He pressed his hair behind his ear, hoping the fact that he was blind would become apparent to them.

"H-hello?" He stuttered out, "are you going to bite me too?" He dearly hoped the answer was no, he prepared himself to summon more vines if necessary, but he hoped it wouldn't be. "I tried helping them. They seemed hurt. They attacked me, I-I didn't know how else to handle it. I can't see well. Please help."

He was nervous, to say the least, and hoped whoever he'd just killed hadn't been one of their friends. If it was, there would be more problems to be rid of.

"We're not," Steve reassured him. He shot a glance over in Brian's direction, but his friend wasn't even paying attention. Brian had moved to the base of the vine; he was currently staring right up at the destroyed zombie.

Steve just knew Brian was thinking of climbing the vine to get the zombie down, and also knew there was nothing he could do to stop him.

"I'm sorry for frightening you," Steve apologized. "We were just..."

He sent a desperate glance at his sister.

"We're just a little worried about the bite you got," Alex finished. She took a hesitant step forward, her grip on the plywood board tightening ever so slightly. It was hard to tell how fast the infection would spread. It usually took less time in general, but Brian's infection had barely even started.

How long did the boy have?

It took Steve another moment to realize that the boy was blind - it explained his story of why he hadn't been able to tell that he was helping a zombie earlier.

But blindness didn't mean anything. Brian was partially blind most of the time, and he could beat him in every fight. Save for when he used a sword, of course. Steve was still teaching him how to wield that.

"Zombies are like animals," Brian said, almost absentmindedly. He reached a hand up towards the zombie on the ceiling. "You can't just corner an injured animal without it lashing out. Not to say that they're all injured. This one's a perfect zombie - or, at least, was a perfect zombie."

Alex awkwardly cleared her throat.

Steve shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Syl glanced at the man closest to him. His whisp was misshapen, and only in small places. He was certainly wearing armor of some kind. He walked shakily, slowly towards the other two people here. Once he was within a small enough distance from them, he pushed his consciousness out of his body and into the mans'.

He blinked and looked around, feeling out his new temporary form, moving his arms and such. He approached his now motionless body, which had fallen to lie on the ground. He picked up his injured arm and examined it, looking at the green skin forming around the wound. Syl looked up towards the person, or well, zombie, that he'd pierced. He grimaced.

Syl stepped backward to stand by the unnamed man's friend and pushed his consciousness back to his own body.

He stood, and tilted his head at the two whisps in front of him. "Whats happening to me?" His voice sounded shaky and uncertain.

A fucking zombie? Seriously? Who the hell decided to throw him into a zombie apocalypse. He'd fucking kill them.

Unless it was Eli. Then he doesn't get any hugs for an entire fucking week.

Kate's cutlass was in her hand the instant she realized that the surface beneath her feet wasn't the sand of the beach where she fell asleep. "I'm gonna kill those motherfuckers," she said under her breath, not completely sure who 'those motherfuckers' were. She'd figure it out.

She was in a building, some fucking pretentious office building or something. No doubt a place for some pig-headed-glitter-loving-ass-kisser to lead an army of broke, mindless drones precisely nowhere and call it a success. That was, once the place was finished. There were abandoned cans of paint and slabs of yet-to-be-placed drywall all over the place to show this wasn't somewhere anyone had done any ass-kissing just yet.

With a huff and a few more muttered obscenities, Kate marched for the stairs. She shoved open the door and was greeted immediately with the ugliest mutherfucker she's ever had the displeasure of looking at, and that included the insufferable duck.

The guy looked like he'd been dead for a good long while, with peeling greenish skin and a jaw that didn't quite hang right, those glassy eyes staring at her like he hadn't eaten in months and she was a muffin in a shop window. He moaned something at her in what sounded like an accusatory tone.

"I'm going downstairs you fugly glitter-drenched piece of corpse bride trash," she growled in response and tried to shove her way past.

The guy moaned something again and grabbed her arm, his cracked, overgrown fingernails digging into her skin. Before she could say a word, he clamped his rotting jaw onto her shoulder like it was a turkey leg at the Rennaissance fair.

His head was rolling not a second later.

She wiped the blood off her cutlass on the guy's fallen corpse, wrinkling her nose in disgust. She was sure fucking glad that she was immune to most diseases, because whatever that guys had, there was no fucking way she wanted to catch it. He looked like a bagel that had been soaked in the mystery liquid from the bottom of a dumpster and left to rot for a year.

She marched down the stairs in her usual foul mood and threw open the door to the second floor with enough force to rattle it on its hinges. Another one of the fugly fuckers was dead on this floor, too. But, lucky Kate! There were regular people, too. Human and everything.

"Let's get this out of the way," she barked, "Are any of you glitter-munchers from this disgrace of a world?"



Connery wasn't at rehearsal. His rehearsal building would never have restrooms so filthy as this. The injustice that the true users of this wretched place suffered was immense, for there was filth embedded in each of the numerous cracks and crevices. The mirrors, which would have shone like a perfectly still body of water on a clear day were the janitorial staff to be possessed of any passion in the hands they used to make this place no more clean than the underbelly of a lazy pig, were instead stained and rusted around the edges.

With an expression befitting of the complete and utter horror Connery felt when he saw each new crime committed by those who were meant to be dedicated to cleanliness and order, he approached the door and again wrinkled his nose in disgust and the sight of the door handle. He wouldn't touch such a thing in a place like this if his life depended on it. In fact, it was quite clear by the unkempt nature of the room that was meant to be a place of sanctuary and sanitation away from the less cleanly outside world that his life may very well depend on not touching such a thing. Who was to say what kind of unsavory strains of bacteria and viruses could have been bred already on that little piece of copper.

He plucked a paper towel from the dispenser and used that to open the door. The hallways he found himself in was much cleaner than the restroom had been. Truly, the hallway was made so that actual people could walk through it, and not those who bathed in filth and decay.

He was walking, his head held high with that disgusted scowl still firmly molded onto his face as he continued that line of thought when the unexpected happened. A door beside him burst open and a figure shambled out, groaning something about academic achievement. "Brains..." was all Connery could make out, really, but he was sure that the rest of it was within the general frame of knowledge gathering.

The person looked rather ill, and Connery would have typically ushered them quickly to the restroom so they wouldn't lose the contents of their stomach all over the nice floor of this establishment, but under the circumstances, he was sure that such an act would only lead to them contracting something else on top of whatever now had them bent double and moaning.

Instead of dooming pointing them in the direction of such a worse fate as that, Connery simply stepped back and tried to get quickly away so at the very least he would not be present when the tragic occurrence that he saw in that poor individual's future did happen so disgustingly as he predicted.

His plans, however, were foiled, and by the individual themselves, no less!

The lept at him with such speed as a tiger at its prey and locked their jaw around his shoulder. He let out such a cry then that the whole building 'ought to have heard the shriek! He was in such incredible pain that such a wail was all that could be considered suitable. And he fought, oh he did. He pushed and shoved and tried to detach that unkind person's jaw from his flesh, but to no avail!

Finally, through some miracle of chance, he managed to get free. His mind was reeling so much so that he could not even remember how he got free of that monster's grip - for surely it was one of the night-dwelling creatures that infected his fine city that had gone so viciously for his blood - nor could he feel the ground beneath his feet as he ran away.

At a glance, he saw that there were now two creatures following him, and the second appeared to look very much like himself. The night-stalking creatures must have captured some poor fae to do their bidding and clone him to chase himself through these unfamiliar halls! The fiends would pay for this harsh treatment of him!

How was he to outpace himself? How was he to outthink his own mind, to race his own body both in the physical way and the way of scholars - no, not the fae of pen and inky, those of strategy and war - in the way of generals and spies? How was he to beat himself at this game into which he was unwillingly conscripted?

As he finished his thought, he realized that they had so distracted him that he was about to run directly into the wall at the end of the hall. In a panic, he turned only to find another wall, identical in nature, but his momentum was such that he was unable to stop himself from hurtling into it. He closed his eyes and threw up his hands in anticipation of the impact. He was perplexed to find it never came.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. He saw a gathering of people all in the room he had not been in before, all engaged in their own conversation when the door on the other side of the room burst open with such force that he would have blamed the gale-force winds of a hurricane were the person responsible not to burst through the doorway immediately after.

It was then that he realized that he was viewing all of this through his own hands.

It was the sound of Steve giving a very startled yelp in surprise that made Brian finally look away from the impaled zombie. What he saw didn't last long - it was only for a few seconds. But the blind, infected man disappeared for the briefest of moments, and there were two Steves instead of just one.

One Steve was the one that moved next to him. The other Steve was panicking. He was trying to grab onto Alex - trying to shake her arm - but she wasn't looking at him at all. She didn't even seem phased by the two Steves. It was only when she realized the infected boy had disappeared that she started to look concerned.

Then the boy appeared again, and there was just one Steve.

...What had Brian just seen?

"You were bit by a zombie-" Alex started to say, unaware of her brother's distress. Brian was the one who leaned over and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"I was here, and then I was there, and now I'm here again-" Steve rambled. "What just...just..."

It finally clicked.

"I think you were possessed," Brian said, matter-of-fact.

"Possessed?" Steve repeated. "That's a thing that can happen? Why didn't you mention it before?"

"It's not really my thing," Brian replied. "Ghosts are all light-related. You'd think darkness, but that's what it is - souls manipulating the light. I think. I wasn't really paying attention then, and ghosts are disgusting because they're light stuff and light stuff is disgusting-"

"Steve got possessed?" Alex interrupted. "By who?"

"By the zombie killer," Brian replied.

"Brian, lots of people kill zombies-"

"Steve, aren't you a little more worried about being possessed by someone who's infected-"

The conversation was cut short by another door being flung open, and by the arrival of a very angry looking girl. Brian didn't even know what a glitter-muncher was, but he felt like he should be offended that she had called him it.

(And Steve and Alex by extension.)

There was also the loud scream that burst through the building, but Brian was more concerned with the girl throwing insults around. Even the ghost that went through the wall didn't really phase him.

"Last time I checked, none of us are," Brian admitted with a shrug. He had climbed a little onto the vine when staring up at the ill-fated zombie, but decided it was best to jump down from his tiny little perch.

(It was more like a little skip than anything else.)

He pointed over at the ghostly newcomer.

"You might want to ask the other new guy, though."

Syl decided to ignore the angry newcomer and confront this pretentious, asshole of a motherfucking whisp. He wasn't just a light trick, and the bite on his arm could fucking prove it. He turned, quite aggressively mind you, to face this Big Man Motherfucker "I'll prove to you I ain't no light trick if you don't shut your trap and stop insulting my kind, you chauvinist asshole." As if to prove his point, a couple of vines shot up from the ground on either side of him, pointed directly at the jackass lump of a whisp. God, even his whisp looked unattractive.

Kate shoved her cutlass into its sheath about as gently as she'd opened the door and strode across the room, hardly acknowledging the answer she was given. "What the sparkling fuck are you doing here?!" she growled at the ghost who stumbled through the wall. Connery Blight. Top-tier glitter-licker from the lovely, lovely boarding school that had so kindly tossed Kate promptly to the street the moment she was infected. Not because of the infection, they had insisted - which was something you didn't have to say if it was true - she is simply a poor student. That was the summarized version of the pretentious as all hell letter she'd received.

I got straight C's, fuck you, she would have said if she didn't have better things to deal with.

Connery was transparent and floating, staring at his hands like they were a riddle he was trying to solve before the buzzer sounded.

"Connery!" she snapped.

He looked at her, and an expression of repulsion spread across his face like he'd just realized the bread had gone moldy, "Oh, so you are the one who arranged this torment for me to suffer. This agony. I should have guessed it. You were always the most vulgar, unappreciative creature-"

"The fuck did you just call me?!" she cut him off, her eyes burning brighter without her glasses to obstruct them.

The pretentious prat gave a long-suffering sigh and put the back of his hand dramatically to his forehead as he said, "Oh woe is me to have been trapped here by such a being as you! A night-crawling beast!" He put his hand down to make more dramatic gestures in time with his speech, "I demand that you release me back into the university from which I came, for I have res-" he was cut off by his own spluttering as Kate's cutlass slashed through his midsection. And nothing happened.

She grumbled a few curses as he looked to the others with a victimized look, "Did you see what this night-walked attempted!" he proclaimed, "Why, she deserves execution! Imprisonment! The gal of her!"

Kate rolled her eyes and turned to face the group, raising her eyebrows.

This conversation wasn't going in the direction Steve had wanted it to go at all. It was partially Brian's fault; if he hadn't insulted ghosts while standing feet away from one, things would have been a little more peaceful. Part of it was the boy and girl who had just joined their group. One of them was a ghost - but a seemingly different kind than the one that had just possessed him - and the other was a, well...

Steve wasn't really sure what she was. Brian didn't seem to be sure, either, but he suddenly got that offended look to him when he heard what the new ghost said about the girl. Steve couldn't see Brian's face, but it was easy to read his emotions after knowing him long enough.

Steve let out a groan and ran his hands down his face.

Alex, meanwhile, was so done with the conversation the moment the second ghost showed up that she had turned and begun digging through the rubble of the building for anything useful.

"There's nothing wrong with the night time," Brian said, a dangerously low tone to his voice. He maneuvered around the vines that the first ghost had set on him.

Steve let out another groan. Of course someone had to insult the night when Brian was around. It was like telling a parent that their child was ugly. You just didn't do it unless you wanted a fight.

Brian stopped in front of the second ghost.

"And calling someone a creature and a beast is a little rude, don't you think?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "She's smarter than you, that's for sure. Your insults are cliche and honestly a little annoying. Hers are actually creative."

Steve let out one final, defeated groan.

Syl was deeply, horribly offended that this asshole decided to ignore his threat. Who the fuck just ignores someone who threatens to pierce you with vines. He huffs and turns to the two others.

"Please lead me to somewhere where there is some motherfucking grass" His face brings out quite how pissed he is. "I'd like to be able to see where I'm going, thank you very much."

Kate gave a satisfied smirk that these people had the good sense to be on her side.

Conner, meanwhile, spluttered indignantly once more, "I didn't mean anything against the night," he said the apologetic words about as unapologetically as was possible for a pretentious fae like himself to accomplish, straightening his now-ghostly costume as he did so, "I merely meant that this vulgar wench, this-this bloodsucker had no right to make an attempt on my life. Why would anyone but one of her own foul kind defend such a violent, inexcusable thing?"

At the word bloodsucker, Kate nearly lost it. Her eyes were like furnaces, and his every word was another canister of gasoline tossed into the flames.

"Listen here you pompous prick," she ground out through clenched teeth, "If you use one more slur against me-"

"That phrase is not a slur," he scoffed, "One would have to be idiotic to think so. A simple-minded common- wha- where are you going?!"

She had turned around and grabbed the kid who was asking to be taken outside by the arm, "Outside is this way," she growled, "If I have to hear one more word out of that sparkle-licking piece of fae trash I'm going to have to stab something."