Flower: African Violet (Holly)
- Characteristics:
- Blooms on and off during the winter
- Flowers take a month-long break before coming back
- Blooms in low light
- Too much sun is bad
- Perennial
- Traits:
- Is a bit of a genius, but rarely shows it
- Would like friends, but they take too much energy
- Doesn't do well under pressure
- Very shy
- Reliable
- Fear: Failure
Holly is a young girl, the type seen as a target by high-school wanna-be mean girls. She's actually very smart, but she's so shy that it's never shown. Holly is well-liked, if mostly forgotten, by a majority of her peers because of her tendency to do well in group projects, as long as she doesn't do the speaking. Holly can be trusted and depended on, granted that you have to give her time in advance to do things. Holly dearly wants a friend, but is an introvert and people take so much energy that everyone tires of her. Holly would much rather put her name in the credits scene after all the bonus scenes than be seen by everyone. Her greatest fear is failure, because not only are all the eyes on her, but so is the attention for a long time. Therefore, she spends her days in the back of everyone's minds.

Flower: Rosemary (Ezra)
- Characteristics:
- Has a good scent
- Thrives in hot weather
- Humidity increases risk of mildew
- Needs well-drained soil
- Dried leaves are tough
- Traits:
- Popular
- Enjoys attention
- Craves said attention
-Even so, still needs a break every now and then
-When mad, stands up to others
- Fear: Being photographed
Ezra is one of the popular kids, but not a fake. He actually cares about being a nice person, unlike all of his friends, and what Noah calls “common folk” somewhat enjoy his presence. He was able to get in with the popular clique when he moved to the school and he doesn't want to lose that. As much as he hates the superiority complex, he likes the attention he gets. Once he tried to get away from the top. Ezra was back in days. He wants people, especially the popular ones that dictate the school, to like and accept him. At the same time, he never goes out to the mall on so-called “double dates” with his friends, or plays basketball with “the dudes”. Ezra wants the weekend to himself, because if he hears one more half-baked insult in a Cali accent, he's going to go insane. The teens are fake nice, and Ezra is the main thing keeping them from bullying every kid into oblivion. The typical ‘nerd’ comments he lets slide, but the popular kids know from experience to not make fun of anyone's stutter or skin.

Plot: The prompts were regrettably refreshed on, but it was along the lines of “she sat in a chair staring up at the ceiling as the kids ran around her” and “she'd got him wrong, but that was her loss”. The plot will follow a presentation that Holly, Ezra, and a couple others. Holly is stuck doing most of the work, which she doesn't mind too much. It'll open with the “staring at the ceiling” line, and show them working on the presentation. Holly thinks Ezra is like the other popular kids, without knowing what he really does. It goes well, but the girl in charge of talking fakes sick to get out of doing anything, and Holly does it since she knows the material. She freezes and ends up running out of the class. Everyone makes fun of her by following the other boy's example, and Ezra gets mad. He goes on a tirade against Noah and goes after Holly, bringing her back to class. To do this, Ezra has to face his fear: being remembered for something he doesn’t want to be. He doesn't want to be the disgraced kid who stood up for the class weirdo. But he does it anyways, knowing that there's at least one kid ready to spread it all over social media.

Setting: For the setting, I chose the Thai Green Milk Cap Tea, plus added Oreos for toppings. The toppings will be the floors: checkered white and black tiles. The walls of the classrooms are a light forest green, and the ceilings are popcorn style (for bubbles in the milk) and white. There are rows of fluorescent white lights and a fan in the front-center. The school is a pretty classic brick wall, flat roof, boiler room smoke stacks school. It's not too poor an area, but it could be better off. The town isn't a very diverse area, and there are only a handful of non-white students. A few of the tiles, especially the ones in the bathrooms (they're the same color as the ceiling, but normal tile), are cracked. The classroom where this takes place has two bookshelves at the back and two windows on the left side facing the whiteboard. Next to the door is a fairly large glass wall covering about a third of the total wall. If someone leaves the class, you can easily see their departure. The presentation takes place on a Tuesday, after having Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to work on it. Monday is a day taken by the school for a meeting, so the atmosphere that day is more gossipy than usual, as the kids want to hear what they did over the long weekend. It's raining out, so the windows are covered in raindrops and the only light is the fluorescents and whatever the whiteboard helps reflect.

Story:

She sat in a chair staring up at the ceiling as the kids ran around her. The lights were blinding, like a moth staring into a streetlight. They'd been learning about the Civil War, but the students were antsy after days of rain. Holly glanced over at Noah, who was already clowning about. She recalls getting approached by him, this new kid, just a freshman like the rest of them, already in the popular circle. It had been a strange conversation, a charismatic teen extending an olive branch to a girl like her. She refused it, having the intelligence of an Athenian but not the taste in gods. Holly did have good judgement, if this rainy Friday was anything to go by. Noah was next to her, picking pockets with a thief's charm. He made all the girls giggle, and Layla blushed and batted her eyes at him. She saw Ezra, another popular boy, roll his eyes. Why did he get to express dissent towards the jocks, but when she simply sighed, Holly was immediately harassed? Well, no point in theoreticals. Holly had been continuing her 4 day streak of silence (all the teachers turned a blind eye just like the students), but clearly she was the only one who cared about her grades. Opening one of the school laptops, she typed in the same password as she had all her life, just changing the grade as always. When she opened the slideshow template, Holly had to sign out of the last person to use it's account. All this, just for the computer to lag out. Curse this sucky internet.

Ezra turned his own Chromebook to her. “You can work on this with me.”

She nearly scoffs. She, work with him? No, he was working with her. She was the one with notes. Holly bets that Ezra just bullied it out of some nerdy kid in the halls. “When was Lincoln born.”

“February 12th, 1809.”

-

Holly isn't as slick as she thinks she is. Ezra knows that was a test, and that she didn't trust him to do anything worthwhile. The girl in question scoffed. “Lucky guess, bet you just know that from looking at the Super Bowl calendar.” Ouch. Holly gets up, and the chair screeches on checkerboard tiles. Noah actually looks up from wooing Layla to give Holly a farewell mockery. It's practically Noah tradition. As much as Holly's assumptions annoy him, the jock annoys Ezra more. He gives him a look, and it's a warning. The commoners, as the inner circle calls them, like him. And even Noah, who's never looked at a textbook in his life, knows what happens when a king's advisor resists. It's a given, the dethroning that follows. Noah and his little girlfriend still have three years to go. Three years for the peasants to stage a civil war. God he misses home.

Ezra's still mad. She'd got him wrong, but that was her loss. What did Holly know anyways? She didn't have to jump through hoops just to be allowed in the country. She didn't have to appease the gods of the school while making sure the citizens of Greece still provided offerings. It was a Herculean task, but he was no hero. He was the messenger, the one people shoot. He walked the halls like a king, but outside of the palace walls, he was no one. Ezra was the kid who helped out people's siblings and directing them away from the road. He was the one who never played soccer or football with Noah. The one who was never seen at the mall, never posted on social media. Ezra nearly shivered just thinking about it. Having your world out for others to see terrified him, photographs were his phobia. Made worse was having your thoughts out there. All his life he's been an echo. He parroted the immigration officer's words, he went along with the popular kids, and when a teacher wordlessly took out a ruler, he too kept silent.
Yeah, Ezra could be that Holly never did any of those things. His mother always told him he was brave. But Ezra's staring at a computer screen, hoping that this doesn't go south.
-
Nearly a week of nonstop downpour. It looks like night outside, the darkest of blues painted onto the sky. The windows are dirty, but he doesn't blame the custodians. Freshmen stick their hands to the glass, marveling at the mud puddles. There are preschoolers on a walk, for some reason. A dozen of them waddle, penguins in yellow feathers. Penguins had feathers that kept them safe from the rain.

Antarctica is a desert.

Ezra had been to Noah's house before, the 3 story house free of creaking floorboards to avoid as the football player led the gang up the stairs. Layla's parents didn't care what she did, and Noah's were too controlling. Ezra had to pretend that each white baluster (he never knew they had a name) of the stairs was a shock. He was a good actor, at least, a traitorous advisor has to be able to fool a king, even one drunk on the taste of power. Layla was a terrible actor, in contrast, who gushed over the tiniest details and plates on display. Noah couldn't have his parents know that he'd been sneaking behind their backs while they were in their offices. His parents worked at home. Lucky. Ezra saw his mom when she came home, which was for an hour over breakfast. And Holly, who'd ended up doing most of the work without saying a word. Ezra, to his limited credit, tried to help, but Holly kept him distanced, and he could only comment on formatting. Layla had agreed to doing the speaking (“My aunt was, like, an actress. I'll do amazing!”).

That wasn't going anywhere, because there was no Layla to be found, or any of her other friends. Which meant that only Holly knew what to read. Or, an absolute disaster.

(apologies for any formatting issues, this got copy-pasted across three different platforms to get it all into one doc)

Lumie was going to scream if one more thing happened to them. First off, they and their friends lived in a lot next to a bodega in Queens. They used to have an apartment, but rents have been hiked up for years. Their minimum wage job and Ivan's “Chick-Fil-A, how may I help you” work didn't pay the bills. The police were cracking down on the homeless, especially in the rich parts of Manhattan. So to Queens they went. Homelessness wasn't new to Lumie, but the rain was. Everywhere was forecasting “the heaviest storm of the century”, screamed the newspapers that Ivan brought ‘home’. No shelter was going to take in 5 teens, especially ones that seemed nearly invisible to most of the population.

The sky darkened as tourists forced them to move out of the way. Taxis (genuine New York City yellow) splashed sewer sludge onto the sidewalk. They could swear they heard a sewer rat scratching its claws along the metal sewage system. They was sick of this treatment, but what could they do? Pray that fate doesn't catch Ivan binding at work, getting him fired? The most Lumie could do to provide is by working at McDonald's, and hoping that no one catches them on the cameras, sneaking vitamins from Walgreens and rolls from bodegas that Lumie felt guilty robbing. And her last twenty dollars just got pickpocketed by a thief. Their short hair began to frizz up as the summer heat began to take effect. The sewer rats were going to have a fun time drowning. The locals had all brought umbrellas or calmly brought up their papers as hats, but the tourists scrambled for cover. Lumie envied them, the ones ushered in by store owners. Their ratty clothes got them glares and distrustful looks, not to mention that the soles of their shoes were hanging by a literal thread.

As the first few raindrops fell, Lumie hurried along to the barren lot. Ivan saved every newspaper he could find, and the gang would huddle under a fire escape, hoping that ink doesn't run onto them when the prints served as aluminum foil over a wire tray. They did a quick head count as they approached. Ivan, Abraham, Lumi with an I, that one Brit kid Mocha that Lumie was still getting used to having around, everyone was there. There was the same old pigeon (Mocha called it Cream, for the white plumage and a reference to her name. Coffee did keep everyone awake, and that bird was ridiculously loud for a type that mostly coos) on the roof, twisting its head back and forth. Lumie sighed. As much as a dump this lot, a concrete jungle within a concrete jungle, was, it was home in a time where having a real one wasn't feasible. Maybe it wouldn't rain yet; maybe Lumie would be in the position to find shelter.

“I'm home!” This was an inside joke between them and Ivan. Both were the leaders of their little gang (what, you didn't think that their terrible social skills would get them only 4 friends? Heck no, they had contacts from Los Angeles to the city of sin to Chicago to every borough of the city that never sleeps), although Mocha was quickly becoming a British correspondent, but they had to have a little fun to distract from the horrid weather. 90s all week, baby. God, the Brit's mannerisms were rubbing of on them.

“Letter from Chicago. Gets more concerning each time.”

“Don't I know it.” That girl somehow got letters halfway across the country between a war zone and the world's most unstable war zone. Lumie had the sense to respect that, plus it's been a while since they saw their friend.

And an older, rival gang that hailed all the way from the West Coast came to run them out of their own parking lot under the pouring rain.

I got a skeleton, a jar, and a saxophone. The backdrop ended up being some sort of boardwalk. Obviously, the only thing I can do with this is to make a slightly convoluted plot about skeleton bands that I completely abandon halfway through that no one will really notice because it never really existed in the first place. Does this brand of craziness tie into SWC? Of course it does, we're all insane.

Mini-activity: The docks of Eastern Scratch were empty thus far. No seafarers remained ever since the *S.S. Enterprise* left shore. Artists, poets, many of the seaside town were drawn to the ocean. Besides, there were few laws that regulated theft of their work, so out they went, pirates of the seas who made a living off of irreplicable art. These works were bought quickly, because few could make the journey out to the ocean. The ships (the Enterprise has a sister ship, the Aragon, which belongs to the Aragon printing press) carried over about a hundred total running away from home. Nothing was chasing them *(one still had scars from the time a ransom was late, one hurried to save an old friend, half on board were itching to get to the Aragon ink factory to track down a dead friend's family)*, but they all left anyways. Whatever, the spirits would guide them.

What spirits, you ask? Well. Scratch allocated its beautiful green areas to different people. Places with ruins (some say that this is the third version of the island) become a role-player's fantasy. And the southern part of the isle was a summer camp. For the writers of Scratch, this was a home away from home. Each faction (this story reads like a utopia; never true just… twisted) had a patron god, like Mythology's cabin would say. Fairy Tales's was a little more accurate. Their laws read that each group had a previously fictional figure brought to life by stories passed down by hardworking storytellers, from when thousands of words were memorized to typewriters to laptops and touchscreens. Neither are entirely true, and each cabin had their own explanation for their muses.

The Enterprise had left their anchor with the bay. The captain had gone on land to fetch a useful one, as the old anchor didn't work right. It had been an ornamental thing, a cross with etched-on ropes forming a jolly-roger crossbones at the union. Normal, if elegant for a piece of metal rarely ever seen. The strange thing about it (it made all the crewmates uneasy, though they had nothing to be afraid of) was a clay jar at the top. One would think it's fragile, but no, it was the link between chain and anvil.

Down by the docks, lingering fishermen were hanging around long after sunset, hoping to see the famous ghost ship on the horizon. It was an urban legend of the eastern fronts, that long ago strong storms had felled a pirate ship much like the long-suffering Enterprise. Both vessels had been on open water for a long time, and the fishermen hoped that the departure of one would spark the return of the other.

The final man there pulled up his net, not a single fish caught in the web. There was just a lone jar, murky terracotta red with carefully painted yellow triangles in rows around the rim and bottom. It was quickly pulled out and discarded onto the rotting boards.

Characters: time to worldbuild gods haha-
A pirate popped out of a jar on the seaside docks. “Well that was a fun three months. Selene! I know you're there!”

A goddess wandered out from behind a ghost ship that finally revealed itself. She appeared to walk on water, but a carpet of sea foam formed under her. She had gone by many names over the millennia, after all, humans of all tongues revered the moon. She was the face of the Aragon printing press, the one who guided people home when the sun sunk under the world. The Earth spun, and Selene its loyal follower.

Selene bowed down to the pirate. “Irving Thorne, never thought I'd see you again. How's life in that genie's pot?”

Thorne's smile thinned. “Aren't you meant to be haunting the factory or wooing Persephone? In any case, that's my ship you took cover in, so don't go making fun of me.”

The moon goddess laughed. “Don't get cocky, in another month's time you'll be in the depths again. Spent all your gold and fell into debt, good riddance too!” The banter was over as soon as it started, and the pair parted ways.

Selene willed her way over to the Mythology cabin, where her friends were. Here was Apollo, Hermes, Persephone. Gods changed with the times, and so each was different than they were a few centuries ago, and then more and more changes had been made over the history of man.

Well, enough philosophical thinking. That was poetry's job. Speaking of, she'd have to go over there to visit. Selene hears that the whole “camping out in the desert until our friend's spaceship is spotted” idea isn't going well.

Selene bows to the goddess of spring. “Lady Persephone, how lovely to see you again.”

The girl in the rose-tinted glasses looks at the moon for a moment before returning her attention to Selene. “I've missed you. Three months you were gone, and another three months until I'm back down to where even moonlight doesn't shine.”

“Hades still keep you around? Or rather, let you leave? I'm surprised, death doesn't quite like stuff growing.”

“First off, Thanatos is death - common mistake, I know, oh don't give me that look do you know how many times that topic comes up at dinner - not Hades, but if the plants don't grow nothing will. Withering away ‘til no one can tell if you’re dirt or just buried in it makes for a lot of souls to judge.”

“See, this is why I haven't visited. You talk forever.”

“I see dead people and their stories for half the year, and the other half I see the dying's last wishes. I have millions of stories; I'm surprised you don't, your own brother is the one who tracked down Hades's chariot. Not an easy task, though you both rule half a 24-hour cycle.”

A small cough. Persephone and Selene stopped their talk abruptly, looking over for the source of noise. Apollo in all his less-than-radiant glory (it is, as the residents of Scratch would say, Selene's turn with the sky because their mother said so. Yeah she's not doing this right.) stands with a knowing smile on his face. “Yes, there are other people here again. Sister, how've you been, cooped up in a dusty old factory?”

The siblings hug awkwardly. Four months isn't a lot, but it feels like forever when the news is frozen for weeks on end. “Still have the same charisma, I see.”

Apollo winks and does those finger gun motions. “You got it, sis!”

An unimpressed Hermes shakes his head behind the sun god, mouthing a ‘no’. Selene resists the urge to laugh, and smiles instead.

Persephone notes that she has dimples. It's of no surprise, but in past years, the thought of peppering kisses across each freckle has crossed her mind a good many times. *(“Des, you need to stop thinking about her. There's no moon down in the Underworld, you'll just suffer heartbreak.” “Thanatos, I told you to stop calling me Despoina, it literally just means Mistress. And besides, I can remember her by the Lethe, milky-white of the moon.” “You realize that's the most ironic thing ever-”)* Now she just wants to see that smile again. At least once, before Selene must make it back to the Aragon and by the time she can make a last-minute return, Persephone will have been whisked away by Hades, who wants nothing more than secrecy. No matter how many times Apollo begs, Hermes, a pyschopomp, can't divulge the location of the gates of the Underworld, or else he will become a permanent resident.

Before she can ask, beg, even, if Selene can stay just for the night, visit in the next new moon when her absence in the sky will be overshadowed by her rare presence in Olympus, she is gone. All that's left is blurry memories of… *us*, she whispers into the cold sky.


SWC FF: (warning: much talk about the studio update fiasco)

The sunlight hadn't even begun to filter in through the windows when the door slammed open. It was Elle, coming to wake her sub-cabin. Her purple hoodie caught on the door, and she struggled for a moment to get it off before turning back to the campers who were groaning sleepily. “Important news! The logistics of running these types of camps has changed the way this will run, you're all under no obligation to drink water now!”

Night was apparently the only voice of reason, getting up and stretching while the rest of the cabin just tried to go back to sleep (though there wasn't a point now, the day had started and it wasn't going to stop being daytime). “What do you mean?” they asked quietly, so they wouldn't wake the few remaining asleep.

Elle quickly tossed a newspaper into the room, leaving Night to go get it. “No time to talk meeting in a few need to get Daisy the paper's hot off the Non-Fi press okay bye-!” The door slammed shut.

Night leafed through the paper, which showed the alarm-bells, disaster, Houston-we-have-a-problem headline. They frowned. That never happened. They began to read aloud as the campers started to get ready.

“'Scratch announces change to the way clubs are managed, greatly impacting many', oh dear,” they read as PC tied up her hair. Strange how a small blue hair tie could help so much, but her long black hair got greatly in the way of her bunny ears of the same color.

“'Our leaders are preparing to find a solution, for now, it's been announced that the most viable option is to simply split up each cabin into three (one for each co/leader).' Well it's a good thing that this is getting solved, but it's so out of the blue.” Now the campers were beginning to pay attention as Night read the rest of the article.

“What about cabin destruction, is that going to be off-limits?” asked one who had just woken up.

Caramel, who was attempting (read: failing) to braid her hair to *keep it out of the way*, she muttered under her breath, tried to say something about the situation, though it was inoffensive. Regardless (so it may have been immature to use the word ‘sucky’, especially for a writer's camp, but cut her some slack, she just woke up), her watch that she'd gotten on her ninth birthday as per Scratch policy lit up red. She groaned, flopping down on her bunk. *Or not*, she thought to herself, now muted for five minutes.

PC glanced up at the paper. “Man, they must have been working all night to get this out on time. It says that the announcement only came out at midnight.”

Night nods at her, their pixie cut bobbing at the rapid motion. “Yes, it's strange that this wasn't publicized earlier. Unfortunately, we do live out in the middle of the woods for a month of the year.”

On the other side of camp, Daisy was just getting out of the cabin. She had informed her campers of the situation, and though she was worried herself, the leaders were very bright. She just hoped that she, Elle, and Birdi didn't end up strangling the mystery leaders. That would be… not good.

The mushroom fields of the Fairy Tales (city-state, her mind unhelpfully supplies. She's been spending way too much time in the mythology cabin, staring at sculpted statues of ancient gods. The vineyards of the garden look heavenly - Olympus-y? - under the moon, it's almost as if Selene herself blessed the place. She's getting off track.) cabin area are mystical at night. Thousands of fireflies reside in them, she knows because she saw them all out once herself. She'll have to take her campers out one night, as long as they all still get a healthy amount of sleep.

During the day, the fields look as normal as any semi-bioluminescent giant mushroom field can look: natural and inviting. It's a miracle how they find these places three times a year good as new; even Horror managed to find a home in abandoned carnival rides and Mystery settled in a factory. Daisy tries not to shiver at the thoughts of the Aragon Printing Press. The Non-Fi one is better in her opinion, it's not haunted and over a century old. But hey: whatever floats Mystery's boat.

She spots Elle over the hill, jogging to catch up. “How are your campers?”

“As good as they can be, a bit shaken but I did wake them up and leave in under a minute so,” she shrugs, not finishing the sentence. It's self-explanatory.

“Did they yell at you to drink water?” she asks, falling into step with Elle.

“No, but I'm 99% sure that Caramel is training the pigeon to stare at me. Custard, Cream, Chive, whatever we named it is just sitting on a water bottle everywhere I look.”

“Yeah, and I'm going to start spraying you with water. Seriously, it's not healthy. Drink water.”

“I survive on caffeine alone. And I don't see how it's any worse than not using sunscreen. Your face is burnt.”

They fall silent again, almost at the meeting spot aboard the S.S. Enterprise, far away from prying eyes. The water gently lulls the ship back and forth, and the sea is calm.

“So about that spray bottle, would being around so much saltwater make you want to try fresh water-”

“NO!” And they dissolve into giggles. Maybe this whole situation wouldn't be so bad.

It's now the last day of July. Everyone's gotten being sad out of the way, and most have traded follows. It very much is this bad, because now there are hundreds of restless campers across the south of the island. Daisy, Elle, and Birdi, who's off making arrangements with the bus driver, have to deal with 50 of them, some of which are still mourning the pigeon. Elle still doesn't know what they ended up naming it, because it alternated between at least half a dozen names and the tiny grave under Cream(?)'s favorite mushroom is extremely wide to fit so many middle names. Half of the campers are back to the early-July argument of Hufflepuffs, one of which is insisting they're a Slytherin. Honorary Puff it is, then, and that's settled.

There's nothing left to do, and the cabins' announcement boards have not yet been vandalized.

Why are there so many feral children in this camp. But they all love it anyways.

TW: Theatrical descriptions of death, mostly in a mythological sense (ferryman, underworld, etc.), very little blood, implied death (it's reversible in the canon of this universe)

July.

The Rose Witch stands at her balcony, surveying her city. She’s not in Chicago for long, but as long as she is, she has to protect it. She owes Mia that much, to not let her beloved city be overrun. Camia is bound to this apartment by phantom chains still residing from when Chloe took her as an advisor. How many names has she gone by, now? A Sin, the empress’s advisor, however brief that post was, a witch, Chaos herself (that’s not true, by the way! she tells the passerby who look on in fear), and now-

“Lady Persephone.”

Camia sighs. Of course someone’s come to her for help. She’s never gotten to rest. “Let me guess. You wish to bargain with death.” Almost effortlessly (that’s a lie, just as everything else she does. Her knees ache and she wishes that all this running hadn’t taken its toll, not when she still has so much to see. But she hides the pain well; she’s been doing this since she was twelve.), she swings herself over the opened window and sits in the frame. There’s a pen in her hand, and once she would’ve doodled over her jeans and hands. But she was never the artistic one.

What isn’t visible is a knife concealed under her too-long shirt. A hand-me-down, from the one who didn’t abandon her until the draft came to take them away. It hangs on her belt, but just because no one can see it doesn't mean that her visitors aren’t aware it’s there. After all, one doesn’t earn this reputation from nowhere.

“Yes. We know you have an object that can take us there.”

“See, I would, but there’s the matter of my sister. In case you’ve forgotten, a series of your own questionable decisions led to her ending up in Chloe’s clutches.”

Ethan glared at her. The man was once part of Catherine’s Court, but a vote was held and the members decided that recent events showed Ethan to be “not of moral strength necessary for the legal system”. Camia never would have suspected that the shy, optimistic girl ever would have molded likeminded students into the most respected court in their town of 16,000, much less become a highly renowned judge without university studying. Alas, everyone gets in with the wrong crowd at some point.

“Listen witch, I’m the one who kept you free-”

“And I’m the one who pulled strings to keep your disgrace private, ‘kay?”

Ethan opened his mouth again when the one next to him quietly placed a hand on his arm to calm him. Camia didn’t know the other’s name, but she was glad she didn’t have to deal with this guy alone. The ex-judge sighed in mock acceptance, choosing to not test his luck with the witch. “Can you still take us there?”

“It’s not that easy. To enter death, you must be prepared to give something in return.”

The two guests glanced at each other. “We don’t have anything to give.”

“Everyone has something they can trade.” Here, the dreaded Rose Witch got up, a quick flourish of the hand summoning rose petals to her side. Petals from the same blooms have forced grown men to their knees, the thorns poisoning their bloodstreams in a defiant display of power. If there was one thing Ethan could compliment such a person on, it’s her refusal to bow at those who were crowned with jewels slaved for by the exploited poor. No false king would receive her support without a ruthless stab to the back in the near (or in a hundred years, when the culmination of bloodlines is about to be unveiled, that’s more her style) future. “Some have money, that buys them everything short of tears at a funeral, long after all that loved them have passed equally alone. Some have promises of blood, some have promises of peace. A juxtaposition of red and white, scarlet stains on satin sleeves- isn’t juxtaposition such a unique word, quite lovely I’d think - oh, where was I?”

Ethan repressed the urge to roll his eyes. A girl fretting over a singular word, when she has a library of knowledge at her fingertips. This is who his family’s fate rested on.

“Right. The way this works is as follows:-” Oh, and she’s reading aloud from a journal. “In the underworld, time flows freely, not bound to any riverbanks or influenced by the rain. A sunrise is just a sunrise, and the moon merely a coveted jewel. So you’ve got to give Death a gift that matters, either to it or to its messengers: Charon, Despoina, Minos, etcetera. What do you have? Is it youth, a treasure powerful enough to change the course of time through Death’s valley? Patience, a drug to make it through endless days?”

Ethan doesn’t hesitate. One clean cut of a tucked-away necklace, and a family heirloom falls into the lady of the house’s hands. “A promise that I’ll return with something from an old friend of yours.”

Camia runs her fingers over the ruby, where a crescent moon is carved from seemingly eons ago by Selene herself.

“Great, now where do I find death?”

The Rose Witch morphs her surprise into a catty smile, but the moment of weakness is there. “To cross into death, you need to talk to the ferryman.”

-

The detective, too, sits at the window. This time, Ethan goes alone. He can’t risk being held back, not when his family (he tries not to wince at the word, not yet knowing whether he’s doing this because he cares or if he’s just desperately clinging to illusions of his name) is in danger. Selene is known to be unpredictable, but if there’s one good thing the past four years have brought, it’s knowing that gods and mortals alike can change. Time to see if her namesake is kinder than the ferryman is shown in ancient scripts.

“June. Two weeks until the hottest month of the year.”

Ethan blinks, having expected to be the first to talk. “It’s July.”

Mia looks over, a small look of shock on her. “Is it really? That explains the heatwave."

He’s had nearly enough of these people. God, the scatterbrained sophomore mind really stuck with these people, didn’t it? To be fair, it’s not as if they got to graduate… “Camia sent me your way.” Mia’s eyes widened before masking it in indifference. No one in this dang city knew how to properly process emotions, did they? Nonchalance changed to anger, though. Selene’s anger was cold fury, the fire never breaking from the hearth. Ethan backed up without thinking, the only thought through his mind danger.

The detective, in her dimly lit room, rotated and landed on her feet like a cat, the small jump not making a sound on the carpeted floors. She lifted a blanket off the floor, and Ethan could only gasp. There was his son, only a cold corpse. But…

“All I did was open an old wound. He came to me, tracing the scar. Saying it’d always been there, not knowing who gave it to him, but the second I sliced it open, he collapsed with a smile on his face. Your son would rather face death, look her in her eyes when all others cower and kill to not have to meet her gaze, then spend another day in your presence. Your own son! You,” she turned, the thoughts of a god in her eyes, “You disgust me.”

The disgraced judge bowed. “Death speaks behind your words.”

“Yes. Yes she does.” Mia had always been proud, head held up high in a never-ending endeavor to prove others wrong. The girl (he’s forgotten, that these are young gods, only knowing death but never Eden) reaches outside her window, unhooking a lantern. It’s a simple thing, and Ethan swears he’s seen it at Ikea, yellow plastic. Something in there’s loose, because it rattles when Mia tosses it to him. Then the door is shut, and Ethan no longer has one foot in death. He ignores how Scott has both six feet under.

-

He returns to Camia, who reaches over to her desk drawer. Ethan expects her to take out a knife, maybe, or some other, equally simple yet somehow vital to rituals of the Underworld. But no, she takes out a Phillips head screwdriver. How many times has he wanted to sigh at these eccentricities? The witch quietly undoes the screws at each corner of the Ikea lantern, removing the bottom. A copper ring falls out. A small fake green gem sits in it (no way it’s a real emerald, the Park Avenue kids could never afford that), and suddenly tears are running down the brunette’s face.

Not what he expected, but Ethan’s figured out that these girls are not going to do what he wants. She whispers out a melody that he can’t recognize, hating that this sounds like those telenovelas Scott so loved to laugh at. “You’re everywhere, in this ring I wear, the glint of the gem reminding me of your eyes.” Now he remembers it. The tune’s sad, two lovers that couldn’t be together. Maybe he regrets sending the Sin away in wrongful exile; he’d never admit it. What he does admit is that juxtaposition is a cool word, and that fate is an ironic. But there stands Camia, ready to shoot the messenger who brought her such lovely news because that is his payment, so he already knows that. He already knows that fate is chaos, but more it is balance, and yes: it’s never the way you expected that.

Absentmindedly, he wonders if mangos will arrive fresh for once. Camia glances to the corner of her bedroom, as if in a prayer. He hears “Little help, Lumi?” and everything is dark, his body slumping to the ground.

Lyric chosen was “your apathy's like a wound in salt” by Olivia Rodrigo, changed to “yeah apathy's like a wounded soul” with the added part of “apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime” mixed in (Bo Burnham). TWs: implied: eating disorders, racism, little bit of harassment (all of these are for a sentence dw), and a couple sentences of gender dysphoria. Apologies that the entire thing is just a block of text, makes it super hard to read but I could never find a good place to add line breaks.

They're crumbling. They don't even know where they are, only that they abruptly stood up in the middle of class, about to open their mouth, about to sing. About to scream. And then they ran. Coward. The word is whispered everywhere, of Ruby, who could never stand up to Olivia. Camia looks them straight in the eyes, the only emotion there disappointment at her one friend on the other side of their chessboard, but the word is behind her glare. It's told straight to Sid, whose scandal runs rampant just days after the winter dance. The student body can't even get over Olivia and Adelina (enemies, everyone says as they stare directly into their leader's eyes. Enemies, dancing with every step accentuated by malice, each twirling look held with contempt, the beat of the waltz corrupted into hatred) before the papers are out, and they delight in a 13-going-on-30 rendition of the Reynold's Pamphlet. It doesn't escape them, the political tension reaching revolutionary limits. There are threats of war, rumors of Adelina's boyfriend's infidelity, hushed talks of those journals that she studies that drive a manic look in her eyes. Olivia is Jefferson, but only quick-witted Camia can ever dream of being Hamilton. Even then, she is only the people's princess, Adelina jokes on the days she is stable. Yet, a princess is more than them. Frannie, who dodged the turmoil by locking herself in her lab (the abandoned science classroom, where no one steps since the teacher was fired), paces back and forth, the only one who spares more than a glance to Poppy, a paragon of innocence, is more. Frannie is not a coward; she faces the problem by burying herself in books. Ellie (they're reminded of the old Tumblr meme, where all words ending in ‘ie’ are cute until you're reminded of death, but Ellie is far from cute. She's a frog, laced with lethal poison. Always jumping at the chance to envy someone) has lost her lead in the chess club's election, and she is not hesitant to show her anger. If any of the Sins showcase their own namesakes, it is Ellie, who screams and shakes and has the courage to protect Lust, who couldn't imagine anything other than staying silent as slurs are hurled at her from every side of the checkerboard battlefield. They appreciate a good metaphor, so they've sat down to teach Chloe chess. The girl is analytical, and her eyes stare them down, nearly predatory, though there is nothing to hunt. After all, they are just a coward, the treasurer that could barely keep Olivia from defunding every club, still can't. They are the struggling keeper of balance, the blindfolded woman (they gag at the word, and alone in the bathroom no one can hear the renewed tears hitting the sink) standing outside the justice building, a mockery of what once was. The sinking marble statue, drowning because they can't keep afloat the mounting tension. It is a lifeboat, but no one can afford the heavy statue that is cracked everywhere, the one who won't survive the cold rain, the one who will be the one to die. They are in the background, the man (oh, and that hurts too) at the corner ringing a bell, festive in the frozen Christmastime, yet frowning at the hunger panging through their entire being and no one cares. They sit in detention for shoving a jock out of the way when just moments before the football - American football, because soccer too was defunded. Olivia claimed that no one played it, but that's not true. Solo que niños como Emmanuel y Isaac were invisible to her - player was harassing freshmen and walked away free. They'd compare it to the Cook County jail, because the criminals walk free these days. A couple weeks in a nice cell until the trial, found guilty, if the people are lucky, and then the person gets to walk away with barely a punishment. Or they can pay the bail, and it doesn't make a dent in their pockets. They can't buy their way out of detention, and neither can the young adults stealing from Walmart and CVS to keep them and their partner fed, their little sibling or kid from dying from pneumonia. And through all this, they don't crack a smile or shed a tear (which is a lie, they're sobbing their heart out now. And they've smiled behind closed doors, allowing themself to be happy about the ceasefire. And just two years, they will scream in excitement when financial aid agrees to help, and then in fear as their school collapses under the strings supporting it finally snap, letting the whole world know). They are quiet as a mouse, never getting trapped, never allowing food to tempt them. Holding their head up high, trying to meet the eyes of teachers who just sigh at their A-, the lowest grade they've ever gotten. Camia favors the term ‘event horizon’, when the pressure is mounting and the feeble, cowardly support can no longer hold the weight of the world. Is this it? It this where Olivia finally learns that they are not Atlas, not strong enough to be a yes man and keep her constituents happy? Not enough? They think their run out of class will have been filmed, by a wannabe Addison Rae recording TikToks at the back of the class. It will be paired with an earlier conversation, of the very first peace talks: “Aw, Little Miss Perfect has a friend,” mocks Camia, before she even knew that the head of the student council had an assistant. Even the tide-pods and the fake moving away challenges were better than the 24-hour Schrödinger's cat of “will the guidance counselor see this” Snapchat stories. They take a deep breath. They've been hiding for months now, this façade can keep up. They won't break, they are strong. They can do this, and as much as they want to scream, they can't.

waaaaahhh i actually read your writing comp entry a while ago, ksldfjlk i am here to read it again asdkfjalsdjflasdkfldjf it's so good!!! congratss

apart-- wrote:

waaaaahhh i actually read your writing comp entry a while ago, ksldfjlk i am here to read it again asdkfjalsdjflasdkfldjf it's so good!!! congratss

thank you so much! it means a lot