I wake up to sunlight peeking through the curtains and the sound of my alarm going off. It must be 6:45 already.

I lay an arm over my eyes, trying to pretend it isn’t morning yet, that I can just go back to sleep, never mind the fact that I know I won’t be able to. I spend a few more minutes ignoring my alarm going off, too lazy to tell Alexa to just stop yelling at me, I’m up already. Finally, I say, “Alright, alright, I’m up,” grumpily, because, let’s be honest, sometimes your alarm clock just really needs to hear that.

Except…what I woke up to was NOT in fact my alarm clock. In my dazed, still half-asleep state, I did not realize that it was not a new sound. Come to think of it, I don’t know how I mistook it.

It was not the ringing I’m used to, but instead…a meow?

Slowly, I open my eyes. “AAA!” I squeal, finding my cat sitting on my pillow, right next to me, looking down at me condescendingly.

“You silly humans really can’t get up early, can you?” he says. “I’ve already been up since four-thirty!”

“Well, SOME of us need our rest, because not everyone here can actually take the afternoon to just nap, you know,” I respond, a note of irritation creeping into my voice.

Wait a minute. WAIT A MINUTE.

It dawns on me just as the words leave my mouth that this is not my typical, one-sided conversation with my cat. He was, in fact, speaking English to me.

Suddenly, I sit bolt upright in shock. “Wait. What? Since when could you talk?”


He seems to roll his eyes at me. “Who even knows? I could have been hiding it this whole time.”

That is…a scary thought. I want to pick him up and cuddle him the way I usually do, but it’s all too weird with him speaking to me, not by meows or purrs the way I’m used to, but full-on English with perfect grammar.

“Oh, so now you won’t pick me up?” he says, as if he’s reading my thoughts. “I’m still the same cat, you know.”

I shrug. “I guess,” I tell him. “But do you honestly, truly want me to pick you up?”

“Sure,” he responds. “I’ll even purr if that gets me some food. You all haven’t been giving me enough treats.”

Ah. So finally his real motivation comes out. He is looking for food, as always. That cat.

“How about this? If you stop speaking English before everyone hears, then I’ll give you something to eat?”


“Deal.” I’m sure I can see the way his teeth glint in the light, making his very own Cheshire cat smile.
~
Word count: 460 words

Chocolate:
Chocolate, my dearest BLÜ EYES twin!! I absolutely love talking to you about literally anything, from random screams about our favorite music artists (because let’s be real, I do that a whole LOT, oh my goodness) to the sibling rivalry we had this session (I mean, all those 4ks and 4.5ks were absolutely MONSTROUS, but you know. Fun anyway, I guess, sobbing), and everything else! Thank you for bugging me when I asked you to about leader apps, and I have to say that I’m really glad that I joined WUC this session, and you’re probably one of the main reasons why <3

Cat:
CAT! I know we hadn’t talked too much before this session, outside of some critiques for leader apps and whatever, but it was so incredible to finally get the chance to know you a little better when I had you as my co-leader this session. Let me just say, your design skills are absolutely amazing, and I absolutely love how the thumbnails turned out for us this session, ahaha- Anyway, there was genuinely no way I could have done all of this without you, and I’m so thankful to have had such wonderful help from you and for the opportunity to get to know you better this session!

Mouse:
MOUSEEE! I know we haven’t talked very much in the last few months/over the course of this session, but I absolutely love spending time with you when it does happen, ahaha- From that time in JWC like…I want to say a year and a half ago (?) till now, you’ve always been just so fun to be around, and you never fail to make me smile with your wonderful silliness, kindness, and everything else wonderful you bring to the table. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for WUC this session, and it’s been an absolute blast to have taken part in this session with you.

Toko:
TOKO! This session, we spent a lot of time competing for words on the TrackBear (or at least I did, sobs- I’m very competitive), but it definitely made it no less fun to talk to you during the session, do the daily together (your piece was actually SO good; I’m still screaming!! You’re such a wonderful writer), or literally anything else. Anyway, I’ve had you in a few of my SWC cabins before, but I don’t think I got to know you super well then, so it was really nice to have this opportunity to get to know you a little better this session! Thank you so much for all you’ve done for WUC, because you’ve really made my first session an enjoyable, memorable one.
~
Total word count: 444 words

CHOCOLATE!! Obviously, I already wrote you a note yesterday, but I’m pretty confident that I can still do this without being really redundant of my earlier thing, haha

Anyway, without further ado, I will begin!

So we first really started talking after the whole BLÜ EYES thing, and let me just tell you, with the sheer amount that I ramble about my obsessions, it really means a lot to me that you’ve stuck around and have listened to every one of them. You’re always so insanely sweet (I mean, your name IS Chocolate, after all), and you’re just genuinely such a supportive person.

Now, we’ve been friends for…what, a few months? You're probably one of my closest friends on here now, and I love how talking to you always feels so natural. This session of WUC, I’ve really enjoyed the chance to be able to talk to you more and, you know, have the excuse to randomly start screaming, whether it be about BLÜ EYES or literally anything else. You have been SUCH a marvelous hostie (help, it tried to switch it to “hostile”), and we all really appreciate your dedication to setting this up—it just shows how much you care about the things you do.

Honestly, seeing you around and talking to you never fails to put a smile on my face..

All this to say, you’re truly a wonderful, wonderful person and friend that I care about so much, and I am so lucky to have you in my life.
~
Word count: 252 words

Cat twisted a strand of her hair around her pointer finger as the door behind her shut, leaving the tinkling of bells as it left. Surely that would be interesting to the little kittens inside, who must love the way they dangle yet hate the way there’s an extra door separating them from reaching it. She held a cup of hot coffee in her hand, because yes, even though it was cold out (it WAS October, after all), she had made the decision to wear her typical olive green tank top. Maybe not the smartest decision. But it was also her signature look.

Today wasn’t just any old day in October, though. Today was the best day in October, in fact. No, today wasn’t the usual. Today was Halloween.

But first on her agenda: go back home. Why? The cat fur on her clothes, while perhaps extra true to her planned Halloween costume didn’t quite fit the typical aesthetic of a human dressed up as a black cat.

She checked her watch briefly—6:12. Good, she still had a little bit of time before the trick-or-treating would really start. She quickly switched to a heavier black sweater and black pants, paired with a set of, you guessed it, black cat ears to complete the costume. Perfect.

Of course, this was Cat’s typical Halloween costume. After all, what else could you truly dress up as, what with a name like Cat? Yes, this was the only thing that made sense.

After a quick snack, she locked the door to her apartment behind her and went down the road to the best spot in the area for trick-or-treating, holding a little jack-o-lantern basket for all her candies and chocolates. The best were, in her opinion, definitely the chocolates, but she wasn’t much too picky. Any candy was better than none.

She went from door to door, saying, “Happy Halloween!” to all her neighbors. Her new neighbors. She’d just moved only a few months prior, so while she knew it was the best spot, she hadn’t been around for long enough to truly experience it herself; she only knew the information from her best friend, who had been in the area for far longer than she had been.

Cat even dared to go into the most scary-looking houses, the ones with all the creepy decorations. Cat was hardly scared of anything at all, and there was no way she was going to let any decorations deter her from getting any candy. After all, the ones with all the candy bars typically lay behind the gates of haunted houses…

***

After a long night of trick-or-treating, she finally went home, her basket far heavier than it had been earlier. She smiled as she dumped them all on the floor and began to sort through them: the best ones, the ones to trade, the giveaways.

Tomorrow she would deal with the rest of them, but tonight? It was time to watch a scary movie.
~
Word count: 498 words

GREETINGS, everyone! My name is Snowy, and I use she/her pronouns. This session of the lovely Scratch Writing Camp, I am very excited to be leading The Real-Fi Retreat alongside the spectacular Surf and remarkable Recca! This session will be my (and I always have to count this because I have a real tendency to forget) eighth session of SWC, so I’ve been here for a little while by now!

Anyway. I’m half Singaporean, quarter American, and quarter Swiss, and I’m a very, very busy sophomore in high school who is doing way too many extracurricular activities but doesn’t seem to be able to drop any of them because they’re all marvelous. I’m a soccer player, and this year, I was the captain of the JV girls’ soccer team! Though the season has finished already, I’m trying to work in the off season to make varsity next year, so fingers crossed for that. I typically play left wing on the team, though I’m fine with right wing and striker too! (Striker is so fun!! Although my kick is not so great always, so my coach rarely plays me there, sobs)

I’m also a massive bookworm, pianist, and, obviously, a writer! I’m obsessed with a great number of things (so please do not be surprised if I suddenly start rambling about them in this intro, because I almost certainly will be doing that), which you’ll constantly find me talking about when I’m not trying to scramble to get all my homework and extracurricular-related stuff done. Which reminds me that I need to write an article for one of my extracurriculars.

MOVING ON!

As a reader, I really enjoy the genres of realistic fiction (fitting because of my cabin), poetry, and mystery! Mystery is a little hit-or-miss, though, because it really can kind of depend on how well done it is—generally, I find mysteries to be absolutely stunning or absolutely terrible with very little in between. My favorite book is definitely I Fell in Love With Hope by Lancali, though my favorite series is definitely The Hunger Games (with TBoSaS being my favorite in it, though I’ll have to reread SotR to find where exactly it ranks). I’m very, very proud to say that I was at the first-ever showing of the movie for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in Singapore (November 10th, probably only like 10 hours after it premiered in LA!!), and that was truly an experience, oh my goodness- I have a real tendency to reference obscure (or shall I say “Clair Obscur”—will get to that later) things from basically anything, particularly those books. I have both of Katniss’s speeches in Mockingjay memorized and delivered one of them yesterday. Other than The Hunger Games and I Fell in Love With Hope, though, I’m also a massive fan of any and all of Ocean Vuong’s work, and other favorite authors also include Ruta Sepetys, Kathleen Glasgow, Jodi Picoult, Holly Jackson, and more!

Okay, as for piano. For some reason, I think that lang has really gotten to me with the whole “you must deliver everything you promise in your thesis in your body paragraphs” thing in this introduction, ahaha- Oh, well. It’s good practice, I suppose. So I’ve been playing piano since kindergarten, which means that I’m currently on my…eleventh year (I think?) of playing, which is honestly insane. I’m still, granted, not the best pianist, but I love it anyway. My current favorite piece that I’m OFFICIALLY learning is Fantaisie-Impromptu by Chopin, which is such a cool song and definitely one of the best pieces out there, if you ask me. Other than that, I mostly enjoy trying to play songs I love by ear along with chords I find online, and I’m constantly trying out new Clair Obscur songs on the piano. The two of those I’m most actively playing are Old Lumière - Révérence and Alicia, both of which I love from the bottom of my heart. You do not understand my obsession with playing these songs. I also am occasionally playing Renoir and Lumière’s Opera - Continuer à t’aimer, and I’m learning to transcribe for the first time by attempting to put together a piano score for Yellow Forest - Nightfall, which is proving to be insanely difficult and yet also really, really fun.

And, of course, I’m a writer! My favorite genres to write are fairly similar to my favorite ones to read, though I’d switch out mystery for my strange hybrid genre of tragic magical realism with a heavy emphasis on the realism part all as a metaphor for reality…which is currently the best phrase I have to describe it, but alas, one day I shall figure out what it’s actually called. I’m currently working on a novel (or by “currently,” I mean on and off because I really keep losing motivation for it, despite my loving the concept), and I’ve just finished this morning a poetry collection entry! I’ve been writing for fun for around three years now, and it’s kind of become a major part of my personality. I’m also the leader (or one of them, rather) at our school’s Creative Writing Club, which is a lot of fun! This year, we’re going to try to create a collaborative anthology and get it published together, which is no doubt going to be a huge project, but it would be super cool if we could make it happen.

Wow, I’m at 900 words already and haven’t even gotten to my obsessions yet! Everyone get ready for me to actually start rambling, and please note that I am very, very much so paring this down, so if you are interested in any of my obsessions, PLEASE talk to me, because I absolutely love rambling.

Firstly, I’m just going to list them and then ramble about my current favorite ones because like. I’m going to run out of time and have a bunch of other things to do, so I should probablyyy be limiting myself, given that I’m already at the one thousand words point.

As I’ve mentioned before, I love The Hunger Games and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but beyond that, I’m also a massive fan of BBC’s Sherlock, and I absolutely love watching Shoot From the Hip, which is a British improv group that does a lot of really silly things. You should go watch them!


Obviously, I’m also massively obsessed with music in many forms, and my favorite genres of music would probably be indie and pop, along with their subgenres, though I do particularly enjoy songs with a piano-based instrumental. Oh, and if you can even count it as a genre, I really love French music, despite my not actually speaking the language. I’m thinking I might try to double on languages next year and learn French in addition to Mandarin Chinese as well next year, but we’ll see how the credits work out! I love Gracie Abrams, BLÜ EYES, Noah Kahan, Cœur de Pirate, Maëlle, and Louane in particular, but the rest of my absolute favorites list kind of depends on my mood. I’ve got nearly 1.5k songs in my liked, so it’s quite a long list. Other artists I love that immediately come to mind are Maisie Peters, Shawn Mendes, Luz, Em Beihold, Lewis Capaldi, and others. I have a lot, as I’ve previously mentioned. I’m currently eagerly awaiting the announcement of Gracie Abrams’s and also Maisie Peters’s new albums, while I’m also waiting for any snippets of new BLÜ EYES songs in preparation for the album I know is coming out…at some point. We shall see when.

And, finally, probably my current biggest obsession! Have you all guessed it at this point? Honestly, you probably have. It’s a video game called Clair Obscur, and it’s genuinely the best thing ever. It’s a turn-based fighting game with absolutely stunning graphics, incredible music, and a better storyline and characters (and character interactions and development) than basically everything I’ve ever read, which is really saying something, considering how much I love reading. It’s truly incredible, and I love it with all of my heart. This year for Halloween, I dressed up as Maelle, a character from Clair Obscur, and I must say, I’m really quite proud of my costume for it, despite it being on the simpler side. I’m currently listening to the entire soundtrack all over again, because yes, it’s eight hours, and yes, I love it so much that I will absolutely, 100% just listen to this over and over again because it’s actually incredible! I’ve already mentioned how much I love playing the songs on the piano, so you can probably imagine how much I love listening to them as well. My favorite character is maybe Lune, or at least currently, and I’m constantly begging people around me to play it because no one really knows what I’m talking about when I ramble, save for my dad. You all should play it as well so that I can ramble to you too! It’s truly amazing, and as you’ve probably gathered, I am majorly obsessed with this particular piece of media.

Alright, so I figure that it’s probably time for me to start wrapping this up now, given that I’m a fair bit past the 1k mark, but I hope you enjoyed listening to (or reading, I guess) my rambles. I’m super excited to get to know you all this session, and I’m really looking forward to this month! Real-Fi for the win!!
~
Word count: 1587 words

She tucks a strand of her chestnut-brown hair behind her ear delicately, pinning with it a lily as well. The white stands out against the sea of brown, but it’s only another reminder of all that she’s lost. The irony of it, she thinks. New beginnings. This is not a beginning. It’s an end.

She smooths her black dress down and purses her lips in front of the mirror, wondering the whole time if she could just find a way to skip the day. No, not just the day. That much is far too short; she needs longer than that. She doesn’t think it will be back to normal by tomorrow.

Ha. Normal.

No, she’d rather skip the entire month, or better yet, the entire year. That would be ideal. Skip to the end and never have to look back. Of course, she might have gaps, but right now, she could hardly care less. Her eyes are still tired from crying herself to sleep three nights in a row, and she’s only going to have a fourth tonight—that much she knows.

The girl sighs deeply and forces her lips into a tight smile. She knows, of course, that it’s fake, but maybe no one else will catch her in the lie…

***

It was a mere eight years ago when they ran in the sunflower fields, laughing together, because the two of them had not a care in the world. They had no idea of what would come in the difference of just a few years.

“Tag! You’re it!” the girl’s best friend tapped her on the shoulder and immediately started running, without ever even giving her a chance to figure out what was happening.

“Hey! You never said we were playing.” But in spite of the annoyance in her voice, the girl was running in a matter of seconds, turning on her heel to chase her, because she wasn’t going to let her get away with this. The girl was competitive, and her friend knew it. That was part of the fun.

The girl wasn’t as fast, but she gave it her all anyway. It became more of a game of hide and seek, and with the two of them being so much shorter than the tall stalks of the flowers, there were plenty of places in the dense sunflower field they could hide.

The two of them collapsed, laughing and panting, after a long chase, and they both lay on the ground smiling for minutes before her friend spoke.

“Did you know that sunflowers are supposed to mean loyalty?” She paused. “My mom told me that.”

“That’s cool,” the girl said, only half listening. Now, she wishes she had listened harder. Listened to everything she had said and never said.

In the memories, though, there’s nothing she can ever do to change it. All she can do is to say, “I’m tired. Let’s go back now.”

Every single time.

***

After the funeral, she stays behind, cursing her friend and the universe for the kind of tragedies that came. Mostly, though, she’s cursing herself for her inability to listen.

She stays until sunset and still long after, but then, she kicks a rock over the dirt.

“I hate you,” she says suddenly. She doesn’t mean it. Not entirely.

***

At first, she comes daily, but her visits fade to weekly over the months. While she doesn’t know it, she’s finding ways to live without her, whether for better or for worse.

And where she can’t see it, a little daffodil peeks out of the grass surrounding her grave.

This time, though, it wouldn’t be ironic to call it a rebirth.
~
Word count: 609 words

We haven’t gone to the beach in Singapore at all recently. Why? Well, we’ve got many reasons.

Firstly, it’s really not that special to go to the beach. I mean, when we still lived in the U.S., where it was cold and foggy a solid…what? Ninety percent of the time? Anyway, it just didn’t make sense to go to the beach that often, so it was always a special treat when it was sunny enough out to drive down to the beach together and swim in the still-cold water. Here, it’s nothing special. We’re in 90º weather every day, so we could easily make every day a beach day. That’s why it doesn’t matter much anymore. There’s only so many times you can go before it gets boring.

But that’s only a small part of the reason. I could go on and on about the reasons we might say we don’t go swimming here. We’re busy (true). There’s no kite surfing here (true, but my parents are the ones that care about that, not my sister and I). The beaches aren’t very nice (depends on the beach). Those are the reasons we’d typically share, but the real reason why we don’t go often is because of the “twangers”…

I must have been eleven or twelve when my sister coined the term in our family, and it’s something we all understand without really explaining now.

Every time we would go swimming, we’d feel those cursed twangers. A little pinch-like feeling on your skin that lingered just a bit too long, just enough to be a tiny bit painful but still so small that it made it feel like you were going crazy. One part itchy, one part painful. The only way to really describe it was exactly with the word my younger sister had come up with: twangers.

The thing is, these weren’t just the kinds of things you could deal with by wearing a rashguard or swim pants (or who knows what they’re called) into the water. These were the kind of things that could get into your swimsuit, I kid you not. No matter what you did, you could feel them practically chasing you.

At first, we thought it was a seasonal thing, because, you know, it had taken us a solid year or more to actually feel them. We thought it might not actually be as big of a deal as we were making it out to be. So for a while, we kept going back. This was before we knew what those little twangers really were.

After a while, we got sick of feeling like we were being gaslit by the ocean. The pain must have been real.

I don’t remember how many theories we came up with for this, but it took me quite a while to actually accept the most plausible, almost certainly right one: that these were jellyfish larvae stinging us.

To this day, when we go swimming at beaches outside of Singapore, we all comment on the lack of these little jellyfish larvae. It’s always a race to say, “Hey, there are no twangers here!”
~
Word count: 523 words

Arrête de m’aimer

Painting is an endeavor that belongs to her soul. She throws herself into it, every fiber of her being. The woman gives herself to the canvas, allowing it to take her, control her. She embraces the colors wordlessly, for the words are what have stolen everything from her. No, she will paint until they see, until everything she has created will be true once more…

“Aline, you must stop this,” Renoir begs her, shaking her shoulders, his fingers digging deep into her skin. She cannot feel it.

“Let me go,” Aline says sharply, but her mind is not on her husband, only the painting. He doesn’t. “Did you hear me? Let go of me.”

“Aline, you’re destroying yourself. Please,” he says as his voice fades to a whisper, “you have forgotten the rest of us.”

The sound means nothing to her. Does any of it anymore?

Je t’aimerai toujours

Renoir watches her paint tirelessly, because what else is there to do? He has lost one yet grieves for two.

At least when she paints, she seems peaceful. Her warm brown eyes soften, and for a while, she seems like the Aline he married, even if it is not for him. Even if it is only for a canvas.

But no. He mustn’t think so kindly of this…this obsession. Aline forgets; she has three children, and yes, she has lost one, but two are still living. He must find a way to banish her from the painting, find a way to force her to move on. It’s the only way.

And yet, he cannot help but wonder if she will hate him for it. He still loves her, even after everything.

Lâche ce pinceau, quitte cette toile

In the painting, Aline can twist the world as she wishes. She paints a better place than Paris. Lumière. It will be their light, and she will build them a new life, give them all the things they deserved but never got. He will be in every piece of the painting, and he will never be forgotten.

Renoir will idolize her here, not refuse her. She will keep painting, and the world here will finally, finally be perfect.

“Never again will I leave,” she murmurs, and she adds another stroke to her son’s body. It is beautiful once more.
~
Word count: 388 words