Young Writers Society

Megara had to resist the urge to laugh when he listed his skills as if they were something to be proud of. If she didn't know how to pick a lock, father would have had her beaten for screwing up gods-knew-how-many chores. She had to know how to pickpocket to get keys from guards when she didn't have time to pick a lock and to get other small things father wanted to go missing. She had to know the streets of the city to lead people to where Briar waited with a lethal dose of whatever she pleased, or just a knife if she wasn't feeling theatrical. She knew more than he ever could dream of, and she would know more than he ever could.

"Right," she said with a roll of her eyes, "I'm sure you're very talented at being the best street rat on your block, but please refrain from insulting me by saying you can do any of those things half as well as I can, m'kay darling?"

Asternia just stared.
''You call being able to steal a skill?'' she couldn't help laughing. ''You might as well claim your the best at...at eating cake!''

The strange boy seethed at the comments from the two girls, but Charlie wasn't really paying attention to that anymore. He was starting to realize that these kids really weren't going to get out of his woods, and that he probably needed to go back home soon. But when he glanced behind him, he realized he didn't know how to get back home. Everything was just a blurry mess of trees and fog.

He glanced back at the group.

If they were all lost, they'd have to stick together. And they would need a leader. If no one else here was going to lead, he'd have to do it! And a leader would definitely start with something simple, like...

"What are your names?" Charlie asked, standing just a little straighter. His goggles slid a bit down his forehead. "I'm Charlie! Charlie Greene. And if we're talking about skills, then..."

He thought for a moment.

What skills did he have?

"Then I'm really fast," he decided.

The strangely dressed boy crossed his arms.

"Van," he offered. He didn't give a last name.

Meketaten frowned, "I already gave my name. And you should already know who I am! I'm-"

"Hush up princess," Megara cut her off. There was one thing she wasn't giving here, and it was her full name. Her father would kill her.

"Being 'fast' isn't a skill," she said instead, "It's a talent at best. Just because you're fast in one place doesn't mean you're going to be fast anywhere else. My little sis is like a phantom in the manor, but get her in the woods and she's practically helpless." Briar wasn't helpless in the woods. Briar wasn't really helpless anywhere, for that matter, but no one here would ever meet Briar so it was a completely safe lie. If any of them ever did meet Briar they wouldn't live to disprove Megara's word, anyway.

''The name is Asternia.'' she introduced herself curtly. ''You'll figure out what my skill is soon enough, if you haven't already.''
She tilted her head examining Charlie critically.
''Why do you have goggles?'' she asked. ''Do you know that they are crooked?''

Charlie beamed at the question - even though Asternia was giving him a funny look.

"It's because I'm supposed to!" he said, putting his hands on his hips. "And I didn't know, but they look cool like that."

Van scoffed. "They look stupid to me."

Charlie pouted, but quickly regained his grin. Van was just mean and rude. If he didn't think the goggles looked good, that was his loss! "Goggles are just as important as speed," he seriously said, giving the mean girl a look. "I have a lot of speed. You just can't tell, like how people can't tell I'm a redhead with freckles."

Van stared.

"You must have hit your head when running around," he finally said. "You have brown hair, and you don't have freckles."

Charlie crossed his arms. "I do."

"I don't see them, so they don't exist."

"Nuh-uh!" he argued. "They definitely exist, even if everyone says they don't."

He opened his mouth to say more--

--"I can't believe we're already big bad college students," Charlie said, throwing himself back on his bed and staring at the ceiling. It wasn't nearly as nice as the ceilings in either of their rooms, but this would have to make do - especially now that they were officially roommates.

When he glanced over at James, his best friend was giving a little smile from his desk chair. "It feels like we only just met."

Charlie gave a sagely sigh. "Time flies by when you're having fun."

"...That was cliche."

"Shhh," he said, putting a finger up to his lip. "I'm trying to have a moment here, James - oh! Remember when we first got together? You kept talking about your favorite show. I just wanted to run around outside, and then we..."

He paused - a vision was threatening to play itself out in his head again. He quieted the voice that wasn't quite a voice in the back of his mind, snapping his attention back to the conversation when James worriedly asked, "Charlie?"

He shook his head.

"Sorry about that," he apologized. "I was spacing out."

James didn't say anything.

He just gave him a long, worried look.

Charlie, in response, rolled over on his side and turned to him. "That was when I kept saying I was a redhead, wasn't it?" he asked.

James nodded. "And when you had that pair of swim goggles you wore everywhere," he added. He paused, and then hesitantly finished with, "...I always thought they looked stupid on you, but I never wanted to say anything."

Charlie dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.

"That's because they weren't the real deal," he said.

This isn't the real deal, Wally West, the voice in the back of his mind said, in words that weren't words but also were.

Shut up, Charlie replied.

"Are you sure that you're okay?" James asked, narrowing his eyes. "You're spacing out more than usual today."

Charlie hopped off of the bed. "I'm fine - want to get something from the dining hall?"

James didn't look convinced, but he still gave a nod--

--As the vision ended, Charlie grabbed at his head. There was something trying to talk to him. He was sure of it! But it just couldn't get through. He was trying to connect to it, but the not-voice wasn't sounding right. He needed more visions. The not-voice was supposed to give them to him, and was supposed to make things right.

Asternia sniggered. ''You...you think your a redhead with freckles!'' she burst out. ''I've never met anyone who was that dumb!''...

''Asternia!'' her mother exclaimed. ''You are 26 years old! All woman by your age are usually married! And look at you! Your life is...''
''My life is my life ''Asternia cut in cringing. ''Mom, I am 26 years old, I have a Masters Degree in physics, a car, and a job. I don't need you to look out for me anymore. Besides...I don't want to be married.'' her mouth twisted into a wry smile. ''I'd be far to independent for any theoretical husband.'' she sighed. ''Look, life's not all about romance, and marriage. I still have my own life to live, and I don't want to be tied to a house with some kids. That's just not my idea of a dream life.''
Her mothers eyes widened. ''I thought that was every girls dream life.''
Asternia laughed. ''Do you even know your own daughter?'' she shook her head. ''No, I want to become the first physicist to discover what Dark Matter is...'' her voice took on a distant almost dreamy tone. ''There's a whole universe to explore...and I want to explore every inch of it before I die.''
''Before I die...'' Asternia repeated distantly then widened her eyes. Another vision! She shook herself crossly. Why couldn't this visions just go away! She didn't want to be seen as delusional. Not in front of these idiot boys.

Megara's brow furrowed as the boy suddenly grabbed his head after staring into space. It looked like someone just kicked him in the head. Had she...? That would be a new effect from Briar's little toxins. Maybe she was trying to perfect something? Megara shook her head, also rolling her eyes to make it look like she was reacting to goggle-kid, whatever his name was.

Meanwhile, Meketaten rushed to his side, "Are you alright?" she asked tenderly. She had a strange accent, not one Megara had heard before. It sounded vaguely southern, maybe she was from one of the mer colonies? No, she didn't have gills.

"Eddie!"

The little boy didn't appear to hear her as he reached for the next branch. Either he was too high up to hear her or he was ignoring her.

Megara huffed and, with a roll of her eyes, climbed up after him. She left her cane leaning against the side of the tree, which was the only decision she could make but still one she regretted as she tried not to put to much pressure on her bad leg.

The wind grew stronger and the top of the tree swayed. Eddie suddenly slipped and Megara's heart jumped into her throat. Once the rain of bark stopped, Megara looked up to see Eddie clinging for dear life to the trunk of the tree. She climbed faster.

His eyes were closed when she got to him, and she wasn't sure if he was shaking from fear or the cold this high up. Stormclouds gathered overhead in an angry swirl, and Megara feared she'd hear thunder in a few minute's time. Eddie would be impossible to console if that was the case.

She reached him, stepping carefully on the thickest of the branches. Still, she didn't know if they would hold her weight.

"Eddie," she said as comfortingly as she could manage.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered.

"It's alright," she assured, "Can you climb back down?"

He shook his head.

"Can you get to me?"

He peeked out at her with one eye and shook his head again, squeezing his eyes shut.

Megara looked nervously at the branches, wondering which of them would be strong enough to hold her weight. She stepped carefully onto the nearest branch.

Snap!

Megara just managed to catch herself against the trunk of the tree. She looked over at Eddie. He didn't look to be in danger of letting go anytime soon, but she didn't want to risk it. She moved, carefully, toward Eddie, picking her footholds as carefully as she could.

Finally, she made it to his side. She hadn't really noticed her leg screaming in pain until this brief moment of rest, but now she had to bite back a yell of pain.

"Can you climb onto my back?" she asked. The branches beneath her felt like they would give out at any second.

Eddie shook his head.

"Please, Eddie, you have to try."

More shaking of heads and more coaxing, and finally, finally he shifted over. He reached out and wrapped a tiny little arm, hardly more than skin-covered bone, around her neck. Then, in a moment of panic for both of them, he made the jump onto her back.

Megara's leg almost gave out beneath her, but through the sheer determined fear that locked her muscles in place, she managed to stay put while Eddie arranged himself to squeeze the most air from her lungs.

Then, carefully, carefully, she climbed down.

Megara blinked. Whatever Briar had given her, it was doing the most ridiculous things to her brain. She wondered if they'd have to call the doctors again to fix...whatever this was.

"I'm not alright," Charlie said, frowning. He kept holding his head, even though he didn't have any more visions coming. "I'm supposed to be getting visions, but they're not coming. And they're all wrong. Everything's wrong. I know the not-voice is trying to get me. I can feel it. But it's not able to reach me, and I don't know why."


Van was growing increasingly more disturbed by how everyone was acting right now. He already didn't like a single one of them, but there was something weird about them. Charlie's ramble didn't help his case; in Van's opinion, the little kid was insane.

Well, the best thing to do would be to go his own separate way. He could see his breath in the air, and the forest was growing darker as the little bit of daylight faded, but Van wasn't afraid after spending so many years on the streets--

--“Skull,” Nathaniel said. I glanced over at him. He was nervously searching the hall we were in, his gaze landing on the now flickering candles. “It's getting darker.”

I brushed it off with a dismissive wave of my hand. “It's just your imagination-”

I could see my breath in the air.

I slowly looked behind me at the nearest candle. Its roaring flame had been reduced to a pitiful little ember, and the ones nearby quickly were following suit.

I knew the signs. Why wouldn't I have? Even if I hadn't spent the last few months kicking around in Lucy's backpack, I had been dead for long enough to understand the basics of a haunting. There's a temperature drop. Lights can go out. And very, very rarely was there enough time to sit around and decide what the best way to handle the situation was – you had to act first and think later. So I couldn't think about how unfair it was to be stuck as a living, breathing human when a haunting was about to happen. I couldn't think about how terrified I really felt, even though I would have never let Nathaniel realize that. I couldn't think about how I wished for some sort of weapon, and how, for the briefest of moments, I wished for Lucy and her fellow agents to show up out of thin air and save our hides.

As more thunder boomed outside among a downpour of rain, I acted.

I grabbed onto Nathaniel's hand and darted into the nearest room. The lights quickly went in succession behind us, and I could feel Nathaniel's hand shivering in my own trembling hand. It had been so easy to feel confident when dealing with Ezekiel; I had a plethora of ghostly tricks up my sleeve. Now I only had myself and Nathaniel, and, if his reaction was anything to go off, he hadn't been an agent when alive.

I slammed the door behind us--

--Van stiffened as the vision finished playing in his mind. He wasn't crazy. He knew he wasn't. But that vision had felt so real, even though he was taller than he was now and was with the same unfamiliar guy from the last vision. Yet he wasn't really unfamiliar; he felt like he somehow knew him.

He shook the thought away. It was just a figment of his imagination. Ghosts didn't even exist.

(It didn't matter that he had become a ghost in his first vision.)