Young Writers Society

When you awake, you find yourself in an unfamiliar forest.

There are others in the forest, too, but you are more focused on suddenly being in a place you don't recognize. Beautiful white flowers litter the forest floor, springing up at the roots of impressive, towering trees. The sky is clear above, yet something feels off about the entire situation. You're unable to put your finger on what.

But then you open your mouth to talk to one of the others, and discover a horrible thing: you are compelled to tell the truth. No matter how you try to get around this, you still tell the truth. You might try to hide some of the truth by not saying anything at all, but the words just come off of your tongue.

If you want to figure out what is going on, you'll have to trust the others there. But how can you trust strangers with your darkest secrets?


(Characters from Trapped [Falsehood!] aren't allowed in this roleplay.)

When I awoke, I was sitting at the base of a tree among a group of white flowers. Maybe that should have been a warning sign, but I got up regardless and looked around the strange forest I had ended up in. It looked normal, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about it.

...Maybe that was the whole getting magically transported to it part.

It definitely wasn't kidnapping, whatever this was. Or, at least, not the traditional type. Maybe someone had some sort of power that let them transport people, but I wasn't sure why they'd just take me and not drag Natty boy and Asmira along for the ride, too.

But all hope wasn't lost - I found a girl sitting up against a tree like I had been, blinking groggily at the world around her. She was in the middle of staring at her hand when I tapped her on the shoulder.

She screamed, scrambling back away from me and the trunk.

"I didn't think I was that scary," I commented.

To that, she screamed again - though the scream was admittedly quieter than before.

Ugh, flowers. It wasn't vines or the thick foliage of a jungle on an island, so Denebola didn't feel too bad about having her machete with her. Still, it wasn't hard to guess that she'd been dumped in some other world. Those flowers were too large, the trees too gnarled, the feeling in her gut too sinking.

That feeling only grew worse once Denebola made her way around a tree and found a familiar figure kneeling in the flowers.

"Oh, it's you," Denebola said, a venom to her voice that she didn't know she had. Not that she regretted it - Enide, back turned to her, paw cupping the petals of a flower, looked so calm, so poised, so gracious. Denebola had never quite liked Enide's one emotion.

"I," Enide replied, glancing back to look at Denebola.

Denebola scowled and took a step forward. "After you forced my friend to give up being a lord, I'm surprised you have the guts to talk to me."

"If I remember correctly," Enide said, "You and I both well know he was rather keen on abdicating said position, and the difficulties in liquidating his estate were outside of my control. I still have to contend with the bastard lords and ladies."

They froze. Neither of them had reason to like the other, but they'd never been this vehement. And Enide had never been this honest. Honest wasn't a word that described her.

"Something's very wrong here," Denebola said.

Enide nodded.

"Y-You're not scary," the girl finally said once her screams had stopped. She looked shy and afraid, pulling her legs close to her chest as she returned to the tree trunk. Realizing that she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, I plopped myself down on the ground beside her. "I'm...I'm not scared by people all that much. Maybe a little anxious, but not screaming scared."

"So then what are you scared of?"

"This," she said. "This place. This...This situation. It's all wrong. You have to be careful with what you say, or you'll start telling the truth."

I stared.

...Was that a threat?

"If that was supposed to scare me, it didn't," I replied.

The girl gave a nervous little laugh, ducking her head down and staring at her knees. "I can't tell if you're rude or just being honest."

"I've heard that I'm a combination of both," I cheerfully interjected.

She raised her head and peeked up at me. "I don't think you get it," she softly said. "You can't lie here. And little truths are okay, but it's not just the little ones that you'll say - you'll end up telling far worse things if you're not careful."

"...That worries me," I said, only to realize that I had just said something I had never intended to mention. "So everything I say turns into the truth?"

The girl gave a sorrowful little nod.

Well, that was going to be difficult. But it couldn't be impossible to lie, right? I could get around it with a half-truth, or just omit some of the details. Problem solved!

I stuck my hand out.

"I go by Skull, but my name is actually V-" My hands shot up to cover my mouth, but the words just kept coming. "-an Sullivan."

...I had just spoken my real name.

...The name that I hadn't used for more than a century.

I groaned.

"M-Mine's Jane," the girl hesitantly said. "If that...If that makes you feel any better..."

Enide looked back in time to see the lionness's ears rise up. "Did you hear that?" Denebola said, turning her head to the right.

"My hearing is about as exceptional as yours," said Enide. She let go of the flower she'd been holding onto and rose up. The fox followed the lionness, who now carved a path between the flowers and the trees.

Denebola rumbled. "I'd be pretty happy with a simple yes or a no," she said, stepping over a root.

The fox chose to step around the root. "I do not have appear to have that capability," she said with a sigh. "Some particular quirk of this place, perhaps? If such a thing is-"

Enide caught herself before she ran into Denebola. The lionness had propped her arms against a couple trees, and was now leaning forward and presumably glaring at the humans Enide could smell.

"Great," Denebola growled at the humans. "More people. Just what I wanted. Why couldn't you have been a tree, or a creek, or someone I know?"

Jane and I both hurried to our feet, though she ducked behind me the moment she noticed the newcomers. I tried to look a little intimidating, but it was hard considering that said newcomers didn't look human.

"I wish you were people I knew, too," I shot back, only to bite my tongue when the words slipped out. Jane gave my arm a comforting squeeze from behind. My only solace was that not a single person I knew was present - warmth rose to my cheeks at the thought of them realizing just how much I valued their company.

"This isn't going to be easy for you," Jane whispered.

"...I was starting to think that, too," I agreed. "I'd shut up, but rude and obnoxious outbursts is how I keep people out-"

I swore something that no kid - which Jane was - should ever hear (a good, old-fashioned swear) and felt my face grow warmer as my embarrassment grew.

"It's alright," Jane said. She gave my arm one last squeeze, emerging from behind me with a deep breath.

"My name is Jane," she said quietly but firmly, "and this is Skull."

The air was heavy for a moment after she spoke, but nothing else happened - just the weird pressure around us.

And, as soon as it had appeared, the pressure was gone.

Other than the air feeling heavier for a second, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the humans. Something else got on Denebola's nerves, though. Skull (how could that be someone's real name?) had about as much of a temperament and tendency to swear as Denebola did, and Jane was the same brand of quiet and composed as Enide. And Denebola wasn't quite interested in looking in a mirror. Not that she had any other choice; there was strength in numbers.

"Denebola," she said. "It's okay to meet you."

"And I am Enide," the fox said, peeking over Denebola's shoulder. "The Queen of Foxes, at your service."

If it wasn't so unnerving that everyone could be so blunt, Denebola would've laughed at seeing Enide's plots and plans fall apart before she could even start acting on them. Instead, Denebola hid her head behind one of the trees and let out a few curses.

"I have problems with authority, but you seem alright for now - I won't do anything to you just yet," I declared to the apparent queen, then bit back a groan.

Was there even a point in acting shocked anymore?

"It's nice to meet you," Jane shyly said, ducking her head down. It seemed like all of her courage had left her after our introductions - I wouldn't have been surprised if she ducked behind me again. "I...I've never met royalty in person..."

There was a pause.

I opened my mouth to ask about the implied connections to royalty, but Jane spoke before I could.

"...You lie a lot," she whispered, a horrified look flickering across her face a second later. She immediately retreated to her hiding spot. "I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything, but I can't help it..."

Enide smiled ever so faintly. "Believe me when I tell you that vastly more powerful people have made the same threat to me, and I am still unharmed," she said, focusing on Skull. She then shifted her gaze to about where she could see the corner of Jane's shirt. "And you are correct - I am nothing if not a liar. Which, given that I appear to be incapable of lying here, does not bode well."

"A lying, powerful queen," I muttered. "Great."

I honestly had no idea if the words were what I would have normally said, but I was beginning to begrudgingly accept this as my fate.

I shouldn't have been judging her so harshly - I could see a lot of myself in her. Maybe that was why she made a knot appear in my stomach, and why I wanted to hate her so badly. Or maybe it was because she made me think of my previous masters - of Fittes and Bickerstaff.

"...I think we're all going to have trouble adjusting," Jane said, peeking out from behind me.

I glanced back at her. "You didn't strike me as a liar," I commented. "You seem more...innocent."

Jane stared at me with wide blue eyes, a blush appearing on her startled face. "Th-Thank you," she whispered.

"Unlike some people," Denebola said, pulling her head out from behind the tree and nodding it in Enide's direction, "Yes, you are pretty innocent. But I'm also fairly honest - this isn't all that different from how I normally talk to people. I just can't quietly hate people anymore."

"You, um..."

Jane faltered, ducking back behind me.

"You might be honest, but you're not always honest," she nervously argued. I glanced between the two - Jane continued to surprise me, but I somehow kept my mouth shut and kept listening. "Everyone lies a little. They don't mean to, but they do..."

She thought for a second, shifting uncomfortably.

"Like, um..." I felt her grip on my arm again. "If you were asked how you were doing on a not so good day by someone you barely talk to, you might say you're doing good. Because it's easier. But it's still not the truth, since you're not really telling them how you feel..."

Denebola set a paw on her hip. "I said fairly honest - I can and do lie sometimes, especially around people I hate," she said. She frowned. "But why are you so confident about that? Why were you so confident about Enide? She doesn't look super trustworthy, but I feel like it's kind of a stretch to go from that to saying she lies a lot."

"I was wondering the same thing," I said, biting my lip in an attempt to stop the words from coming out. I had been wondering it, but I had no intentions of asking Jane about it right now - out of the three people I was with, she was my favorite, and I didn't want to upset her. Which was a stupid thing for me to even try; I always upset the people I was around.

"I...I just could feel it," Jane whispered. "It...It just makes sense to me. I don't know why..."

The air felt heavy again.

As if accompanying the strange pressure that arrived and left without warning, an ominous roll of thunder sounded in the distance. I raised my head up and looked past the treetops. In the distance, I could see dark storm clouds. They weren't at us just yet, but something told me they could be on us in an instant.

"That's worrying," I said, just as nonchalantly as I would have proclaimed my lack of fear.

"...We need to find shelter," Jane said.

"You think the storm's coming our direction, too?" I asked.

Jane nodded.

"Of course it is," Denebola growled, rolling her eyes. "They always do." She let go of the tree and pulled herself back. Enide stepped out of the way, gesturing for Jane and Skull to walk past her.

The lionness began to walk into the trees, saying, "We can figure out why you're right all the time when we get to somewhere safer, Jane."