IC Daily - July 3

After months of labour, of hard work, of building and fine tuning, it was finally done. The ultimate fangirl’s simulation. All of that time and effort, put into this world of the fandom’s dreams. If any singular thing was off…I didn’t want to think about what would happen.
It will be perfect, I told myself, but the worry lingered.
I took a deep breath.
It will be perfect.
I turned the simulation on, and a few seconds later, the world faded around me until I was alone in the darkness. It took another second for the fake world, the world I’d created, to pixelate into existence.
I stood in a clearing, the wind blowing softly around me. I spun in a slow circle, taking in the different views set up all around me. On one side was a small hill with a singular pine tree at the top. Thalia’s pine, and behind it Camp Half Blood.
On the other side was a lake next to a train station. On the other side of the lake was a school. Hogwarts.
In front of me, a garden of red roses, with living cards milling about. Wonderland.
Beside Camp Half Blood, a river like that between Manhattan and Brooklyn, with an abandoned warehouse on the side opposite the hill. It appeared like nothing more until I blinked, which was when I saw the massive mansion on top of it. The Brooklyn House.
Behind me, a structure like a gazebo, with a small control pad and different crystals hanging from the ceiling. A Leapmaster.
Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Kane Chronicles, and Keeper of the Lost Cities, all just in that one clearing. The Leapmaster led to many more.
I walked up to the control panel, scrolling through hundreds of different options before settling on Pages & Co.
When I arrived at the bookshop, not one detail was off. It was exactly as described in the book, and the lightleap had been perfectly performed. The bakery, Crumbs, was across the street, just like always. When I walked up to the door, there was a little crystal on a rope hidden in some of the foliage. A leaping crystal that led back to the Leapmaster.
I turned back to the panel, clicking on the first option: Fan-Fi Republic. The simulation disappeared, and I was back in my apartment within moments.
That night, I went to sleep with only one thing on my mind.
It was perfect.

413 words

MC Daily July 5

Proverb: a house doesn’t make a home

I walked through the halls, hand stroking the walls as I passed, but the bricks were unfamiliar under my palm.
The carpet felt rough under my feet. The light was eerie. The wood was too dark, the windows too many, the paintings staring at me.
This wasn’t home.
It had been a little over a month since my parents had transferred me to the Carrol Academy. Since my parents had inherited millions from my late grandfather, who had earned a fortune without anyone's knowledge. Since my parents had been able to afford sending me to such a preppy boarding school such as this.
The place was barely a school, practically just an exaggerated mansion on top of an exaggerated hill. It had been someone’s home, once upon a time, but it wasn’t mine.
When I walked into my dorm room, I didn’t smile as I remembered my friends and I playing board games on late nights, I frowned as I remembered when my parents had left me there without a second glance.
When I walked into my classrooms, I didn’t anticipate my teachers' jokes, or remember all the incidents that had occurred, like when my chemistry teacher mixed the wrong ingredients and almost burned the desk. I anticipated the glares of my classmates instead, the rudeness of my teachers, and having to read the entire lesson myself instead of having it read to me.
When I walked into the cafeteria, I didn’t laugh as I saw my classmates having comedy battles. I didn’t grin as I exchanged notes with my friends, who swore I was wrong only to find I was right. I didn’t lick my lips at the wonderful aroma coming from whatever it was the chef had cooked. Instead I sat alone at a table at the back of the cafeteria, eating sludge and mystery meat.
This wasn’t my home. It never would be.
Because after all, a house doesn’t make a home.

325 words

SWC July 2022 - Daily July 18

It was a normal day at SWC. Campers were running into the main cabin, carrying pages of writing from the dailies and weeklies. Other campers were skulking around their cabins, role playing, reading, talking, and generally just procrastinating. Leaders were scrambling in and out of the main cabin and their cabins, trying to add words and points as quickly as possible.
It truly was a normal day, JC thought as the sun began to set and she headed back to Fan-fi. She knew she probably wasn’t going to go to sleep for a few more hours, and neither would most of the other campers, but she didn’t want to stick around in the courtyard and risk meeting Birdi’s broom, which she had only ever heard stories about.
As she entered fan-fi, she was barely fazed by the chaos inside. Rebels arguing with government officials, a couple peacekeepers desperately trying to break up the fight. Rebels and officials alike were bringing anomalies to either side of the cabin: government on the left, rebels on the right.
JC walked towards the first door on the government side, the peacekeeping force dorms. She could let her colleagues keep up the peace for a few hours.
The only other peacekeeper in there was Peachi, who had a notepad in front of her and was quickly writing up a report on the anomalies that had been collected that day. She tapped her pen on her chin, glancing up only for a second to say, “Hi, JC,” before writing a few more words and dropping the pen.
“Hey, Peachi.”
JC walked over to her bed, reaching for her computer. When she powered it on, she noticed it was nearly ten o’clock.
“Peachi?”
“Yeah?”
“How many anomalies is going to sleep before 10:30?”
Peachi didn’t even blink before stating, “Twelve.”
“Good night, Peachi.”
“Night.”

The next morning, camp was weirdly silent. There were no yells. No arguments. No panicking about the weekly or the daily. Just silence.
There was always something at this time. What time was it right now?
JC turned to glance at the clock on her bedside, rubbing her eyes as she read 12:00.
She sat up in bed immediately, looking around the room to find all the other peacekeepers fast asleep. Peachi rolled over in bed, yawning.
“What time is it?” she mumbled, not opening her eyes until JC replied, “Lunch.”
She had the exact same reaction.
“Why is everyone sleeping?” she asked, and JC shrugged.
They walked into the central area of the fan-fi cabin, each going a different way. Peachi checked if the government research division was awake, and JC checked the in cabin daily…which was the same as the day before.
Something was up.
A portal opened at the end of the cabin, the portal that led to the wilderness, and a young girl with shining amber eyes jumped out. JC recognized her as one of the rebels who had been sent through the portal when it had first shown up.
“Where is everyone?” the girl asked, and Peachi explained everyone was still sleeping.
After some conversation, they decided to check the other cabins. When they entered the courtyard, a few other people were there. JC recognized Vi, leader of Fairy Tales, Soki, leader of Adventure, and Gee, leader of Real-fi. There were a few others who she had seen around, but didn’t fully recognize.
“…daily not changed. Birdi’s still sleeping.” JC heard Vi saying as she and the others joined the group.
“But…Birdi always updates the daily on time!” the young girl from the wilderness—who JC had learned was named Berri—said.
Gee nodded grimly, and the other campers began to whisper speculations about what it meant. JC could only hear little bits and pieces from each conversation.
“…sleeping spell?” said one camper, who wore a pink tee-shirt that read, ‘#SCRIPTFTW’.
“…not in a fantasy book,” chided another camper, wearing a white baseball cap with ‘NON-FI’ printed in neat black letters across the front.
But it would make sense. Only a few campers ever slept in, and there were always at least ten campers who always woke up extremely early without fail. JC knew a lot of the other fan-fiers used alarm clocks. And it wouldn’t be the first time strange magic appeared at SWC. The anomalies, the portal to the wilderness, the entire fantasy cabin, several mythians…why couldn’t some more magic join the mix?
“What is it, JC?” Peachi asked, snapping JC out of her thoughts and turning the attention of the others to her.
“Well…the script camper could be right.”
“Cali,” the scripter said, smiling. “I’m Cali.”
“Magic isn’t exactly nonexistent here. Why couldn’t someone have cast a sleeping spell? The only questions are, who did it and why.”
“I did it,” a new voice said, and they all turned to see the silhouette of a woman with horns floating above them. She held a long black staff with a raven perched on it.
Vi stepped in front of everyone in the group, as if shielding them. “Maleficent?”
The woman cackled. “Yes, Gerda. Maleficent. You really should tell your campers to be careful with their stories. When an ancient character is taken from their story and used in another improperly, they tend to…ah, escape.”
A character escaping from a story…a character escaping from a fan-fiction…because they weren’t used properly?
“Yes, dear,” Maleficent looked straight at JC, as if reading her mind. “I escaped from a story under your precious cabin genre. Under almost all of your precious cabin genres, I believe.”
“Why would you curse SWC?” Soki asked, somehow staying calm.
“I heard one of your ‘SWCers’, as I believe you call them, telling some children they needed to go to sleep, get good sleep schedules, something along those lines. And I figured, I can help you with that,” she smiled wickedly. “and get practice for the next time I have to curse Aurora at the same time! These stories do loop, you know.”
A camper who had been staying near the back of the group stormed to the front, pushing past Vi to glare at Maleficent. “Well, we’re awake! Clearly your spell didn’t work properly.” JC noticed that the camper wore a Non-Fi cabin pin. She wondered how many non-fiers were standing there with them.
“Spells on large groups are much more difficult than minor enchantments injected through needles. And even though you few woke up, do you see anyone else awake?” Maleficent glanced around, as if looking for another person, before smiling and saying, “I don’t. Have fun, dears.”
And with that she floated off into the distance.


I'm still continuing this

1104 words

Drown - Short Story

Valorya shook her head frantically, backing away from the edge of the cliff. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope.”

“Come on, Val,” Aileron, her brother, pleaded. “It’s not that bad.”

And Valorya wanted to believe him, but as she stared at the thin rope hanging across the vast valley, she just couldn’t bring herself to. The worst part was, she couldn’t even tell why she was scared.

Aileron did this kind of thing all the time. He was always ziplining across mountains much more dangerous than this. His name meant ‘winged one’ in Latin, or something like that. And it defined him. He loved skydiving, hang gliding, and ziplining. He lived off of the adrenaline it gave him.

So, when he had been given an afternoon free from work, he had decided to take his younger sister ziplining so they could share that adrenaline. Some kind of bonding thing or whatever.

Valorya truly did want to try it. She did. But she couldn’t. She was scared. And she didn’t even know why. Her mind raced, trying to place reasoning to the fear, but she just couldn’t. Maybe she thought the rope would break, but she knew that wasn’t it. Maybe she was scared the harness wouldn’t be on properly, but she remembered Aileron checking it twenty times. She wanted to step up to the cliff edge, jump off, and let the rope carry her across the valley, which she knew would be beautiful if she hadn’t been too scared to appreciate it.

“Do you want me to push you?” Aileron asked, and Valorya spun to glare at him.

“Absolutely not. Don’t even try it.”

Aileron laughed. “Well then you’re probably never going to end up ziplining.”

“Just give me a minute.”

Val took a deep breath. She could do this. Her name meant brave, also in Latin. What was it with her mom and Latin names? Seriously. Of all the millions of name origins out there, her mother had picked Latin for both her children.

Good job, Val, her mind told her. Concentrate on something else and the fear will go away.

So she kept thinking about her mom's obsession with Latin as she walked towards the cliff edge. She was already hooked to the zipline. All she had to do was take a leap of faith.

NO! One part of her mind yelled. Why? she asked back, but she wasn’t given an answer. She couldn’t control her body anymore. She was frozen there, on the edge of the cliff, suffering under two different forms of panic, one she controlled and one she didn’t.

Her consciousness fought against itself, and she felt like there was an ocean in her mind, and she was standing on a tiny wooden row boat. The storm was drowning her. Drowning her, controlling her, stopping her, and she couldn’t do anything.

Drowning, drowning, drowning.

She heard Aileron moving behind her, but she couldn’t bring herself to react.

Drowning, drowning, drowning.

She felt hands on her back, and air under her feet, and the storm grew viciously as she realized Aileron really had pushed her.

Drowning, drowning, drowning.

She stared out at the valley around her, the river raging beneath her, the mountains tall and regal, the plants vivid and green.

Drowning, drowning…breathing?

The adrenaline raced through her body, shocking her back into control and bringing a smile to her face. She didn’t scream.

She hated letting her fear control her. She hated not being in control of her mind, her body.

That was the day she vowed to break fear’s hold. She began to join Aileron on his various adrenaline trips. She went bungee jumping, hiking, parasailing, and more, slowly gaining more and more control.

And one day, when she faced that zipline again, she didn’t hesitate before jumping.

She wasn’t drowning anymore. She was flying, flying, flying.


641 words

A/N:
I wrote this story based off of my own experiences with fear. Although I've never been in this exact situation, I have had plenty of others under other circumstances in which I have acted in the exact same ways as Valorya. I never found a story that portrayed fear the way I have always experienced it. Freezing up is common when fear is displayed in movies and books, but I never read a story where the character wasn't scared for a reason. I never watched a movie where the character completely lost control of their own mind. And so I decided to write a short story about a girl who experiences fear the way I do. I have yet to meet another person who loses control, and I don't know if I'm the only one, but if I'm not, I hope the others like me can find this and read this. I hope it helps them in some way.
I have yet to fully face my fears the way Valorya did. I don't know if that's really how it works. I hope it is.

“And you say you didn’t steal any of the cider sent to Brendan O’Connor?” I asked the suspect, a twelve-year-old with voice recordings that had a confirmed 89% match with the audio from the crime scene named James Darkwood.
“No, I did not. I was playing on the slide with my younger brother around the time you told me it had been stolen earlier,” he told me confidently.
“And is there any proof of that?” I asked again, carefully watching the readings of the lie detector.
“Yes, you can ask my younger brother and the other people at the park,” he said again- a truth; we already had questioned the people who had been in the park’s security feed.
“Alright. You’re free to go.”
As he left, I sighed; another suspect crossed off of the list. The cider had turned up in Maine- still in the United States, but a far distance from Los Angeles- and from there the entire “Robbery Team” had been working for hours trying to figure out who had stolen it, poring over thousands of old records.
After dead end after dead end, the matching index fingerprints and recordings had my superiors excited- too bad it was just another dead end. There were no other suspects we could interview, and the criminal was likely already gone- maybe that was why the cider had turned up in Maine unopened and unused.
With this final dead end, there was nothing really that I could do. I sighed again and left the room to look over the selected files: cream folder (slightly bent, but not creased and still new), old-style labels (typewritten, not computer-printed, as was the custom), and post-it notes everywhere (every color of the neon rainbow except for yellow) in the distinctive scrawl I recognized instantly as Agent Adelaine Smith’s.
I sighed and carefully dug around in the bucket of pins next to the files and used one of the last green ones to pin the photo of James’s folder to the wall of dead ends that was looking more and more like the board of crazy people in memes every day.
“So, nothing new?” a voice behind me asked, and I whirled around, but it was just Agent Smith.
“Nope,” I replied. “Another dead end.”
“There was apparently some cider that was stolen in Maine,” she said, holding out a report. “Would you like to see the file?”
“What the…” I began as I looked over the report. It was exactly the same circumstances- the same thief, same evidence, but at the location where the cider from Los Angeles had been found. {Peachi's writing ends, mine starts}
“Has this cider been found yet?” I asked, and Agent Smith shook her head.
“That’s still a work in progress.”
I sighed. Whoever these thieves were, they were good. They knew their stuff. And they had to somehow know enough about the team searching for them that they could stay a few steps ahead. Like there was a mole in the team. But Smith and I had already run checks on the team. Smith…I hadn't done the check on Smith. She was certainly in a high enough position to have all the information and have an influence on the direction of the search. What if Smith was a mole?
Anything wrong, Agent?” Agent Smith asked me. She called me…Agent? She doesn’t call anyone ‘Agent’ if she’s not hiding something.
“Nothing, Agent Smith. I have a couple minutes before I have to follow the next lead. You want to come with me to get the file from the interrogation room? I left it there.”

We got enough evidence to put Agent Smith under arrest, and got the names of the other thieves from her. The cider was retrieved and returned, and the was case closed. The cider was safe. For now.

200 words

Weekly

Louise shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as she scanned her surroundings. What was she thinking? Why had she come into the forest?
This was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She could be at home right now, bingeing some random tv show and eating chips, but instead she’d decided to get lost in the forest. Her parents wouldn’t even notice until the next morning. Not even, since she woke up on her own schedule. They wouldn’t notice for at least 24 hours.
And even then, they might not.
They might not even care.
She pushed through the trees, searching for shelter. She searched for five minutes before giving up and deciding to try and build one for herself. They did it all the time on Survivor, didn’t they? Why couldn’t she do it just once?
They have machetes on Survivor. You don’t have one, her brain told her.
Shut up, she told it.
But it was right. They had machetes, they had practice, and the whole thing was probably scripted.
She was a lost, clueless, spoiled 13 year old brat.
She grabbed a vine from the ground, climbing up a tree and tying it onto one of the branches. She jumped down, attaching it to another tree to form a line like a clothesline. She started grabbing long branches off the ground, lugging them over to her vine and leaning them against it to create a makeshift lean to shelter.
That’s not going to help, her brain told her. It’s not going to keep you warm.
Louise tried her best to ignore it, grabbing a bunch of twigs and tinder off the ground and forming a little pyramid. She made a little circle of rocks around it, creating a fire pit. Now all she needed was to strike the flint like they did on Survivor.
Except she didn’t have flint.
She took off her glasses, using the lenses to reflect what little sunlight was left onto her pyramid. A couple seconds later, a spark flared, and she grinned, blowing on it lightly. Soon, the fire engulfed her entire pyramid. She grabbed some more twigs, tossing them into the fire.
Now that she had created the fire, she went out towards the trees, collecting kindling. She kept her shelter at the corner of her eye, picking up all the sticks she could carry and bringing them back to the fire. She left them nearby, but not close enough that they would be lit on fire. She walked back to the trees, trying to figure out where she’d come from when she spotted a strange animal track embedded in the dirt in front of her. It looked like a rabbit's foot, but it was…different. The toes were longer, and the heel wider. It was like a creature that didn’t exist. A creature from a myth.
But Louise didn’t believe in myths. She was a woman of fact. And fact was, she was lost in a forest with a fire and a shelter of branches. If there was some mythical creature out there, she probably didn’t want to meet it. Even if it did have a footprint like a tiny rabbit.
She sat next to the fire, which gave her light and heat, and wondered how long she would be out here. How long until she either found her way home or was found and brought home.
Something flickered in the corner of her eye, and she turned, panicking. Louise suddenly remembered that she wasn’t the only living being in the forest. She spotted movement again, and spun towards it, watching the silhouette of a bunny hop further into the trees. Except there was something…off, about the bunny. It was probably what had left the footprint. Suddenly, she was doubting everything she had been told. She crawled over to her shelter, curling up into a ball and wrapping her arms around herself. She could get through this. She would get through this.
There she sat, basking in the warmth of the fire, lost in thought, for hours.
How did this happen? How had she ended up like this?
Her brain launched her into a flashback, and she was back home, back in the kitchen, where she had been before she had gotten lost.
Louise bit into her granola bar, chewing loudly. She sat on a barstool, elbows on the counter and back slouched as she stared at the TV in the living room.
The phone rang, and Louise groaned, walking across the room to reach it. “You’ve reached the Norman’s, how can I help you?” she said into the mic, swallowing her food.
“Hey, Lou,” a familiar voice said. “You owe me a dare.”
It was Louise’s friend, Eveline. Earlier that day, they had made a bet, the conditions of which were owing the other a dare. Louise had lost.
“What do you want, Evie?”
Eveline paused, before whispering, “Go into the forest.”
“No way, Eve. The forest behind my house? I can’t.”
Eveline chuckled. “Sure you can. You’re not a wimp.”
Louise clenched her teeth. She had two options. Go into the forest for a few minutes, come back, and prove Evie right, or stay home and prove her wrong. Normally, Louise would be all for proving her wrong, but that wouldn’t work out this time.
She hung up the phone, hastily putting her shoes on as she stepped out the back door, and trudged into the trees.
Almost immediately, she lost her path, and was lost.
Louise shut her eyes, shaking her head and rocking back and forth, trying to escape the memories. She didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to remember.
Not that the bet should’ve been easy to win, not that she could’ve won easily, not that she lost purposefully, all because of a secret her grandmother had hidden from them all. A secret Louise wasn’t supposed to know.
But she knew. She knew all too well.
“We can’t tell them, Bailey,” Louise heard her mother say. She couldn’t see the two women, but she could hear them through the door.
“I know, Andrea, believe me I know. It would destroy them.” Bailey, Louise’s aunt, replied.
“We have to do something, though,”
“Not telling them is doing something.”
Louise’s mom exhaled in frustration, and there were footsteps. A chair being pulled across a floor. A small thud, indicating Andrea had sat down.
“What if they find out? Evie and Lou…what if they find out they’re cousins?”
“They won’t,” Bailey said, and Louise stumbled away from the door, hurrying down the hall to her room as quickly and quietly as she could.
Louise felt her eyes getting heavy, and she rubbed them, blinking rapidly as she struggled to stay awake. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep. She had to stay awake, or she might lose the fire. She had to stay awake as long as she could.
Deciding it would be easier to stay awake if she was keeping herself busy, she stood, brushing herself off and looking around the area. Rocks, sticks, and fallen leaves covered the ground around her, brushed away in a neat circle from the fire. Brushing them all further away would be work. It would keep her awake.
She set to work, collecting the sticks and adding them to her pile, and moving everything else into the trees. Louise worked for hours on end, before the leaves and rocks had all been moved aside.
With that done, she moved around the edges of the trees, collecting vines and bringing them with her as she sat down under her shelter and began to try and weave them together. She was hoping if she made a blanket, she could use it for warmth even if the fire went out.
Unfortunately, she had never been good at that kind of thing.
As she wrestled with the vines, her mind drifted, and she found herself lost in yet another memory.
Eveline swung up on the monkey bars, pulling herself on top of them and putting her face between two so she could talk to Louise, who was sticking to the floor.
“I have a new bet for you,” Evie said, her smile wicked.
“What is it?” Louise asked, grinning right back. They had been at this for months, coming up with a new bet for every day.
Evie grabbed the bars, sliding herself through them back onto the floor next to Louise. “I can ask you any question I want, and if you answer, you get a free dare.”
“What’s the catch?”
“If you don’t answer, I get a free dare. Anything I want, you have to do,” Eve thought for a second before saying, “Except answering the question. That’s unfair.”
Louise barely thought before sticking her hand out for a handshake. “Hit me.”
Evie’s smile slowly faded, her expression curious and concerned.
“There’s something you aren’t telling me. Something big. What is it?”
Louise stayed quiet.
“We tell each other everything, Lou. What’s so big that you’re hiding it from me?”
She couldn’t say that they were…cousins. They were family, even if it wasn’t by blood. It would ruin their relationship. She couldn’t do it.
“Lou?”
“I guess I owe you a dare, don’t I?” Louise turned on her heel and walked home.
She opened her eyes groggily, rubbing them as she groaned at the sudden pain in her back. She realized she had fallen asleep, hunched over her vines, with the fire dead in front of her.
But it was morning now, and the sun provided the warmth she needed. Her stomach growled, and she stood, stretching her back and deciding to scavenge for berries.
A couple minutes later, she was off, walking into the woods and holding onto a long vine she had attached to a tree by her shelter. The last thing she needed was to get lost. Soon, her parents would notice she was missing. Soon, she would be found. All she had to do was get through a few more hours. She found a bush with small red berries, a small chipmunk on top of it chewing on one. It ran as soon as it saw her, and she knew the berries were safe to eat.
She gathered some in her shirt, and began walking back to her camp. As she walked, she became impatient, and she ate one of the berries.
The juice was sweet, but it was unlike any she had ever tasted before. It had a…warm feeling to it. The berry was cold, but the taste was warm.
She felt the warmth spreading to her hand as she reached camp, and shook it off.
A ball of fire leapt from her palm right into her firepit.
She withdrew it quickly, shocked. The fire caught on the remaining twigs, and she watched it burn through them.
She had shot fire…out of her hand? She ate another fire, and felt a chill rock through her. She stuck her hand out, and this time, a block of ice emerged, landing on the fire and effectively putting it out.
Louise grins. She found magical berries. Maybe this wasn’t so bad.
She ate another one, and suddenly she felt lighter. When she stuck her hand out, she flew in the direction it was pointed, and she laughed, moving her arm around to control her path.
She flew straight up for a moment, then closed her fist, causing her to start free falling with a whoop. As she fell, she saw the sun above her, and found it was shaped like a triangle.
She put her arms beneath her, opening her hands so she floated just above the trees.
The triangular sun grew, turning darker and darker, engulfing her entire view. Soon, the whole world was dark, and when she blinked, she was on the floor of a dark room. She couldn’t see walls, and the shadows were everywhere, even when there was nothing causing them.
“Hello? She asked, fully expecting not to be answered. She ate one of the berries, and felt ecstatic. When she held out her hand, a ball of light appeared above it.
She spotted movement, and turned toward it, but it was just the squirrel she had seen eating the berries before. Did they have powers, too?
“So you are the One?” someone said behind her, and she turned, spotting a girl with flowing ginger hair. Her bangs were tied at the back of her head, and she wore a dark green dress with a skirt that covered her legs and a bit of the ground around her.
“I think you might be mistaking me for someone else,” Louise told the girl, and she laughed.
“You hold the berries. You are the One.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means you are the one we’ve all been waiting for.”
That last sentence came from a new voice, one that was painstakingly familiar.
Louise spun, spotting another girl with hundreds of others behind her. This girl had straight blond hair, and wore jeans with a black Pink Floyd Prism tee-shirt.
Evie.
Louise remembered the conversations she had overheard between her mother and Bailey, that her grandmother had adopted a young boy, who had grown up to be Evie’s father. She knew Evie’s father had passed when Evie was one, and Evie’s mother had passed when she was two. She knew Evie would never find out they were cousins.
Not unless Louise decided to tell her.
“What are you doing here, Evie?”
“I could ask the same of you, Lou. Except you’re the One, so I guess that explains some of it.”
A girl behind Evie whispered, “You know the One?”
“Yeah,” Eveline said. “I know her.”
The other girls began muttering between themselves, glancing sceptically between Eve and Louise.
“Silence!” the ginger girl said, and everyone listened. She must have been the one in charge around here. “What does it matter if Eveline knows the One? All that matters is that the One has come to us!”
Louise was getting more and more confused by the second.
“Perhaps we shall explain,” the ginger said, snapping. Evie ran to her side while the other girls dispersed, all looking over their shoulders as they disappeared into the darkness.
“I have told you multiple times, you must be wearing your uniform,” the ginger said to Evie, who shrugged. “This is more comfortable.”
“I am Ellayna. We are the Warriors of Sun. It has been a long time since you were prophesied to come to us. The One with the Sun Berries.”
Louise glanced down at the red berries. Sun Berries?
“We were all brought here as kids,” Evie explains. “Picked for our ‘intelligence and vigour’ or something. We’re supposed to protect the berries from harm.”
Ellayna nodded, and Lou continued to be confused.
“Only the One gets powers from the berries. Repeatedly, anyway.” Evie explains, and Louise was still confused.
Eveline sighed. “Eat a berry, Lou.”
Louise did, and she felt like she was standing on the beach, with waves lapping at her ankles. She stuck out her hand, and a long stream of water burst from it, flying into the shadows and out of sight.
“Powers.” Evie made a little rainbow above her head with her hands.
“What am I supposed to do with them?” Louise asked, and Ellayna smiled.
“Protect the berries. Protect your power.”
“Protect them from who?”
“From me.”
A man appeared in shadows in front of her, and Louise squealed, popping another berry into her mouth. She felt her heart stop beating for just one second, and when she blinked, she was sitting in her kitchen, granola bar in hand, TV on the same channel it had been on the night before when she left. The phone rang, and Louise walked over to it, picking it up.
“You’ve reached the Normans’,” she said.
“Hey, Lou. You owe me a dare.”