Young Writers Society

There's something about the first leaf of fall that makes me sad. To think that something so small could be the beginning of such an enormous change, all the individual decisions and events piling into something huge. It's scary because that could be me. Hopefully, I won't find myself the first leaf of fall, trapped in something caused by an inconsequential decision. But I guess I’m relatively safe from that.

"Rennel! Stop staring at the sky! You're going to run into a branch!" My friends voice echoes through the forest, bringing back to reality. My eyes turn from the patchwork forest canopy to my friends face, lively and with that playful smirk she has whenever she's about to say a joke.

"You know, you're probably the only person that'd be able to stare at leaves in my presence. They're all like," She puts her hand to her forehead mockingly "Oh Audray! How are you getting a scholarship to Star Academy? How are you so fabulously smart? How can you have a solid 4.98 GPA? And then you're over here staring at leaves." She puts her hand down and smiles.

"Don't know. They just made me think," I say, glancing off into the forest, almost tempted to dive back into my mind again.

"Everything makes you think, but nothing makes you excited. You're so weird! I'm glad I have someone who's not a normie fangirl." She sighs and continues walking along the path. "Hurry up or we'll be late!"

She breaks off jogging, and I dash to catch up to her. She smiles at me, and looks down at her phone, looking through the posts on Thinkir. I don't know how she uses it, there's too much set up and trying to find things and following people.

We're so different, it's crazy that we're best friends. She is nearly a celebrity at this point, being the world's best star pilot for the asteroid missions, and I'm still trying to find out what to do with my life. I don't know how she does it.

Time passes as we meander through the forest. The path we use had been carved out years ago, when we were First Years looking forward to learning and friends, dances and drama. We've come so long now, nearly three years away from choosing a specialization.

It's funny. This path was pounded into the forest ground by hundreds of kids using it as a shortcut, but now It seems only me and Audray use it. As soon as a newer, faster, and 'cooler' speedwalk was installed all around the city, people abandoned this to instead cruise alongside the road at 30 mph, checking your phone while you stand or riding along using your motorboard. Things have changed.

I walked here because the speedwalk and fumes from the cars make me sick, and because I prefer the quiet, welcoming trees instead of a bustling crowd where everyone is judging you. Audray tagged along because it was easier than being swarmed by fans in the streets, and because she probably felt sorry for me. I don't mind the company.

"Hey, look at this!" Audray taps on a video and switches it to play out loud. A professional looking reporter from PFTP (Or pft, as I call it) presents a fancy graphic of a still from a grainy video with the caption 'Extraterrestrial Intruder or Elaborate hoax?' The newscast starts.

'This past week, several sightings, pictures, and recordings of a strange man wearing what some describe as a tech suit of armor terrorizing civilians and neighborhoods in Trivor County have circulated throughout social media as well as conspiracy sites. Many believe this to be false, but the numerous recordings and eyewitness accounts may prove otherwise.'

"This is probably a hoax, Pft is known to do joke reports every now and then-"

"This isn't one of those. They always put a warning beforehand, this one didn't have that. And shush!"

Having missed part of the video, I find that it cut to a phone recording of a street from a second story window. The footage is shaky, but one can clearly see a man walking. It zooms in as he walks toward a house, making his way up the driveway and to the door, where he knocks.

The door is opened by a elderly woman, who seems startled by the man, who in comparison, looks to be well over six feet. His mouth moves a bit, with the woman shaking her head in confusion. He seems to give a sigh, but then abruptly moves to grab the woman and turn her around, taking out a strange object and putting it on the back of her neck.

The woman is let go, but she starts shaking uncontrollably, as if she was having a seizure. Her mouth opens and she screams loud enough for the microphone on the phone to pick up on it. Several muttered curse words by the whoever's filming can be heard, but are bleeped out as to be 'unrecognizable'.

The film continues, as the woman collapses after he retrieves the object and he enters the house. The show cuts to when he reappears, about a minute later, and moves on to the next house. The same thing happens several times, with differing reactions. One tries to run away, another just stands there dazed, and someone even tries to fight back, though this is fruitless as the mysterious man easily counters the attack.

This continues until the man arrives at the recorders house, where the phone turns to give us a brief glimpse of a teenage boy's room before heading out a hallway and down some stairs. The camera stops to rest on a pretty looking black lady at the door, ready to open it.

'Mom! Don't open it! It's some sort of psycho running around knocking people out.' The woman turns to give the kid a look.

'You really don't want me meeting your friends do you? I heard you invite them over! When will you learn not to hide things from me?' She sasses before turning to open the door.

'Mom wait!' He's too late. The door opens to reveal the man in full effect, tall and intimidating, with dark red hair and armor that has glowing circuitry like designs on it. His face is sharp, with piercing cyan eyes and a taut mouth. However, the most shocking feature is the swirling circuit like design on the left side of his face, slightly risen above his skin, but flowing, almost organically.

'I am in search of my Conduit, which has been located in this area. Be prepared for a mandatory search.' The way he recites it, almost like a mantra, gives me an eerie feeling.

'What? I'm not gonna be searched without my consent! Who are you to violate my righ-its!' She gets caught off guard when he takes her arm and turns her, brushing her hair aside before placing a silver and blue flat piece of metal onto her neck. The blue parts stick out like bins before moving down to grab and pierce the skin on her neck.

The scream, being so up close is deafening. You can see terror in her eyes, before they roll into her skull as she collapses. The man deftly goes to retrieve the item, which popped of her neck and rolled on the floor nearby.

The camera jerks as the man faces it, the boy presumably running, and who wouldn't after seeing that. The footage switches to screen facing, showing a very terrified kid as he gets caught by the man. The film shuts off just as the man's hand begins to place the item on the boys neck.

Returning to the studio, the woman starts her commentary up again. 'All the people were found by police after calls about strange noises from the block. Over a hundred houses in the surrounding neighborhood were affected, and this film was recovered, along with the victims, some of whom have woken up.'

'Many people have described the event as terrifying. One person describing the pain of the encounter as if 'Your soul were being ripped out of your body'. Most people have no physical injuries, but many are being screened for PTSD from the traumatic event.

"Isn't that weird? I heard it was right near the border of Trivor and Wilson, near us!" She says, fascinated. I smile and roll my eyes.

"He's probably going to stay in Trivor. He was looking for something and said it was in that area." I conclude. I can't believe I'm actually thinking about this. The authorities should be the ones trying to track him down and find out his motives, not two school girls in a forest. I guess it won't do any harm.

"There's a lot of things we don't know, like how big, how he searched, or what a conduit is! How do we know that he's not going East to west and is going to head here?" She noted as she turned her phone of and started walking forward.

"Hey! Wait up! This isn't a training run!" I groaned as I trudged a bit faster to keep up with her. How could she be so fast?

"Someone has to keep you in shape!" Audray jested, looking at me and smiling. I sighed.

"Anyway, what did you get on our Biology test?" I look at my bag, the B+ sticking out in plain sight. I give her a sheepish look.

"Oh come on! You could ace it if you just tried. You should try coming to my study group! You'd fit right in." She stated as if she didn't go to a study group full of future star pilots, engineers, and physicists.

"You can be serious! They're all Einsteins and the kids of people like Casseran or Kinadra!" I said looking at her bizarrely. That's the first time she's ever suggested something like that.

"Just your type! I mean you tolerate me everyday!” Audray smiles.

"But you're different! We've been friends for years! They're all stuck-up high-intelligence super brains! I'm a monkey compared to them!" She laughed at my retort.

"You're right about them being stuck-up. And you're the smartest monkey I've ever met. You'd put them to shame if you just tried." I sigh. I can't try. I mean, Audray was made for stuff like that. I'd get in the way. Besides, it's nicer being backstage.

"You lower yourself too much," She commented as I stared at a very interesting stick coming up. "Try letting yourself be the hero once." She offered me a smile. I gave one back before picking out a suitably fascinating root.

Just as we began to pick up the pace, our silent forest was sliced with a piercing scream from off in the distance.