Young Writers Society

"I'm from Cleveland," Tara said quietly. The other people seemed nice, but she was wanted to assess what exactly what was going on, why they were all in this situation before she interacted with the group more. "And my name is Tara." She saw an open door. Must have been the dining room CB was talking about. She walked ahead towards it.

Something told Colleen that telling the obscure name of her hometown would make her seem a bit suspicious in the eyes of these finely dressed persons. A couple of outfits looked quite strange to her, but she couldn’t really let those thoughts out loud.

“Colleen,” she answered, ignoring the other question, not trying to be rude, but trying to avoid having to answer about her home place. Mostly because she didn’t really have a name for it, nor had she lived anywhere long enough for it to feel like home.

She figured she would follow the others walking towards the door as well.

Odris glanced over at the only unnamed member of their group so far. Colleen not mentioning where she was from didn't escape his notice - he hoped it was just because it would be too complicated or embarrassing to explain - but he was too busy worrying about the man's name to question why she hadn't answered Queenie's question.

"I'm from Colorado Springs," he said. He kept his gaze on the man, hoping he would give his name soon. Even if it was an alias, it would give him something to go off of. "But I'm not from the city - I'm from the suburbs near Cheyenne Mountain."

James didn't really pay attention to where everyone was from, and he didn't really care to remember. He wasn't as irrationally paranoid as he used to be - the likelihood of mundane information like that becoming vitally important for him as an individual to recall was unrealistic. So instead, he stayed focused on the doors up ahead, joining Tara at the front of the group.

"'James," was the only name he offered, and it was an honest one.

The light from the dining room shone brightly into the hall. CB was right, it was impossible to miss. He slowed and stopped in front of the two large double-doors and looked inside.

The dining room was indeed grand. Beautiful paintings of various still-lifes decorated the wall-papered walls. The floor was a shining marble white, and in the middle of the room, there was a dining table rich with the reddish color of mahogany. A rich decorative purple cloth ran down the middle, where a large golden candelabra sat in the center of the table, lit. There were five seats, two on either side, and one at the head of the table. Each of the places was set with pearly white dishes and gold silverware, and each plate had a little note propped up like a tent on top of it.

More notes. Great.

When he entered his gaze drifted to the ceiling. The bright light pouring out into the hallways was sourced from a large, sparkling gold and diamond chandelier. Though nothing was quite the same, he still felt like he was in the palace.

He walked around the table. Each of the notes on the plates was a nametag.

On the left side he passed Colleen, an Odris (not a name he remembered hearing, but someone probably lied about theirs), and then finally came to his name at the head of the table. James Hawke. He looked down at the name with indifference, but his stomach was twisting and turning.

He rested his hand on the back of the chair and looked down at the seat. Things looked normal, but he couldn't shake the feeling like something about all of this was inescapable. Like no matter what he did, someone was watching him. CB was watching him - whoever that was.

Queenie walked into the dining room and rolled her eyes. She'd been in plenty of places like this before, hell, there was a place like this in her house, but it wasn't like anyone ever actually used them. They were for impressing guests, but 'impressed' was an emotion that could only really be evoked in people who weren't also feeling 'confused'.

She found her nametag. Queenie Ringly. She'd been hoping her last name could stay out of this.

James?

It wasn't until they had entered the dining room that he realized why the name and its owner were so familiar. He had only met James twice, but both times were equally memorable - the first was with the cabin, and the second was when he woke up after...

He tried not to think about what had led to that meeting. Ignoring the memories threatening to overtake him, Odris couldn't have felt more relieved. Maahes always gushed about James, and Arin swore Molly kept asking about her "Uncle Jamie". If James was here, they would be okay-

He caught sight of his nametag.

Which had his actual name.

...Not the one he had given earlier.

He turned the nametag down to hide the name, hoping no one besides James saw it. James must have; he glanced at Colleen's and his as he walked by. James didn't have a look of recognition on his face yet, so maybe he hadn't put the name to a face.

He looked over at James, an almost desperate expression on his face. James could always recognize Maahes, and Maahes could change his form. James had to be able to recognize Odris.

Queenie sat down and tapped her fingers on the table. 'Odis' had given the wrong name. She could get why, to some extent. His real name was unusual, especially if he was telling the truth about where he was from. Add that to his outfit, and she was getting 'secret life' vibes from his little situation.

She frowned. She should be polite here. James didn't seem to remember her much just yet, and she honestly doubted he would. She hadn't exactly spent much time with him when they did meet. All of that to mean, she was making first impressions here, and, while she did make herself look a little less comfortable than she was with all the wealth and the circumstances, there was a good chance the others had already gotten impressions of her she couldn't allow.

So, she remembered her manners. "What are all of your pronouns?" she asked absently, moving her fiddling from tapping at the table to fidgeting with the end of her braid of braids.

The dining room was extravagant, but it gave Tara an uneasy feeling. It was like when her mother had taken her on the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. That night, she'd had a nightmare that she'd fallen off and ended up trapped in the ride.

She found Tara Stone and took a seat. It was awkward, and she was never one to start conversations.

She breathed heavily as she waiting for something to happen.

Colleen tried not to let her bewilderment show across her face, not to strangers like these ones, even if she knew their names now.

This place did seem rather fancy though, much like the rumored rooms some of her, perhaps colleagues, would speak about, in the rich towns with old castles and structures made out of something stronger than wood.

She blushed for a second at realizing she was last to the table, but figured the empty spot was hers. Colleen Ren read across the note. Some mysterious person knowing her full name made her shiver.

Colleen thought over, (was it Queenie?), yes, Queenie's question. Pronouns? That must be another new idea from this place, including where names like "Cleveland" and "Colorado" existed.

Maybe she should stay quiet to hear the others' responses before giving an answer. She didn't need even more of her secrets to be found out.

James took a moment to pause and took in a deep breath. That was when Queenie broke the silence.

He looked over at her, trying to decipher her question. Pronouns. It seemed straightforward enough, and he did consider how it might not always be something easily assumed. He just hadn't expected it to be asked. He couldn't remember a time ever being asked, actually.

"He and him," he said.

As he answered, the name Queenie finally clicked. He knew her. Well, he didn't know her, but he knew of her and had been in at least one or two similar situations with her before this. Each one felt like it kept getting buried under the memories of new and old otherworldly experiences, all shoved down deeper and deeper into the dirt, but he did remember something. Her ridiculously long hair was enough of a visual reminder of who she was - it was impossible to miss.

He looked around at the rest of the group. Tara and Colleen were new faces for certain, but Odris (or whatever fake name he'd given that James had already forgotten) was returning to him as well. He felt positively stupid for not realizing who he was at first. Odris was a friend of Maahes. He just looked a little different now that he was cleaned up, and a bit older.

James couldn't decide if he was relieved or worried. Odris was probably one of the few people in the room who knew about him, and though he knew logically he had no reason to doubt Odris's character or trustworthiness, he still found himself worrying - a lot, and all at once.

Still, he kept his composure.

He picked up the place card and moved it off to the side off of the plate, then pulled out his chair. Why he was put at the end, he didn't know. CB had put a lot of thought into preferences, and he understood that there was a certain malice behind putting him in such a prominent seat.

Then, there was a thought that spoke in his mind that was not his own.

Why don't you sit down? Get to know each other a bit. Food is almost ready.

It sounded feminine, and it spoke calmly and tenderly, the way one might talk to comfort a child.

He glanced at the others to see if they heard anything too.

Hesitantly, he pulled the chair out and sat down. He didn't want to follow the suggestions of what had to be CB's voice, but he didn't know what would happen (or not happen) if he disobeyed.

That was when the doors closed. Quickly, but without slamming. Everyone could hear the lock click into place.

He cleared his throat.

"And the rest of you?"

Hearing the voice inside his head made Odris freeze, but he was even more alarmed when the doors to the dining room suddenly closed and locked. It was on par with getting trapped in his room until he did what CB wanted with his outfit. But knowing that it was the same kind of situation didn't make him feel any better; if anything, it made him feel worse. How was he supposed to get out of here if CB kept trapping them in?

After a moment of hesitation, he sat down in his seat - moving it a little closer to James.

"Mine are he and him, too," Odris said, giving a tiny little smile. He glanced down at his overturned name tag.

At least CB hadn't said his name out loud.

When Tara heard the voice, she shot up in her chair. Her heart pounded. Was this CB? How did he get into her head?

“She and hers.” Tara said. She wasn’t sure what the point of asking was. She was pretty clearly a girl. She literally started twiddling her thumbs, waiting for someone else to say something.

Colleen paid attention to everyone else's answers to Queenie's question. She still wasn't sure what pronouns specially meant, but she figured maybe someone would have a different way of viewing themself and they deserve to be seen as they want to be,

And she didn't let the weird voice distract her from trying to blend in with the crowd by saying, "she and her too."

Although the weird voice was weird.

James still felt uncomfortable at the head of the table, but he sat up straight and looked around at the others. Aside from Queenie, who looked more to be calculating than anything, everyone looked rather unsure of what was going on.

"Well. It seems we've all been gathered here by CB, whoever that is. I'm assuming all of you have just as little clue as to who that could be as I do, and I'm also assuming at least half of you haven't been in situations like this before."

His gaze drifted around the table. Odris, he wasn't sure about, but he knew Queenie had been in a handful of situations like this.

"-And by situations like this, I simply mean waking up or finding yourself in a place that was not where you were, by whatever unknown supernatural, magical, or other means. Usually with other people tossed together, just as clueless as you are. It's disorienting at first, but after the third or fourth time it's just-" he waved a hand dismissively, rolling his eyes to no one but himself, really, "-tiring."

"At any rate. We've got names out of the way. Pronouns. Places, sort of." He looked to the two girls at either end of the table. "Tara and Colleen - you're both new to things like this, right?"

"This has never happened to me before," Tara said quietly. Just then, she remembered the dream Amy had told her about, about the winter cabin that could make anything her heart desired appear. And the annoying but sweet kid who had showed up in Seattle afterwards, which made her doubt whether it had been a dream at all.

Could the same thing that happened to Amy be happening to her now? "Something like this happened to my sister, though," Tara said. "Are they going to tell us why we're here?" She laughed nervously. "At least feed us first."