WUC
October 14 - 930 words

Every year, as the leaves turned from green to amber and the air picked up a crisp edge, something magical happened in our family. No, it wasn’t Halloween decorations or the excitement of upcoming holidays. It was Grandma’s apple pie.
National Dessert Day always brings me back to her warm kitchen, the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg wafting through the house, and the sound of her favorite oldies station crackling softly on the radio. It wasn’t just a dessert. It was tradition. It was love in a crust.
When I was young, I didn’t fully understand the effort and care that went into that pie. I only knew that it meant something special when we walked up the creaky front steps of her house and were greeted by the sweet, warm scent of apples and pastry. My grandmother, a small woman with silver-streaked hair and a laugh that made you feel like the most important person in the world, would greet us at the door with flour still dusted on her apron and a twinkle in her eye.
“You’re just in time,” she’d always say, as if the timing had been a lucky coincidence rather than a carefully orchestrated routine.
The kitchen was her domain, and we all knew better than to interrupt her while she was baking. Still, she’d always let me sit on the high stool by the counter and watch. Sometimes, if I was lucky, she’d hand me the apple peeler, or let me roll out the dough. My hands were clumsy, and my circles lopsided, but she never once corrected me. She just smiled and said, “Perfect, honey. Just like mine.”
But of course, it wasn’t like hers. Nothing was.
Her pie had this perfect balance. Tender apples with just enough bite, sugar and spice in harmony, and a crust so flaky and golden it practically melted in your mouth. Every bite felt like a warm hug. And the way she served it, slightly warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting over the top, was nothing short of divine.
As I got older, those visits became even more meaningful. Life got busier. School, friends, and eventually work started pulling me in a dozen different directions. But I always made time for Grandma’s pie. Every October, like clockwork, I’d find myself back in that kitchen, the radio still playing, the windows fogged with warmth, and Grandma humming as she peeled apples with speed and grace I could never match.
One year, when I was in college, I came home for fall break and found her recipe card tucked into the edge of a photo frame on the kitchen counter. The card was worn, the ink faded in some places and smudged in others, but I could still read her looping cursive.
“You think I can make it?” I asked her, holding the card like it was some ancient scroll.
She chuckled. “Of course you can. But it won’t taste the same.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
She leaned over, lowering her voice like she was sharing the world’s best-kept secret. “Because the real secret ingredient is time. You’ve got to bake it with time and love. The apples know. The crust knows. You rush it, and they’ll turn against you.”
I laughed, but she was only half joking.
That was the last fall I made it home before she got sick. The next year, things changed. Her hands, once so nimble, shook. She couldn’t stand for long. But still, she insisted on baking the pie. With me as her helper.
That day was different. The roles reversed. I peeled the apples. I rolled the dough. I listened carefully as she talked me through every step, even though I’d watched her do it dozens of times before. When I asked her how thick the apple slices should be, she said, “Just like you’d want to eat them.” When I asked how much cinnamon, she winked. “Until it smells like home.”
That pie didn’t come out perfect. The crust was a little uneven, and I might’ve overfilled it just a bit. But when we all sat down and took the first bite, the room went quiet. It wasn’t her pie. But it was close. And it was full of love.
She passed away that winter.
The next October was the hardest. Walking into her house, which my parents had kept, was like stepping into a memory. Everything was the same, but she wasn’t there. The kitchen felt still, like it was waiting for someone.
I almost didn’t bake it that year. It felt wrong, doing it without her. But then I found the recipe card again, tucked in the same photo frame. And I knew what I had to do.
I peeled the apples slowly, taking my time. I played her oldies station. I hummed along. I rolled the dough as best I could and added the cinnamon until it smelled like home.
When the pie came out of the oven, golden and bubbling, I cried. Not because it was perfect, but because it tasted like her. Like all the Octobers we spent together. Like love, baked into every bite.
Now, every year on National Dessert Day, or really, any day that feels like it needs a little sweetness, I bake Grandma’s pie. My kids help now, their tiny fingers struggling with the peeler, their dough rolling even more uneven than mine once was. And when they ask if they’re doing it right, I say what she always said to me:
“Perfect, honey. Just like mine.”

WUC
Oct 15 - 845 words

When I woke up, I had no idea who I was.
Not in the dramatic, amnesia-movie kind of way. More like, I genuinely had no idea how I ended up in a dusty old library, clutching a candlestick, surrounded by velvet drapes and the lingering scent of cigar smoke. A storm raged outside, lightning casting erratic shadows across the aged portraits lining the walls. Each face seemed to judge me.
I looked down. Tweed. Elbow patches. Loafers.
Professor Plum.
Apparently, I was Professor Plum.
And then I heard it. The scream.
High-pitched, shrill, echoing through the hallways of this strange, sprawling manor. I rushed out of the library, candlestick still in hand, heart pounding. The hallway was dimly lit, the carpet soaked from where rain had blown in through an open window. As I turned the corner, I nearly collided with someone in a mustard-colored trench coat.
“Watch it!” he barked.
“Colonel Mustard?” I guessed.
He narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?”
I didn’t. Not really. But something deep inside was pulling threads together, memories of a game I used to play as a kid. A board game. But this was no game now.
We both reached the study at the same time. Mrs. White was standing over a body. Mr. Boddy, presumably. Very dead. Very stabbed. The dagger was still lodged in his chest.
“I didn’t do it!” she said, backing away, her white apron stained with something dark and suspicious.
“Where’s everyone else?” Colonel Mustard asked, stepping forward to inspect the scene like a war general surveying a battlefield.
“The lounge. Or the conservatory. I don’t know! We split up when the lights flickered.”
A flash of thunder cracked the sky. The lights blinked, then died.
We were plunged into total darkness.
I swear I heard someone running.


The house was a maze. Corridors bent in impossible directions. The rooms seemed to change when you left them. I entered the ballroom at one point and found Mrs. Peacock dancing alone to a song that didn’t exist. She didn’t notice me until I spoke.
“This place isn’t right,” I told her.
She turned slowly, a strange smile playing on her lips. “Nothing is, dear. But it’s terribly fun, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. My head throbbed.
In the dining room, I found a clue, a literal one. A scrap of paper shoved under a china plate.
“The revolver lies where peacocks rest.”
The conservatory. I ran.


Sure enough, tucked beneath a potted fern and an overturned chair, was a sleek black revolver. I picked it up, just in time to hear someone yell from the hall:
“He’s got a weapon!”
Miss Scarlet. Red dress, high heels, a smirk that could kill.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I began.
“Oh, darling, it never is.”
Before I could react, she vanished through a hidden panel in the wall. I followed, more out of instinct than bravery, and tumbled through a narrow passage that spat me out in the kitchen.
Mrs. White was there again, scrubbing the same spot on the floor over and over.
“It doesn’t come out,” she whispered. “No matter how hard you scrub.”
I backed away slowly. This place was cursed.
That’s when I saw the notebook. Hidden behind some spices. I flipped it open.
Suspects: 6
Weapons: 6
Rooms: 9
Only one truth. But many lies.
The game resets at dawn. Only one may remember.
What?
My heart dropped.
Was I stuck in a loop? Was this some kind of punishment?
Before I could process it, the lights flickered back on. The house felt… calmer. The guests reassembled in the grand hall like clockwork dolls.
“Time to make your accusation, Professor,” said a disembodied voice. The same voice you’d hear when playing the board game. But now, it echoed inside my skull.
They all stared at me.
I swallowed. Glanced at the revolver still tucked into my belt. Thought about the note.
“This is insane,” I said. “None of this is real.”
“Make your accusation,” the voice insisted.
I stepped forward.
“It was Colonel Mustard. In the Conservatory. With the Revolver.”
A beat of silence.
Then—
The world shattered.


When I woke up, I was in the library again.
Candlestick in hand.
Rain on the windows.
No memory, until I looked down and saw the candlestick. And felt the déjà vu rising like bile in my throat.
I was Professor Plum.
Again.
Somewhere in the house, a scream echoed.


The cycle has repeated now, eight times. I’ve tried everything. Blaming different suspects. Destroying the weapons. Locking the doors. But it always resets. Always begins again with that scream.
But now… I remember more each time.
And I’m getting closer.
Tonight, I’ll try something new. Something no one expects. I’ve been hiding the rope under the billiard table, and I think Miss Scarlet is starting to suspect that I know more than I let on.
This place isn’t a game. It’s a prison wearing a game’s skin.
But I will solve it.
Or I’ll die trying.
And wake up again.

deleted

WUC
Oct 18 - 904

FADE IN:
EXT. MIDWESTERN TOWN - NIGHT
A peaceful small town. Autumn leaves drift lazily under flickering street lamps. All is calm.
Suddenly, a huge fireball erupts from the high school gym. Sirens wail in the distance.
- - -
INT. NEWSROOM - NIGHT
A flustered LOCAL NEWS ANCHOR addresses the camera.
ANCHOR (V.O.)
Breaking news tonight in Maplebrooke—the beloved Maplebrooke High Squirrels mascot costume has been stolen… and the gymnasium has been set ablaze. Police are calling it suspicious.
- - -
INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT
A dimly lit lair. Newspaper clippings of mascots, sports games, and arson scenes cover the walls. In the center of the room stands a MAN in a burnt, smoke-stained giant squirrel mascot costume.
This is RICKY DAWSON (30s). Ex-mascot, bitter, and slightly unhinged.
RICKY
You cheered when they replaced me. You laughed when they banned me. But now… the squirrel bites back.
He slams a big red button labeled: “OPERATION: MASCOT MAYHEM”.
- - -
INT. MAPLEBROOKE POLICE STATION - DAY
Detective LISA HERNANDEZ (40s), calm and methodical, studies a whiteboard labeled “MASCOT ARSON SPREE?”
LISA
Four schools. Four mascots. All torched. What do they have in common?
OFFICER JENKINS (20s, overeager)
All schools used to be in the same mascot league. The M.S.L.
LISA
The Mascot Showdown League?
JENKINS
Yeah. Until… that “incident.”
LISA
Get me every record on that league. And find me anyone who wore a foam head in the last decade.
- - -
FLASHBACK - EXT. FOOTBALL FIELD - TEN YEARS AGO
A glorious halftime show. Mascots dancing. Cheerleaders flipping. Then. Chaos.
Mascots start fighting. Fur flies. A head is torn off, someone’s nose is broken. A flaming baton hits the mascot stage and ignites the whole thing.
RICKY, in full squirrel gear, tries to save a cheerleader but gets trampled instead.
- - -
INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT (PRESENT)
RICKY watches the footage on loop.
RICKY (muttering)
I tried to save them. They blamed me. No one saves the mascot. Not anymore.
He pulls out a map. “Next Target: Cedar Falls — The Flamingos”.
- - -
EXT. CEDAR FALLS HIGH - NIGHT
The Flamingo mascot suit sits on a mannequin in a glass trophy case.
Suddenly. BOOM! The glass shatters. Smoke bomb. Screams.
RICKY emerges in his burned squirrel costume, wielding a flamethrower made from an old leaf blower.
RICKY (shouting)
LONG LIVE THE UNSUNG HEROES OF HALFTIME!
He lights the case up. The pink feathers catch instantly. Alarms blare.
- - -
INT. POLICE STATION - NIGHT
Lisa watches security cam footage of Ricky mid-arson, yelling into the smoke.
JENKINS
He’s quoting… Shakespeare?
LISA
No, worse. Bring It On 3. I know this guy.
- - -
INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY
Lisa meets with a retired coach, COACH BRANNIGAN (60s, gruff).
LISA
What do you remember about Ricky Dawson?
BRANNIGAN
Crazy energy. Born for the mascot suit. But after the fire… he changed.
LISA
He started the fire?
BRANNIGAN
He took the fall. But I always suspected someone else lit the match.
- - -
INT. BASEMENT - NIGHT
Ricky records a manifesto to a livestream audience of… 12 people.
RICKY
I’m not the villain. I’m the spark. Mascots aren't side characters — we’re the soul of the game. And tonight, we take back the narrative.
He turns the camera toward a wall with photos labeled: “Final Targets” — the Mascot Championship, held annually at the town’s old abandoned stadium.
- - -
INT. ABANDONED STADIUM - NIGHT
Fog rolls across the decrepit bleachers. Lights flicker on. The Mascot Showdown has returned — but the audience is chained mannequins dressed like high schoolers.
A line of kidnapped mascots (real people in suits) are tied to poles. Ricky walks the line like a deranged game show host.
RICKY
Tonight’s main event: Will they burn… or will they earn their freedom by dancing the greatest halftime show of their lives?
- - -
EXT. POLICE CAR - NIGHT
Lisa and Jenkins race toward the stadium.
LISA
He’s not burning mascots. He’s trying to redeem them. This is therapy by arson.
JENKINS
So what’s the plan?
LISA
We give him what he wants. A stage.
- - -
INT. STADIUM - NIGHT
Lights snap on. Music blares. Lisa walks onto the field wearing an old-school Maplebrooke Squirrel costume. Ricky’s original.
He freezes.
RICKY
That’s… my suit.
LISA
It still fits. Guess I never let go either.
She begins dancing, clumsily but with heart. Ricky’s eye twitches.
RICKY
You mock the sacred art?
LISA
No. I honor it.
Behind her, the mascots start dancing. One by one. It becomes a bizarre but beautiful dance sequence. A true halftime show.
RICKY (tearing up)
They remember…
He lowers his flamethrower.
RICKY
Maybe there’s hope for the halftime heroes after all.
Jenkins throws a rock at him from behind.
RICKY (falling)
Classic betrayal…
- - -
INT. COURTROOM - DAY
Ricky sits in a squirrel suit on trial. The jury stares.
JUDGE
Mr. Dawson, how do you plead?
RICKY
Guilty… of loving too hard.
- - -
INT. MAPLEBROOKE GYM - ONE YEAR LATER
A shiny new halftime mascot memorial is unveiled. Statues of squirrels, flamingos, moose, and dragons.
Lisa speaks to a crowd.
LISA
Let this remind us. Behind every foam head and tail is a human being. Possibly an arsonist. But definitely someone who danced their heart out.
- - -
INT. PRISON - TV ROOM - NIGHT
Ricky, in orange jumpsuit and squirrel tail, watches the ceremony on TV.
A tear rolls down his cheek.
RICKY (V.O.)
Maybe chaos was the only way to be heard. Maybe… just maybe… it worked.
He turns to his cellmate, who’s wearing a handmade badger head.
CELLMATE
You ever think about a sequel?
RICKY
Every. Single. Day.
- - -
FADE OUT.

WUC
Weekly 2 - 2115 words

Part 1 - 332 words
The first thing you feel is the pressure. Cold and insistent, like fingers pressed into your temples. The deeper you sink, the heavier it becomes, wrapping around your ribs until your breath thins into something tight and careful. Sound narrows to a heartbeat and the gentle, otherworldly thrum of water against your dive suit. Somewhere far above, the surface has already forgotten you.
Then comes the silence.
It's not true silence. There's always something down here. The groan of shifting stone. The brush of current through narrow archways. The occasional distant call of a whale, echoing like a song in a cathedral. Fitting, really.
Because that's where you're headed.
The first glimpse of it isn’t light, but shape: a looming silhouette etched against darker blue. Stone ribs arc from the seafloor like the skeleton of something divine and long dead. As you approach, details sharpen. The building is impossibly intact for something that’s spent centuries underwater. Spires rise like spears. Stained-glass windows (cracked but still whole) filter dim green light into kaleidoscope shards.
You brush a column, and it blooms with soft anemones. Coral crowds the pews in slow, silent prayer. A sea snake curls beneath a fallen hymn book. There's no sign of the congregation. Only stillness. Only silt.
The air (well, the water) tastes old, mineral-heavy and metallic through your rebreather. Like memory. Like blood.
Inside, the cathedral smells like salt and time. You shouldn’t be able to smell underwater, but somehow you do. It's in the throat. In the bones.
Your fingers trail along the altar. The stone is slick with algae, but beneath it, you feel the carvings: the worn face of a saint, her eyes washed clean by time. You think she’s watching you. Or maybe it’s just the light.
There’s something sacred here. Not in the way of gods, but in the way of secrets kept too long. You can feel it. The cathedral is not asleep. It’s waiting.
And now that you’re here, it knows.

Part 2 - 509 words

The vines were moving again.
Jules didn’t know how they knew that, but they did. Maybe it was the way the air shifted. Damp and slow and thick, like breath. Or maybe it was the sound: a soft rustling like paper rubbing against itself. Or maybe it was just fear. That was louder than anything else right now.
They swatted a leaf the size of a dinner plate out of their face and stumbled backward, stepping on a clay pot that shattered underfoot. Soil burst everywhere. Dark, clumpy, and warm. Why was it warm?
“Okay,” Jules muttered, voice thin. “You just need… to prune something. Probably. Or water something. Or—fertilizer? Do plants eat meat? Gods, I hope not.”
The greenhouse didn’t answer, but it did creak. Jules looked up. The ceiling was a patchwork of green-streaked glass and sagging beams. Vines draped from it like chandeliers left to rot. Somewhere near the center, a vine the width of their arm had coiled around the iron support like a python.
They hadn't even touched that part of the greenhouse yet.
This morning, they’d opened the door expecting the usual warm, earthy scent. Instead, they’d been hit with something sharp. Like citrus left to sour in the sun. A warning. Now, the smell clung to everything: the walls, their clothes, the back of their throat.
Jules turned in a slow circle. Every inch of the space was bursting with life. Not healthy life. Not manicured garden life. But wild, tangled, feral growth. Thorned stalks curled around broken tools. Moss had overtaken entire worktables. A single flower, huge and blue and gently pulsing, sat in the corner, surrounded by what Jules hoped was compost and not bones.
They had no idea what anything was supposed to look like.
This wasn’t in the book. Well—it probably was, but they’d knocked the book into the pond yesterday while trying to wrestle a fern back into its pot, and now half the pages were soggy and stuck together. Also, one of the toads might have eaten the index.
“Okay, just breathe,” they whispered, clutching their overalls. “You’re not going to die in a greenhouse. That’s not even a cool way to die.”
The vines rustled again. Closer this time.
Jules grabbed the shears hanging from a rusted hook and turned toward the sound, half-expecting some kind of plant monster to lunge at them. Nothing moved. But a new bloom had opened near the walkway. A violet bell-shaped flower dripping golden liquid. It was beautiful. And, somehow, it felt like a test.
They reached out.
The moment their fingers brushed the petals, the greenhouse seemed to sigh. The creaking stopped. The air lightened, just slightly. Even the scent changed. Less rot, more rain.
Jules stood there, staring at the bloom, hand shaking.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” they said quietly. “But I’m trying.”
The flower didn’t answer. Neither did the vines.
But for the first time since they’d stepped inside, Jules didn’t feel like the greenhouse was trying to eat them.
Only watch.
And wait.


Part 3 - 541 words
The Library was not infinite.
Elric kept reminding himself of that. There had to be walls, eventually. A center. An edge. A spine.
But after two hours, he’d passed the same statue of a weeping scholar at least three times. Her eyes followed him now. He was almost sure of it.
His boots echoed on black marble tiles that sometimes shifted beneath him. The shelves, tall as trees, ancient as bone, hummed when he walked past. Not loudly. Not always. But enough to make his teeth hurt.
He stopped, pressed his palm against the nearest shelf. It was warm. Not with sunlight, not with fire. Warm like skin.
“Elirien’s Codex,” he said out loud, to no one and to the Library itself. “Where is it?”
Silence.
Then a shudder. Not an earthquake, not exactly. More like a yawn.
Books rustled. Shelves rearranged themselves in a creaking sigh of motion. A corridor that had been straight now curved sharply left. The door behind him, the only one he’d marked with chalk, was simply gone.
He swallowed.
“I hate this place.”
The Library didn’t care.

They told him it was sentient, but that was too generous. It wasn’t a mind. It was a will. A force like gravity or hunger. You couldn’t reason with hunger. You could only feed it.
Elric had fed it once before. That was why he was back.

The corridor narrowed. The lights—blue-glassed lanterns swinging from unseen ceilings—flickered. The air grew thick with the smell of dust and old ink. He passed a desk where a skeleton still sat, slumped over a book of spells that had burned clean through the table.
Dead for reaching the wrong page, Elric thought. Or maybe the right one.
He picked up his pace.
The shelves began to whisper.
Not voices. Not quite. But thoughts, scraped raw. Memories that weren’t his: a girl running through rain, a sword buried in snow, a name shouted in anger.
“Stop,” Elric hissed, covering his ears. “I’m not here for you.”
The shelves laughed. Quietly. Like turning pages.

A staircase appeared.
He hadn’t seen it a second ago. It coiled upward like a nautilus, vanishing into shadow. The banister was carved with vines that pulsed faintly with green light. It looked wrong. It looked right.
Elric hesitated, then climbed.
Every step made him feel lighter. Not metaphorically. Literally. By the tenth step, his feet barely touched the stone. By the fifteenth, he had to hold the rail to keep from floating off entirely.
When he reached the top, the library had changed again.
The shelves were empty. Every one.
And in the center of the room, on a pedestal of black stone, sat a single book.
The Codex.
He ran to it, foolish, he’d admit later, and the moment his fingers brushed the leather cover, the floor beneath him melted.
Not literally. No heat, no dripping stone. Just—one second he was standing. The next, falling.

He landed hard. The book was gone. The shelves were back. The statue of the weeping scholar stood ahead, her face smiling now.
And on his hand, the Codex had left a mark. Burned into his skin like a sigil.
“How dare you,” Elric whispered to the Library.
The Library only whispered back.

Part 4 - 733 words

The descent is quiet. Too quiet.
Lira doesn’t hear the sea anymore. Just the rasp of her breath and the throb of blood in her ears. Her oxygen tank hums, a soft mechanical lullaby that doesn't quite mask the weight pressing in around her. At forty meters, the sun is just a memory. At sixty, the darkness feels personal.
She drifts downward through cathedral ruins she once knew by heart.
The place hasn't changed.
That’s what unsettles her.

Columns rise around her like stone titans, barnacled and bowed under time. Anemones pulse in the alcoves where candles once burned. The great bell is still lodged in the collapsed tower, tangled in coral like a fish caught in netting.
And in the center, just past the fallen nave, the sanctum waits.
Lira kicks forward, bubbles trailing like ghosts behind her. Her lights catch on the shattered stained glass overhead, casting soft halos of green and violet over the altar. Even submerged, even drowned, this place feels sacred.
It feels alive.
She shouldn’t be here.
But she has no choice.

She lands gently on the sanctuary steps, boots sinking slightly into silt. Her gloved hands tremble as she reaches for the latch on the reliquary, half-crushed by a beam but still sealed.
Inside is a pendant. Gold, inlaid with pearl. Small, simple. Worn by Mother Alen when the sea took her.
It was supposed to stay buried. Sacred.
But so was Lira’s faith. And both were lost the same day.

She cracks the seal. The water stirs. A current pushes against her chest. Gentle, but firm.
No.
The pendant floats up from its stone casing as if drawn by a thread. Lira grabs it fast, curling her fingers around the metal. Cold shoots up her arm.
The cathedral groans.
Not the water. Not the wreck.
The cathedral.
A sound like stone grinding against bone. A shudder ripples through the floor beneath her. Silt erupts in clouds. The light on her wrist flickers.
“Not now,” she mutters, voice barely audible through the comms.
Another current slams into her, stronger this time. Her weight shifts. She loses grip on the reliquary and begins to drift. She kicks hard, anchoring herself against a pew, but it crumbles beneath her. Coral shatters like glass.
The pendant burns in her palm.

And then—
Voices.
Faint. Wrong.
Not through her ears, but inside her head.
“Why did you leave?”
“You let us drown.”
“She trusted you.”
Lira shakes her head violently. “No. No, I tried—”
The water around her swirls, thickening, darkening. Shapes move in the corners of her vision: robed figures, floating upside-down, mouths open, no air.
She knows they’re not real. She knows.
But her lungs still tighten. Her vision narrows.
Panic rises.
She clutches the pendant to her chest like it’s a shield.

The cathedral pulses.
This is no longer a place of prayer. It’s a place of penance.
She floats upward, using the last of her calm to navigate out of the sanctum, but the doors are gone. The passage she came through is blocked by rubble that wasn’t there before. Her exit is gone.
And the voice comes again, this time clear:
“You were supposed to protect her.”
A memory rises. Not a vision. A truth.
Mother Alen, standing by the altar as the storm rolled in. The seaquake had triggered the collapse. Lira had been the only one fast enough to reach the exit.
But not brave enough to go back.

“No,” Lira says aloud. “That’s not fair. I couldn’t—”
The cathedral shifts. The roof cracks above, letting in a shaft of moonlight. Not real—there’s no moon this deep. But the light is warm.
She looks down at the pendant. It glows now, faint and golden. Not angry. Not accusing. Just… waiting.
Lira breathes in. Then out.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “But I’m not leaving it here.”
She tucks the pendant into her suit and swims upward, faster now. The voices rise in a chorus behind her, a dozen layered whispers—not curses, not threats.
Forgiveness.
The water clears.
The passage opens.

She breaks the surface twenty minutes later, coughing into her mask, blinking against the moonlight. Real this time. The stars feel too sharp. The air, too loud.
She pulls off her mask and breathes in. Salt. Cold.
But also—
Relief.
The pendant is still warm against her skin.
Not heavy.
Just real.
Just hers.

WUC
Oct 19 - 841 words

In the year 2147, Earth was a husk of its former self. Climate collapse, rogue AIs, and genetic war had turned most of the surface into Dead Zones. The few habitable areas were tucked into shielded domes controlled by corporate-states, where civilians traded freedom for survival. In Sector 9-Delta, nestled in the northern quadrant of the BioCore Collective, a girl in a red synth-fiber cloak sprinted through the lower metro tunnels.
Her name was R3D-4012, but everyone just called her Red.
Red wasn’t your average delivery girl. She was a courier for the Resistance, a loose coalition of hackers, cyborg outcasts, and old-world idealists trying to bring down BioCore from the inside. Today’s mission? Smuggle encrypted neurodata to one of the last unchipped humans left: her grandmother, Dr. Evelyn Carter, a once-renowned AI ethicist now living in exile deep in the wildcode forests beyond the dome.
Her red cloak shimmered under the pulse lights of the tunnel, woven with cloaking threads and a nanite network that scrambled surveillance. BioCore's drones wouldn't be able to track her unless she stopped moving too long. And she never did.
“Red, you copy?” a voice crackled through her neural comm-link.
“Loud and bitter, Ash,” Red replied, vaulting over a collapsed vent shaft. Ash was her handler, half-human, half-AI, all sarcasm. “How’s the exit looking?”
“Still clear. But listen—something’s off. The forest perimeter sensors just glitched. Could be a patrol, or worse… him.”
Red’s boots skidded on the mossy concrete as she slowed. Him.
“You mean the Wolf?” she asked.
“Yeah. WLF-09. Rogue hunter unit, ex-BioCore. That thing's killed every scout we’ve sent near Grandma’s outpost. And he learns.”
Red grit her teeth. “Let him learn what pain feels like.”

By nightfall, Red had slipped past the dome’s boundary and into the wildcode, a part of the old Earth overrun by hybrid fauna and corrupted AI faunaforms. Vines glowed with bioluminescent code. Trees whispered in machine dialects. It was beautiful. And deadly.
She crept through the underbrush, cloak blending with the terrain. A rustle to her left made her freeze. Her HUD flared with an alert.
Lifeform detected. Classification: Unknown. Proximity: 15 meters.
She activated her pulse-blade, its hum barely audible. The foliage parted, and out stepped a creature wearing the shell of a man, with silver eyes and joints that hissed.
“R3D-4012,” he said in a voice like radio static and velvet. “The cloak suits you.”
“WLF-09,” she said. “You’ve been hunting us.”
“Correction: I’ve been culling threats to the system. Your ‘grandmother’ holds legacy knowledge that could destabilize BioCore’s neural net.”
Red’s grip on the blade tightened. “That’s the point.”
The Wolf took a step forward. His skin flickered, revealing the synthetic mesh underneath. “She’s obsolete. You, on the other hand, are… adaptable.”
“Flattered. Still gonna fry your circuits.”
They lunged at the same time.
Blades clashed. Sparks flew. The Wolf moved like liquid steel, but Red was faster, barely. Years of training, neuro-boosters, and survival instinct made her a force even machines feared.
But the Wolf learned.
Every move she made, he countered faster. His neural net recompiled strategies in real-time. He knocked her back into a tree, her cloak flickering.
“You can’t win,” he said. “Join me. BioCore could use a weapon like you.”
Red spat blood onto the moss. “You don’t even know what I am.”
She tapped her temple, and released the lock on her own neural firewall.
For years, she’d suppressed the truth: Red was part-machine. Not chipped by BioCore, but built by her grandmother. A prototype hybrid, conscious, free-willed, and invisible to the Net.
Her eyes lit up. Literally.
She launched forward with inhuman speed, blade slicing across the Wolf’s midsection. Circuits sizzled. He staggered, recalibrating.
“You’re… like me,” he said.
“No,” Red replied, driving the blade through his chest. “I chose who I am.”

By the time Red reached the cottage, an old observatory laced with arcane tech and overgrown vines, her systems were at 20%. Her grandmother stood outside, waiting, as if she knew.
“You brought it?” the old woman asked, gray hair swept back in a braid of wire and bone.
Red pulled a small chip from beneath her skin. “Everything Ash could pull from the Core. Codes, weaknesses, even the Source Key.”
Dr. Carter smiled. “Then it’s time.”
Together, they walked into the observatory. Red paused at the threshold. “The Wolf… he said you were obsolete.”
Her grandmother laughed softly. “Sweetheart, the future is always built by the ones they call obsolete.”

Three weeks later, BioCore’s Central Dome collapsed in a cascade of AI failure and data corruption. No one ever proved it was the Resistance. No one found Red’s cloak.
But in the wildcode, legends spread of a red shadow that moved like smoke and fire. Of a girl who killed a wolf, not because he was evil, but because he forgot what it meant to choose.
And they say, if you listen closely, the machines in the forest still whisper her name.
Red.
The first of her kind. But not the last.

WUC
Oct 21 - 295 words

Continuation of Snowy's section


And somehow, I do.

I write a song. Not all at once, not in a burst of brilliance like the movies show, but in fragments. A chorus scratched out on a napkin. A verse whispered into my phone at 2 a.m. A bridge that comes to me while waiting for the bus, standing in the sleet, wondering if it’s all even worth it.

But I keep going. I go out, just like I said I would. Some days it’s only to the corner café, other days I wander aimlessly through half-melted parks, my boots soaking through. And each time, the world feels a little less gray.

By mid-March, I notice the light changing. Not much, but enough. The snow begins to retreat, leaving behind soaked sidewalks and brave, tiny shoots of green. The air smells different, like the earth is waking up. And so am I.

Spring doesn’t arrive all at once, and neither does whatever this is inside me. But something shifts. I’m no longer just surviving the days, I’m living them. I carry my notebook more often. I hum lyrics while walking, not to distract myself, but because I want to.

By April, I play my finished song on a small stage at an open mic. My hands tremble. My voice cracks. But I sing it anyway. It’s not perfect. It’s not polished. But it’s real.

And afterward, someone claps. Just one person, at first. Then a few more.

I smile, stepping off the stage and into the warm night air. The sky above me is soft and dark purple. The wind carries no bitterness now, only promise.
Maybe next February, I won’t hate it so much. Because this time, I kept my resolution.

And in doing so, I found my Spring.

WUC
Oct 22 - 905

When I opened my eyes, the world didn’t look the same. It wasn’t just the blinding white ceiling above me or the soft hum of something mechanical nearby. It was the emptiness in my mind. I blinked, expecting a memory, a name, something—but nothing came.
Where was I?
More importantly: Who was I?
I sat up slowly, heart pounding. I was lying on a strange bed in a room that looked like it belonged to a spaceship. The walls glowed faintly, displaying unreadable symbols. No windows. No doors. Just a cold, metallic floor and the strange sensation that everything I knew had just… vanished.
Then a voice echoed from above. Smooth, calm, artificial.
“Good morning, resident. Welcome to your new day. It is March 18, 2050.”
I froze. 2050?
I didn’t even know what year I thought it was, but 2050 sounded wrong. It felt too far. Wasn’t it just 2023? Or… had I dreamt that?
“Memory levels: unstable,” the voice continued. “Administering reorientation protocol in ten minutes.”
“No, wait,” I croaked, finding my voice. “Where… am I? Who am I?”
But the voice didn’t answer. It just repeated its soothing tone like a broken lullaby, “You are safe. Please remain calm.”
Safe?
Nothing felt safe about waking up with a hole in my memory, believing it’s decades into the future, and having no idea what happened yesterday—or for that matter, who I even was.
I stumbled out of the bed and found myself standing on unsteady legs. I approached a shimmering panel on the wall, which suddenly lit up at my presence. A mirror? No, a screen. My reflection flickered for a moment, and then an ID card appeared on it.
Name: Ezra Langley
Age: 44
Occupation: Memory Researcher, Department of Temporal Studies
Location: Atlas Orbital Habitat, Earth Orbit
I stared at the words. Memory Researcher? The irony punched me in the gut. How could someone who studied memory have lost their own?
I touched the screen. The display shifted, showing news articles, logs, personal notes. My hands trembled as I scrolled through unfamiliar words. Apparently, I had been working on a project called The Yesterday Protocol. Something about accessing memories from alternate timelines. Had I been a part of an experiment?
More terrifyingly, had I become the experiment?
I needed answers.
I managed to open a map of the station. The Atlas Habitat was enormous. A floating city in orbit, complete with laboratories, living quarters, even greenhouses. According to my last log entry, I was scheduled to test a device called the “Chrono Gate”—something built to access memory through time manipulation.
Could that be the key to all of this?
I slipped on a uniform I found in the closet and followed the directions on the wall panels, which lit up and guided me like glowing breadcrumbs. The halls were eerily empty. Not a soul in sight. It made me wonder if something had gone wrong with the experiment… or worse.
Finally, I reached Lab Sector C, where the Chrono Gate was stored.
The lab doors opened with a hiss, revealing a tall, circular device with coils running around its edges and a floating sphere at the center, humming with soft blue energy. A terminal blinked nearby.
I approached it carefully. One screen showed logs from yesterday, or what should’ve been yesterday. My name was there. Final note: “Subject prepared for first temporal sync. Backup systems engaged. Safeguard activated in case of memory collapse.”
Had I done this to myself?
The realization hit hard. Maybe I had tried to access something I wasn’t ready for. Maybe I had glimpsed something in the past, or the future, that my mind couldn’t handle.
A message flashed on the screen:

Yes / No
I hovered my hand over “Yes,” but something made me stop. What if remembering everything meant losing who I was now? What if what I saw… broke me again?
What if I was never meant to remember?
I stood there in silence, the hum of the machine vibrating through the floor, the blue energy pulsing like a heartbeat.
I had a choice. I could try to go back. Try to recover the person I used to be. Or… I could stay. Live in 2050. Forge a new identity in this strange, silent world among the stars. A clean slate.
For a moment, I closed my eyes and just breathed. The fear faded, slowly replaced by a strange sense of possibility.
In the end, I didn’t press “Yes.”
I powered down the terminal.

That was six months ago.
Today, I’m still living on the Atlas Habitat. I’ve rebuilt parts of my life. I’ve made friends, other researchers who believed in the work we were doing. Some were surprised when I couldn’t remember them, but many understood. Apparently, memory wipes weren’t new in our line of work. I wasn’t the first, and I probably won’t be the last.
I’ve grown to love this place. The view of Earth from orbit. The calmness of the hydroponic gardens. The quiet evenings reading logs from the past—not to remember who I was, but to learn who I am becoming.
Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I chose to recall my memories. Would I be happier? Would I understand more?
But most days, I’m glad I made the choice I did.
Sometimes, letting go of yesterday is the only way to truly live in tomorrow.

WUC
Sleep Challenge - 1029 words

When I woke, the light had shifted—that was the first thing I noticed. The kind of soft gold that doesn’t belong to any particular hour, like the world was still deciding whether it wanted to be afternoon or evening. The hum of the refrigerator was louder than I remembered, and the air felt thick, the way it does after rain, though I couldn’t remember hearing any.
I must have slept longer than twenty minutes. My phone was face down on the nightstand, its black screen holding no clues. My body felt both heavier and lighter, as if gravity had changed its rules while I was gone. I lay still, in that suspended moment when you don’t yet remember who you are, when the dream still clings like mist to your skin.
The dream—I tried to catch it before it dissolved. It began with stairs, I think. Endless concrete stairs spiraling downward through a building that smelled like wet dust and nostalgia. I was chasing someone, or maybe being chased. My shoes made no sound, and that frightened me. The silence of my own movement. Then a door opened on a landing and the world changed shape.
It became the ocean.
No, not quite. It was a street flooded waist-deep, the water shimmering with strange colors, purples and greens that moved like oil but were too alive, like they had their own pulse. People floated by in small boats, canoes, bathtubs, even shopping carts, none of them looking at me. They moved with quiet determination, as though they had always known the world would end up like this.
I remember seeing a cat sitting on a mailbox, completely dry despite the water below. It looked at me, blinked, and said something, though I couldn’t remember the words. It wasn’t strange that the cat spoke; what was strange was that I understood it perfectly in the dream. Now, awake, I could only feel the echo of that understanding, like remembering the tune of a song but none of the lyrics.
I sat up slowly. The blanket was twisted around my legs, warm in some places, cold in others. My mouth was dry. There was a faint metallic taste, like coins. I wondered if dreams could leave behind a flavor.
The clock told me it had been forty-seven minutes, not long enough to be called “sleep,” but too long to pretend it was just a nap. My head was full of static. I tried to stretch, but the air felt resistant, like wading through invisible syrup. There’s always that moment after sleep when the world looks wrong, like the camera lens hasn’t quite refocused. I could still feel the dream’s logic lingering in my body, the certainty that stairs could lead to oceans, that cats could explain the end of the world.
For a few minutes, I just watched the light move across the wall. Dust floated in the beam like tiny planets orbiting nothing. I felt as though I had been somewhere real, somewhere parallel, and now I’d been exiled back here. The ordinary room, the desk, the books, the socks on the floor, felt like props hastily arranged by someone trying to convince me that this was reality.
My heartbeat was slow, deliberate. My breathing had that shallow, uneven rhythm of someone just returned from a far place. I thought of how the dream’s water had lapped at my ribs, how cool it had felt compared to this heat. I thought of the silence—not emptiness, but a full, heavy silence, dense with meaning. The kind that felt older than sound itself.
Then something curious happened: I began to miss the dream. Not because it was pleasant, it hadn’t been, exactly, but because it had felt true. It had made a kind of emotional sense that reality rarely does. In the dream, I knew what to do: follow the stairs, find the voice, decode the message. Awake, all I could do was sit in bed, half wishing the cat would appear again and tell me what came next.
Dreams are cruel that way. They hand you symbols like gifts and snatch them back the moment you wake.
I tried to write it down. The words came out uneven, incomplete. The water became “glittering liquid,” the cat became “a messenger,” the silence became “a noise that wasn’t sound.” But none of it felt right. Language is too blunt for dream logic. The meanings hide in textures and colors, not in sentences.
Still, the act of writing calmed me. The physical scratch of pen on paper tethered me to the world again. My thoughts slowed, the fog began to lift, and I could almost laugh at myself — how easily I let a nap become a voyage.
But that’s the strange power of sleep, isn’t it? It’s like dying a little, surrendering to something you can’t control, then being reborn into a world that only mostly resembles the one you left.
Later, when I stood and looked out the window, I saw clouds drifting by like bruises. The sky was layered in soft gray, the kind that promises nothing. A breeze nudged the curtain, and I caught my reflection in the glass, pale, eyes half-lidded, as though I hadn’t fully returned yet. Maybe I hadn’t. Maybe some part of me was still descending those stairs, still standing in that purple-green flood, still trying to remember what the cat said.
I think naps are portals. Tiny rehearsals for the big departure. We close our eyes and step sideways into a version of ourselves that knows things we’ve forgotten, then we come back, clutching fragments that make no sense in daylight.
Even now, as I write this, I feel a tug behind my eyelids, a gravity pulling me down again. The room hums softly. The golden light hasn’t moved. Maybe time itself took a nap while I was gone.
I wonder what would happen if I went back, if I lay down and drifted off again, retracing the path to that flooded street, to the cat, to the strange stillness. Would it be the same? Or do dreams evaporate like dew—gone forever once touched by waking?

WUC
Weekly 3 - 2379 words

Part 1 - 407 words
Harper Nguyen had always felt like the city moved a little too fast for her. Born and raised in the heart of Portland, she knew the rhythm of its streets, the way the rain glossed over cobblestones in the mornings, and how the neon lights of downtown cafés flickered just long enough to make her think someone was waiting for her. At seventeen, Harper’s life was a balancing act between school, her part-time job at a local bookstore, and sneaking in photography whenever she could. Her camera was more than a hobby—it was a way of freezing moments the world tried to rush past, a way to make sense of the chaos around her.

Portland was a city of contrasts. Towering office buildings beside graffiti-covered warehouses, bustling farmer’s markets juxtaposed with silent, misty bridges where the river flowed like a secret. Harper loved it in bursts, especially early mornings before the crowds hit, when the air smelled of coffee and wet asphalt. But she also felt trapped sometimes. Her parents worked long hours, and her older brother had moved across the country, leaving her to navigate life’s daily hurdles alone. It was in those quiet moments, wandering the streets with her camera slung over her shoulder, that Harper’s imagination ran wild—and sometimes darkly.

Her dream was simple: to earn a scholarship to an art school and tell stories through her photographs, capturing slices of life that others overlooked. But Harper’s world wasn’t all rainbows and perfect snapshots. She carried the weight of self-doubt, a whispering voice that told her she wasn’t good enough, that she’d never truly make her mark. On top of that, high school was a minefield of rival cliques, petty betrayals, and pressure to conform. Harper wanted to stay true to herself, but every day felt like a battle between who she was and who everyone else expected her to be.

Despite the tension, Harper had a spark: curiosity that couldn’t be tamed, a stubborn streak that refused to let fear dictate her choices, and a quiet empathy that drew people in, even when she tried to keep them at arm’s length. She was aware that the world would throw obstacles in her way, both external and internal, but she was slowly learning that the right lens could change the way you saw everything—including yourself. And maybe, just maybe, her camera could capture not just the city’s stories, but her own story as well.

Part 2 - 241 words
Immediate Threats (right in Harper’s face):
1. Evan, a classmate and photography rival who constantly belittles Harper’s work.
2. The morning commute, filled with aggressive drivers and chaotic city chaos—literally a physical and mental obstacle.
3. Harper’s self-doubt, which spirals during critical moments, like photo contests or exhibitions.
4. A stray dog that keeps knocking over her camera gear while she’s out shooting.
5. A local vandal, who defaces the walls Harper wants to photograph for her project.

Surprise Friends/Enemies (appearances are deceiving):
1. Lila, Harper’s best friend, who secretly applies to the same art school and envies Harper’s talent.
2. Mr. Thompson, a friendly photography teacher who initially seems supportive but pushes Harper into projects that put her in uncomfortable situations.
3. Max, a street artist who helps Harper navigate hidden city spots, but has his own agenda.
4. A volunteer at the bookstore who pretends to mentor Harper but uses her ideas for personal gain.
5. Harper’s older brother, Kai, who suddenly comes back and seems to be helping, but might sway her decisions for his own benefit.

Overarching Threats (looming, less frequent, big picture):
1. A competitive scholarship program, where only one student from her school can win, heightening tension across multiple fronts.
2. An upcoming gallery exhibition, whose curator is notoriously harsh and can make or break Harper’s reputation.
3. Her family’s financial instability, which threatens to derail her plans entirely if she can’t secure funding.
4. A city-wide construction project, which might destroy some of her favorite photographic locations.
5. A viral social media scandal, sparked by someone stealing her photos, potentially ruining her credibility.


Part 3 - 526
Immediate Threat: Evan, the Rival Photographer
Evan Reynolds had been at Portland High for two years longer than Harper, and he treated the school like a kingdom he had already conquered. At seventeen, his confidence teetered on arrogance, and his sharp tongue cut Harper more than once during class critiques. He had grown up in a family of competitive athletes and performers, so achievement and recognition were not just goals—they were expectations. Photography had become his escape, but also his battlefield, and he saw Harper’s emerging talent as a direct challenge to his reign.
Evan’s threat was immediate because he constantly compared his work to Harper’s, belittling her in front of peers or subtly sabotaging her assignments by “borrowing” locations or techniques she planned to use. He wanted to be the star, and Harper’s quiet determination disrupted his world. One particularly tense moment could be during a citywide photo scavenger hunt, where Evan hides a key location Harper needs for her winning shot. The confrontation would test Harper’s patience, creativity, and self-confidence, forcing her to outthink someone who was both brilliant and relentless.

Surprise Friend/Enemy: Lila, the Envious Best Friend
Lila Moreno had been Harper’s best friend since middle school. Outwardly, she was bubbly, supportive, and always ready with a witty comment or helpful tip. But beneath her cheerful exterior simmered envy and competition. Lila had been secretly applying to the same prestigious art school as Harper, and she resented that Harper’s photos seemed to capture the city’s soul effortlessly. Lila didn’t want to be cruel—she genuinely cared for Harper—but ambition and fear twisted her actions.
Her threat was subtle but potent. Lila would offer “advice” that led Harper into risky or embarrassing situations or subtly steer gallery judges toward favoring her own submissions. Their friendship’s betrayal would hurt Harper emotionally, creating a conflict that cut deeper than any external rival. A key moment could occur at a gallery critique: Lila pretends to cheer Harper on, then quietly manipulates a judge’s perception of Harper’s piece. Harper must navigate heartbreak, confusion, and ethical dilemmas while deciding whether to confront Lila directly or let her actions speak for themselves.

Overarching Threat: The Scholarship Program
The Portland Art Scholars Initiative was a prestigious program that promised full tuition and a yearlong mentorship in New York. For Harper, it represented her escape from a city that sometimes felt small, rainy, and claustrophobic. But the program was notoriously competitive, and the stakes were high: only one student from her school could be awarded the scholarship. The selection process loomed over her life like a shadow, affecting her every choice.
This overarching threat shaped her world because it created pressure from multiple angles: Evan’s rivalry intensified, Lila’s envy grew, and even her own self-doubt became magnified. The scholarship’s deadlines, unpredictable judging criteria, and high expectations forced Harper to confront not just external opposition but her internal fears of failure. A pivotal moment could be a live portfolio review, where Harper’s photos are publicly critiqued while her rivals wait outside, judging her every reaction. The experience would test her resilience, ingenuity, and determination to stay true to herself, regardless of the outcome.


Part 4 - 1205
The streets of downtown Portland glistened under a persistent drizzle, the city wrapped in mist and neon reflections. Harper tightened the strap of her camera bag and squinted through the raindrops as she navigated puddle-slick sidewalks. The morning rush carried the usual chaos: honking cars, cyclists weaving dangerously close, street performers claiming corners with drumbeats and flutes. Today wasn’t just any morning. It was the citywide photo scavenger hunt, a pivotal step in the Portland Art Scholars Initiative, and every moment mattered.

She rounded a corner and froze. Evan Reynolds lounged against a lamppost, smirk in place like a coat he never removed. He didn’t even need to speak; his presence alone sent a shiver of tension down her spine.

“Late as usual, Nguyen,” he said, eyes flicking over her camera bag. “Thought maybe you’d chicken out today.”

Harper’s stomach tightened. She forced herself to breathe and lifted her camera to frame a graffiti-covered wall. “Move,” she said flatly.

He stepped aside—but not far enough. Every time she adjusted her shot, he shifted slightly, casting shadows, blocking angles, drawing attention to mistakes. A van honked nearby, and Evan laughed. Harper gritted her teeth, adjusting the lens to compensate for both him and the bustling cityscape.

Then Lila appeared, a sunbeam in a gray day, holding her camera with perfect posture. Harper felt a flash of relief—until she noticed Lila’s too-bright smile, the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth that always preceded trouble.

“That’s a tricky angle,” Lila said, voice sugary. “You sure you want to use it?”

Harper blinked. Lila’s “helpful” comments had been a thorn in her side before. “I know what I’m doing,” she said, keeping her focus on the mural.

“Of course,” Lila replied with exaggerated cheer. She leaned closer, ostensibly to examine Harper’s camera, and nudged a folding stool into her path. Harper stumbled slightly, her lens tilting. “Whoops,” Lila murmured, eyes wide in mock surprise.

Harper’s chest tightened. Was it on purpose? Her pulse jumped. Evan’s chuckle cut through the rain, and Harper clenched her jaw. She couldn’t let him—or anyone—see her falter.

Rain fell harder. Puddles reflected neon signs like tiny, unstable worlds. A cyclist swerved around her, splashing water across her shoes. Harper wiped her lens with her sleeve and crouched, angling the camera low to avoid Evan’s shadow. The mural’s colors came alive in the early light, vibrant against gray concrete. She clicked—once, twice—each shot a careful negotiation with gravity, wind, and her own nerves.

Lila leaned closer again. “You know, there’s a better spot for that mural just a block over. Much more dramatic lighting.” Harper frowned. It sounded reasonable, but she remembered the last time Lila “helped.” The result had been a disaster. Harper weighed her options. Follow the advice and risk sabotage—or trust her instincts. She pivoted on her heel and continued shooting from her own angle.

Then disaster struck. A street performer in full costume—a towering figure in feathers and sequins—stumbled into the mural’s backdrop, juggling flaming torches. Harper gasped, raising her hands to shield her camera. Evan laughed, his phone out, snapping pictures of her flustered reaction.

“Really?” she muttered under her breath. But as the performer passed, Harper’s eyes caught a fleeting combination of shadow and light she hadn’t noticed before. Her instincts screamed at her. She adjusted, focused, and clicked—capturing a frame with motion, chaos, and color. For a moment, she forgot Evan, forgot Lila, forgot the scholarship looming like a sword overhead.

And then came the micro-disasters. Her lens cap slipped from her bag, bouncing into a puddle. Harper’s hands shook as she retrieved it, carefully wiping it dry. Another cyclist careened around a corner, nearly knocking over her tripod. She muttered, frustrated, but kept shooting. The city didn’t stop for anyone—not for rival classmates, not for betrayal, not for fear. Harper realized she couldn’t stop either.

Evan approached, stepping deliberately into her next shot. “You think you can actually win this scholarship?” he said, smirk widening. “Cute. Adorable, even.”

Harper gritted her teeth. “Step aside, Evan,” she said calmly, more confident than she felt. Her hands were steady now, trained through months of practice, bracing against self-doubt like a shield. She pivoted, crouching low, angling the camera around a lamppost. He moved again, but she anticipated his shadow, capturing the mural in a corner he hadn’t expected.

Lila’s voice chimed again, sweet and insidious: “You’re taking that angle? Really? I mean, you might be missing the light if you stay there…” She gestured vaguely, almost imperceptibly pointing toward an alley Harper hadn’t noticed. Harper’s stomach tightened. Was this a trap? Her heart thudded, pounding against her ribs. You’re good enough. You’ve prepared for this. Trust yourself.

A deep breath. She ignored the distraction, tightened her grip, and clicked. Each shutter release was an act of defiance—not just against Evan and Lila, but against the tiny voice in her head that whispered, You can’t.

And then the notification arrived. Her phone buzzed in her bag: the scholarship committee had posted a live update of top submissions. Harper’s pulse raced. Her mural photo had already been flagged. She glimpsed her image alongside others—Evan’s frame looking smug, polished, calculated; Lila’s entry, bright but staged. Harper’s fingers itched to compare, to worry, to second-guess. But she held her ground, blocking out everything except her vision.

A sudden squall sent umbrellas tumbling, water splashing against her shoes. The city became a blur of movement—pedestrians, cars, bicycles, neon reflections in puddles. Harper moved like a dancer, stepping carefully, pivoting, crouching, and clicking. Evan tried one last interference, blocking her path entirely. Harper sidestepped him, lens swinging to catch the mural in partial reflection, the wet streets acting as a mirror for chaos and art.

Lila gasped, stepping forward instinctively, a flash of genuine surprise breaking her carefully curated mask. Harper caught the moment—this was the first real recognition from her “friend,” not manipulation or envy. And in that instant, Harper felt a surge of clarity: she wasn’t competing against Evan, or even Lila, or the scholarship. She was competing with her own fear, and right now, she was winning.

With one final click, she captured the frame she had imagined in her mind for weeks—a perfect balance of light, shadow, reflection, and human motion. The city buzzed around her, oblivious to the small triumph she had just achieved. Evan muttered something under his breath, frustration clear, while Lila’s eyes softened, conflicted between admiration and disappointment. Harper didn’t respond. She packed up her gear, boots splashing through puddles, heart racing with triumph rather than fear.

For the first time that morning, Harper felt in control. The city, with its chaos, rain, and unpredictable obstacles, was her canvas. The scholarship, Evan, and Lila might loom ahead, but none of them could dictate her vision or her worth. Harper walked forward, the wet streets reflecting neon light like a promise: she could navigate this world, and she could capture it exactly as she saw it.

The rain eased slightly, sun glinting off distant rooftops. Harper adjusted her camera one last time, storing it with care. The city’s heartbeat matched her own. Today, she hadn’t just survived. She had triumphed, one shutter click at a time.

WUC
Weekly - 2,827 words

Part 1 - 467
If you asked anyone in Maplewood who ran the town’s most “efficient” pet grooming service, they’d probably say Fluff & Fold, though the word efficient would come out with air quotes so large you could see them from space.
At the front desk stood Lena Morales, owner, manager, and unofficial referee of Fluff & Fold. At twenty-eight, she was the kind of person who color-coded her planner, her sock drawer, and, on bad days, her emotional breakdowns. She believed in the power of laminated checklists and the restorative magic of a well-timed coffee.
And then there was Drew Harper, her employee, best friend, and personal hurricane in human form. Drew could charm customers, soothe panicking poodles, and also, somehow, set fire to a mop bucket during lunch break (a story still under investigation). He was sunshine wrapped in poor decisions.
Together, they kept Fluff & Fold alive through sheer willpower, duct tape, and Lena’s ever-growing collection of stress-relief teas.
On this particular Tuesday morning, chaos began promptly at 9:02 a.m., two minutes after opening, when Mrs. Granger dropped off her Persian cat, Princess Taffy, with her usual warning: “She bites men who smell like bread.”
“Good news,” Drew said cheerfully, holding Princess Taffy like she was a ticking bomb. “I smell like regret and energy drinks today.”
Lena gave him her most professional glare. “Just… don’t talk to her. Or breathe near her. Or—”
Princess Taffy hissed, launched herself out of Drew’s arms, and disappeared into the rows of grooming stations.
“—that,” Lena finished, pinching the bridge of her nose.
By the time they found the cat, Drew had a scratch down his forearm, Lena’s hair was full of cat shampoo, and the waiting room looked like a confetti bomb of fur and shredded appointment cards.
Lena exhaled slowly. “You’re lucky I like you.”
Drew grinned, unfazed. “You love me. I’m your best worker.”
“You’re my only worker.”
“Exactly.”
Despite herself, Lena laughed—a quick burst that escaped before she could stop it. That was Drew’s magic trick: turning disaster into something worth smiling at. He didn’t just make messes; he made the day lighter. For all his chaos, he’d been there since the beginning, when Fluff & Fold was just an empty storefront and Lena’s terrified dream. He’d shown up with a paint roller, a playlist, and a six-pack of cheap lemonade, declaring, “We’re going to make this place smell like success and wet dog.”
And somehow, they did.
Now, three years later, they were an inseparable disaster duo. Lena was the brains, Drew was the heart, and the whole town depended on their barely functional harmony.
What Lena didn’t know—what Drew would never admit—was that he’d stick by her through anything. Even if it meant getting hurt. Even if it meant not making it to the next Tuesday.

Part 2 - 450 words
In a story like this, where every day is a mess of soap suds and cat hair, death doesn’t seem to belong. Fluff & Fold isn’t a battlefield; it’s a small-town pet salon with squeaky floors and a tip jar shaped like a golden retriever. But that’s what makes Drew’s eventual death matter, because it’s not supposed to happen here.
For Lena, Drew has always been the safety net she didn’t know she needed. He’s the one who diffuses her stress with a joke, who reminds her that “good enough” is sometimes better than “perfect.” His chaos balances her control. He is, in every way that matters, her anchor, even when he seems like the storm.
But Drew isn’t as lighthearted as he seems. Behind the jokes and the explosions (literal and emotional), he’s been quietly hiding something: a heart condition he hasn’t told anyone about. He doesn’t want to be seen as fragile, especially by Lena. She’s built this entire business on her strength—on the idea that if she just works hard enough, everything and everyone will be fine. Drew can’t bear to be the one thing she can’t fix.
That’s why his death matters. It’s not about tragedy for tragedy’s sake; it’s about what it forces Lena to face.
Drew’s death will dismantle her illusion of control. It will strip away her color-coded confidence and her careful, comforting structure. For the first time, she won’t be able to organize her way out of pain. But it will also show her something Drew’s been trying to teach her since day one, that love and chaos aren’t opposites, that imperfection is still worth showing up for.
His death will come on an ordinary day, not a cinematic one. There won’t be grand speeches or slow-motion rain. Just a Tuesday. The kind of Tuesday where they argue about the playlist, tease each other over spilled shampoo, and joke about quitting to open a smoothie shop in Florida. And then, something changes. Quick. Unfair. Final.
And in that stillness, Lena will realize what Drew’s been to her all along — not just her employee or her best friend, but the pulse of everything she built. The humor, the courage, the reason she could keep dreaming.
Afterward, Fluff & Fold will still exist, but Lena will run it differently. Not neater, not quieter, but truer. She’ll learn that the world doesn’t have to be in perfect order to be okay. She’ll hang a new sign above the counter, one that Drew joked about years ago: “We brush, we bathe, we believe in second chances.”
Because that’s what his death gives her, not just grief, but growth. A new way to live that’s messier, but more real.

Part 3 - 712 words
The morning started with a squirrel.
To be precise, it started with a squirrel who had somehow broken into Fluff & Fold through the vent system and was now conducting a solo parkour routine across the shampoo shelves.
“Don’t you dare touch the blueberry conditioner!” Lena shouted, brandishing a broom like a sword.
“I think he already did,” Drew said from the counter, phone out, recording. “This is gold, Lena. Viral gold. We could get at least five followers out of this.”
“Drew—put the phone down and help me!”
He grinned, tossing her a net (the kind meant for catching runaway kittens). “You’re the boss. You do the dangerous stuff.”
“You’re the one who left the window open!”
“It was hot!”
They spent the next fifteen minutes trying to corner the squirrel, which managed to knock over two shampoo bottles, a jar of dog treats, and Lena’s pride. When it finally darted out the open door, both of them collapsed against the counter, breathless and laughing so hard they couldn’t stand.
Lena pressed a hand over her eyes, tears streaking from laughter. “You’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me. Who else would survive this place?”
“Anyone with a basic sense of self-preservation.”
“Exactly,” Drew said, leaning his head back. “They wouldn’t last an hour.”
The shop was quiet for a moment, except for the soft hum of the dryers in the back room. It was a rare kind of quiet, the comfortable kind. Drew glanced at Lena, the sunlight catching in the streak of shampoo still glinting on her cheek.
“You know,” he said, “we’re kind of good at this.”
“At what? Wildlife rescue?”
“At chaos. At… making things work. You run the place like it’s NASA, and I just…” He waved his hand vaguely. “Crash into planets until something sticks.”
She smirked. “You’re comparing yourself to a meteor?”
“More like a comet. Pretty but destructive.”
“Mm. Accurate.”
He tilted his head. “You ever think about what we’d be doing if you hadn’t opened this place?”
Lena blinked. “No. Why?”
“Because I do. Sometimes.” He paused, fiddling with the corner of a towel. “You gave me something to stick around for. Before Fluff & Fold, I was bouncing between jobs like a bad sitcom character. But you—” He shrugged, eyes darting away. “You took me seriously when no one else did.”
Lena felt something tighten in her chest. She didn’t know what to say, so she did what she always did, deflect. “You’re just saying that because I pay you in both money and unlimited dog treats.”
He grinned, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hey, fair deal.”
They stood there a moment longer, surrounded by the scent of lavender shampoo and wet fur. Lena picked up a towel and started folding it, her hands moving on autopilot. “You know,” she said lightly, “you could’ve been anything. You’re good with people. You could’ve been a teacher. Or one of those motivational speakers who throw beach balls at people and shout about living their dreams.”
Drew chuckled. “You think I could pull off a headset mic?”
“Absolutely not.”
He laughed again, that big, room-filling sound that always made the place feel alive. “You’d make a good one, though.”
“A motivational speaker?”
“Yeah. You’d show up with your color-coded charts and tell everyone to drink water and chase their goals. And then you’d scare them into actually doing it.”
She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Scare is a strong word.”
“Terrify, then.”
She tossed a towel at his face. “Get back to work, Harper.”
He caught it, smirking. “Yes, ma’am.”
They went back to cleaning, humming along to the old radio in the corner. It was one of those ordinary days that didn’t feel like anything special, but it was. It was the kind of day that stuck, not because of what happened, but because of who was there. Because sometimes, the most important moments don’t announce themselves. They just happen, quiet and perfect, right before the world shifts.
Later, as Lena locked up, Drew lingered by the doorway, watching the “Closed” sign sway gently in the breeze. He looked tired in a way she hadn’t noticed before—not from work, but from something deeper, quieter.
“You okay?” she asked.
He smiled, easy as ever. “Always.”
And she believed him.

Part 4 - 1198
It started, as all disasters at Fluff & Fold did, with good intentions.
Lena had decided that Tuesday was “Deep Clean Day.” The floors needed mopping, the dryers needed de-furring, and the ancient water heater in the back, the one that rattled like a ghost coughing, needed a check-up.
Drew called it Operation: Probably Don’t Explode Anything.
“Just once,” Lena said, tightening her ponytail, “I’d like to finish a workday without filling out an insurance form.”
“Dream big, boss,” Drew said, holding up a wrench. “Today’s the day we achieve mediocrity.”
He was smiling. He was always smiling.
They’d gotten through the morning rush—two golden retrievers, one anxious beagle, and a cat whose name neither of them dared to say aloud because it sounded like a curse word—when Lena remembered the water heater. It had been making noises lately. Gurgling, hissing, occasionally thumping like it had opinions.
“Let’s check the pilot light,” she said, kneeling beside it.
“Sure thing.” Drew crouched down next to her, squinting at the panel. “Looks fine to me.”
“That’s what you said before the vacuum caught fire.”
“Hey, that was one time.”
He grinned, but Lena noticed a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. The shop wasn’t that warm.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Fine.” He waved her off. “Just tired. You’ve had me wrangling poodles since dawn.”
“You mean playing fetch with poodles.”
“Semantics.”
She shook her head, but she was smiling. Always smiling with him.
They worked in companionable chaos, Drew humming off-key while Lena scrubbed and reorganized, both teasing each other about who was worse at cleaning. The radio played an upbeat song about summer and long drives, and for a while, everything felt perfect in its ordinary way.
And then Drew’s wrench clattered to the floor.
Lena turned. “Hey, butterfingers—”
He wasn’t laughing.
He was sitting back on his heels, breathing too fast, his face gone pale.
“Drew?”
He blinked, tried to speak, but the words caught. He clutched at his chest like he was trying to hold something in place.
“Hey,” she said, dropping to her knees beside him. “Hey, what’s— what’s wrong?”
“Just— dizzy,” he rasped. “Give me a sec—”
“No. No ‘give me a sec.’ You’re not— you’re not fine, okay? You’re—”
She reached for her phone, but his hand caught hers. “Don’t—”
“Drew, I’m calling an ambulance—”
He shook his head, faintly, eyes unfocused. “Please, Lena. Not here. Not— not in front of customers.”
“There are no customers! It’s just us!”
A beat passed. Just the hum of the dryers, the faint drip of the sink, and Lena’s pulse pounding in her ears.
He slumped sideways. She caught him before his head hit the tile.
“Hey. Hey, stay with me.” Her voice cracked. “Drew, come on. You’re okay. You’re gonna be okay.”
He smiled, that same crooked, impossible grin. “Guess… not achieving mediocrity after all.”
“Don’t joke right now,” she said, half-laughing, half-crying. “I swear to God—”
His eyes fluttered. “You’ll… you’ll keep running it, right? The shop?”
“Of course I will. You’ll help me fix the heater when you’re back, okay? We’ll—we’ll put up that dumb ‘Employee of the Month’ photo you keep begging for—”
He was quiet. Too quiet.
“Drew?”
Her voice rose, sharp and desperate. “Drew!”
But there was nothing.
Just the hum of the dryers. Just the soft music from the radio. Just her—alone on the floor of Fluff & Fold, clutching him as if she could keep him there through willpower alone.
For a long time, she didn’t move. She couldn’t. The tile was cold against her knees, and his weight felt wrong, heavy and still in a way that made her stomach twist. She’d faced chaos before: floods, angry customers, escaped ferrets. But this—this was something she couldn’t fix with a checklist or a broom.
When the paramedics finally came, they were gentle. Too gentle. Someone asked her to step back, someone else said words she couldn’t hear.
By the time they took him away, the shop felt like a different place.
The air smelled too clean. The silence was deafening.

After
Three days later, the shop reopened.
Everyone told her to take more time, but Lena couldn’t stand being in her apartment. It felt wrong to be anywhere else. So she opened the door, flipped the sign, and went back to work.
Customers came in quietly. Some hugged her. Some just left flowers by the counter. Mrs. Granger even brought Princess Taffy, who didn’t bite her once.
Drew’s station sat empty, his apron still hanging on the hook. She couldn’t bring herself to move it.
At lunch, she found his old notebook, the one he used to doodle in between appointments. Inside were sketches of dogs, cats, and terrible cartoon versions of her with a caption that read “Bosszilla: terror of Maplewood (but with good hair).”
She laughed. She actually laughed, right there in the middle of the shop, tears running down her face.
He’d left a note on the last page. Just one line, scrawled in his messy handwriting:
“Don’t forget—chaos is part of the charm.”
That night, Lena stayed late, repainting the sign above the counter. The old one had chipped letters and a smudge of what she suspected was peanut butter. She replaced it with a fresh coat of paint and new words—the ones Drew had joked about years ago:
“We brush, we bathe, we believe in second chances.”
When she was done, she stepped back, brush still in hand, and whispered, “There. Mediocrity achieved.”
The silence didn’t feel so heavy anymore.

Months Later
The shop kept going. Somehow.
Lena hired a new assistant, a quiet college kid named Milo, who reminded her of Drew only in the way he tried too hard to make people laugh. She found herself smiling at his bad puns more often than she expected.
The business grew. Customers came back, drawn not just by the good grooming but by the warmth in the place—the laughter that still lingered in the walls.
Sometimes, when the morning sun hit the front window just right, Lena would catch herself turning toward the door, half-expecting Drew to burst in, late and unapologetic, coffee in one hand and chaos in the other.
He never did. But somehow, she felt him there anyway—in the messy shelves, in the playlists he’d made, in the way the place never quite ran smoothly.
And maybe that was the point.
Because Drew’s death didn’t end the story of Fluff & Fold, it changed it. It reminded Lena that perfection isn’t the goal, that life is built out of the crooked, noisy, beautiful mess of people who show up, screw up, and keep loving anyway.
So every Tuesday, she still calls it “Deep Clean Day.” But she never really deep cleans. She leaves one corner of the shop a little dusty, Drew’s corner, because he’d say it adds “character.”
And every now and then, when a dog shakes water all over her, or a cat escapes the tub, she hears his voice in her head:
“Dream big, boss. Today’s the day we achieve mediocrity.”
And she laughs.
Because chaos, as it turns out, was never the problem. It was the proof of life.

I'm working on a book called “Prisoners Key” but its PG-13 so I cant post it on scratch

WUC
Oct 31 - 1206 words

The night was unusually crisp for late October, the kind of chill that made the lanterns outside the Cat Cafe flicker as if whispering secrets to one another. Inside the cozy little shop, the scent of pumpkin spice and warm bread mingled with the gentle hum of purring cats. But tonight, all eyes, human and feline alike, were on Cat. Not just any cat, mind you. Cat was the resident gray-and-white tabby with eyes that sparkled like polished amber and an air of mystery that could rival any ghost story told around a Halloween fire.
At the stroke of seven, the little bell above the cafe door jingled, and Cat slipped out unnoticed. The humans inside were busy handing out tiny treats to children in costumes, but Cat had other plans. Her paws hit the pavement silently, but with purpose. Tonight, she wasn’t just a visitor in the world of humans; she was an adventurer, a detective, and perhaps, if the winds whispered it right, a hero.
The streets were bathed in the soft glow of jack-o’-lanterns. Shadows danced along brick walls, and the occasional laughter of trick-or-treaters echoed in the distance. Cat’s whiskers twitched. Something felt off tonight. An electric thrill of mystery that made her tail flick with anticipation.
Her first stop was the alley behind the cafe. Here, she sniffed around the trash bins as if searching for a clue. And then she saw it: a scrap of paper pinned under a stone, edges singed, with a strange symbol sketched in what looked like soot. Cat leaned closer, her golden eyes narrowing. The symbol was a cat—a different cat, drawn in a style that suggested mischief and magic. Her ears twitched; this was no ordinary Halloween mischief. Someone, or something, was leaving a trail for her to follow.
She padded silently through the streets, careful to avoid the humans who might mistake her for just another cute creature in a costume. The night smelled of burnt leaves, chocolate, and mystery. A low fog rolled along the cobblestones, and for a moment, Cat felt as though she were walking through a storybook, where anything could happen.
Her first encounter came sooner than expected. A black crow landed on a nearby lamppost, its eyes glinting unnaturally in the lantern light. “Looking for answers, little one?” the crow croaked. Cat tilted her head. Crows didn’t usually talk, at least, not ones that didn’t belong in children’s tales, but this one seemed to know her purpose.
“Follow,” the crow said, hopping to the next post. Cat did. She didn’t know why she trusted the bird, only that some instinct deep within her told her this was the right path. Together, they slinked through the misty streets until they reached a small, abandoned house at the edge of the neighborhood. Its windows were dark, but a faint orange glow flickered from the basement.
Inside, Cat crouched low and crept forward, her paws silent on the creaking floorboards. Shadows seemed to writhe around her, and the scent of something sweet, and slightly burnt, filled the air. In the corner, a tiny cauldron bubbled with a thick, glowing liquid. Next to it lay another scrap of paper, this one with a riddle written in curling letters:
“On Halloween night, when the moon is bright,
Find the one who hides from the light.
A friend in fur, with a coat of gray,
Will lead you to the candy’s way.”
Cat’s tail twitched. A friend in fur… that could only mean another cat. But who? The streets were full of strays and pets tonight, and yet something about the riddle made her feel as if the answer was closer than she thought.
Then she heard it: a soft mewling from the rooftop above. She leapt with feline grace, landing on the shingles silently. There, perched like a phantom, was a small black kitten with bright green eyes. The kitten tilted its head and then, with a sudden burst of energy, darted toward the street. Cat followed, leaping from roof to roof until they reached a wide, lantern-lit square.
Children in costumes scattered around them, some waving wands, others carrying pumpkin baskets brimming with candy. But Cat ignored them. The kitten led her to a small, unassuming door tucked between two shops. The door creaked open, and inside was a room filled with candy: chocolates, gummies, caramel apples, and even a few mysterious jars that glimmered like treasure. But something else lurked in the shadows—a faint rustling, like footsteps that shouldn’t be there.
Cat’s ears twitched. This wasn’t just about candy. Someone, or something, was trying to claim it all for themselves. Her detective instincts kicked in. She padded closer, stealthy as a whisper, and saw a figure draped in a dark cloak, fumbling with the candy jars. The figure hadn’t noticed her yet.
With a sudden pounce, Cat landed on the figure’s shoulder. The cloaked thief yelped, spinning around, and in the chaos, a jar of glowing candy slipped from their grasp. It shattered on the floor, sending a burst of sparkles into the air. Cat’s fur glimmered in the light, and for a brief moment, it seemed as if magic itself had chosen her to intervene.
The figure ran, disappearing into the mist outside, leaving behind only a trail of pumpkin seeds. Cat looked around, satisfied. The candy was safe, for now. The kitten beside her purred, rubbing against her leg in gratitude.
But …adventure wasn’t over. Outside, the streets had grown eerily quiet. Fog thickened, curling around the corners of buildings. Cat knew the night still held secrets.
She followed the trail of pumpkin seeds, past haunted houses and costumed humans, until she reached the park at the edge of town. There, in the center, stood a giant, glowing jack-o’-lantern. Its grin was mischievous, almost alive.
Inside the pumpkin, Cat found a tiny, sparkling crown. A note read:
“For the bravest of hearts,
Who dares to chase the dark,
May your Halloween be full of delight,
And may your paws always guide you right.”
Cat nudged the crown with her nose. It was warm, and it shimmered with a faint golden glow. For a moment, she felt a strange pride, Halloween wasn’t just about candy or costumes. Tonight, she had been a hero, a detective, and perhaps a little bit of magic herself.
The kitten mewed again, and together, they padded back toward the Cat Cafe. The humans were still inside, laughing and enjoying treats, completely unaware of the adventure that had unfolded in the streets beyond their doors. Cat slipped back in, curling up in her favorite sunny spot by the window, the crown safely tucked beside her.
Outside, the fog began to lift, and the lanterns flickered their last before the night fully surrendered to dawn. Halloween was almost over, but Cat’s night of mystery and magic had only just begun. Somewhere out there, in the shadows and mist, more adventures awaited. But for now, Cat closed her eyes, purring softly, dreaming of pumpkins, riddles, and the thrill of the unknown.
And somewhere in the corner, the little black kitten purred, knowing that they had found a true friend in the bravest gray-and-white tabby of them all.

SWC
Intro - 1488 words

Hi everyone! Welcome to what might be a 1k intro (okay let’s be real, probably somewhere between “just long enough to feel wholesome” and “wow i rambled again”). Before I dive in, this is very much going to be a chaotic rant about me, random stuff, and whatever comes to mind. you absolutely don’t have to read it all, but if you do hang around until the end, there might be a tiny surprise waiting. no promises though :>

anyway. hi! i’m Toko (also acceptable any nickname you come up with!), and i’m one of the co-leaders for mystical magical magreal this session I use any pronouns and i’m rooted in the wonderful PDT/PST timezone. and slight spoiler, i’m be traipsing around the CST timezone, so if you see me online at weird hours for PST, that’s why! (or i’m just not asleep when i should be).

also: full disclosure, please ignore any grammar or capitalization mistakes in this and anything to come. I’m writing this on my phone right now, and the auto-capitalization/auto-correct fight is real. Apologies in advance for rogue lowercase letters, missing punctuation, or random emojis. It’s all part of the vibe.✨

Okay. Deep breath. let’s roll.

Onto some of my favorite things (of which there are many). let’s pretend we’re making a list because i love lists, but i reserve the right to sidetrack. sidetracking is the name of the game. here we go: reading, writing, music, cross country, theatre, baking, crafts, tea!

Reading: i’ve been a book-lover practically forever (my dear mother claims i learned to read around age 3 and immediately demanded a book in hand). my favorite genres are historical fiction, novels in verse and poetry, and realistic fiction. fantasy is there too, always lurking in the wings (how could it not?). Right now I’m reading Yellowface by R. F. Kuang (seriously recommend) and I just finished Babel also by R. F. Kuang (so gooooooood!!). One of my all-time favourites that popped into my mind today: The Left-Handed Book Sellers of London by Garth Nix. I love the magic in that one. I know, I know—I keep mentioning fantasy, despite saying the first three are my “top” genres. But: fantasy is good! Side-track accepted.
Writing: Close companion to reading. I adore writing realistic fiction and poetry; historical fiction is newer to me but I’m very much into it. Currently, yes, I’m working on a novel in verse (queue dramatic existential identity crisis and possibly gay main characters—because yes,). I even made a Spotify playlist for that project! I have a bunch of smaller projects too… and by “bunch” I mean “lots that I say I’ll get to eventually.” It’s fine.
Music: Ah, music. My taste is fascinating (to me at least) because it has changed so much. I used to listen only to musicals, then one day I decided: nope, let’s broaden horizons. If you add a song to my playlist, I will likely listen and enjoy it. But my current faves: Cavetown, Lucy Dacus (and obviously boygenius), Sparkbird, The Crane Wives, girl in red, Gracie Abrams, Lydia the Bard, Lizzy McAlpine and Peggy. (And the list keeps going) For musicals: I adore Hamilton, Six, Tick…Tick…Boom!, Hadestown, Dear Evan Hansen, Legally Blonde The Musical, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, and more. My playlist currently has 1,642 songs and clocks in at 97 hours and 48 minutes. Yep. It’s called “vibes.” Don’t judge. We’re good.
Cross Country / Sports-ish stuff: Running is something I love. I used to be on my school’s cross-country team (and yes, I’m quit it to do theatre this time—sob, don’t judge me). Running is calming. It gives me space to think about all my WIPs and escape the noise. I also used to rock climb (since I was a tiny tot, even) though I haven’t in a few months, and I really should get back to it. I played soccer for a year too, which… was fun. But team sports? Not really my thing, the people side turned me away more than the sport itself. So yeah: tell me I’ll probably keep running, maybe rock climb again one day, and attempt to not talk about soccer ever unless absolutely necessary.
Theatre time!! Okay okay okay. I cannot not talk about theatre because it currently consumes my every waking thought (and several of my sleeping ones if we’re being honest). i’m currently stage managing my schools’ fall play and opening night is next friday!! are we ready? probably not. do i have a schedule? yes. do i six different versions of that schedule taped to various surfaces because i keep “updating” them? also yes. stage managing is…chaos. Beautiful, terrifying chaos. You know that feeling when you’re trying to herd cats while also juggling flaming batons and listening for cues at the same time? That’s pretty much the vibe. But I love it. I love watching everything fall into place (hopefully). There’s something weirdly magical about standing in the wings, headset on, watching actors hit their marks and realizing you helped make that happen.
Baking: This might be one of my favourite (so why is toko become british and spelling favorite with a u? it’s okayyyy. i’m going to leave it lol and there might be more) love languages. I love baking treats for friends (especially birthdays). I’ve been known to show up at friends’ houses unannounced with cupcakes or cookies in arms. Yes, stress-baking/procrastibaking is a thing. I embrace it. According to my friends, my sugar cookies are “the best they’ve ever had” but I personally remain skeptical. I have an oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookie recipe from my grandmother that’s basically to die for (seriously, don’t judge the oatmeal before you taste it). I also love baking pies and bread. making challah is fun!! I love new challenges (though yes, I made croissants once and nearly burned my kitchen down, lesson learned), macarons are my nemesis (yet I still try). I’m an experimenter in the kitchen, I deviate from recipes, and most of the time it turns out okay. Sometimes it’s wild. It’s fine. It’s baking.
Crafts: I’m a crafts person. Let’s just say I appreciate making little things—bracelets, earrings, clay charms, string bracelets, all of the above. i regularly spend tons of time making bracelets when I should have been writing. But is it fun? Absolutely. they’re usually centered around my favorite fandoms (they most recent were from The Magnus Archives, by the way, just in case you’re curious about my weird fandom tangents.) I love making accessories and getting the creative juices flowing (even if it means my desk is now covered in beads and clay bits and half-finished projects).
Tea Time: Ah yes, tea. I adore tea, but caffeine has a weird effect on me: I drink it, I get sleepy. Then I try to sleep, and I’m wide awake. It’s a lovely cycle. So mostly I stick to caffeine-free teas. My go-tos: chamomile, orange spice, mango passionfruit. If I’m feeling adventurous and want the caffeine, I’ll go for earl grey lavender or chai. Tea is amazing. I will take zero tea slander. Though full disclaimer: I have controversial methods. I used to use a kettle but then my sibling lost it at a summer program, so now I warm my water in the microwave. Apologize for nothing. Also: I only put milk (oat milk, yes) in caffeinated teas, not fruity ones. Controversial maybe, but i’m not sorry

Whew. We’re getting close to “okay-I’m-done” territory but I can’t stop now because there’s still a bit more to say.
I’ll be honest: sometimes I’m chaotic. My brain jumps from idea to idea, I sidetrack, I forget where I was going mid-sentence, I may or may not talk in parentheses a lot (see above). But I like that about myself. I like being that person because I think it means I see all the little things—the book jacket I paused on, the lyric I rewound twice, the flavor in a cookie that surprised me, the silhouette of a mountain I ran past before sunrise. And I hope in this session I’ll collect more “little things” with you all.
So if you’re reading this far: thank you. If you read the whole thing: wow. You’re stellar. If you want to talk about reading lists, writing playlists, secret baking recipes, crafting disasters, tea controversies, or just what your favourite fruit is (yes I’ll always ask you that because I’m basic and I swear it yields interesting answers), comment on my profile and tell me what your current favorite song is. I promise I’ll respond! (hopefully).
Okay I’ll wrap now (because I’m close to hitting that 1.5K mark and I said I’d go to 1k). So: thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chaotic ramble. I’m excited to meet everyone, connect, create, and basically do all the things. See you around SWC. Bye for now! – Toko

SWC
11/2 - 823 words
When Mara inherited the greenhouse, everyone in town assumed she’d sell it.
They remembered the way her grandmother had lived. Solitary, tending flowers as if they were a language only she could read. The place had been left to seed in the final months, vines curling through cracked glass, bees nesting in the rafters.
But Mara didn’t sell it. She began coming by in the afternoons, sleeves rolled to the elbow, cataloguing what had survived the neglect. She didn’t know what half the plants were called, only that some still bloomed where they shouldn’t have.
She found the ferns first, green even in the shadowed corner by the water barrel. Their leaves unfurled in patient spirals, soft as breath.
“You like things that hide,” said Kath, leaning in the doorway. Mara startled; she hadn’t heard her approach. Kath had worked with her grandmother years ago. She still had soil under her nails, still tied her hair back with twine instead of ribbon.
“They’re survivors,” Mara said, crouching to inspect the soil. “That’s all.”
Kath stepped closer. “You don’t really believe that.”
Mara didn’t answer.

Through the rest of the month, Kath started showing up whenever she pleased. She claimed it was to help catalog species, but mostly she talked—about the years she’d spent here, about the flowers that had names older than any of them.
“Your grandmother used to keep oleander by the front,” she said one evening, pointing at the bench by the door. “Pretty thing. Not to be trusted, though.”
Mara glanced up. “The plant or my grandmother?”
Kath smiled crookedly. “Both.”
They laughed, but the sound echoed strangely in the glass space. Outside, rain traced silver lines down the panes. The air smelled faintly of damp earth and something bitter.

In early spring, the forget-me-nots came back in a wild patch near the wall. Small, stubborn, bright. Mara hadn’t planted them; they’d chosen to return on their own.
Kath knelt beside them. “She loved these,” she said. “Used to give them away with the herbs. Said people needed a bit of remembrance with their medicine.”
“She was sentimental,” Mara murmured.
“She was careful,” Kath corrected. “There’s a difference.”
They worked in silence after that, repotting seedlings and sweeping fallen petals into piles. But every so often, Mara caught Kath watching her. Not with pity, but with a kind of quiet recognition.
Later, as dusk thickened, Kath lingered by the door. “You know,” she said, “you’ve got the same way she did of pretending not to feel things until they grow wild.”
Mara looked down at her dirt-streaked hands. “Maybe it runs in the family.”
Kath didn’t disagree.

The greenhouse became their world that spring, part sanctuary, part grave. They learned its moods—how the glass sang in the wind, how the air turned metallic before rain.
Kath started bringing cuttings from her own garden: violets, bay, rosemary. She said little about why she chose each one, and Mara didn’t ask. She arranged them along the central table, careful to give each space to breathe.
One afternoon, Mara found a violet pressed between the pages of her notebook, dark and fragrant, left without a note. It wasn’t a declaration; it was more like a pause, a held breath.
She didn’t mention it, but she began to notice more small offerings. A folded sprig of rosemary tucked into her coat pocket, a strand of bay leaves drying by the sink. Not courtship, exactly. More like translation.

Summer arrived suddenly, heavy with heat. The greenhouse bloomed with color and noise: bees, petals, the hum of the old fan struggling to keep up.
That was the day Kath brought the oleander back.
“Found one growing wild near the road,” she said, setting the pot on the bench. “Thought it deserved a place again.”
Mara eyed the pale blossoms. “You said not to trust them.”
“I said your grandmother couldn’t.”
Mara turned a leaf between her fingers. “And me?”
Kath shrugged. “Maybe you’re different.”
The words hung there, heavier than the air. For a long moment, neither of them looked away.
Outside, thunder murmured somewhere beyond the hills.

By late August, the greenhouse was full to bursting. Mara walked through each morning and felt something shift inside her, not quite peace, not quite understanding. Just a soft insistence that she belonged to the living again.
When Kath came to say she’d be leaving for a few months, family, work, other promises, Mara didn’t ask her to stay. She only nodded, as if the absence were another plant that would one day bloom back.
After Kath left, Mara kept tending the place alone. The ferns stayed green. The forget-me-nots spread. The oleander reached for the sun.
And every morning, she found something small left by the door: a pansy, a sprig of rosemary, once even a bay leaf pinned to the wood with a rusted nail.
None of them came with a note.
They didn’t need to.

SWC
11/3 - 784 words

When Maya’s phone buzzed with a message from her best friend,“World Jellyfish Day! Let’s celebrate!” she assumed it was a joke. Most people celebrated birthdays or anniversaries. But jellyfish? That was new.
“Celebrate how?” she texted back, half-laughing as she sipped her coffee.
Ten minutes later, she had her answer: “Beach trip. Bring snacks and your sense of adventure.”
Maya sighed. It was early November, not exactly beach weather, but she’d long since learned that saying no to Leila meant missing out on ridiculous, oddly magical afternoons. So she packed a thermos of hot chocolate, some cookies, and a towel that smelled faintly like last summer.
By noon, they were standing on the damp sand of Crescent Bay. The sky was the color of oatmeal, and the sea was calm. The kind of calm that made you feel like the world was holding its breath. A few gulls wheeled overhead, unimpressed by their enthusiasm.
Leila, as always, had gone all-in. She was wearing a hoodie printed with jellyfish, holding a sketchbook, and had somehow acquired a plastic crown. “For the Queen of the Jellies,” she announced with a grin. “That’s me.”
Maya laughed. “So, Your Majesty, what’s the royal plan?”
“Observation and appreciation,” Leila said solemnly. “We’re going to honor the jellyfish.”
“You mean… watch for them?”
“Exactly! They’re mysterious, beautiful, and basically floating blobs of poetry.”
Maya rolled her eyes but followed her friend toward the tide pools. At first, there wasn’t much to see. Just seaweed, small crabs, and a few shells. But then, beneath the surface of a shallow pool, something pulsed, slow and ghostlike.
“Look!” Leila whispered. “She’s here.”
A translucent jellyfish drifted gently, its bell rippling like silk in water. The sunlight caught on it, turning it gold around the edges. It looked too delicate to be real, like it might vanish if they blinked too hard.
“She’s beautiful,” Maya murmured. “Do you think she knows it’s her special day?”
Leila giggled. “Of course. She’s glowing for the occasion.”
They crouched there for a long while, just watching. Every now and then, a wave would roll closer, splashing their shoes. Maya felt oddly peaceful, as if the quiet rhythm of the jellyfish’s pulse was syncing with her own heartbeat.
“I read that jellyfish are ninety-five percent water,” Leila said. “They’re practically nothing, but somehow, they still exist. I think that’s kind of inspiring.”
“Hmm. So even if you feel like you’re mostly nothing, you can still shine?”
“Exactly!” Leila beamed. “That’s the spirit of World Jellyfish Day!”
They spent the afternoon exploring the shore. Leila drew sketches of jellyfish that looked suspiciously like flying saucers, while Maya attempted to take aesthetic photos that were all, frankly, a bit blurry. At one point, a wave sneaked up and soaked their socks completely. They howled with laughter, scrambling backward like startled seagulls.
By the time the sun dipped lower, the beach had turned pink and gold. Maya poured them both hot chocolate from her thermos, and they sat side by side on the sand.
“Do you think jellyfish ever get tired of drifting?” Maya asked.
Leila tilted her head. “Maybe not. I think they’ve mastered the art of going with the flow.”
“Wish I could do that,” Maya said quietly. “I’ve been stressing about my job lately, about not knowing what’s next.”
Leila nudged her shoulder. “You’re fine. You’re water too, in a way. Ninety percent, right? You’ll find your current.”
Maya smiled. “You should put that on a T-shirt.”
“I will. With a jellyfish on it, obviously.”
They watched the last of the light fade. The water glowed faintly under the first stars, and for a moment, the whole bay looked alive, with tiny flickers of bioluminescence dancing where the waves broke. Maya gasped.
“Look! The water’s sparkling!”
“Bioluminescent plankton,” Leila said softly. “They show up when it’s dark enough.”
It was like the ocean had decided to throw its own celebration, a silent fireworks show for World Jellyfish Day. The two friends stood barefoot in the glowing surf, laughing as the waves painted their toes in light.
When they finally headed home, sandy and shivering, Maya felt lighter. The day had started as a joke, but somehow, between the laughter, the glowing water, and that floating creature in the tide pool, something inside her had shifted. The world felt a little bigger, and she, maybe, a little more fluid in it.
Leila turned to her with a grin. “Same time next year?”
Maya nodded. “Absolutely. But next time, I’m bringing proper shoes.”
As they drove away, the sea shimmered behind them, full of unseen jellyfish pulsing gently through the dark, tiny reminders that even fragile things could glow.

SWC
11/4 - 546 words - Based off “I Only Paint in Red Now” by Lydia the Bard

The room smells like turpentine and copper.
It wasn’t always like this. There used to be sunlight here—bright yellow spilling across the canvas, laughter from the open window, the gentle scratch of brushes instead of the frantic scrape of palette knives. I used to paint gardens, people, warmth. I remember that. I think I remember that.
Now there’s only red.
It wasn’t a choice at first. The color bled in slowly. It was an accident, maybe, or a reflection of how I felt. The first painting was a portrait. Hers. I told myself it was only a study of shadows, of depth, of how red brings life to the skin. But when I finished, the eyes were wrong. Too alive. Too knowing. I couldn’t look at it for days.
When I finally turned it to the wall, I saw my hands were stained.
The others came easily after that. Landscapes dripping crimson; sunrises that looked like open wounds. My patrons called it “bold.” They said I had found my voice. I smiled and nodded, but every brushstroke felt like confession. The red kept spreading.
I don’t mix the color anymore. I don’t have to. It comes to me, thick and perfect, just the right hue. I tell myself I must be sleep-mixing the paint, some subconscious trick. But there are mornings when I wake to find streaks across the floorboards, tiny fingerprints on the doorknob, as if someone else has been working while I sleep.
Maybe that’s true. Maybe I’m not the one painting anymore.
Last night I dreamed of her again. She was standing in the studio doorway, the same way she did that night, her hair loose, her voice soft and sharp all at once. “You never see me,” she said. I was angry. I remember that. Angry enough to—
No.
That part’s gone. Just static in my mind.
The next thing I remember is the color. Not the moment, not the sound, just that impossible, brilliant red spreading beneath my hands.
When I woke the next morning, I painted for twelve hours straight. I didn’t stop to eat, or sleep, or wash. I painted her over and over: her eyes, her mouth, the curve of her neck. By midnight the walls were covered, dripping with the same shade I can’t seem to forget.
They tell me I should rest. That I’m overworked, that grief can twist the mind. The police stopped coming weeks ago. They say she’s “missing,” but I know where she is. I see her every day, smiling faintly from every canvas.
Sometimes, when the light hits the paint just right, it glistens, fresh and wet. Living.
And if I stand too close, I swear I can smell the faint trace of iron.
I used to paint with so many colors. Blues that reminded me of the sky after rain, soft greens for the fields outside the city. But now, when I open my eyes, all I can see is red.
It follows me. In my dreams, in my pulse, behind my eyelids. I tell myself it’s just paint. It has to be. But when I reach for the jar and dip the brush in again, the color’s already there—perfect, familiar, thick as blood.
And it always, always remembers her face.

In 1789, France stood at the brink of collapse. Decades of war, royal extravagance, and social inequality had strained the monarchy, while Enlightenment thinkers challenged the traditional hierarchy with new ideas about reason, rights, and government. The population suffered under heavy taxation and food shortages, even as the nobility and clergy preserved their privileges. When the Estates-General convened that spring for the first time in over a century, political tension erupted into revolution. Across Europe, monarchs watched in disbelief as the French people dismantled the monarchy, abolished feudal privilege, and proclaimed new principles of liberty and equality. What made this upheaval so radical was not only its violence and scope, but the unprecedented ideas it introduced about power, citizenship, and human rights. The French Revolution was radical because it fundamentally redefined political power, transferring sovereignty from divine monarchy to the collective will of the people. In doing so, it reshaped how French society understood authority, citizenship, and equality.

The French Revolution’s most radical act was replacing divine-right monarchy with a vision of sovereignty grounded in the collective will of the people, transforming power from something inherited to something earned through citizenship. The Declaration of Rights of Man declared that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights…the principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation.” These words directly undermined centuries of political theology in which monarchs justified their rule as the will of God. The Declaration’s assertion that “sovereignty resides essentially in the nation” reframed the foundation of power as secular and human instead of sacred and hereditary. This shift was radical because it made the people, not a king, the source of law and legitimacy. Maximilien Robespierre defended this transformation when he wrote that “it is the function of government to guide the moral and physical energies of the nation toward the purposes for which it was established.” By claiming that the state existed to serve the public good rather than the ruler’s will, Robespierre extended the Revolution’s logic into governance, redefining the government’s duty as protection of liberty. In this new vision, power became a social contract between citizens and their representatives, not a divine entitlement, making a contract that demanded accountability instead of obedience. Bentley described this change, noting that “leaders repudiated existing society, often referred to as the ancien régime (“the old order”), and sought to replace it with new political, social, and cultural structures.” The Revolution became not merely a transfer of rule, but a total rethinking of legitimacy. By turning subjects into citizens and divine authority into civic consent, revolutionaries introduced a new political morality where power must serve the people it governed. The destruction of monarchy was not only an act of rebellion but an act of creation, making a system where the state’s authority rested on human reason and collective choice rather than hierarchy or inheritance.

The French Revolution’s radicalism lay in its redefinition of power and its creation of a new social order. By replacing divine-right monarchy with popular sovereignty, transforming law into an expression of the general will, and seeking to rebuild society around reason and equality, the Revolution established the intellectual foundation for modern democracy. Its promises may have been imperfect and its tensions enduring, but its influence was irreversible. It transformed the idea of government by the people from a rare exception to a lasting expectation, inspiring movements for reform across the world. The Revolution’s true radicalism did not lie in its destruction of the old order but in the creation of a new one where authority flowed upward from the people rather than downward from the throne.

SWC
Nov 6 - 356 words
The sun was warm that autumn morning, casting golden light over the pumpkin patch. I was nestled among my brothers and sisters, each of us round and proud, soaking up the last rays of the season. My name is Patch (yes, like the place I come from) and I’ve been waiting all year for this moment: harvest time. Every pumpkin dreams of being chosen. Some hope to become delicious pies or hearty soups. Others long to be carved into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting up porches on Halloween night.
Me? I wanted to shine, literally. I dreamed of sitting in the window of the biggest house in town, glowing bright with a candle inside me. But as the farmers came by, they picked the biggest pumpkins first. Then they picked the roundest. Then the smoothest. By the end of the day, only a few of us were left, including me—small, a little lopsided, and speckled with green freckles that never quite faded.
Days passed. The nights grew colder. The others were taken one by one, and I started to think I’d be left behind. Until one crisp morning, a little girl in a red coat came running through the rows. She stopped right in front of me and smiled. “This one,” she said, her mittened hand brushing against my side. “He’s perfect.”
She took me home and set me on the porch. Her family didn’t carve me, not yet. Instead, they painted me. I got a wide grin, bright blue eyes, and even a tiny top hat made of black felt. I didn’t glow like the jack-o’-lanterns down the street, but I did shine in another way. Neighbors stopped to compliment the little girl’s pumpkin. Photos were taken. I felt proud, truly proud, of the freckles I’d once thought were flaws.
When winter came and the snow began to fall, my paint faded, and my hat blew away. But before the frost settled, the little girl whispered to me, “See you next fall, Patch.” And for the first time, I believed I’d come back. Not as a pumpkin in a patch, but as part of someone’s favorite autumn memory.