Young Writers Society

*This story is underneath my folder titled “Marcia and Rush”. Gacha Club character designs are under my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*

“Look at this place: It’s a dump, but it used to be bustling with life. It’s where me and your father met.” Linda said to Camilla and Josephine with a smile.

It was a bright Saturday morning where the sunlight shone as though the days would pass on forever and ever, just like childhood days of summer that seemed to pass on with exciting and positive possibilities.

Speaking of summer, summer break was right around the corner, awaiting the Martinez family with fanciful ideas of infinite joy. To celebrate the last Saturday before the big summer break, Antonio and Linda decided to take their daughters to “Spiky Burger” the fast food restaurant where they first met. The restaurant was most known for making burgers that had spiky bread buns, like a Mohawk. It was a restaurant that had a slightly punk aesthetic, but which somehow was made to be enjoyable for all ages. Spiky Burger used to be bustling with music, color, people and life, but the restaurant had gone out of business one day, for burgers with bread spikes began to fall out of favor and thus, Spiky Burger began to rot.

Though Spiky Burger was poorly maintained, overgrown with plants and had scattered debris on the ground, Antonio and Linda still felt a hint of magic creep within their hearts, the kind of magic that came when they locked eyes with one another while waiting in line for a burger, when they were teenagers who felt like they had all the time in the world to make a difference, like their voices would begin to matter because they were reaching up towards the sky in the ladder of adulthood.

But for their six year old children, Spiky Burger had smelled too much like the school bathrooms and was far too silent to be comforting at all.

“So why are we here? This place is a little creepy.” Camilla asked, not quite seeing the importance of going to a place that was going to waste even though it was where her parents met.

Linda sighed. She shouldn’t have expected Camilla to really pay attention to her words. Josephine probably wasn’t even paying attention either but just decided not to say anything.

Antonio shrugged with a smile that said: They’ll never get it and that’s okay. He wanted them to have a good family moment just like Linda, but goodness, why couldn’t the kids just be quiet and reflective for a few minutes?

“Because it’s a place of memories. It used to have color, Camilla. It’s a nice, quaint retreat away from the public eye. We’ll go home soon. Just appreciate this family moment.” Linda said softly.

Yes, it was dilapidated, but it was nicely tucked away within trees and a little further off the road. Plus, it would be a shame to stop coming altogether just because it wasn’t open anymore. There was still value within the crumbling walls and dirt-stricken floor. In fact, if Linda and Antonio imagined hard enough, then they could hear the riff of an electric guitar on a speaker, the music twisting and turning with notes of ecstasy and fury, music that could bring tears or smiles, music that could-

“It’s so lovely to know I’m not the only one alive. Living here makes me forget that sometimes.” A woman said.

From behind a counter, a woman had stood up. Her whole skin seemed to glitter, just like her magenta hair, her clothes…she was glittering, but the glitter seemed as though it was ingrained in her skin, the silver sparkles in her skin looked too closely tied to her body to be mere glitter that could be washed off by water.

The woman’s smile was wide and white, it made her pink lips look much, much brighter than anyone could humanely have, but…why was she smiling? There was a malicious note in her smile that the Martinez family couldn’t ignore, that had them glued to the floor…why couldn’t they move? Why couldn’t they run? Was it the odd happiness in her smile that truly couldn’t let them move? Why was she smiling like that? Why did their skin feel like it was stretching along with their bones, like they were being rolled and pulled apart as though they were string cheese played with by a child.

Josephine held onto Linda’s hand, Camilla held onto Antonio’s, they held on until their fingers felt too sharp and pointed to do so, until they could feel their bodies move again, but with a foreboding sense of being trapped still festering within them all.

“I cannot escape the form I am, and neither can you. I was sent to this place because my glitter was an omen of death, and you will hide here out of fear. You lived your lives in naivety and comfort, but now that you have stepped into my home, you will see in my eyes.” The woman said, her smile fading away, leaving nothing but her pale, gaunt, gloomy face.

But what were they? What did she do to them? What wasn’t she telling them? What did her words even mean? What was she?

“You don’t understand me? You wonder “why me”? Simple. Because you dared to cross into my home. You dared to come here from past memories. Don’t you know that those memories are buried in dust? Don’t you know to leave this place behind for something else? I am a glitter witch. My name is Trixie. My parents have sent me out to fend for myself in an unkind, evil world. I could have been an angel if they only loved me, just as you all could be home watching a movie.” Trixie said.

In the midst of all the rubble, there were shards of broken mirrors lying about Spiky Burger. One other unique thing about the restaurant was that it was decorated with mirrors, all of the mirrors shaped in jagged edges, so unlike how most mirrors were shaped.

“But life isn’t fair. You have to show others that you’re willing to grasp whatever you can to make it all better. I’m going to get out of here and find my happiness. You’ll never be free. You don’t deserve it.” Trixie laughed, her green eyes wild with delight, the kind of crazed look that Antonio and Linda saw in Camilla and Josephine when they feverishly and greedily unwrapped presents on their birthdays.

As Trixie sauntered towards the door, the Martinez family turned towards the shattered mirrors that lay all throughout Spiky Burger, screaming when they saw what was reflected back at them. No, not screaming. More like screeching. They couldn’t exactly scream or speak, try as they might, for they were no longer humans, but creatures that had the faces of wrinkled, pasty clowns with flecks of rainbow color on their skin. Linda’s hair had been swirled into a light purple color, Antonio had been shocked with electric blue hair, Camilla had been blasted with magenta hair, and Josephine had been snapped with laser green hair. Each one of their hairstyles was done up in the peculiar style of a true clown, but their bodies…

Their bodies were like overgrown raisins, black and leathery plump circles that protruded matching wings, their feet were thin and rakish wires that had three talons on each foot.

What were they, exactly? They didn’t look like clowns, they didn’t look like birds…were they clown birds? Why? How? One visit to Spiky Burger and they found a glitter woman who cursed them to be clown birds? In all of their wildest dreams, nobody had expected that such thing to happen.

The Martinez family screeched for help, flapping their wings, minds warped with confusion and terror, hoping that they would all wake up any moment and forget the incomprehensible nightmare maze that they had all seemed to share.

But nobody woke up. Nothing changed.

Wasn’t that what Linda and Antonio wanted, though? For nothing to really change? For their family to have a nice, unforgettable time at Spiky Burger, to live an experience that only they would have the privilege to live by?

Nobody had to worry about any obligations and responsibilities anymore!