Young Writers Society

Chapter 1

Larry Derow, The Absolute Generic

Emily was playing around with Rei's messy green hair, while they sat down together in a large white, wall-less room. The hair turned into any style Emily desired, from old-fashioned to bizarre show. Emily was a very good hair stylist, despite her long hair being a nightmarish black that fell down to her shoulders. It was like something from a horror flick. However, with dorky glasses, she's really just a plain, simple girl.

"You should really tend to your hair, Rei. You can't make it messy forever"

Rei pouted,"Eh... every time I tend to my hair it always turns out messy, so it's useless."

Emily pinched her cheek. "That's mostly because you sleep a lot."

A sudden figure flopped down in the middle of the room. It was a blob which is turning into something.

“Oh!” Rei smiled. She stood up and pulled Emily's hand excitedly.“as we promised”. 

“But-but you think I’m ready for solo mission?”.

“You will be fine”. Rei pushed her closer towards the blob. As the blob was taking it's form, Emily observed it carefully while adjusting her black spectacle nervously, but with a slight focus. The blob then turned into a guy.

Emily looks closely to the person, she needs to identify quickly on what he is. She has been practicing character analyzing for a long time. She is confident with it.

In within five seconds Emily has analyzed it and figured out that the guy is not that special, not that interesting. Short brown hair, green eyes. His face is a bit girlish but with a hint of manliness left in it. He was wearing a green hooded sweater, brown cargo pants and a white pair of sport shoes. He looks young but at the same time older than Emily who was in fact in her teens.

Emily was not impressed, not even a little bit intrigued. In fact, she squinted her vision trying to twinge her eye out.

“TYPICAL” Emily screamed.

“GENERIC” covering her face with disappointment.

“PLAIN AND BORING” she is down to her knees with a disapproving face.

But that was all inside her head, in reality she was still fazed with silence looking at the guy. While Rei is far behind her on the floor laughing. Emily straight away glared behind her towards Rei. With her hair and a devilish look, it could kill a person, Rei straight away stood back her feet while shaking, “G-good luck!”

“Uh, why am I here?” the guy spoke. “I’m Larry Derow, could you help me?”. Emily took a small black book from her pocket on her large purple and black stripe sweater, opened her notes and started reading to him.

“Welcome to Hell, Day 1-”

“...” she turns some page, ignored what she just read.

“Welcome to 1D-3A Bay! A facility. I am your Side Support! You have been chosen as one of the subject for this facility's main project, Operation Reject. Before we do our work is there any question?”

“What’s this project for?”

PROJECT: OPERATION REJECT. In 1D-3A bay, or should we call it IDEA BAY. It’s a place awash with billions of rejected characters who are in need to find their true story.

They call this characters ‘REJECTS’ They are mostly unoriginal, irrelevant, uninspiring, absurd, overpowered, cringe, uninteresting and completely unfinished. The Officers of this operation will help them to achieve a greater trait for their character, by giving them a variety of obstacle to transform them to an appropriate and decent type character.

So the Rejects could REJECTED from the facility as a 1D-3A REJECTS. That’s why they call it Operation Rejects.

“That’s really confusing”

You’ll get used to it. If it’s still confusing, blame the writer.

“I’m being rejected from a story?”

“can you remember anything? Like who you are?

“just my name...”

“Weird.. you don’t seem to look troubled. maybe you should try fit in on what’s going on, maybe you'll remember”

Larry looked at Emily with a confused face, Surely she understand that he literally just appeared out of thin air. Well a blob to be precise. But Larry didn’t look worried or troubled, he stood there like he was supposed to stand. He doesn’t remember clearly, like his past or his family. He basically has no intention nor motive on being an interesting character. He pondered.

“Emily, does this mean you are also a Reject?”

“I am, mostly because I’m an irrelevant type”

“but you look like a character who fits in a proper story line, what’s your name?”

Larry's aware that he is not interesting, but he can also tell how girls are trying their best to be around him, especially a quiet potato like Emily herself.

Emily, reminded by her father, that every time she were asked to introduce herself, make it proper.

She glanced out from her notes and stood silent for just a moment, she was fidgeting and averted her eyes away from Larry’s eye.“My name is Emily Von Death, the cursed child of the Dark Abyss, I’m 15. I like to read-” her voice getting deeper and deeper that could creep out any living creature in the world, this is what happens if Emily gets nervous and put herself into a dark pressure. When she starts to look back at Larry, he is 10 meters away from her, standing still, white eyed, chanting “i-im in hell. i’m in h-hell”

Emily was seen as an incarnation of evil in Larry's eyes. In his eye, he was not frighten, but cautious yet doesn't know what to do.

“You’re not in hell! I’m not evil!! not any more!” fidgeting as she said that. While her eyes just looking around the room so as to avoid eye contact with Larry, like trying to making excuses.

“t-the notes, you just read ‘Welcome to hell’ -this is just to fool me doing-”

“That was my old notes!”

“old??”

“It’s-it’s a draft novel!! okay, I wrote it and I liked it! it’s normal for a young girl to write an edgy novel!!” she said with a very confident face but at the same time she was quite embarased by it

“…. it was?”

“what you don’t believe me!?” she was about to cry but from Larry’s perspective, she has this look with her red glowing eyes like she wants to kill him. ‘is she really not an evil character??’ he thought to himself.

He looked at the girl far behind Emily. She nodded as if she was giving an ensuring sign. Larry decided to go with it.

“Okay-okay, I believe you… “

“It’s your turn to talk about yourself!”

“w-what? How should I know?? I just got here!”

Emily fidgeting even harder as if she ruined everything and wasted Larry's time. To be honest, Larry doesn’t really mind one bit. He had no motivation to use his time whatsoever. He tried to find a way to calm Emily down but he couldn't find a way.

Rei comes towards the mess and smirking along the way, “It’s in your pocket”. Larry as fast as he can, pulled out something in his cargo pants, and it was a ball of crumpled paper. 

Emily glanced at her “Rei...I don’t really need your help, but just for this time!”. 

“Well, I don’t want to waste his time in this white room, Emy. Larry, dear buddy. could you open that and read it?”

Name: Larry Derow

Info: not really worth it to type anymore for this piece of-.

“Wow, you are even lower than a boring character, you’re trash”

“Rei, you can’t say that. he’s just a Reject like us.”

“Well, how could he end up here then? Most Rejects in this place can be seen as a potential character themselves”

“Good Point”

“Guys, you know I’m still here right?”

Larry wondered if this is actually happening, he wants to understand the situation, but his brain cries every time he tries to piece it out. I guess he was not the smart type that he thought.

The three of them stood silent in a hopeless air. 

“Why is this place so white? I don’t think there’s even a wall”

Larry looked around as if he knows what he's looking at.

The room was an ambient solace to Larry, nobody knows how it works even the girls. 

Rei glanced toward Emily, “Hey, you’re his Side Support. Explain to him”.

“Oh right, this is where a character just pop out just like you, sometime it’s a thing you cannot describe, we call it the Idea room”. 

“who controls it?”. 

“The boss, but he calls it the ‘trash-bin-never-bother-to-took-it-out’ room”. 

“Why is it white?”. 

“The Boss is probably a racist”. 

“Rei, shut up. The boss kinda has this weird type of illness….Lazy”.

That was just plain rude.

“Welp, enough chatting. Let’s just show this guy what we do in this place” Rei snaps her finger and her hand turned into a key. She shoved the key in the air and started turning it, a click, sounded as if something was unlocked can be heard clearly. She opened up an elevator door in the middle of the white room like it was a mundane thing to happen. “Shall we go in?”. Rei is certainly not a nobody, and basically a good friend. Well, for Emily of course. She is somewhat a shape shifter, maybe a magician but not really, she’s the type of character who just likes to defy logic in any vicinity, like an old cartoon for that matter.

“No Rei, as we promised, I’ll take this role” Emily stop her from getting in.

“You should relax and do what ever you want, you deserve it”.

“you sure?”

“yes I’m sure”

While Larry already in the elevator (and still dazed on what happen) stood there and watched two young teenage girls hugged each other cutely. For Larry, as a generic guy himself, it’s a beautiful sight to witness upon.

The tune in the elevator playing was very catchy, Larry closed his eye enjoying its every beats, maybe he’s a guy who’s into music, he thought. The girls finally separated. Emily walked inside and stood beside Larry. As she pulled the lever, Rei started to smile in front of them, wave them goodbye and started wondering in the white room.

“Sorry about that, can we restart the introduction again? That was really unprofessional” Emily looked at Larry, she was calm and very confident.

In Larry's mind “Something tells me, when this elevator door closes. Things either get more confusing or bizarre. Or even worse...at the same tim-"