Young Writers Society

Hey guys! Sorry for the delay, we'll be starting tomorrow after I get home from vacation. Make sure you post your profiles and they are how you want them!

If anyone else wants to join who hasn't saved a spot, feel free to. We will be accepting characters until we start.

I forgot about this SB! That's what you get for posting before going on vacation... I'm going to do a female character for a change, I think.

Name: Zoey Barnes

Age: 21

Gender: Female

Illness: Generalized anxiety disorder. (The wikipedia link in case you don't know what it is)

Reason for institutionalization: Zoey is an outgoing, outspoken person who can convince people to believe in what she believes in. Therefore, the government were worried that she would speak up and rebel against them. She is also a very creative, quirky person and the government doesn't like that one bit. Zoey doesn't fit into what they consider 'suitable', so they decided to throw her into the institution.

Appearance: Zoey dresses in a very unique way. She always wears what makes her look different and doesn't copy all of the celebrity trends. She sets her own trends. She has quite long, blonde hair and hazel coloured eyes. She has rather tanned skin and is always either wearing a flower or a headband in her hair.

Personality: Zoey has a very distinctive personality, a really quirky one. The way she dresses is the same as her personality. At times, she can be annoying but that's only because she constantly worries about things (down to the 'illness'). She used to be the complete opposite; carefree and relaxed until she got injected. Zoey as a person is very nice and when others are around her, they can't help but feel happy. She laughs an awful lot and can quite often act like a five year old girl, not a 21 year old woman. That's when she's not worrying about things, that is.

Other: Zoey always says the words 'Wow' and 'Really?'

I'll join!!! This sounds great!

Name: Elliot Draker

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Illness: Insomnia.

Reason for institutionalization: Elliot is one of the most intelligent teenagers in country. She was part of an underground movement during the dictatorship, where she was used for her IT skills and knowledge about the government - her own father was a member of President Blair's dictatorship. When Blair was overthrown, her father had pleaded with The Board that he was under Blair's control, and wanted to be a part of the new government. Her father was accepted onto The Board, and knowing his daughter's intelligence, he had her found and locked up in the institution. Elliot has always had insomnia, an affect after her mother disappeared one night. The injection has only prolonged this, so now Elliot cannot sleep at all.

Appearance:

Personality: Elliot is bitter. Her mother disappeared one night when she was younger, and her father is part of The Board and an ex-member of the Blair Dictatorship. There's no love in her life anymore. She's eager in doing her bit to take the government down, whether it's Blair or the Board. She rarely smiles, is very sarcastic and only works well with others if they are doing what she says. She hates anyone who tries to interfere with her work, especially when it comes to hacking into tehnical and audio equipment. Saying that, Elliot does have a vunerable side, which she tries not to show.

Other: Tends to roll her eyes a lot. One other thing is that she's also English, not American. Her mother was English, and she grew up in England. It was only when her mother disappeared she was forced back to America, where she soon left her father to join the underground movement. The only reason they haven't deported her back yet or worse, is because The Board wants her intelligence.

Urg. I was going to use journalist. >.< Hm.

Name: Liliac Cojorna

Age: (no younger than eighteen) 25

Gender: Female

Illness: Dissociative identity disorder and a mild case of amnesia. We already know she lost her memory of her former life, but everyday she has a new personality each with an elaborate past. Sometimes she is a Romanian princess from the 1600's. Sometimes she is a Playboy model who wishes to kill her boyfriend. It changes everyday and rarely do these "people" come back.

Reason for institutionalization: (what made the government put them there. Are they intelligent? Creative? Powerful? Please be specific.): She was a CNN news reporter and investigative person (I have no clue what they're called). She would pretend to be another person and get a 'job' at some important goverment place that seemed sketchy or corrupt. She would find the truth and tell the world on national TV.

Appearance: It constantly changed because of her job. She always dyed her hair and wore different contacts and stuff but before she started her job and during the time she was institutionalized this is how she looked:

http://media.photobucket.com/image/pretty%20girl%20with%20brown%20hair/Your_kisses_are_tantalizing/892565043_l.jpg

Personality: Again it depends. She's mostly a very inquisitive, sarcastic, fierce person.

Other: She was going to be an actress because she was so good at becoming different people but realized in the middle of her first audition that she couldn't stand having lines.

Name: Oliver “Olli” Kendal

Age: 22

Gender: Male

Illness: Paranoid Schizophrenia

Symptoms:
-Thinks everyone holding a conversation without him is plotting against him, sometimes thinks his meals have been poisoned, etc.; the first thing he does when he walks into a room is look for emergency escape routes. Very paranoid about people scheming against him and keeping secrets from him.

-Has an invisible best friend named Gaia who talks to him in her native language. He often holds conversations with her in the language. In short, he hears voices speaking nonsense.

-Whenever he speaks it’s usually in Gaia’s language or weak English, simply because he isn’t used to speaking English anymore.


Reason for institutionalisation: Olli ran a political radio talk show. He was an excellent debater and would argue with guests, almost always winning. He was able to uncover conspiracies before the general public even realized something was fishy. Not exactly mascot material for The Board.

Appearance: Short and spiky golden brown hair, almost a matching color to his light brown eyes. Not the best skin, but a good tan. A really thin upper lip and a full bottom. Short, unkempt stubble. A nice little nose on a big, oblong triangle face. 5’ 11” and pretty thin for lack of trust in the cooks.





Personality: Aside from his hallucinations and delusions, Olli isn’t half bad. A nice laugh and can carry on a conversation like nobody’s business – he was, after all, a radio host. No matter how serious the topic he can find a joke to slip in and make it light hearted enough to listen to. He tends to be very opinionated and will fight with anyone who disagrees with him, whether it’s fighting with you over whether primary colors are better than secondary, or fighting with the carrot on his plate why he had to be so crunchy.

Other: Once in a while he sees Gaia and tries to take a picture of her, but oddly enough, no else can see her. He can see her in the photographs and has pictures of apparently empty scenes taped around his room (if they have rooms). If you ask him, she's a very pretty girl.

Here's a link to a website explaining symptoms of Dementia if anyone is interested:
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/dementia ... ge3_em.htm

Ara Young

Ara clutched a pencil in her hand and her sketchpad to her chest as she stared wide-eyed at the white-coated men around her. She didn’t know them…did she? No, she certainly did not. This wasn’t a regular occurrence, it couldn’t be. It wasn’t her usual routine. She went to the nurse, not to these strange men in this cold metal room.

“Miss Young,” one of them men said, kneeling in front of where she sat rigid in a folding chair. “Can you tell me how you spell your name?”

Ara looked hard at the men for a minute. “A…” she stopped, scratched her head. “A… I’m sorry, I don’t see the point in this.”

The man nodded and went away. Ara was glad. She wanted to get back to her routine. She wanted to go sit in the lounge and look out the big windows at the water like she always did at this time.

She watched the men standing with each other, writing things down, talking, filling vials. She didn’t trust them, something was wrong with the way they disrupted her schedule. They were whispering in the corner, but Ara could make out what they were saying. “She’s progressing well. In a few weeks she won’t remember anything at all about her past life.”

What was that? Past life? These men were stranger than she had expected. She didn’t have any life outside of the routine that was her day to day experience. She liked it that way.

A man came back to her and pulled her up by her arm. “Let’s go, Miss Young.” He led her out the door and escorted her back to her room. Not to the lounge like usual, but her room. He pushed her roughly into the sterile, white box that she called home and pulled the door shut behind him. Ara could hear the distinct beeping that was him setting the lock code on her door.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” she shouted. She threw her sketchpad at the door. She looked around the room for something else to throw. Her bed was bolted to the floor, as was her dresser, and the dresser drawers couldn’t be removed. Ara grabbed the pillows from her bed and threw them, but nothing came of it. She sunk to her knees, cradling her head in her hands as she waited to be released to her schedule.

Lilac Cojorna~Multiple Personalities


She woke, raising her head from the cold metal floor, unsure of where she was. What awakened her was the constant tap-tapping of what seemed to be a keyboard. She looked up, searching for the source of the noise.

"Um, hello? Is anyone there?" She called.

When no one answered, she took it upon herself to find an exit.

Maybe I've been caught by some corrupt government official I was researching. How am I going to get out of this one? She thought.

Suddenly, a female computerized voice rang out into the stale air.

"Now initializing hypodermic needle in patient number 224"

A gas flowed from a vent she hadn't noticed before. She pulled her shirt up to her face, trying to conceal herself, but she found herself falling to the ground and falling asleep.

Joe Smith

It felt like a bad day this morning. I can't make much sense of that. Usually when I wake up knowing that I'm Joe, it's a good day, but this morning felt wrong. I was sitting in my room, waiting to be let out and wondering what had me on edge. I'm a very logical man when I'm at my best. I thought at first it might have something to do with the events of the previous day but I'd spent most of yesterday being crazy. Then the nurse arrived. It was the nurse I liked so I gave her a friendly wave and watched as she opened my room, holding the door for me.

"Good morning, Daniel," the nurse said kindly. I gave her a sheepish smile. Right. I'd been Daniel last night. Or thought I had. I wasn't Daniel of course but sometimes he seemed so real.

"It's... I'm better this morning," I told her. "I'm Joe," I added, rubbing my knuckles nervously. That was a habit I'd picked up. When I first started going crazy, when I started wondering if my patients were sane. I mean, how crazy an idea was that? Sometimes the turning point seemed so clear to me... This was one of those days.

"That's wonderful Joe." The nurse gave me a slightly patronising little smile. I didn't blame her. Sometimes... I rubbed my hands together again and glanced down at them. Rough. So rough and calloused and I didn't know why. How did a psychiatrist get such hands?

"Uh Joe..." The nurse was looking at me. I sighed and stood up and followed her out of the room.

"Thanks nurse," I said tiredly. I made my way down to the kitchen and grabbed myself a plastic tray and some cutlery. Usually I looked forward to breakfast but today it dismally occured to me that I really hated plastic cutlery. You couldn't eat steak with plastic cutlery so we never got steak but try telling the nurses that you miss having steak knives. They just can't understand.

"Want to play a game of cards later?" I asked the patient sitting next to me. Chess was better but most of them didn't get chess or else were too sick. Sometimes on my good days I liked to talk to and diagnose the patients or calculate their progress but I'd decided this wasn't such a good day.

Zoey Barnes

I stared disapprovingly at the plastic tray in front of me. There was some horrible, lumpy mash potato on it along with some tinned vegetables. They'd almost put some sliced chicken on my plate, but I'd managed to stop them. I told them that I was a vegetarian everyday, but the never listened.

"Want to play a game of cards later?" A voice suddenly interrupted my thoughts.

"Uh, what?" I asked, turning around to see a guy with dark hair sitting next to me.

He looked around ten years older than me, but his face seemed kind. Cards sounded good. Suddenly, I froze. I didn't know him though. What if he did something bad? What if he tried to hurt me? What if I did something stupid? Thousands of questions raced through my head, each one making me even more worried than before.

As the questions raced through my head, I began to rub my hands together. I could feel my breathing becoming heavier each second. What if the man laughed at me because I lost the game or cards? What if he got angry at me if I won it?

"Is that a yes or...?" The guy spoke again.

"No thanks." I quickly shot up from my seat, grabbing my tray.

Without looking back, I more or less ran towards the bin. Once I'd reached the bin, I emptied the contents of my tray into it. Phew, that was a close one.

Elliot Draker - Insomnia
Elliot looked up at the sound of people speaking. Even though the book she was reading was rubbish - a Board approved novel - she had managed to tune everyone out, like normal. It was a man speaking, to a younger girl who looked as if she were ready to throw the garbage they'd been serving as food against the wall. She couldn't remember either of their names, nor did she want to know. She wasn't in here to make friends. The girl stood up, looking petrified, and with a quick word dashed out of the room.

The man looked at her retreating figure with surprise, but then his face was back to normal, and he turned towards Elliot. "Cards?" he asked her.

"No, thanks," she replied, turning back to the book she was reading. What, did she look like a five year old or something? The man kept staring at her strangely, as if he were assessing her or something of the like. It made her uncomfortable. Out of all the chairs he could have chosen in this dull room, he had to pick the one next to her's.

Elliot contemplated moving away, but the only other chairs were located by the windows, and she hated looking out onto the lake. It was one of the most boring sights she had ever seen. It never changed, and after seeing the various shades of blue that made up the sky, she never wanted to lay eyes on it again.

"Elliot Draker?"

She looked up, a nurse all in white standing by the door of the room. Elliot looked at her warily. These nurses were all the same - artifical beings, brainwashed by The Board into thinking they were doing the right thing here. Not wanting to disobey though - she had suffered the consquences of that from the last time - Elliot stood up, and followed the nurse out of the room, leaving the book on the chair.

The nurse led her down the white washed corridors of the institution, and Elliot concentrated on her surroundings. Everyday she watched to see where the nurses and doctors went to, which doors they had access to, which ones had numbered keypads for entry etc. One day, she would use all that information, now stored away in a part of her brain, ready to be pulled forward and used. One day she would get out of this hell hole her father placed her in.

The nurse took her into a small room, the walls dark and grey in contrast to the outside. She was left alone, a chair the only company she had. Elliot didn't bother to sit down though. For some reason, the institution wanted to wear her down, to betray the New World Order movement she was part of before being rounded up and placed in here.
Never, she thought. The NWO were her only family, the people she loved. And no-one was going to stand in the way of her getting back to them.

Jean Lambe

Nice and safe, nice and safe, nice and safe in my room. It was fine now, just me in my room with the fifty books I'd smuggled out of the library-no one ever went in there, the library came to us on the trolley and the librarian was only there for two hours a day.Picking a lock was a good skill to have. If I read aloud, I could almost drown out the sounds of the other patients. My first book was "Slammerkin"-I wished I'd picked something with more open spaces, "Heidi" maybe, that was full of mountains and fields and the likes if I remembered correctly. I followed Mary through her crowded house and school and onto the London streets, with the rest of the books forming a little all around me. If I lay down I was almost hidden.

Around noon, a nurse tapped at the door. I stuffed all the books save the one I was reading into my bed and slipped into bed with them. She opened the door and the noise streamed in. I flinched. She closed it.

"You'll strain your eyes, deary," she chirped, and pulled open the curtain.

"Close it!" I shut my eyes. "Please," I added.

"You'll take all your meals in here, I presume," she beamed.

The thought of being in the dining room made my throat close up. "Yes. I want to stay in here, thank you. I wouldn't be able to handle it out there."

"I'll be right back with your tray."She left. The door was closed. I exhaled.

I reached into my pocket. My pen and pocket notebook were gone. Did they think I was going to poke my eye out? Give myself multiple paper-cuts? I bit my tongue to release my frustration and returned to the London of my book, holding it at arm's length.

"Day One," I murmured. It wasn't the same without a pen.

Ara Young

She couldn't remember. Nothing. Her mind was blank. Until just then she could remember some things about her past. Now all she could remember was her own name, but even then she couldn't spell it.

"Why am I like this?" she asked through the tears that streamed down her cheeks. "Why couldn't they just let me have my usual schedule?"

The familiar beeps of the keypad on the door distracted Ara. She jumped up from the floor and, wiping the tears from her face, hastily sat at her desk and picked up a colored pencil. She had started scribbling something when the door was opened.

"Miss Young," a kind-faced nurse said. She was young, and pretty. Unlike so many of the other nurses. "It's time for dinner, would you like to eat in here or in the dining room with the others?"

Ara pushed herself up from the desk and walked to the door. "Dining room, please." The nurse smiled and helped Ara put on her shoes and a jacket since she was always cold. Ara could barely handle performing these simple tasks on her own. She hated it, but at least this kind nurse was helping her tonight.

She led Ara to the dining room and helped her fill a tray with food before sitting her down next to a group of unfamiliar residents. Ara looked at the people around her after the nurse left. She didn't recognize these people. This was her usual place, but no one else ever sat there. Or did they? Ara hunched over and ate her plastic-tasting food, hoping to avoid conflict with these people she might have known yesterday.

Lilac Corjona~ Multiple Personalities

"My name is Susanna Coleman. I have two sons and a daughter. My first born son, Donald, is a psychologist under the famous Dr. Wagner. My second son, Roger, is a divorce lawyer with his own firm by the Upper West Side. My daughter is currently in her first year of college at Colombia. She is studying Creative Writing and works at Starbucks to pay for rent at her apartment in Soho. I am 43 years old. I am a receptionist for The Plaza Hotel. My husbands name is James Coleman. He was born and raised in Britain, but on a business trip to America, we met and fell in love while he stayed at the Plaza. He is a business man and he is 42 years old. I'm cheating on my husband with one of the cooks at the Plaza. His name is Sam Roldan and he is 37 years old. My husband found out and kicked me out of our townhouse in Queens. I am currently living with my daughter and her roommate in Soho until I get my money from the divorce. My son Roger is working for his father so we aren't speaking right now and I doubt we will. My life is in shambles. It's nice to meet you." Lilac repeated this three more times while laying on her back on the soft goose-feather bed.

The room had plain white walls, an empty bookcase and the soft bed that Lilac refused to get up from. The large door opened and a nurse came in. She was shrill looking, with a long hook nose, bleach blonde hair with dark roots, ruby red lips and a seemingly Botoxed face, she looked like a Barbie doll gone wrong.

"Time for breakfast. Would you like in here or in the dining room, Lilac?" The nurse asked in a kind tone, that did not match her face at all.

Lilac turned to the nurse with an unsure look on her face. '

"Who is Lilac? *You don't have to read the spoiler. It's the exact same thing as the above. Just note that her name today is Susanna Coleman and her life is screwed. " Lilac said in a pleasant tone.

The nurse had a amused look on her face, like she had seen things like this many times before, which of course, she had.

"Of course, Susanna. I'm sorry about the divorce and your son. For now, would you like breakfast in here or in the dining room?"

Lilac waved her hand and replied, "Wherever".

"Alright. Come, let's go to the dining room." The nurse said with a nod. Lilac's body protested when she attempted to get up, but after a couple of tries she stood.

"Lead the way."

Errr....I've been a Storybooker long enough to know that this is dying. Post people!