Young Writers Society

Esprill whipped around and found himself face to face with that which he had never seen before.
standing as still as possible He examined the being, as well as he, could, from afar she (or at least he thought it was a girl) had appeared to be rather small, now it seemed she was roughly his height.
recalling her previous statement he answered as best he could "em, well yes i was referring to you though at the time you seemed far smaller," backing away and regaining his composure he glanced once at Arin and Sune before continuing
“And I apologize if that statement hurt you. Though I do ask whether you consider yourself friend or foe?”
Taking out Ates and making sure he was in no immediate danger he then turned to Arin and Sune, the two people who seemed to know best what was going on.
“And where, and what may I ask is Miri, you mentioned it was your world but I fail to understand how I got here, and as I have somewhat of an extensive knowledge of wraiths and their kind I can tell you now that if this is in fact another world entirely, it could not have been the work of a wraith, or at least not alone

Robyn looked around, holding eir stomach. The sudden realization of being stranded wasn't very sudden, and it was only made worse by the rumbling thunderstorm occurring somewhere in eir body.

It wasn't the only thing rumbling; the voices of unfamiliar people, their footsteps getting louder and louder. It only assisted Robyn's hopelessness, which was a rare feeling for em.

E looked around once more, this time rushing to eir feet to get a better view of whatever was happening around em. Everything ached. Everything felt like it was falling apart, and maybe it was.

"Hey y'all, does anyone know what this place is," e began, voice unwilling and stammering slightly, "or if I could get a sandwich any time soon?"

Winn smiled back in response as he shook the hands of the two. He nearly burst out laughing at the magic comments.

"Uhh, piece of advice, don't ever say that in front of a sorcerer, some of them to tend to get quite triggered when you dismiss their life's work as being non existent," said Winn, "now I'm no sorcerer, so I can't exactly show you anything worth calling magic, but trust me, magic is very real, and it surrounds everyone and everything. Also wraiths, I somehow feel like somehow the wraiths you know, and the one's I've fought are different. Because those are more interested in sucking the life out of you to feed rather than be bringing people from one world to another. And I have to ask, what is a hive ship? It's certainly a term I haven't heard before."

Arin was already getting really confused, but she was trying her best to work through her confusion. Winn knew a different kind of wraith, just like the guy with the pointy ears seemed to know a different kind of imp. Arin was still going to pretend that she didn't believe in magic because that was what Sune wanted, but this really was starting to seem like magic.

When she glanced at Sune, he had an uncertain, almost nervous look on his face. He was also eying pointy ear guy's sword. It was until Arin felt a twinge of something in her gut that she understood why. It must have been made of steel.

Arin took a deep breath, stood a little straighter, and put her hands on her hips. For good measure, she cleared her throat, too—just to make sure everyone was paying attention. It would be easier if she just explained everything to everyone at the same exact time.

"I'm Arin," she said, probably a little too loudly, "and this is my best friend and musical partner, Sune. We're traveling musicians who perform on different worlds. Right now, you're all on Miri—it's the world where just the two of us live. I could show you its symbols, but they wouldn't make any sense if you've never seen a ring before."

Arin glanced over at Sune.

He gave her an encouraging smile, even though he was still a little uneasy.

Satisfied, Arin turned back to the group.

"I have absolutely no idea how you got here," she admitted. "Neither does Sune—we've known each other since we were little and know all the same things. We thought it might be wraiths, but wraiths usually take people from worlds in their darts and bring them to their hive ships up there."

She pointed up towards the sky.

She thought for a moment. Two people knew what a wraith was, but one didn't know what a hive ship was and the other probably didn't, either. The others hadn't mentioned wraiths, so maybe they were from planets the wraith had never culled?

"Wraiths look kind of like us," Arin clarified. "They're a weird blue-gray color and have long, white hair. They also have these things on their right hand that can suck your life away from you like that."

She snapped her fingers.

Sune, seeming to catch on to what Arin was trying to do, took a hesitant step forward. He glanced at the pointy ear guy's sword one last time before looking up at the entire group.

"The wraith take people from their worlds in tiny ships called darts," Sune explained. "We don't know how exactly the culling works, but we've seen it happen before. The hive ships are where they live and serve their queens. Unless they accidentally dropped you here after culling you from your planets, they probably aren't the reason you're here."

Arin nodded in agreement.

"Also, I have no idea what a sandwich is," she finished.

Andaður einn finally got a good look at everyone standing there. They all seemed incredibly confused. Well except for Robyn, e was hungry.
"I need to get eir some food." She thought to herself.
Andaður einn looked up at the sky as Sune explained what a dart was.
"If these Wraith beings are so dangerous, why are we still standing here? I suggest we move to those trees over there. They'll offer us some protection." She nervously looked up at the sky again.
"Also Robyn here is hungry, so we should get some food."Andaður einn continued.

"A sandwich," e repeated.

Part of em wanted to assume that statement was a joke, but e usually couldn't tell the difference between a smile and a smirk, so it didn't matter.

Robyn looked at eir hands, bewildered. E moved eir hands parallel to each other in the air. "Imagine this is bread," e started, "and imagine that you take the bread pieces and you put whatever you want to eat into them."

Robyn continued the strange hand pose with an overwhelmed look on eir face. If only e had real bread to demonstrate with, and maybe to eat after all of this confusion and anxiety is done with.

The two hands clapped together once. "Yeah," eir hands clapped together once more, "you kinda just do this, and then you digest it." Explaining the science of sandwiches wasn't one of the skills Robyn was proud of, and e realized it.

Eir stomach growled again.

"Anyway, do you like eat food where you're from?"

That was what a sandwich was? Arin hadn't heard of it before, but it sounded good. She'd have to try making it the next time they bought or made fresh bread.

"We do eat food," Arin said, glancing at Sune. Sune gave a smile that didn't really reach his eyes. She looked back at Robyn. "Only the wraith have a weird way of eating! We don't have sandwiches, but we do have some other things to eat over in our house over there."

She gestured in the direction of the house.

"Oh, and we don't have to worry about the wraith right now," Arin quickly added. "They think this world's abandoned, so they never come to it. But it would probably be good to go inside for now just because it's bleh out, so Sune and I can take you to our house!"

Before anyone could argue with the idea, Arin went rushing off to their house. Sune gave the group an apologetic expression before rushing after her. Even though the house looked like it was far away, it really wasn't. It only took a minute or two for Arin to get there when she was running, and only a bit more than that for Sune to get there, too.

The house itself wasn't anything special. It was a tiny, single floor and room house with windows that didn't have any actual glass. Instead, they used cloth sheets to cover the windows; the cloth was currently put up so the windows peered out into the plains. The door was similarly questionable. There had been a rotted wood one, once, but they had replaced it with a cloth after Arin kicked it open a little too hard and got her foot stuck in the rotting door.

There was a pile of two worn pillows in the very back of the room, as a few carefully and almost perfectly folded thin sheets. The rest of the house gave the impression of being lived in: a few pieces of dried meat hung from over near a currently dead fireplace. A few jars of various fruits and vegetables were stacked in the other back corner of the room. There was a table with two rickety chairs near the jars, and a pile of firewood lined the right wall. There were two baskets further down the wall that were filled with a variety of clothes, and another, much smaller one filled with candles and chalk.

Before anyone else could catch up to them, Sune grabbed a few of the clothes from one basket and placed them on top of the candles.

"They're not normal, Sune," Arin said as she watched him.

Sune stood back up.

"...I know," he admitted. "But you know we still can't take any risks."

Arin sighed as she sat down at the table. "I know."

Winn was still trying to process the description of that wraith, and the hive ships. Whatever they were, they did sound like natural things at least. Things that destroyed planets for fun didn't seem like creatures that would be allowed to roam around otherwise.

Before he could ask any questions about that and the fact that the wraiths he knew were certainly not the same, the two of them revealed that they didn't know what a sandwich which was definitely something he hadn't seen before. Everyone knew how to make a sandwich.

And before he could try and process that piece of information, Arin was telling them to get inside some house and suddenly they were running after the two of them. The house wasn't particularly grand looking, which wasn't surprising considering it was only the two of them on the world. It was surprising they even had a structure that could be safely called a house.

The windows and door were all somehow just cloth covering over the gaps. That was probably not the safest option. At least he still had his sword on him. The inside of the house wasn't much better than the outside. It was certainly lived in, but he didn't think he should be touching anything because he wasn't sure if some of those flimsy looking things wouldn't accidentally break.

Arin was sitting at the table with Sune standing nearby.

"So, did you two build this all yourself?" asked Winn.

Andaður einn liked the idea of a sandwich. She wondered if it would taste good with roasted rabbit and lettuce. The idea made her mouth water. Before she could fantasize about sandwiches anymore, Arin and Sune had started running towards the rickety house.
“My Lord, they are fast!” She exclaimed.
Andaður einn ran after them. She glided over the prickly grass like a deer. But the two musicians were quicker. She came up to the house in a few minutes. She had to marvel at the fact that even though the house looked miles away, it was in fact quite close. The structure that they called a house looked so strange. It was a box made up of old planks of wood and more planks of wood were stood up in a sort of triangle. Smaller squares were cut out on the sides, but were covered with cloth. A tall rectangle stood at (what she assumed to be) the front of the house, this was also covered in cloth.
“Living in the trees is so much better, then you don’t have to worry about those pesky momps.” She thought to herself.
She walked inside after Winn, the others were still far behind. The inside wasn’t lavishly furnished, but it did hold the necessities, like food. She gently stroked her hand on the wood by the large opening.
“Ouch!”
The wood was so rough! Andaður einn looked around once more then sat on the floor, cross-legged. She proceeded to pull out slivers from her hand.

Sune shook his head and did his best to ignore the woman removing the slivers from her hand. He wasn't normally all that squeamish, but he didn't like the sight of blood. It made him uneasy.

"We found this building a few years ago," Sune explained. Arin was distracted; she was too busy eying the food they had tucked away in the corner to add anything. "We fixed it up a little, but it's mostly the same as it was when we first found it."

Arin kept staring at the food.

"Except for the door," she pointed out.

"Except for the door," Sune corrected. He gave a tiny smile. "Arin broke it last month."

Robyn stared into space, hungry and growing tired. All of this seemed like something made up, but it was supposedly real. It didn't make sense, but e learned at a young age that things just somehow go wrong around em. Nothing ever makes sense, and e began to embrace it.

E stopped daydreaming when it got too quiet.

When Robyn looked up, everyone was running towards something, or maybe they were running away from something. Still, it wasn't good because e had no idea where to go, whether e should go, and if they have some sandwiches there.

There was basically nothing for miles except for a house.

Robyn ran towards the house as fast as e could. It's was more of a slow powerwalk than a run, but it all felt the same to eir barefoot feet. Who knew what was happening that caused everyone to leave like that? Not em.

There was a lot of cloth on the house in odd places, but Robyn wasn't an expert at house design. Robyn held eir breath; it wasn't something e'd pick out to live in, but it didn't matter that much because e didn't have standards.

"This looks like my grandma's place," e said, "and my grandma's in a nursing home."

The small house Arin and Sune brought them to was fairly simple and not all that interesting as far as Esprill was concerned, he was also having a hard time believing their description of a wraith.

"so if you two appear not to know anything, why was it that you decided to come" he paused, at a loss for words "why did you decide to come to introduce yourselves, and your world?"

He didn't think they were lying about everything, but he was inclined to be suspicious, especially as they seemed to be eyeing his swords, and so far all who had done that had made attempts on his life.

"Ohh, that probably makes more sense," said Winn, "I was just curious cause you two said you were the only ones on this planet, which is definitely something I haven't heard of before. Usually even the smallest planets have relatively big populations. Unless they're meant to be prisons of some sort..." Winn did a double take as he realized what he'd just stumbled into by accident.

"Uhh, this isn't is a prison of some sort, right? You two aren't exiled or anything?"

Arin didn't know what a nursing home was, but she did know what a grandma was and assumed that comment was some kind of insult. She would have probably been a little more annoyed about it if she wasn't so proud of all of the work Sune and her had put into this home.

Arin looked at the guy with the pointy ears and the sword.

"We came over because we were curious," she explained. "This world doesn't really get any visitors because of how barren it seems when you step out of the gate—and because no one ever tries out the combo that would bring them here—so we were confused when we felt that weird humming in the air earlier. And then you didn't look like wraith when we were actually saw you, so we thought it was our duty to help!"

Arin grinned.

Sune, meanwhile, gave a quick shake of his head.

"We're not exiled," he reassured Winn, his tone soft but comforting. "We're traveling musicians. We like having a home to sometimes return to, but we mostly spend our time visiting and performing on other worlds."

"It's what our family's always done," Arin proudly added.

Medea shook her head watching the others scamper into a small house. Squinting at the man with the two swords who'd insulted her, she'd refused to answer his question about being a friend or foe, she was neither. At least he seemed a little scared of her, hopefully, he wouldn't be a threat.

Medea squinted back up at the sky. Faintly recalling various statements made by the others that had gathered near the two human-looking creaturs. Who seemed to actually know anything here. It was too light here to pay attention to anything properly.

She held out an arm, studying her skin, they said something about wraiths that were a weird blue-grey colour. She had no idea what wraith was but she was certainly a blue-grey colour. She tiled her head, the white-blue flame swaying. Was she a wraith and she just didn't know it? Lowering her gaze she studied the small structure that everyone else had disappeared into, "what if I'm wraith and I just don't know it? Do most people know if they are wraiths?"