Young Writers Society

Tommy sat on his leather stool, facing the easel before him. A canvas with a half-finished portrait was propped up neatly on the easel. He grabbed his earbuds from the nearby table and began playing a random track.
Then he started to finish his drawing.
He was trying to recreate someone from before he arrived here. He knew that that world was long gone now. But some things you just never forget.
That's when he heard the loud banging and Caleb yelling that it was time for another mission.
This caught him off guard and caused him to jump slightly in his seat. He scowled as he looked at his drawing which now had a random dash in it.
"Caleb! You had better find a more efficient way to do this!" He yelled, feeling his anger boil over.
No matter how much he hated leaving a drawing unfinished, he knew the drill. This was the life of a Star Guardian. He placed his pen down and left his room, heading for the main hall.

Galileo bolted up from the ground as soon as she had heard the first thump on the door. It didn't startle her too badly, but she just maybe flung her book across the room. She didn't get annoyed often, but when it came to her books, they were everything she had. And oh man, it had just started to get good...

That wasn't important though. Sure, it was disappointing, but there were other matters at hand. Like a mission she definitely wasn't prepared for! It doesn't exactly sound good when said like that, but it's true.

Galileo grabbed her coat from off of the floor.

"Uhh, I'll be there in one second," she said, but only to herself. This wasn't the life she had imagined she'd be living, but it was the only one she could have. That was better than nothing, and she had grown to appreciate it.

She moved towards the door, only looking back to make sure everything was at least somewhat orderly. Then, she left.

Ever the devoted follow, Helia was already sitting at the main's halls long and glossy table. She sat right next to Celeste, who had claimed the chair in at the very end. Around her seat was piles of scrolls, each documenting a different mission they had went on. She squinted at them, analyzing each piece of data and looking for where they went wrong, what they could do better, how stealthy were they really. All of it meant the life and death of thousands.

Soon enough, everyone had appeared in the corridor. Helia smiled and waved to each of them, "Good-" the woman looked out the window, "What time is it? Oh, whatever. Time is irrelevant nowadays," she chuckled. "Take a seat. Celeste should..." Helia trailed off as she scanned her surroundings. Among the fancy hall were bookshelves, a few decorations, tall windows that reached the floor and ceiling, but no sign of the little star. "Should've been here by now."

As if on cue, a teenager with hair that trailed yards behind her slowly ambled into the room with a distant look in her eyes. Helia's face turned to concern instantly, but she wouldn't speak up. Celeste looked around at her team. Realizing they were even there, she quickly put on a brave face with a happy smile. "Hey!" she said, showing off her teeth with her grin, "Don't worry, it's just a briefing today. We'll actually go somewhere tomorrow, so I suggest resting and eating and whatever else you all have to do," She stared at Darvi, "Especially you. Your powers are also mine. Kinda hurts when you use it to much. Don't worry about it, though."

Celeste quickly put herself in her chair (though she struggled to maneuver her heavy hair around the table). She waited for everyone else to seat themselves. She opened her mouth, but silence was all that came out. Her brave face vanished. She swallowed thickly. Helia reached for Celeste's shoulder. "Caleb, I think it's best if you read the mission log this time," she ordered.

As Caleb would unfurl the scroll, text would appear on it out of thin air. Celeste braced herself. She had already read it.

"Earth 20986. November 18th. A nuclear bomb will strike at 22:10:17, causing the entire world to become a desolate wasteland trapped in nuclear winter. Two thousand years after, a new authoritarian government will rise and oppress it's people. It will take 600,457 years for a young man and his friends to overthrow the tyrannical rule."

Celeste grimaced as Caleb would read it aloud. She let the quiet draw itself out for a few minutes, before she finally spoke up. "A group of anarchist hackers will try to break into the government's headquarters before they can launch the bomb. As you heard, their success is not on script," she paused again, this time placing a hand over her mouth.

She whispered under her breath, "I don't know if we should save this one."

Caleb lowered the scroll, letting it snap back into a neatly rolled tube.
"It doesn't say anything about the aftermath of the overthrowing," he muttered. "For all I know, it won't be much of an improvement."
The room was silent. Celeste rested her forehead on her hand, face hidden behind her platinum hair. Caleb sank back into his seat, the quiet growing even more uncomfortable by the second. Still, nobody spoke.

Celeste looked among her crew as her hand traveled to her chest and clutched it. Death always hurt to think about. So many lives lost, so much pain and for what? Senseless death never made sense to her. This universe had no happy ending for this world. Even if it did, how many would have to die just for a slimmer of hope? Was it even worth it? Maybe it'd just be better to let them die happy now? Oh, death hurt her heart so much, she could barely take it.

"I... I dunno. Maybe we should just leave them be. I mean, the universe implosion part is instant. They won't even know what's happened..." she said with a pained expression. Celeste looked out one of the tall windows, stars twinkling beside them. She had to wonder what they thought of all this, the vicious cycles of death. For what? In the name of balance? She really was an alien in her own kind. Earth 20986 was in sight, though it was much tinier. A blue and green speck with a few clouds over it. "Well, we have a few days to decide. It's not going to happen for a week. We'll come back in a few days and vote-" Celeste stopped suddenly.

Helia looked down at her. "Celeste?" she asked. She repeated her name again, only for her to stare straight ahead. "Um, Celeste? Can you hear me?" Helia shook her shoulder.

Celeste woke up with a jolt, then ran to the window without another word, her face palm and nose pressed against the pane. There was a shake that went through the entire station. "Oh stars," she whispered. Seconds later, the small Earth in front of them was swallowed by a black hole. A few planets and stars followed after it, but otherwise, it was fairly anti-climactic. The black hole closed and a supernova swept over the station, shaking the whole of it. A few decorations fell, but the place was prepared for events like this.

"I... How did I not..." Celeste trailed off, tugging the trills of hair by the side of her head. "I know when that's supposed to happen! It's like a sixth sense! Every star is told about the death of another! I was supposed to know! I... Did they keep me out of the loop? How could they?!" Celeste started pacing the floors wildly, eventually teleporting from place to place in a panic. "It's not supposed to be like this! I would've know! I would've..."

Helia tried to calm and comfort Celeste, but from how frantically she was running around Helia just couldn't catch her. She wouldn't even know what to say, anyways. What do you see to a million year old teenager raging about a planet exploding?

"Ow!" Caleb lurched forward as Celeste jostled past him, dropping the scroll. It clattered across the table, rolling to a stop against the wall as if it were watching the aftermath of the sudden black hole. Caleb hurried around the table, scooping up the scroll before stuffing it back into his bag. When he looked up Celeste was still running around, waving her arms frantically as her hair trailed behind her like a huge white anaconda.
"Hey!" He pulled his hammer from his belt and slammed it into the ground at Celeste's feet. As soon as the metal touched the floor, huge glowing walls erupted from it and encased the panicking star, who stopped dead. "We're not going to achieve anything if we're running around in circles!"

Celeste came to halt as she was caged in, but it didn't stop her from hyperventilating. "You don't get it, Caleb! None of you do!" she screamed, "They've found us! They found me! They know I'm up to something!" She pounded on the walls, before catching herself. Oh, right. These were all technically her powers. With the snap of her fingers, it her holding cell shattered into thousands of small pieces. "Nice try," she mumbled.
"I just... I just don't understand," she said as Helia finally got a hold of her. The woman helped push Celeste back to her chair at the table. Her panic turned into sheer shock. "I just... I dunno anymore. How did they catch us? Why now? What did we do? How did they..." Celeste rubbed her temples, still with shell-shock on her face. "What did I do wrong? I thought we were still under the radar..."

Caleb ran his fingers through his hair, standing stupidly in the middle of the room with his hammer in his hand and a pile of what looked like shattered glass at his feet. Celeste's panicked, garbled words weren't making much sense to him. Who caught them? One of the stars? But...
He looked out the window, at the place where the black hole had appeared. That hadn't looked like star magic to him. It almost seemed a bit more...sinister.
He shook his head. He was probably making stuff up. The heat of the moment was getting to his head, or something.
"What do we do?" he asked, sliding his hammer back into his belt.

"I think... I believe we should all calm down and think logically," Helia said, patting Celeste's shoulder in a motherly fashion. "What if it was an unexpected death? Like..." she looked at Celeste. She was entirely confused at the thought. "Like a human heart attack. It's sudden, unexpected, and entirely possibly."

"But not for stars!" Celeste said, worry lacing her porcelain features, "There's order in it! Nothing ever happens suddenly! Everything comes at it's right time, and everyone knows it."

"Like I said," Helia cut in, demonstrating a breathing technique to help the star calm down, "It could simply be a freak accident. Nothing is impossible."

"This is impossible!" she tried explaining, desperately. "Accidents are a human concept! Most stars cannot even comprehend the idea of something unprecendented happening, because it doesn't exist to us! Everything in these vast universes come with natural order for us!"

Helia gave up from there. The culture and language of stars wouldn't make sense to any mortal. Perhaps it was too much from a human brain to comprehend without driving them mad. She simply sat herself next to the celestial and kept a comforting arm on her frail back.

Celeste held her hand in her hands. "I can't believe it. I never thought I'd be doing this," she sighed. A minute or so later, she stood up from the table and moved away from the group. "I need to call someone. I'll be back later." Helia instantly skipped to her side, but Celeste waved her off. Helia looked like a lost puppy for a moment, but quickly regained her composure and sat back down with everyone.

Celeste was back in her library, fiddling with a small device. It was a glowing light, caged by two rotating rings similar to an armillary sphere. She took a long deep breath. In case of emergencies, she thought.

Gently, she poked the glowing orb inside the sphere. She heard thousands of galaxies, universes, plants... but they all led to the same person. "Please..." she whimpered, "I... I really need your help this time. Please."

Tommy looked around; the chaos was rather confusing. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on anymore. He carefully and cautiously stood up he muttered a quick excuse about having to use the bathroom, and then stepped out of the room.
He made his way down the hall, hoping to just stay in his room and draw, but as he passed by the library, he heard someone speaking. He couldn't make out much, but it sounded like they were asking for help.
He snuck toward the door and listened in on the conversation. He could feel the mind of the individual; if he just reached forward a tiny bit, he could access their memory bank and see what was going on, but he had the strangest feeling that this was a bad idea, so he just listened.

Caleb watched Celeste go, an odd feeling creeping up the back of his neck. Then Tommy left soon after that, and Caleb felt the sudden urge to follow him.
Slipping out of the room was easy--he was already by the door, after all, and everybody was so occupied with Celeste's breakdown that they barely noticed the former blacksmith turn the corner into the hallway. He stopped there, watching Tommy make his way down the passage. But when the blonde stopped to listen at the library door, Caleb hurried forward as silently as possible. Soon he was within earshot, and could hear someone's voice on the other side. He stopped, listening intently.