Young Writers Society

Kate rolled her eyes. These two had no experience.

"It's not going to be 'nice' for long," she said to the pair, neither of whom had so much as glanced at her yet. Kate didn't even know why she bothered giving a warning. They' figure it out when the army of what-Connery-thought-vamps-were came out of the mansion or something.

She needed a sword.

James was quiet as more people drew near the pool, wading in and dangling their feet over the edge into the water. Staying in the water to avoid the others was temporary. Hiding was temporary. Being seen was inevitable.

He could overhear the conversations of the two girls walking down the steps. Genevieve and Alyss. The other girl, yet unnamed, sat a small distance from them and didn't seem as curious or confused as the others. Maybe she'd been in a situation like this before, like himself. Her cryptic and cynical comment seemed to indicate as much. Unless she just said things like that all the time.

He drifted to the edge, about two feet from the pessimist and a few more from Genevieve and Alyss. He lifted his chin above the water and grabbed the edge of the pool with both hands.

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," he said quietly.

Kate eyed the guy who looked like the victim of landscaping equipment, pushing her glasses up her nose. "What gave it away?" she said sarcastically.

This guy definately had been in this sucky little rowboat before. She could tell by that little note in his voice. Speak from experience. Right. So do you, pal.

James didn't have the energy to bite back with sarcasm. So he was right. She could probably tell he'd been in situations like this before too.

"How many times has this happened to you before?" he asked.

"Too many." She squinted at him. Looking down into the water like this, with the colored lights illuminating (ew, what a pretentious word) him from below, it was getting really hard to pick out the details of his face through the tinted lenses of her glasses.

Finally, she just took them off and put them on the edge of the pool beside her.

Able to see him now, she said, "My name's Kate."

Benji gave a tiny nod after Queenie answered him. Part of him had expected that answer; it seemed like everyone was wandering around just as aimlessly as he had been before he had accidentally gone over to the pool side.

Little snippets of conversation floated through the air. Everyone was by the pool now. He wasn't straining his ears to hear them, and also wasn't trying to block them out. Sometimes the noises and smells became too much to handle, but there were only six people counting him - that wasn't that bad.

It seemed like they were all in the same situation. None of them knew where they were. Some of them were bothered by it more than others. Queenie was worried. Kate and the man in the water both seemed tired, more than anything else. And Genevieve and Alyss both were relatively calm, thanks to the setting.

Benji knew that someone needed to take the lead to start figuring out what was going on, but he kept hoping someone else would volunteer. He wasn't good with people. That's what he was a reporter. It was something that involved being alone for most of the day when writing articles, and researching something he felt like he knew a decent amount about. He didn't know anything something like this.

And something about Kate seemed...off. He couldn't put his finger on what. Her smell was slightly different, tinted with something he couldn't quite describe. Benji wasn't going to draw attention to it. That would be rude and wouldn't help at all.

But Benji was currently a fish out of water, and that was mattered the most.

He glanced down at the pool's water.

A second later, he rose and went over to one of the lounging chairs. He grabbed a folded up towel and draped it over his shoulders. It barely helped to cover him; he was too tall and too muscular. But it made him feel a little less uncomfortable about showing so much of himself right now.

He returned to the water's edge.

Alyss scowled at the girl who called herself Kate. For some reason, Alyss instantly disliked her. She didn't know why, it was just one of those moments when you feel something is off about a person. This 'Kate,' if that was even her real name, was getting on Alyss's nerves, and she really didn't feel like trying to hold her temper back the whole time they were here.
"I know that here isn't nice," she snapped at Kate, barely hiding her frustration. "I never said it was."
Wait.
She addressed the scarred man and Kate. "You said this has happened to you before?"

Kate rolled her eyes, "Glitter-lovers all over the cosmos like to pull people like my friend and I here-" she gestured at the man in the water, "-from our - in my case - very comfortable lives to do whoever they feel like we should be doing in places like this." She gave a sweeping gesture, encompassing the pool, the mansion, the others. "I assume it's your first time?"

James looked between Kate and Alyss.

Alyss seemed annoyed by Kate, and though he understood that Kate didn't give off the warmest impression, Kate did seem down to earth and level-headed, both of which were needed in situations like this. It would be best not to get under her skin, but he didn't want to play peacekeeper.

He drew a little closer to the wall of the pool, finding safety in having at least his chest hidden.

Kate had called him a friend. He wondered if she said that for show, or simply because they had some common ground in being kidnapped and brought to different worlds so many times. Though, he didn't come from a very "comfortable" life, at least, in the way most people defined comfort. Living alone in the wilderness meant you were always busy with surviving, but it was honest and necessary work. Lonely, sure. But it was his normal. It was his comfortable.

He hadn't had a chance to give his name yet, but he wasn't in a rush to. Alyss had been asked a question, so he waited in silence as he looked over to her.

Alyss nodded. "How many times has this happened to you?" she asked. Not waiting for an answer, she pulled her feet out of the water and crossed over to the drinks table. She had been eyeing it before, not to drink, but for weapons. Even a shard of broken glass was better than her fists, not that she wasn't good at fighting with them, it was just that Alyss felt more comfortable with something sharp in her hands. If worst came to worst she could throw it, even though it wasn't balanced at all, unlike her knives. Gods, Alyss really missed her knives.

"Many times," James answered simply, both for himself and for Kate, who'd already answered that same question from him moments ago. He watched as Alyss walked off, but assumed she was still listening. "More than I'd like to recount."

"Do you think this will become a regular occurrence for me?" Alyss asked with a small tremor of fear in her voice. She had left all the killing and brutality behind her, and was it too much to ask that she be left alone for a bit? She held up a glass and lifted it to her lips to take a sip, then brought it back down. She wasn't taking any chances. For all she knew, the drink could be poisoned. Throwing the glass away from her, she watched as it shattered. It was somehow soothing to hear and watch it break.

Alyss gingerly crossed forwards, and picked up the largest piece, testing its sharpness with her finger. Good. It would do, for now. She could kill someone with it, if she got close enough.

He felt a deep, dark pit grow in his stomach.

Benji had been comfortable just listening to the conversation, but the way Kate described this made him feel deeply uneasy. His gaze dropped down to the pool in front of him - he wasn't sure if he was staring at the water or the light.

If someone or something had brought him here that was outside the realm of ordinary, did they know his secret? Had they been able to see past the patchwork of spells he currently had up? How much did they - or it - know?

He gripped the towel tighter.

Kate's mind drifted to one time in particular, and, like tossing lighter fluid onto flame, the glow of her eyes flared in anger. She shook her head, her eyes returning to their normal, low, lamplike glow.

She pulled her legs out of the water and got to her feet. "Want something to drink?" she asked the guy, ignoring the chick who shattered the glasses and picked up the broken glass like some impulsive kid.



Queenie sighed. He was distracted. She could press him to keep talking, but there was no point in that. He clearly didn't know anything.

She got up and gave him a little wave he probably didn't notice, just to keep seeming friendly. She didn't have to search to know that, in this outfit, she had none of her usual gear. A gun, specifically, was what she'd like to have about now.

She went to get a drink, making it there in time to fake flinching at the sound of the glass shattering. She tiptoed around the broken glass and made it to the counter, pouring herself something to drink.

"What are you doing?" she said in the tone of someone who didn't know what finding a shard of glass to use as a weapon looked like.

Alyss stared at the blond haired girl, ignoring the judging gaze of Kate. Somehow, this girl didn't seem as normal as she looked. Alyss felt that this girl was dangerous, despite her appearance, and she resolved to stay on her good side. "I feel better with something sharp in my hand," she explained, inwardly cursing. She hadn't meant to say that much. "It's a thing from my childhood," she said, feeling that she might as well explain. "I would much rather have my daggers, but glass would work in a pinch."
She straightened up, the shard of glass gripped loosely in the palm of her hand. "It's not like I see any other weapons here."