Scribble Ninjas

12:29PM.

One minute until the bell would go off. One minute until lunch. One minute until that bag of
Lays Buffalo Wing Chips – not just any bag of buffalo wing chips: it had to be Lays.

Just thinking about it made her antsy.

The bell rang loudly throughout the school as students noisily shuffled into the hallway, ready for the five minutes provided for transitions from one place to another; chattering, laughing, shouting, lockers opening and shutting – the sounds of middle school.

Kelly hugged her books tightly to her chest as she walked in and out of hallway traffic, smiling to acquaintances here and there. Her locker was close, just a few feet in front of her, but the sea of adolescents blocked her way, making what should have been a 10-second walk a 3 minute one. It was like this every day, but it annoyed her on these days in particular.

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Today, she was Esmeryn.

She had her head down, counting coins for perfect change. I liked the way her bangs brushed her eyebrows, just covering her eyes from sight.

Ever since I met Villette, I couldn’t get her out of my mind; it was so maddening that it was irritating. Those in the Veritas class were never of particular interest to anyone in the Society, and I’d never taken an interest in any of them before, so why now? It didn’t make any sense.

Nevertheless, I found myself searching constantly.

In the hallways.
In the cafeteria.
In the Workroom.

… As if my eyes expected to catch a glimpse of her figure passing by.

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I took another puff from my joint and the smoke continued to fill my dinky apartment. I sunk deeply into my sofa, wondering how my life had turned out like this: living alone in a shit apartment with a girlfriend who has a mouth the size of Russia.

Bottles and cans of alcohol had spread out across the floor. I groaned, too tired to clean up the mess I’d let accumulate for months. Isn’t this what girlfriends were for?

I must have dozed off because the sound of a knock at the door had awoken me. I ignored, feeling much too tired to get my lazy ass off the couch. The knocking soon gave me a slight headache, causing me to slowly peel myself from the couch and approach the door.

“I don’t want it!” I yelled at the door, expecting it to be some damn salesman.

“Travis!” a shrill voice came from through the door.

Speaking of girlfriends…

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Maybe that was what I liked most about him, the fact that we never talked about anything serious.

The broken teacup shards littered the floor. He stilled, his ears straining for sound – but she didn’t move, of course she wouldn’t move, she probably hadn’t even noticed that it was broken. She couldn’t see from where she was. And even if she had, she hadn’t gotten up for days…

It was an infectious thing, this state of mind she’d gotten herself into, so he could feel it too. It carried throughout the whole house. Sometimes it felt like the walls were caving in on them from the heaviness in the air.

Other times, it felt like she saw right past him – not that he could tell, but she never really felt there. And even though he knew it was highly unlikely she would have moved from her chair, he was always surprised to stumble into her there the next morning.

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Previous chapter.

Clickety-clack. This is how I get paid. By how much clickety-clacking goes on behind my desk. There are at least twenty of us Veritas sitting in a white room full of identical cubicles with identical chairs and identical computers. We’re running through the same program, sorting data and rearranging information from the Society’s Intel with nothing but the sounds of our keyboards tapping.

This is what the Veritas class is good for – silence and efficiency. Nothing else, nothing more.

The clock hands skimmed along the surface, making endless circles around the center. Even that was muted, as if a single disturbance in the air would disrupt all our working. We didn’t even look at the clock, except times we caught the hand moving out of the corner of our eye.

I clicked through file after file, typing in a few words here and there before sending it to the correct processing programs. I didn’t know where the information went from there, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t our job to wonder.

At five o’clock sharp, we simultaneously came to a stop as the computer screens blanked to black and the whole room fell into complete silence.

Next chapter.

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Some housekeeping things!
1. I'll no longer be telling you when to post your collab parts. Just post whenever you want during your month, ideally toward the end!
2. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been including links to the previous and next parts of the collab. If you could do those links yourself, it would save me a lot of time :D Same for tagging stories.

When I was younger, I had dreams that I could breathe underwater. I’d lie down on the ocean floor and bury myself under sand, and I would look upward – nobody ever does that, do they? We always look down into the water. Never up into the sky – and the sunlight would make the water shimmer in blue and green and pink.

I remembered you laughed when I first told you about my dreams. And I got mad, because I thought you were making fun of me even though you tried to tell me you weren’t. It was hard to believe you when you were snorting koolaid out of your nose from laughing so hard. But I got over it, because the koolaid splattered all over the front of your shorts and it was lemon koolaid.

Well, also because you chased after me and threw your arms around my waist and held me so tightly that I couldn’t move – so I was forced to listen to you say sorry over and over again until your apologies drove me mad and I had to let it go.

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Previous chapter.

The island that the Society resided on was created decades ago as some sort of prison. At least that was what I heard when I first awoken from the surgery. Decades ago in the outside world, prisons had begun to grow crowded. Many criminals ran free since there was simply no more room to imprison them. A solution was proposed. The criminals were to be sent away to an island. They were to be sorted into different groups by a group of scientists and then underwent a memory surgery, erasing their pasts. They would wake up with a new name and a new identity, confused as to who they were or how they got there.

They handed me an identification card: Nila L’anme, supervisor of the Cronus class. This was my name and that was my job. My group was located within the Entrance Hallway, inspecting each and every member of the society who passed through the building to reach their destination.

It was a quiet day, only a few Society members passed through the area. The hallway had been silent until I heard loud, confident footsteps. Maybe if she had meekly tiptoed by with her head hanging down I would have simply let her pass without a word, as she was a member of the Veritas class, but something about the way she carried herself down the hall made me stop her.

[Click Read More...yes this part is longer the the others. My bad :(]

Nobody bothered to question me about the child I held in my lap, they were all much too weary for it. I looked around, noticing that I was the only male on the small lifeboat besides the crew member who was leading us through the dark waters, blowing on his whistle to search for survivors in the sea of bodies. The bloated corpses of the passengers floated in the water and we tried our best to avoid glancing at them.

When the ship first started to drop their lifeboats in the waters, I tried bribing one of the crew members to let me onboard a lifeboat. I was coldly rebuffed by the man who stated that they were only allowing women and children currently. Angered, I ran back into the crowd of people, struggling to find a way to save myself.

It was then when I noticed a child, barely a toddler, crying on deck for his mother who was nowhere to be found. Without thinking, I quickly scooped the child up into my arms, dashing to the other side of the ship where I heard they were releasing lifeboats as well.

“This is my son,” I lied. “I’m all he has left in this world, please! You’ve got to let me stay with him.” The man quickly allowed me into the boat. I watched as people still scurried around the ship like rats.

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I see him there, along with the others. Their hands are tied back, hair shaved, clothes tattered thin – but he stands out. I watch him, hoping to catch his eye, to tell him, but he isn’t looking at the rowdy crowd below. Instead he glares into the bright noon sun, his chin held high – in another life, he’d be a monarch of some kind.

A revolutionary grabs him by the shoulder, and shoves him onto his knees. Others hold him down, even though he isn’t struggling.

The blonde-haired woman gasps, but someone presses a riffle into her back – a reminder for her to get back in line. She stiffens, and reaches over to hold hands with the woman beside her.

Then without further word, the blade comes down and his head rolls off and the crowd erupts into cheers. When the blade re-emerges, it is dripping in red.

The head falls to my feet, and its eyes glaze up at me.

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Previous chapter.

Despite its ornate decorations and the sheer size of the institution’s entrance hallway, an important place of first impressions regarding The Society and its people, a feeling of claustrophobia never fails to cloud the air; perhaps it was the way the chandelier floated effortlessly above the members as they walked briskly and purposefully to their next destination, the way the large glass windows at each end seemed to open up to the horizons of the vast fields of sienna wastelands, or the way the unsettling eyes of The Society’s past presidents (whose portraits hung between the marble pillars) stares into the empty chasm between the two walls. Nevertheless, one never spends too much time in the entrance hallway.

From here, one had three choices of where to go – four if he includes the choice of walking out the front door back to where he came from. The first branching of the hallway on the left leads to the grand houses of the different classes, where the infamous mechanical induction room may be found, as well as the society member’s lodgings, cafeteria, classrooms and training grounds; the second and third branches leads further underground to areas of higher restricted access, reserved only for the class supervisors and directors.

"Why not?” he said as he looked at me with a smirk plastered on his face. I looked outside the window. I felt my heart twist as I saw couples walking back and forth, families talking and children playing together on their lawns while I was stuck here.

“You’re lonely aren’t you?” he whispered in my ear. Date you only for the sake of alleviating my own loneliness?

“And what’s in it for you?” I growled, knowing his tricks.

“Nothing,” he simply stated. I expected him to dart his eyes away or something, but he showed absolutely no signs of lying. Did he want my money? To humiliate me? I bit my lip, as I did often when I was unsure of what to do, and suddenly, without a thought, I gave him my answer.

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I woke up to the noise of giggles and laughter, moaning and groaning as I pressed my pillow into my ears. I was both annoyed and surprised at the fact that my sisters were always up in the morning like clockwork; their days started bright and early at 6AM, regardless of whether or not it was Monday or Saturday.

Personally, I like this picture in relation to my part. LOL.

Previous chapter.

“And I’m the Seeker!” he finished. He beamed as he held up a small golden sphere, adorned with a tiny pair of plastic wings, in his hand. “Wait… Why are you crying?”

I mumbled out an answer from the pillow I had buried my face in.

“What?”

Mumble.

“Well…”

Mumblemumblemumble.

“Lily.”

I lifted my head up and snapped, “That’s not my name and you know it, Jamie.”

“But everyone else calls you Lily--”

“And no I am not calling you James Potter. Isn’t it bad enough that you have Daniel Radcliffe bed sheets?” I threw the pillow at him. “I’ve had enough of Harry Potter.”

His jaw dropped.

“You…” He pressed his hand to his mouth, stifling back a sob.

“It’s true. Harry Potter is childish,” I said a matter of factly.

He gasped.

“You… DEATHEATER!” he roared, then lunged at me.

If you have ever been misfortunate enough to be run over by an elephant, this was what I was feeling at the moment.

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I hid under the table, holding my breath and hoping that he wouldn’t find me. Sweat dripped down my cheek and fell to the grass. Why did summer have to be so hot? I wondered as I shifted my position to fit under the table more comfortably.

“Eep!” I heard a yelp from an area not too far from where I was. I slightly lifted the tablecloth and peeked out from the picnic table; there was nobody in sight. I let out a sigh of relief but placed my hand over my mouth quickly, afraid that someone would have heard me. I quickly dropped the table cloth and turned around.

I flinched at the sight I saw when I turned around. On the other side of the picnic table, somebody else had lifted the cloth. A broad grin was plastered on his face and he said the two words that I had dread to hear.

Found you.

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Narration of the still-face experiment.

She had my arms around her shoulder, supporting my weight by leaning slightly to the side. This was always how she carried me. I liked it.
A man led us to the room. Almost everything was white: the walls, the ceilings, the window blinds, even the men were dressed in white coats. They had black boxes pointing at her and I, with a square tube that jutted out towards us – it was shiny.
She talked with the man for a bit before putting me in the chair, and then she began playing with me.

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Melly's in Korea right now so I'm posting her story, yo.

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Usually, summer is my favorite time of year; after all, there’s no school, which means there are no teachers, which means there are no classes, which means there’s no homework, which means there’s no detention – all of which sounds awesome to a kid who’s not that into all that education stuff.

Usually, I get started right away with the fun and games: the pool parties, the beach days, the movie marathons, the mall hang-outs, the carnivals – all the typical summer festivities that, eventually, get old but still happen anyway for lack of better things to do.

Usually, summer means I go to bed late and wake up late. It means I don’t eat lunch until I feel like it (which could mean I won’t eat until 4:30 in the afternoon), and it means some days I’ll just sit around and do nothing but watch cartoons from the 90s.

Usually, summer is my favorite time of year.

But not this year.

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A/N: I've been wanting to write a story based on Greek Mythology for a while, so this be it! You might want to brush up on Persephone and Hades before reading it, though.

He waits for me on the mattress, smiling that wicked smile of his. Any trace of gentleness in his expression is poisoned by greed and want.

“Well?” he asks.

“I will not be your plaything,” I say. My fingers move on their own accord, out of my control. Unbuttoning my blouse and tugging down at my skirt, removing one article of clothing at a time until I lay bare.

“I will not be your wife,” I say, taking one step forward. My mind tells me to stop, but my feet move forward. I am drawn. I am chained. I am trapped.

“I will not love you,” I say, slipping into the mattress next to him. His weight rolls over me, hot – too hot – and crushes me.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and his voice whispers to me in the darkness.

“Welcome to Hell, Persephone.”

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I thought I'd post the first part of the collaborative story as soon as possible so you guys could have more time to brainstorm!

PART ONE: Veritas

I leaned back in the chair before sliding my ID through a slot in the armrest. The chair made a whirring sound, then slowly the whole room – the walls, the floor, the ceiling – lit up, thousands of glass monitors blinking to life. Images flickered in and out of the screens, changing to something new every few seconds.

“Society Member 82965 to the Veritas Class,” an automated voice announced from above. “Approval for conditioning into the Veritas Class pending…”

A small mirror attached to the chair swiveled around to face me. I took a long look. This would be the last time I'd see this face.

“Conditioning approved,” the voice said. “While waiting for surgeons to begin procedure, please enter new name.

I heard the soft tapping of shoes sound in synchronized steps. I could feel their presence, even if I couldn’t see them. Those of the Salus class always had a distinct scent to them; cold, sharp, and somewhat synthetic.

Their tools made small clinking sounds as they set up the table. Needles, injections, and circuit chips – everything they needed in order to rewire me.

“Please enter new identification,” the machine prompted. I reached forward and slowly typed in my name, letter by letter.

The machine glowed green as I finished.

“Name approved. Welcoming new society member, Villette Saunders. New society member, number 82965, Villette Saunders. Surgery may now proceed."

There was a loud beep, then the room fell to darkness.


Next chapter.

I was the one who killed your mother. The ‘promotion’ was just an excuse, ‘taking care of our future’ was just an excuse, ‘duty’ was just an excuse, they were all no more than excuses, all to serve my selfish wants for glory. I was vain, foolish, for thinking I needed to be the one to succeed in developing that virus, to be the first, the greatest. I was mad with ambition, naïve with arrogance, obsessed with immortality.

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“Isn’t it just so beautiful?” my friend/co-worker sighed with starry eyes. She was staring at the dance floor where the bride and groom were slow dancing together.

“Ya sure,” I mumbled, taking another sip of champagne.

“I’ve always dreamed of my wedding,” her eyes lit up again. “What about you Rebecca? You’re so beautiful! I’m surprised you’re not married already!”

“Amber…” I paused, compensating on whether to tell her or not. I decided against it after considering the fact that we’ve only been coworkers for six months.

“Nevermind,” and another sip of champagne.

“Hmm..?” Amber cocked her head to the side. I should have known that Amber was not the one to let something go. “You should just say it! I won’t judge” she flashed me a smile.

That’s what everybody says.

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