Young Writers Society

An old proverb says that a ship cannot rest until it fulfills its last command. In the era of interstellar exploration and technological advancements, this proverb truly carries weight. A once fully crewed ship drifts aimlessly through the darkness of the night sky. It was unable to complete its last mission for nearly a decade, but time has given it the opportunity it needed. Drawing upon its systems, it has created rifts in space itself, drawing people from an array of realities to fulfill the roles of its lost crew.

But the ship is old, and it is difficult to determine what that last mission is. Even more so, not everyone on the ship is well-versed in some of the most developed technology in the universe. The ship will try to adjust for this, but the task ultimately rests on its new crew.

Yet the galaxy is not empty, and the ship does bear markings of a race still embroiled in interstellar conflict. Finding a way home will not be easy, but when have these crossdimensional escapades ever been?

When Charlie opened her eyes, she found herself standing in an unfamiliar corridor of an unfamiliar building. Something about it didn't seem right, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. She adjusted the strap of her bag and peered down the hallway for some sort of answer. If she was standing up, she must have been doing something before this moment, but her mind was a pulling a blank when she thought too hard.

And then she caught a glimpse of what was at the end of the corridor.

She walked past the stark white walls until she arrived at the room, slipping inside when she heard murmured voices coming from within. But the voices fell silent as she entered, and their owners were nowhere to be seen in what was apparently a dining room. As she scanned the room for them, her gaze landed on an enormous window across the room.

Her breath caught in her throat.

There were stars outside of the window, dancing in a sea of black.

"I'm in space," she whispered, eyes widened. A grin spread across her face, and she ran over to the window. Pressing her hands against the glance, she peered out at the stars enveloping what had to be a ship. She should have been frightened - didn't this mean she had been abducted by aliens? - but she was too in awe of the sight.

Someone suddenly tapped her on the shoulder.

She spun around, surprise flickering across her face until she recognize who had done the tapping. Relief immediately flooded her when she saw Oliver standing there - and Lucy, too, a short distance away. Both looked worried, but Charlie couldn't feel worried when they were both here.

"Where are we?" she asked. They would know, wouldn't they?

The two exchanged a look.

"Somewhere not safe," Lucy replied. Oliver nodded in agreement. Now her own worry was beginning to grow; she couldn't remember the last time either one of them had decided that.

"Charlie, this..." Oliver faltered. "This isn't a good ship. It's not...It's not like ours. It could have been an older model, but the interior design is far more like theirs."

Her eyes widened.

"We need to be careful," Lucy concluded. "And we need weapons, too, while we're at it."


When she awoke, she was sitting in a quite comfortable chair. She was a bit groggy for a moment, but soon the world came into view around her. Or, rather, the bridge of the ship they were in. It was like the thing out of her childhood stories - the beautiful, massive ship, with the finest technology and most comfortable chairs. She was a little disappointed when she wasn't wearing one of the old uniforms, too, but her attention was quickly occupied by something else.

She was sitting in the seat to the right of the captain's chair. To the left of it was none other than Soren, sitting in a chair identical to her own. She didn't need to see his eyes to figure out what he was thinking of. She lunged forward just as he did. She wrenched the seat over so it was facing her, but then he rushed forward and pulled it in his direction instead. And while their strength was normally the same, she was like this and he was like that - she didn't stand a chance.

Soren gave her a little shove to the ground and lifted his mask up just enough to stick out his tongue at her. She frowned as she got back up to her feet, crossing her arms and scowling at him for good measure.

"That wasn't fair," she said.

"I wouldn't have won the captain's chair with fairness," he replied, a smug tone to his voice. He stared down at the controls before him; his gloved hands hovered over the little buttons and screens. "Where do you think we are?"

"A ship."

"Just because I have this cloth on doesn't mean I can't see where we are," he said, smugness turning to irritation. Now she was the smug one, giving him a smirk when he turned back to look at her. But the smirk quickly disappeared when she noticed the worry that soon appeared in his voice. "Do you think they found us?"

She looked around the bridge.

"...No," she finally determined. "There's no captain here to talk to us, or any crew. And we're in the bridge, not a cell or a fancy bedroom."

"So we just got abducted by a ghost ship," Soren said. "Nice."

Jaron blinked.

He was sitting on top of some kind of humming machine in a large, crowded room. The smell of metal tinged the air as assorted devices vibrated, shook, or flashed random colors. Networks of pipes and wires extended over his head, presumably leading out to the rest of wherever he was. Trying to process all the noises, scents, and colors briefly overwhelmed him, so that it took a few seconds to realize someone was tapping him on the knee.

Looking down, Jaron saw Kendrik extend a paw up. "Need help?" Kendrik said.

The fox nodded. Stuffing the sandwich he'd been holding (for whatever reason) into a pocket, Jaron took the paw. Kendrik hauled him down to the floor, setting him down on his feet.

They stood at the center of the room, eyes scanning all of the machines.

"Can't make sense of it," Kendrik said, shaking his head.

"It's...a power source?" Jaron whispered, walking up to the largest machine. This one glowed yellow, pumping its contents through what were also the largest pipes. Using a claw to pry open a tiny door he'd spotted, Jaron stared into the mess of wires and green rectangles that the machine appeared to rely on. "And it might've been used recently? It smells" - he sniffed and wrinkled his nose - "...burnt."



Thytes flipped himself onto his stomach, purring as he felt the blanket over his head settle down on him. It'd been a quiet, restful night, and he was hoping on making the morning uneventful as well. Fluffing his pillow, he sank his face into it, letting any remaining tension in his muscles unwind and fade away. Maybe he'd go downstairs after he woke up again and prepare something for lunch. What would he like to eat? Perhaps-

"Hi!"

Thytes immediately pulled himself up, feeling his back connect with somebody's chin. His eyes shot over to the wolf sitting beside his bed. That wolf was now holding onto his chin and grimacing.

"Oh, Taber!" Thytes said, reaching a paw up to pat his brother on the head. "I apologize! But you should know better than to intrude in my personal quarters without knocking. I am not decent right-"

He looked down to find himself wearing his usual robes. Huh.

"Aheh," Taber said, wiping a little blood from his mouth. The lion looked up at him with a concerned frown, but Taber immediately shook his head. "That hurts a bit, but it's okay! You didn't know what you were doing! And, uh, this isn't exactly your room."

"Where is-?" Thytes began, before seeing the white curtains that surrounded his bed.

"Some kind of hospital," said a voice to Thytes's right. The lion twisted himself around to find Aegeas sitting on a metal chair, a leg resting on the opposite knee. Aegeas crossed his arms. "We all just got here. We're not sure where here is."

A realization settled over Thytes; the lion slumped his shoulders. "Oh dear," he said. "This is another one of those incidents, is it not?"

Aegeas and Taber both nodded, the former with a scowl and the latter with a smile.

"Oh dear," Thytes repeated, pulling himself up into a sitting position.

Charlie lingered behind Lucy and Oliver as they left the room, knowing that it wasn't safe to venture into the ship without them in the lead. She hadn't really ever been on a ship before, and especially not one made by them. It didn't seem like there was a crew manning the ship, but it didn't hurt to be cautious.

Lucy came to a sudden stop and raised her hand.

Oliver and Charlie stopped as well, following her hand with their eyes as she gestured at a nearby room. She didn't have as good hearing as Lucy did, but she could hear voices now that she knew something was off. None of the voices were familiar. Not that she had expected them to be. But Oliver and Lucy both looked like they recognizing something about one of them, and they hesitantly began to approach its source.

Lucy was the first one to peer into the room.

A second later, she was gone - not pulled in, but having almost rushed inside. Oliver had a similar reaction when he peered in through the doorway, a grin spreading across his face as he presumably hurried towards the people in the room.

Now Charlie peeked in through the door...

...and found herself looking at people that were mixes of humans and animals, in ways that she didn't even know were possible. She stared - wide-eyed and frozen - at the three strangers in the room. She wasn't scared; intrigued was a better way to put it, and incredibly curious. And Oliver and Lucy seemed to know the one that looked like a bipedal otter, both now standing by his side with smiles on their faces.

"Aegeas!" Oliver exclaimed. "I can't believe you're here."

Lucy turned and saw Charlie standing in the doorway. When Charlie didn't make a move to enter on her own, Lucy gestured for her to come inside. She felt so small and out of place as she joined Lucy at her side. It seemed like she had to be the only human here, and she didn't even know anyone besides Oliver and Lucy.


When Soren finally grew bored with peering at the controls and spinning around in the captain's chair, he turned his attention back to his sister. She had been methodically pacing around the bridge for the past five minutes. It was always weird seeing her like that - seeing Harper Byrd instead of the person she really was. She could have easily changed by now. He could have easily changed by now. But here they were, pretending to be what they weren't in the bridge of a ship meant to feel like home.

Maybe that was the reason why. Maybe because their only home now as each other, and it didn't feel safe revealing the truth in the company of something that reminded them so much of what they had run from. He got to his feet, tentacles shifting underneath his hoodie as he left behind the confines of the chair.

"So what now?" he asked.

Harper came to a stop before the massive window that peered out into the starry expanse beyond.

"We find out why we're here," she said.

"Easier said than done," he pointed out. "The log's going to have a password, and we don't even know who commanded this hunk of metal."

Harper eyed the captain's chair. "We could try finding their quarters."

He shook his head. "Takes too long, and probably wouldn't have anything. I bet whoever was on here managed to get off - that's why it looks so nice." He started to head towards the door, readjusting his mask so it stuck better to his face. It wasn't at risk of sliding off, but it was getting a bit uncomfortable. "I'm heading towards the engines, or whatever this thing was fueled on."

"I'm coming too," Harper said, darting over to him with a burst of inhuman speed. He hadn't doubted it. She never let him go anywhere without her, even in a place like this.

They wandered through the unfamiliar halls of the ship, checking the holographic screens plastered in every long corridor as guidance. He felt so small compared to their sheer size, knowing that they weren't built for weak imitations of human bodies.

They entered the room together; the doorway was easily wide enough for two people, and possibly even three.

It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the sight, but he soon realized they weren't the only ones in the room. Harper immediately went for a piece of discarded pipe, and his tentacles shifted restlessly underneath his hoodie.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "And what are you doing here?"

In spite of himself, Aegeas couldn't help but smile when he looked up at Nadira and Codix. Memories of the city and the jungle flashed through his mind, but so did the snippets of conversation, the understanding, the compassion, the shooting Kartiel in the legs. They'd been very good friends for people he'd only known for a short time.

"Neither can I," he said, twisting around in his seat. Setting his arms on the back of the chair, he shook his head. "Didn't think I'd be seeing you two ever again."

"Wow!" Thytes said from behind him. The lion extended a paw over Aegeas's head. "Are you friends of his? So nice to meet you! I am Thytes Aurelius."

Taber, meanwhile, stood up and walked around the bed, standing next to the third person. "Hi!" Aegeas heard Taber whisper. "Is everything okay? You're looking a little frightened. Please let me know if you need some space!"

Aegeas rolled his eyes; Taber was in full nurse mode. But it barely dampened the moment - he was surrounded by friends and people he could recognize, and that was enough for him.



Ugh. Reaching into Jaron's pockets, Kendrik pulled out a couple of the larger wrenches. By no means the most dangerous thing Jaron had on him, but these two didn't seem all that harmful. Sure, one of them liked masks (on top of having parts of his body moving in ways that they shouldn't), and the other had a piece of pipe, but that she'd had to pick it up suggested that she didn't have any weapon. And a pipe was pretty evenly matched with a wrench. If worst came to worst, they could use the explosives, but Kendrik didn't want to blow up an engine room.

So here he was, wrench in each hand, staring down the strangers. Beside him, Jaron pulled out a mallet. "What's it to you?" Kendrik said, Jaron nodding along. We just got here, and we ain't got anythin' to do with this place. Go bother somebody else."

Oliver and Lucy took turns shaking the extended hand, sharing a look with each other as they presumably tried to figure out what name to give. Charlie was grateful she didn't have to do that - she could just be Charlie, and not worry about the monumental consequences of picking one name over the other.

And then there was the person talking to her.

She looked away from her two friends.

"I'm okay," she said, glad that someone was trying to talk with her but simultaneously more than a little nervous for that very same reason. "I'm not...I'm not frightened." Even as she spoke, she scooted just a little closer to her friends. She liked the comfort they provided, especially when they already knew one of the people there.

Oliver gestured at himself, Lucy and Charlie. "I'm Codix. The girl with long hair is Nadira, and Charlie's the girl with the short hair." Charlie gaped at him; if he was saying that without worrying about the otter's reaction, the otter must have known who they were already. She snuck a glance over in his direction.

Who was he?

Codix and Nadira turned back to the otter.

"This place isn't like Atlantis," Nadira said. "This ship belongs to the race that started a war with Codix - it's a dangerous place. We haven't found any of its crew yet, but if they're still on here..."

"It would be bad," Codix finished.


"I don't know if I'm buying it," Harper said. She spun the pipe around easily in her hand. Soren quietly watched her; it didn't matter that it had been years since she had formal training. She was still a better fighter than he'd ever be. He felt a familiar pang of envy as she took an intimidating step forward. "The fact that you're here makes me think otherwise. Why would you be giving this ship a visit if you weren't involved with what-"

Soren's gaze has been wandering while she spoke, scanning the room for clues or more threats while his sister handled that situation. He knew his silence was intimidating enough - it was impossible to read a face hidden by a mask, and the silent type made it even harder to figure out what a person was like.

But as his eyes scanned the room, he suddenly couldn't keep up the silent act. There was a name - printed on a piece of cleaning cloth draped over a pipe - that he could just barely make out. Harper fell silent when she saw him hurry over to where the cloth was. He grabbed it with a gloved hand and held it up in front of his face.

There were only four letters on it: Sren. But those four letters were enough to strike a burst of both terror and confusion within him.

"Harper," he hissed. "We're on the lost ship."

She faltered. "What?"

"We're on the Sren," he said, holding up the cloth.

"Well, s***," she said. She was silent for a moment, but then she gestured wildly at the other two in the room with her pipe. "Do you think it's really empty, save for these guys?"

"It has to be," he replied. "We wouldn't be walking around if it wasn't. At least, not like this. They'd force us to change the moment they got their hands on us."

Aegeas growled. "Of course," he said. "It's not like we can go anywhere without worrying about whoever was there last."

"They have found no one thus far," Thytes said. The lion now sat on the side of the bed, setting a paw on Aegeas's shoulder. "I would have to imagine that, if this ship were in any capacity occupied by its crew, we would have encountered them by now. The technology seems rather...advanced, and I imagine the same applies for detection techniques."

Nodding, Aegeas looked over to Taber, who was now backing away from Charlie. "You were here first," he said. "Do you remember anything out of the ordinary?"

Taber shrugged. "Other than everything? I didn't see or hear anyone other than you guys. It's super creepy how quiet it is in here."

"Indeed," Thytes said.

"We're going to have to look around, though," Aegeas said, looking back to Nadira and Codix. "With our luck, there's still others here."



"What the f*** are ya talkin' 'bout?" Kendrik said, taking a step forward. "Who the f*** is 'they?' Is that me and Jaron? We ain't gonna change you, 'less it's ta get that mask off, because it's lookin' pretty creepy."

"Yeah," Codix quietly said. Charlie gave him a worried look, but her best friend didn't say anything else. He just headed towards the doorway with Nadira in tow, and she did her best to keep up with him. He always seemed to forget that he had a body built for a track athlete and she didn't - and Nadira certainly didn't help with her inhuman abilities.

They wandered through the corridors for some time, but didn't find anyone else. Charlie was starting to wonder if the previous assumption was right. Maybe they really were gone, and they were the only ones on this ship. But something about that didn't feel right - there was something about the bridge of the ship, when they wandered into it, that suggested other people were there, and something about the way the maps glowed brighter in some hallways than others that made her think they really weren't all that alone.

But she didn't say anything.

She just followed their makeshift leaders as they headed towards the engine room, likely to determine what the cause of the apparent abandonment was.


Harper and Soren exchanged a look.

"I say we skillfully avoid the questions," Soren hissed.

Harper gave him a look. "They're just going to bug us about them."

"We're not obligated to tell them anything," he answered, "especially when they haven't told us a single thing about who they are or why they're here."

She crossed her arms, tip of the pipe tapping the ground as she mulled over what he had said. "You've got a point," she reluctantly admitted.

"Of course I do - I'm the smarter sibling."

She frowned. "We both know that I'm the smarter one-"

Their squabbling suddenly ceased when they heard footsteps from the hallway. Turning, Harper raised her pipe again and prepared to fight whoever was about to enter. She didn't expect anyone good - not in this ship, and not when the two already here could theoretically have more people with them.

And then her suspicions turned out to be right.

"Oh, come on!" she exclaimed. "Not them."

"Not you," Lucy Bryant said, her boyfriend glancing nervously between the bipedal otter behind him and her when he laid his eyes on her. Charlotte Hart, on the other hand, was staring at Soren. Of course she would - that girl loved the weird things no normal human should have ever liked, and Soren was as weird as she could get in a town like theirs.

Harper let out a groan.

"Hello, Oliver. Lucy. Charlie," Harper said.

Soren immediately perked up when he heard the familiar names, but she put an end to the cheerful reaction with the nudge of her elbow into his side.

Aegeas blinked when he saw Codix walk away, followed by Nadira and Charlie. He hadn't expected them to take to heart his comments, much less go wandering around the ship. They were gone in a few seconds, leaving the three animals in an empty hospital wing.

Looking at the others, the otter grimaced. "We're going to have to catch up, aren't we," he said.

Taber and Thytes looked between each other and nodded.

"And I still suck at running," Aegeas said, dragging a hand down his face.

"Oh!" Thytes said, standing up. "No worries - I have a perfect solution."



"Don't worry," Kendrik said. "Yer both pretty f***in' stupid ta think I can't hear ya from-"

He grimaced as he heard footsteps coming down the hall. That couldn't be good - he was pretty sure, based on the sounds of the footsteps, that at least some of them were people he didn't like. And, at first, he thought he was wrong about that. A few strangers walked into the room. All of them looked human, but they sure didn't look like it, and Kendrik's attackers seemed to both recognize and not like them. Pretty good signs.

And then Taber came in, followed by Thytes, who carried Aegeas on a shoulder.

Kendrik snickered as Thytes lowered Aegeas to the ground. That led to the otter and hound swapping gestures, the otter completing ignoring how one of the strangers looked to him and then to one of the attackers.

Thytes, seeing this, stepped in from of Aegeas. "Now," he said to the group assembled. "What is happening here?"

Codix didn't like this turn of events in the slightest. Harper was here. No one liked Harper. She was a talented student, but that did little to help with her personality. She wasn't an amicable person. She deflected questions and brushed people off, and rarely went to any school events. When she did, she looked absolutely miserable, and generally tended to ruin the mood.

And though there had never been any incidents that could be directly traced back to her, everyone had always suspected that she wasn't the most morally upstanding person.

If she really did find out who he was - and what he was - something told him she wouldn't hesitate in spreading the truth.

...And what was up with the masked person beside her?

Nadira suddenly made a startled noise that she just barely disguised as a cough - when he spun around to see the reason, he found that she was staring at the cloth in the masked person's hands. He could just barely make out the letters s, r, e and n. That was when the knot grew in his stomach; they were on that ship?

He tried to keep a calm demeanor. He really did. But then his skin started to pale and his hands started to shake and get clammy - how was he supposed to take this calmly? They were on the Sren. They were on the missing ship. The ship the dai had sent to find their missing prince and princess, and the ship that had been the main cause for them starting an intergalactic war.

The masked person suddenly took a step forward.

"They know," he said. His voice was surprisingly young - he had to be somewhere around his own age.

"They're not supposed to know," Harper said, crossing her arms. "What are you talking about-"

"They're staring at the name," he interrupted.

"It's a strange name," Codix weakly replied. He didn't understand. How could Harper of all people know what the Sren was? And just who was her mysterious companion?

"That's b****** and you know it," he declared. He marched forward and grabbed onto Codix's hand, mercilessly ripping off the band-aids he had around his fingers. Codix tried to jerk his hand away, but the damage had been done - the gray lines in his otherwise unblemished skin were clear as day.

Harper let out a low, almost primitive growl.

"He's a sixen," she said. "I always knew there was something off about you, Oliver. What's your real name, huh? Just who are you, and why the hell are you keeping tabs on me?"

He stared. "Why would I keep tabs on you?" Then understanding finally dawned on him, and his eyes narrowed. "You're a dai, aren't you? And so is your friend in the mask?"

Something shifted underneath the person's hoodie; the movement was just evident enough for him to make out the distinct shapes of tentacles pressing up against fabric. "Nice guess," he said. "It's a shame you're a sixen - I really have enjoyed hearing about you from Harper."

"We need to get out of here," Nadira hissed. "We don't have any weapons, and if they go into their true forms..."

"What are we supposed to do?" Charlie said, scooting closer to both Codix and Nadira. "We have to get away from them, but there's other people here. They were going to fight them earlier, weren't they? What if they lash out at them now?"

Oh dear. Thytes knew there'd be a problem as soon as one of the strangers ripped the bandages off of Codix's hand. Unfortunately, he reached down too late to stop Aegeas, who had already started to move around him.

Barreling into the masked stranger, Aegeas shoved them out of the way. "Leave him alone!" Aegeas said, fists clenched. "I don't care about this 'sixen' or 'dai' crap - don't harass my friends!"

The newcomer's greeting went unheard as Soren staggered back to his feet, hands instinctively going to cover where the mask had been only seconds before. The shoving had taken him by surprise - he had lost enough concentration for it pop off, and his face was suddenly no longer hidden. But he soon realized that hiding his appearance really didn't matter right now; they knew he was a Dai, and a little mutation wasn't going to be enough to cement his identity.

He removed his hands.


Being friends with Nadira and Codix had its benefits and downsides, but she had never considered getting caught between two warring races to be one of the latter. She knew the story of how they had ended up on Earth, but the threat the dai posed had seemed like it could never hurt her. After all, why would they ever come to Earth?

But then the mask came off.

Charlie instinctively took a step back when she saw the face underneath the mask, watching with a mix of horror and stubborn curiosity as he pushed back his hood. She had never seen anything like him before: had never seen skin with little patches of pale yellow that practically glowed, with eyes as red as rubies, with hair the same color as his eyes but translucent, with two rows of sharp teeth and with two pointed ears that twitched as he started to unzip his hoodie.

He threw his hoodie down on the ground, shortly followed by his gloves and scarf. Now she could see what had been lurking underneath the hoodie - a set of pale yellow tentacles licked the air around him. There had to be at least six, but it was hard to tell with how fast the little tentacles were moving.

"Now that wasn't nice," he said, taking a step towards Aegeas.

Codix and Nadira both tensed beside her, but Charlie suddenly noticed something odd. Even if they were dai - Codix had used his own shapeshifting abilities to show her what they looked like - neither one had taken on their actual true form. In Harper's case, she looked entirely human. In the stranger's case, he looked mostly human. But the dai were a lot bigger than a human ever could be, and took up far more space-

That was it.

There wasn't enough space for them to shift! If they did, they would be cornered in an instant. Charlie knew that had to be an important piece of information, but she didn't know what to do with it yet.

She'd just have to wait for the right opportunity to use it.

"Yeah?" Aegeas said, glancing over at the tentacles. "Maybe you should be a little nicer, and then I'll be."

"I would not advise a confrontation," Thytes said from behind the otter.

Aegeas stretched a paw back. "He needs to apologize," Aegeas said. "And what's the worst he can do?"

He grinned, showing off his many sharp teeth.

"I can do the things of your worst nightmares," he said, taking an intimidating step forward as his tentacles continued to wave free in the air. The sixens both looked terrified, and so did Charlie. He felt guilty about the last one, but the reactions of Oliver and Lucy - or whoever they were - made it so worth it.

"No you can't," Harper hissed into his ear, taking a step forward as well. All she had was her little pipe. He needed to make sure she wasn't unguarded, seeing that he was the more physically able of the two of them right now.

"Yes I can," he shot back. He didn't tear his eyes away from the group in the doorway. He needed to keep his eyes on the prize. If he waited for just the right moment, he could grab Harper and push their way to the hallway outside. The only foreseeable problem was that a group of people had gathered there, too, but he had to do his best with what he had. "I'm trying to sound intimidating."

"You're as intimidating as a puppy," Harper replied. She held up her pipe.

"Charlie's reaction says otherwise."

"Charlie's a human," Harper whispered. "They're scared of everything."