Young Writers Society

“Avery, you’re an idiot.” Jason had made sure Avery knew that, repeating it every minute since he’d come to in their cell.

“Yes, Jason, I know,” Avery replied for the umpteenth time.

“Good, I forgive you, now get us out of here,” Jason said.

“What? How?”

“How should I know? Call your girlfriend or something.”

Avery shot Jason an annoyed look and approached the cell bars.

“Oi, oi, watch it,” the guard said, stepping away as Avery grabbed one of the bars. A flash of light filled the cell and corridor as Avery was electrocuted, leaving a tingling feeling running up and down his whole arm.

“Gah!” He exclaimed and leapt away from the bars, rubbing his arm furiously.

“Great going, idiot,” Jason spoke from where he sat in the corner of the cell. “Let me try.” He stood and walked up to the bars, then grabbed one that Avery hadn’t touched. Another blinding flash and a shout from Jason, followed by his own arm tingling crazily.

“Ah, now that’s a good waker upper!” He rubbed his arm, then grabbed another bar with the other one. Again, a flash of light and a shout.

“Hah, oh, this is great!”

Avery watched in astonishment as Jason shocked himself again... And again… And again.

“Jason! Stop it!” Avery shouted exasperatedly after he’d shocked himself about a dozen times. Jason looked Avery in the eye and, like a stubborn child, refused.

“Make me,” he said. Avery stared back, unsure of what to do. Then an idea hit him.

He clenched his fist, swung, and socked Jason right in the nose.

“Avery, what the hell?!” Jason shouted, falling back and clapping his hands over his nose. “Are you crazy?!”

Avery looked at Jason in surprise, then at his fist, equally surprised. He bounced his gaze between the two several times before replying.

“Possibly,” he said, sticking the offending hand in a pocket.

“I was right, you really are an idiot, and I take my forgiveness back.” Jason grabbed at the air between him and Avery as if there was something physical there, then crammed whatever it was in his pockets. Avery watched, confused.

“You’re the one who shocked yourself a dozen times, on purpose! And what in the world is this?” Avery mimicked Jason’s grabbing and pocketing motions. Jason looked back blankly.

“I’ve no idea, shut up,” he said. Turning, suddenly, to the cell bars, he addressed the guard beyond who had watched the whole thing unfold and was very, very confused. He even feared for his life a bit.

“Hey, you, let us out,” Jason ordered. The guard stared agape, then shook his head.

“No sir, can’t do that.”

“Yeah? Well… You have to. How’s that?” Jason replied as though he’d won the argument.

“Who says, eh?” The guard was clearly not buying Jason’s confidence.

“She did,” Jason said, pointing over the guard’s shoulder. The guard turned to check who was there and Jason reached through the bars to grab his gun.

Bright blue light flooded the place again as Jason’s torso made contact with the bars. He bounced around wildly, arm sticking through the bars, as he pulled the gun back in.

The guard spun back around quickly to see what had happened and found himself staring down the barrel of his own rifle.

“Sorry about that, I meant I said,” Jason stated, grinning wildly. Suddenly he toppled over, his face falling between two bars, and the lights started again. Avery hurriedly pulled him away from the bars, leaving him seizing on the ground.

“Goddamn, Jason, you really are crazy.” Thinking fast, Avery grabbed the rifle from where it had fallen and aimed it at the guard again, before he could take it back.

“Er, what he said,” Avery nodded to the side, referencing Jason’s twitching body. The guard raised his hands, eyes wide, and nodded frantically.

“Yessir, yes, of course.” Fumbling with the keys a significant amount, as one does when a rifle’s aimed at their head, the guard finally swung the cell open and stepped out of the way.

Avery stepped out of the cell and glanced around before focusing on the guard again.

“Just, please sir, don’t kill me. Please,” the guard began to sob and lowered his hands to his face.

Somehow Jason had already recovered from his electrocuted face and snatched the rifle from Avery.

“Sure thing,” he said, then shot the guard in the foot. The guard let out a yelp, then fell to the ground, eyes filling with tears. Jason yanked the magazine out of the rifle, snapped the gun in half on his knee, and tossed it at the guard’s knees.

“See ya,” he said with a wave. Spinning around, he frollicked off down the corridor, leaving Avery with the guard for a moment.

“I-- I am so sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” The guard glared at Avery with a mixed expression of hate, fear, and of course, pain. “Actually, I only just met him.” Saying it allowed made Avery realize how dangerous all this really was, especially if Jason was a psychopath of some sort.

Hesitant with this new thought in mind, Avery gave the guard one last apologetic look, then hurried off after Jason.

Avery found the man at the end of the corridor. Here the halls intersected, their one ending and another driving through. Jason was glancing down both directions of the intersecting corridor, debating which to follow.

“Avery, you were conscious when they brought you in, right?”

“Er, yeah, sort of,” Avery replied. Jason looked back at him.

“‘Sort of’?” He asked an eyebrow raised. Avery chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head.

“Yeah… Sort of.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Jason asked.

“Er…”

“Oh, of course,” Jason facepalmed mockingly, then switched his sarcastic tone on. “You must’ve been distracted by the lady!” Avery blushed and tried to hide his face by looking down at his shoes. Jason shook his head and checked the intersecting hall again.

“Eenie meenie…” He pointed a finger back and forth between the two directions, mumbling to himself. “Moe!”

“Yes?” A voice called from one of the cells down the way Jason had picked. Pausing and staring blankly, he turned the other way and pointed. “Moe!”

“Yes?” Moe the Prisoner asked. Jason glanced back, both surprised and uncomfortable, then headed down Moe the Hall, being careful not to say anything more about Moes. Avery followed suit, hoping to escape the awkwardness of Moe the Prisoner’s reply.

The two men continued on their way to escape, turning another corner, eenie-meenie-miney-ing another intersection, and avoiding Moes.

“We’re nearly there, Avery, I can feel it!” Jason said, breathing in the musty corridor air. “Ya smell that?” Avery took a whiff and grabbed his nose.

“Yeah… If that’s freedom, I don’t think I want it.”

“Shut up, Avery. You don’t know what good freedom is.” Jason took another deep breath and kept walking. His pace sped up a bit, actually, and he turned the next corner nearly laughing with excitement. The clicking sound of guns being cocked cut him short as he found himself faced with half a dozen pirates’ rifles.

“Well, damn,” Jason said, his mood deflating like a hot air balloon hit with catapult fire. Avery trotted around the corner and came up beside Jason, his mood floating through the sky, just for the hypothetical catapults to tear it down as well.

“That’s quite far enough, gentlemen,” a female voice spoke. The pirates’ ranks broke as they made way for the woman from before.

Jason shot Avery a threatening look as the woman pulled her gun from its holster. She held it up, not aiming at either of the men in particular, but that didn’t make them any more comfortable, especially considering the wall of rifle barrels behind her.

Naturally, as one does when faced with half a dozen guns, Jason started complaining.

“Come on! We just landed to ask for some fuel. We didn’t want to be imprisoned or electrocuted--”

“That was his doing,” Avery clarified.

“Or meet Moe!” Jason poked a thumb back over his shoulder.

The woman stared Jason down, shooting a glance at Avery before quickly looking back at the taller of the two. She slowly lowered her gun and approached them. Getting right in Jason’s face, she leaned over to his ear and whispered something. Leaning back and standing straight, slightly taller than Avery but slightly shorter than Jason, she waited expectantly.

Jason stared at her, confused. Then he spoke.

“Oh, sure thing, lady.”

Winking at Avery, she reached a hand out to Jason. He shook it, squinting but keeping eye contact. Avery watched their hands and noticed the lady pass something to Jason through their handshake. Jason quickly pulled his hand away and held it close to him, concealing whatever she had given him, then he winked at Avery too.

“I’m glad we could come to an understanding,” she said, nodding to the two. Then, suddenly, she spun around and unleashed a flurry of lasers on the pirates behind her. Jason dove to the side and fired a gun as well, which, Avery realized, was what the woman had handed him.

Somehow the two, with their small little handguns, completely obliterated the rifle-armed pirates.

When the last pirate had finally fallen Jason returned to the center of the corridor, making sure to stand between him and the woman.

Turning back to face them, the woman nodded. “Thank you so much. Now, shall we be going?” Needless to say, Avery was very confused.

“Hold on, hold on, hold on. What?” He looked at Jason for an explanation, then at the woman. Jason sighed. “Avery, she’s coming with us.”

“What?!” Avery exclaimed, stepping back.

“Calm down, Avery, don’t get your hopes up. She won’t be staying long.”

“Well, I don’t know,” she spoke up. “You’re quite good with a gun, I might just stick around.” She winked again. Jason looked at her pointedly.

“No, you won’t. It’s my ship--”

“It’s my fuel, and I just killed half a dozen pirates with a handgun to save your butts,” she countered.

“It’s saving your butt too if you’re really in the situation you claim to be,” Jason replied.

“Hold on,” Avery said again. “Two things; one, how did you take out all those pirates? I mean, they’d have shot back and easily killed us, surely.”

The woman took a satchel off her back and flipped it upside down. A wave of rifle magazines poured out onto the corridor floor and she winked at Avery again. Trying not to blush, Avery moved on to his second point.

“Er, what situation are you in that you’d kill your own kind for?” Saying it allowed, like the thing with Jason earlier, made it sound so much stranger and more dangerous.

“Oh, they weren’t my own kind. These guys were scum. Still are, really,” she said, walking over and nudging one with her foot. “No, I got stuck here, ran out of fuel like you. They were going to kill me but I impressed them with my fighting skills and they decided to ‘keep me’. I’ve been here months and already, I’m nearly in charge. They’re not the smartest, clearly,” she gestured to the pile of magazines on the floor.

“Okay…” Avery could think of nothing else to question. “Guess we’ll be going then…?” He looked to Jason for confirmation.

“Yeah, sure,” Jason replied. “Lead the way, lady.”

* * *

After traveling down a couple more corridors, the group finally reached the landing platform that Avery and Jason had arrived on. The two men, greatly excited to see the familiar silver can again, even after such a short time away, rushed up to it. The woman trailed behind, shaking her head and grinning at Jason’s excited laughter as he tackled the can, hugging its side tightly.

“So, this is your ship?” She looked it over. “Eh, I’ve seen better.”

Jason shot her a filthy look, ending his embrace with the can, and pressed a new panel Avery hadn’t seen before. A smaller hatch on the side opened up at the press of this panel and Jason looked back at the woman.

“Fuel, please.”

After they’d fueled up the can, Jason returned to the corresponding side and pressed the panel to open the hatch. Avery glanced around and noticed the black hammer on the ground beside the can. Suddenly he remembered Dorothy and how they’d never gotten him off the can.

“Jason!” Just reaching the top of the can, Jason was jolted by Avery’s call and fell to the ground.

“Avery! What?” He winced, rubbing his bottom and muttering a couple of curses.

“Where’s Dorothy?” Avery asked. Jason looked around.

“How should I know?” He shrugged and climbed back up the can. “Maybe he wandered off. It’ll serve these pirates right if he’s still here.”

The woman looked confused but Jason told her not to mind it and she didn’t press the matter any. Avery, however, was growing nervous, and quickly scrambled to the top of the can as well.

“Come on, hurry,” he told the woman as he kept a lookout for Dorothy being anywhere nearby.

“Well, aren’t you chivalrous,” she replied sarcastically, following the two up the can.

When they were all inside Avery spammed the panel to close the hatch, causing it to open and close repeatedly until it just stayed open.

“Avery, calm down!” Jason walked over, whacked Avery up the head, and pressed the panel once. The hatch slid shut and stayed as such.

“See? Simple!” He returned to the pilot’s seat and switched on the com.

“Lady and gentleman, please take your seats and prepare for takeoff,” he said, laughing to himself afterward. Neither of his passengers found it very humorous and he’d end up mumbling about it for the rest of the ride.

“So, before we actually go,” he said, spinning his chair around. “What’s your name?” He peered at the woman, as if trying to guess it before she said. She sighed before replying.

“My name’s Jasmine, now can we go?”

“Is that your full name, Jasmine Now-Can-We-Go?” Jason asked. Avery facepalmed. Jason laughed. “Just kidding, just kidding.”

“If you must know,” Jasmine said, “my surname is Jupiter.”

“So, Jasmine Jupiter?” Avery asked. Jasmine nodded. “I like it,” Avery said with a smile. “Jasmine’s my favorite tea, by the way.”

Jason made a retching sound and spun back around in his seat, starting up the engine.