Young Writers Society

This is my first attempt at this storybook stuff....we'll see if I know what the heck I'm doing.

I'm not sure why I'm standing here talking to the one person whom I've always hated. I'm not sure why she's talking right back to me. I don't know where I am or how I got here and why I'm not off somewhere else, doing what I had planned on doing tonight. We fall into an awkward silence. I shift my weight and stare into my drink. I don't know what it is, I don't know why I'm drinking it.

I suppose I should start at the beginning, and explain who she is and why I hate her so much. Maybe that will give me some sort of clarity. Her name is Mary-Beth Simons - I know, it makes me sick too - and we've been enemies since the first grade, when she dipped on of my pigtails into the blue paint and told the teacher I did it on purpose. Looking back, it seems kind of trivial. Is this the way wars are started? Over some little girl's pigtails? I hope not. But it happened that way with us. Of course, it didnt help that she grew up to be pretty and popular, and I became...well, the opposite. Oh, not that I'm ugly or anything, but Mary-Beth is in a class of good looks all her own.
I take a sip of my drink. It tastes bitter, and I wonder fleetingly if someone may have spiked it. I wouldnt know. I cant remember anything. A grey fog seems to have descended over my mind, obliterating all life before and after this second. I watch Mary-Beth take a swig of beer, somehow managing to seem calm and elegant. God, she's so irritating. Why does she have to be so perfect?

(I'm reviving this. And I'm not sure why.)

"Listen," Mary Beth says. "I brought you here because I need your help."

I choke on my drink. "You need my help? With what? Spreading a rumor about some girl? Pulling a prank? Figuring out how to make someone's world as miserable as you made mine? This isn't high school anymore Mary Beth. I've grown up--it'd probably in your best interest to do the same."

I rise from my seat, pain concealed in an angry gaze.

"No, please," Mary Beth begs, lurching forward and grabbing hold of the sleeve of my leather jacket. "I need you."

I try shaking her loose, but can't pry her glittery nails off of my arm. Finally, defeated, I sink back into the chair. "What exactly do you want with me?"

(Why are all these story books in the present tense???)

There is a moment of tension, where I look into her eyes and she looks back into mine. Her misty green iris swirls as streamd of light hit it and curdle up the colours in the room. A breeze blows back her hair and then changes direction to blow back mine. FOr a moment we were linked, that moment of tension allowed me to understand all.

In that moment, I was ripped from reality. The dark bar, Mary Beth with it, began to spin furiously. A flash of bright color, vivid yellows and greens and marroons--and my heart was thudding so hard and intense and I thought my chest would shatter. Noise, noise like I've never heard before! Trumpets and car horns and gun shots--what is going on?! I closed my eyes and grinded my teeth and tears poured from my eyes and I prayed to God that this madness would cease--and then it was all over.

Trembling madly, I dared to open my eyes. Moonlight streaming into a window allowed me to recognize the room I've been dropped into. It was a nursery--a crib, a changing table, blocks and teddy bears scattered over the floor. Getting up, I inspected the baby. Fast asleep, tiny features so delicately porcelin in the moonlight.

There is whispering outside the door. Shh, you'll wake the baby! The hushed whispers grow in intensity, and finally, volume. There is screaming, there is shrieking, and finally, the door bursts open.

Mary Beth, five years younger, and a man in a dark skull cap stand in the door frame. "You promised me that if I'd spared your life, I could take another!" the man screams to a devastated Mary Beth. She clings to the man's leg, screaming that she'll do anything to spare her child. The baby wakes. Mary Beth moans. A flash of a knife, a slit throat, and there is blood all over the little baby sheets. Mary Beth, overcome with emotion, grabs the fallen corpse of her seven-month old and sobs into it's bloody frame. The man leaves the house.

The vortex wasn't as much of a surprise to me on the way back to the reality. I was numb.
"So you'll help me?" Mary Beth forces, tears gushing down her face.

"Yeah, I'm in," I say, allowing a few of my own tears to leak down my face. "What do you need?"

((OOC: Kinda violent...))