March 1st, 2026 Daily:

In true SWC fashion (or tradition), I will be attempting another 1k intro. By the way, I feel I should forewarn you that these inevitably devolve into me rambling about all my obsessions. That’s just how I am!


Anyway, I’m Snowy (she/her), and this session, I’m leading Dystopian Expedition 22 along with the marvelous Skylar and Silvi. This is my ninth session of SWC so far, which is honestly kind of crazy to think about, because it really doesn’t feel like that long ago that I joined for the first time.

I live in Singapore and have for the past slightly under six years, but before that, I lived in the U.S. I have a younger sister and a cat named Sugar, hence my username. Not the part about my sister.

Before I get on to my very writerly habits, I figure I’ll tell you a few things about some of my other hobbies and passions!

Firstly, I’m a soccer player, and I’ve been playing since I was in kindergarten! So for eleven years now. Wow. I play left wing, usually, though I enjoy positions like striker (never mind the fact that I can’t shoot to save my life, but it’s fun to be in the action a little more) and right wing as well. This year for soccer, I was the captain of my school’s JV team, and next school year, I hope to make varsity! We’ll see about that, because there are a lot of people better than me, so I’d better work on that fast-

I also enjoy baking! That is, when I feel like it. I’m kind of our friend group’s designated baker, so I’ll bake cookie bars or whatever for everyone’s birthday! I don’t have nearly as much time to bake anymore as I used to, but I enjoy experimenting when I’m free.

Like a lot of people, I’m also a huge fan of music! One of my main hobbies is playing piano, and I particularly enjoy sightreading random things and/or playing the chords for songs I know and trying to get the melodies by ear, though lately I’ve been doing less of that. I’m currently playing a bunch of songs from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 which is a video game that I really, really like (more on that later, I promise). The ones I’m actively learning from it are Alicia, which I have just gotten memorized and am trying to improve the second page a little more, Old Lumière - Révérence (GORGEOUS piece, oh my goodness), and Renoir (this one is so fun, but I am sorely lacking in the accuracy at the moment). As for listening to music, I really enjoy indie and pop (along with all their subgenres), though I do have a tendency to forget that I like folk a lot as well! My two absolute favorite artists are Gracie Abrams and BLÜ EYES, but others up on that list include Maisie Peters, Noah Kahan, Em Beihold, Lorien Testard, Maëlle, Cœur de Pirate, Louane, and a bunch of other artists. Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that I also like listening to French music. No, I do not speak the language (but I’m going to take a course next year!), but I enjoy it nonetheless, and I’d like to say I’ve learned a couple of words and phrases here and there simply by osmosis.

One interesting fact about me is that I’m a triple citizen! I’m Singaporean, American, and Swiss. This was a random interjection, but I just thought that, so whatever.

Now, onto the more wordy things!

Like many writers, I am a MASSIVE bookworm, oh my goodness. I could actually talk to you about books all day—that is, if I wasn’t an introvert. My favorite genres are realistic fiction, poetry, and mystery (though that’s a bit hit or miss). Last year, I read like 140 books, plus or minus a little bit because I’ve genuinely forgotten, and this year, I’ve read eleven so far, plus a little extra. I’m very behind on my goal, according to Goodreads, but I guess I’m just going to leave catch up to the summer and stuff? Yeah, I don’t really know. I’m currently reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which is like a fictionalized memoir, and I’m roughly 15% of the way through that one. Unfortunately, I have forgotten who the author of that one is, and I’m not really in the mood to check. The other book I’m reading—well, actually, I’m rereading it—is Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television by Todd S. Purdum.

Speaking of TV, I don’t really have time to watch it very much, but my favorite movies are the movie adaptation of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Dead Poets Society, and Enola Holmes Two. My favorite TV shows are BBC Sherlock, Silo, Severance, and I Love Lucy!

Okay, back to the books! One of my most formative influences in writing was The Hunger Games, which remains one of my all-time favorite series. In particular, I really enjoyed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, because OH MY GOODNESS. I’m also super excited for the movie of Sunrise on the Reaping to come out, which I will probably watch for my birthday, since it comes out like a week and a half before I turn seventeen. (GUYS, I’m going to turn seventeen? That’s a weird thought. This is, of course, about nine months in advance that I’m thinking about this, but still.) My other favorite series is The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang, which I actually only just finished in really early January, but I’m still reeling from that? Oh my goodness, what an ending, what a series, what a writer. This brings me to my next point: my favorite author. I have recently decided that my favorite author is R. F. Kuang, which is sad that it took me this long to decide that because otherwise I could have actually introduced myself to her and said that when I met her back in November, but I guess that I just have to hope I somehow will get the chance to meet her again at some point. Other authors I really like, though, include Ocean Vuong, Ruta Sepetys, Kathleen Glasgow, and probably a bunch of others that I am currently forgetting. As for favorite standalones, I’d have to say those are probably I Fell in Love With Hope by Lancali and Babel, also by R. F. Kuang.

I’ve also reached the 1k point by now, but I still have SO much more to ramble about, sooo-

Okay, writing! I started writing for fun when I was twelve, and it really started as Hunger Games fanfiction. When I turned thirteen, though, I started writing more for my own enjoyment, coming up with my own plots and ideas. I absolutely love writing realistic fiction, poetry, and some other things that really just fall under the umbrella of “extraordinarily visceral and spur of the moment” because I…uh. I am not very good at plot or character, so feeling is what I go with. Anyway, I haven’t been writing as much lately for my own enjoyment because I’ve just been so insanely busy, so most of my writing has been because I need to get applications or whatever for class in, etc., etc. This session, I hope to get back into writing for fun and to express myself! I also have to/want to work on that short story I started for my club, because that’s actually due quite soon, but I just have not been in the mood to write it lately. Ideally if I can finish drafting that one and then get done drafting a second by the end of the session would be great, which would mean that I really am planning to write four short stories this session—two for my club, one for the writing comp, and one for the fanfic entry of the writing comp. I forgot to mention that I’m the leader (one of them, anyway) for my school’s creative writing club, and we’re working on a collaborative anthology which we hope to publish in the fall!

AND FINALLY, THE PART YOU ALL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR. IN WHICH SNOWY GOES CRAZY ABOUT HER OBSESSIONS.

So the good news is that you already got through music, which I will stop talking about because I have other things to do today and should probably get to them instead of just rambling, sobbing- But there’s still sooo much to talk about!


I’m a massive fan of BBC Sherlock, and I really enjoy reading fan theories, incorrect quotes, and whatever else from this fandom. I haven’t actually read all the original Sherlock Holmes stories (I’ve only read A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles), but I hope to one day get around to that! I have an increasingly long TBR and an increasingly little amount of free time to get to it.

If you have anything you want to talk to me about regarding The Hunger Games, message me because I don’t feel like going through and screaming right here currently. I do need to reread the series again, though, since it’s been a full year?? Anyway, I’ve read the main series somewhere in the 12–14 times range, but I have forgotten the exact number at this point. I’m pretty sure I’ve read TBoSaS six times, but once again, I’ve kind of lost track at this point. I’ve also read Sunrise on the Reaping, but only once, sadly.

SO R. F. KUANG. Oh my goodness, if I tell you how jealous I am of her. She’s just so incredible, literally like everything I want to be in life, etc., etc. I have always wanted to write spec fic that, like TPW and THG, questions systems in our world and stuff, but I haven’t quite figured out the plots for them because like. I’m bad at that! But the way she fuses history and fantasy and commentary on injustices in this world is just…oh my goodness. Yeah, that’s all I’ve got. You know, sometimes, I’ll just be in my history class going about my day and reading stuff on Pin because we’re rarely doing anything much in the class itself (never mind the fact that we get like three hours of homework from it every class, hahaha) and then I’ll come across some post about The Poppy War that just makes me question everything all over again. Anyway, reading her books is such emotional torture but we love her for it!! Please ramble to me about this as well. Oh, and I will be restarting The Poppy War again next week because I have convinced my friends to do a book club with me for it, so that will be fun!

I’m also a big fan of this British improv comedy group called Shoot From the Hip! They have a lot of silly games and stuff that they do (my favorites are letter of complaint, party quirks, freeze tag, and change, I think), and they’ll also do whole movie-like stories. My favorites of their long form plays are Clarissa’s DIY Wedding, Sorry About My Nan, The Sins of the Gardener, The Milkman, The Off-Season, and a bunch of others I’m probably forgetting. I enjoy quoting their short jokes at my friends, but unfortunately, a lot of them are more situationally funny and don’t work as well when you haven’t got the setup. That’s alright, I suppose.

And, of course, how can I end this without talking about Clair Obscur? From late May to sometime in October, I was utterly engrossed in this incredible dark fantasy/dystopian indie turn based role play game called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I am still very obsessed with it. In fact, I’m currently listening to the whole soundtrack again, never mind the fact that it’s over eight hours long! Anyway, the whole thing is just the best game I’ve ever played, and ohhhh my goodness, I have so much to say about this. It’s a gorgeous representation of stuff I can’t say without spoiling the ending (caught myself at the last second there), and the art is beautiful, the music is insanely good, the storyline is masterful, and the characters are all so flawed and real and human, and basically, yeah, it’s like my favorite thing ever. I’m on a mission to convince more people to play it, as you can probably tell from my constant rambles about it plus the fact that I’ve literally themed a whole cabin after it, hahaha- So far, I’ve gotten two of my friends to start playing it, one of them to continue playing it, and I’ve found a couple of people in real life who have also played it! Which is absolutely lovely. However, given the amount I ramble about this game (it genuinely lives rent-free in my head, and I have an inability to allow that NOT to come out of my mouth), probably enough people know at least the basic premise that I haven’t yet convinced them to play entirely. In essence: I love Clair Obscur, and it’s one of my favorite things ever. Go play it. Please. And then ramble to me about it.

Tiny little thing that I forgot about earlier, but I also love history! I’m currently participating in a history competition which I am waiting to hear back results from. Waiting is painful.

That’s about all I can think of at the moment! By this point, we’re well over 1k (and I’m slightly devolving into madness here, sorry about that), so I guess I’ll end this here. See you all…whenever I see you!

~Snowy
~
Word count: 2,288 words

March 2nd, 2026:

Together, we write a song no one has heard before. Sprawled across the floor of her studio (or, more accurately, her basement), we play with lyrics and rhythm and rhyme and reason, and we pretend the stories we’re telling are all fiction, when really, they’re the only truth in our lives.

Our band will be great, we say. Her vocals, me on drums. Everyone will love us, we promise each other, more reassurances than anything else. One day, we’ll make it big.

We are young and happy, and for now, we do not know anything.

***

Now, it’s dark out, and I sketch out plans for a battle none of us want to fight. The planning is a delicate balance, but more than that is the grand strategy; how much can we take away? How much can we survive with?

I write until sunrise, until I’m practically clawing out my hair by the roots, and those reassurances we used to give ourselves mean next to nothing. That was for a fiction, but this is reality. A lifetime ago, we planned our lives around something bigger than us, yet our desires were so very worldly. Innocence marred by war, we do not speak anymore of being known, only of being alive.

***

Promotions in war should mean something, but I’m only haunted by the echoes of the dead. This position would not have been mine if not for a death in our ranks.

And even still, one life means little in the greater game of war. Sacrifices upon sacrifices, moving pieces and unmoving bodies in service of the bigger picture.

Before we knew this world, we thought death was messy. We feared it, because oblivion meant impermanence, and impermanence meant being forgotten. The world outside was fantastical, and the little bubble we lived in was all we had to remember—that was what mattered.

Our past selves were wrong in many ways. Survival’s what’s messy.

***

We write revolution into the history books and mean life, because it’s all we have left to believe in. One more life to regain the things we’ve lost. One more chance—

On the field, we stare death right in the face and dare to defy it. There may be no way out, but this will be the beginning of something worth remembering. In the midst of war, our last efforts will be unforgettable, and we will sing of homeland and possibility.

Together, we write a song no one has heard before.
~
Word count: 412 words

March 3rd, 2026 Daily:

I did not expect to be greeted by an army (or what is the word for it? Ah, never mind) of mudskippers the moment I entered the mangrove forest, but nonetheless, I was. They bounded over—or hopped, I guess—before sitting at my feet rather primly, and if I didn’t know better, I’d honestly think they were trying to get my attention.

Before this week, I’d known next to nothing about the creatures, but my impromptu decision to visit the island a short boat ride away from my home meant that I spent at least a couple of hours planning. I looked online to find out what I’d see, making sure that I knew every contingency, along with all the other fun logistics planning that comes with deciding to travel.

This was probably a smart move, because otherwise, I would have been more than a little terrified of the amphibious fish that stared up at me and seemed to retract their eyeballs into their heads. Thank goodness for the internet, because I nearly screamed even knowing what they were.

The odd thing is, when I read online last week, I didn’t get the impression that mudskippers were particularly friendly creatures at all. I thought they were the kind of animals that would prefer to stick to their hideaways and just avoid people. A little like me, I suppose.

But these mudskippers are anything but introverted, and I inch myself forward only to find that they follow me like puppies.

How odd, I think. This was not what I expected at all.

The good news, at least, is that this group of mudskippers following me ensures my personal space. All those kindergarten lessons about your personal space bubble being defined as the distance you could swing your arms as you pivoted around must have rubbed off on the mudskippers in some way, because they kept people away. Of course, they also got me a number of funny looks, but who cared? For once, it seemed, I had friends. Hundreds of friends. And, even better, I had no humans to bother me.

This, it seems, is living the life.
~
Word count: 356 words

March 5th, 2026 Daily:

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel to the well-beloved Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. It follows the story of young Coriolanus Snow, who, after being orphaned by war, lives day to day with his cousin, Tigris, and grandmother. They survive on cabbage soup and Tigris’s meager earnings, but Coriolanus, attending the most prestigious Academy in Panem, will do anything in his power to prevent the truth from getting out: the Snows, once rich, now have nothing to their names.

When granted the opportunity to mentor a tribute in the Tenth Hunger Games, Coriolanus is ecstatic—until he finds that his tribute is the girl from District Twelve, which couldn’t be more of a slap in the face. Still, he’s determined to secure a scholarship into university by winning with his tribute, a performer called Lucy Gray.

In contrast to the main series’ first person narration, Collins creates compelling narrative distance through her use of third person. Throughout the story, Coriolanus strives for power, and for every bit more he gets, he desires it more. Collins draws parallels to the historical continuity of power cycles: power corrupts. However, she demonstrates through Coriolanus’s character that charisma and the use of believable, palatable lies to seemingly justify his character to the audience. In forcing us to confront ourselves for internal biases and a desire for justification, she paints a picture of evil embellished until the reader questions whether Coriolanus is truly “bad,” likening the character arc to politics’ tendency to manipulate.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes deftly weaves violence, love, ambition, and power into a flawlessly-executed storyline. Through graceful prose and intricate character revelation, Suzanne Collins’ prequel successfully adds another dimension to her preexisting series. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a must-read for any Hunger Games fan and a book you’ll come back to again and again.
~
Word count: 310 words

Part One
Name: Katherine “Kate” Smith (formerly known as Katie when she was younger)
Age: 26
Birthday: September 24th
Personality: Growing up, Kate was much more of an introvert, and she always liked to have her nose in a book rather than talking to people—except if it was Audrey (see below). She was easily excitable and would often be pretty awkward in social situations. Now, she’s become much more extroverted and well-versed in social norms. Curious and hardworking, it would be easier for anyone to think she has everything down. However, she still feels like a bit of an outsider, though she’s not the kind of person who’d mention it. Even though she’s more of an extrovert now than she used to be, she refuses to hazard telling people deeper things about herself.
Audrey Myers: Kate’s former best friend, who moved away when Audrey was twelve and Kate was eleven. She’s incredibly shy, but since she and Kate were forced together when their parents decided they should each meet some of their new classmates before starting kindergarten, they’ve grown to be practically inseparable. However, after Audrey moved, the two of them largely fell out of touch, and when Audrey comes back to visit for the first time in over a decade, they struggle to reconnect, having both moved on with their lives without each other.
Appearance: 5’6”, slightly wavy long brown hair, brown eyes

(232 words)

Part Two

Left to right, top to bottom:
1. I imagine Kate looks something like this, with long brown hair. I imagine she would also wear hoodies, at least when she’s on her own.
2. Symbolizes her friendship with Audrey before she moved
3. Kate has brown eyes, I guess?
4. Okay, so I didn’t mention this in part one, but the story where Kate appears is actually canonically based on/set in San Francisco, so yeah. I imagine she goes for runs to the Golden Gate Bridge early in the morning and hangs out by the beach there.
5. This symbolizes Kate’s isolation—even if she’s learned to fit in better, she still feels a bit closed off from people and sometimes prefers to be alone.
6. Symbolizing Kate’s beginnings as a much more introverted, bookish person! I imagine she’s a fan of historical fiction, but that could just be me.
7. Cable cars! Once again a nod to San Francisco, but also because in my story, she takes Audrey around town when the latter comes back for a visit for the first time in years. It’s very awkward. But they would definitely take the cable car, and they’d both feel all the more like outsiders for it.
8. A lot of Kate’s life and relationships center around the distance between the past and the presence, and this kind of encapsulates the bittersweet feelings she has toward her memories—she wants to move on, but she’s also constantly surrounded by reminders. (Plus: I know I have canonically made Kate an aspiring first responder, but also? I could kind of see her as a media person)

(274 words)

Part Three:

Hugo Pent slung his book bag over his shoulder as he rushed to class, checking his watch as he walked. Five minutes was enough time to make it to divination at a comfortable pace with an extra minute to spare, but Hugo abided greatly by the idea that to be on time was to be late. His sneakers squeaked against the pavement, and he winced. He ought to get better shoes so he wouldn’t be quite so much of a disturbance.

Someone came sprinting up to him, which Hugo ignored until he heard the voice. “Hey, wait up a minute, would you?”

Rejean. Hugo slowed slightly but didn’t stop. “I haven’t got all the time in the world, you know.”

“You’re right,” Rejean agreed. “But you have three minutes. Besides, you’re practically running there.”

He was right, Hugo supposed, but still. “Actually, you’re just slow.”

Rejean raised a hand to his mouth in mock offense, saying, “Well, if that’s how it’s going to be—”

“Relax, I’m kidding.”

“Mhm,” Rejean said, drawing out the word, but the two of them smile at each other for a fraction of a second.

“Okay, I really do have to go now,” he told Rejean, abruptly ending the banter. Two minutes. “Dean Torlin will kill me if I’m late to his class, and besides, it wouldn’t look good anyway. Imagine what everyone would say if I was shirking my duties.”

Rejean sighed at his friend and patted Hugo on the back as they turned into the stairwell. “Aw, Hugo, everyone loves you.”

“Yeah, right.” He rolled his eyes, thinking of at least a few people for whom the dislike was mutual. “See you later?”

“Obviously.”

***

After divination, Hugo spared a few minutes to check out a couple of new books from the library at Dean Torlin’s request. The weight of his book bag was definitely tipping his center of balance to the right by this point, but it was a necessary cost of learning. Anything for his education. And now: the cafeteria, where he’d meet Rejean.

Rejean had a schedule of his own. As the heir to the lord of Elm University, he could come and go as he pleased, and no one would ever accuse him of inconsistency without incurring the wrath of his father. Luckily for Hugo, Rejean liked him well enough to make time whenever the latter had free time—after all, being a divination apprentice meant a demanding schedule, so their meetings tended to depend upon Hugo’s availability.

“I’ve had a realization,” Rejean said ever so slightly too loudly, and Hugo cringed. A couple of heads turned to look at the odd divination apprentice, even if it wasn’t him who made the remark. He glared at them until they went back to their own meals.

“Sorry.” Hugo turned to face Rejean again. “I’m listening now.”

“Okay, firstly: ignore them.” Rejean thought he was being sage, and Hugo loved him for it, but really, he should know by now that ignoring wasn’t exactly Hugo’s thing. Besides, the contempt in their expressions gave away their thoughts easily enough. You don’t belong here. Freeloader. The same things he’d questioned on his own time and time again. Hugo shook the thoughts away.

“Secondly, as I was saying, I think—” Rejean lowered his voice—“that we may have a lead on the mystery that is your family.”

Hugo inched forward in his seat. “Oh? Do tell.”

(569 words)

Part Four:

Kate always wanted to travel; there was something mystical about just…going places. Seeing the world, knowing that you were one tiny part of it yet could experience something so much greater.

She loved San Francisco, she did, but lately, the world had been feeling a little too small for her—and more than that, a little too distant. No one in San Francisco knew her, not anymore. So she checked the plane tickets available and settled on a domestic flight next week to the town best known for its prestigious school of divination: Elm University.

After checking the weather for the forecast (it was, after all, the middle of April, and who knew what weather that could bring?), she threw a pile of clothes into the biggest suitcase she owned. They stuck out haphazardly, but it wasn’t like it was a long trip, and she could afford to take up a little extra space. Entertainment wouldn’t, strictly speaking, be necessary, but Kate still felt a little off without putting a small stack of books in the bag—carry over, perhaps, from when she was younger and read far more voraciously than she did now.

The day of her flight came quickly, and she sent out a last few messages before packing up her work and driving the twelve miles to San Mateo for the plane. Six hours of flying later, she breathed a sigh of relief as she exited the plane ramp into the main terminal.

The red-eye meant she got there early in the morning, so by eight, she was already out and checking into her hotel. She’d scheduled a tour of Elm for noon, thinking, You can’t say you’ve been without visiting the university. Never mind the fact that she’d already aged out of college a few years previously.

Still, it would be an adventure. It’d be good for her to get out of town for a while.

***

Hugo secretly resented being asked to give a tour around his university to someone who evidently could not care less, having no reason to get a degree from Elm anyway, but for the sake of preserving his reputation, he went along with the idea anyway. Horrible as it was.

The woman introduced herself as, “Kate,” and said she was there for the weekend from San Francisco, after which time, she said little else. They walked in silence, and Hugo wished desperately he could have given this responsibility to Rejean, who would have been infinitely better at welcoming people to the school. It helped that he was the lord’s son. At last, they reached Hugo’s favorite place on campus, the one place he could talk about with this stranger with relatively less awkwardness.

“Here,” he said, pointing to the familiar building in the front of the tall hedges, “is where I study. Divinity, under Dean Torlin.”

That got her attention. “Divinity, huh? I read that’s pretty exclusive.” She paused. “You must be quite the student, then.”

Hugo had the strange urge to laugh—she knew nothing about it. Hardly anyone could say that he truly deserved the position, and besides, most people suspected he only was apprenticed to Dean Tomlin for his connection with Rejean. Something about nepotism, but he didn’t want to think about that more than he had to.

“So…what do you learn in divination?” Kate asked, her eyes widening slightly as she spoke. She kept doing that. It annoyed him.

Hugo let the question hang in the air for a few seconds before speaking. “Communing with spirits, among other things.”

“Huh.”

“You’re judging me, aren’t you?” he said slowly.

“No, no, it’s just…interesting. I don’t know much about the subject.”

That much, Hugo thought, was evident.

(615 words)

Growing apart:
I don’t remember there ever being a time where she wasn’t in my life before we moved. My mom and her mom were good friends, and we were born within a couple of weeks of each other, so practically as soon as we existed, we were friends. It was the kind of thing that’s written in all those middle grade storybooks, but this one was real. We slept over at each other’s houses probably before kindergarten. She moved first, an hour outside the city, but we’d go up and see her every couple of months, and it would be completely normal, like nothing had ever changed. I called her my best friend even though I never saw her at school. She came to all my birthday parties. My sister and I once slept over at her house on no notice, so we borrowed her clothes and spent the night away from our parents. My mom mentioned the other day how we used to go out for ramen with her and her mom all the time. I don’t remember any of it anymore.

Losing hope:
I subscribed to the New York Times a few years ago for school because they told us it was good to keep up with the news, to know what’s going on in the world. I haven’t unsubscribed, but every morning, I delete the messages from my inbox without ever reading the headlines. I figure that’s the worst thing I can do, because I don’t want to see all the attention-grabbing negativity of the world. Over the summer, we exited a bookstore to find the police from five counties in the parking lot, searching cars to find the perpetrator of the shooting in the library. My classes ask my opinion on current day issues. I read an article about America’s crisis for hope—I don’t want to be one of those people who’ve lost any semblance of hope for the future, but I sometimes wonder if I already am. I still don’t read the news.

On being introverted:
I remember going to the bathroom one day during recess when I must have been in second grade or something and being scared out of my wits when I heard the voices of a couple of middle schoolers. I paced around my stall until I was sure they’d left because I hated the thought of other people. In fifth grade recess, I read my book for months, and the counselor made me promise I’d play with other people for at least a couple of days a week. In seventh, I wasn’t quite so afraid to talk, but still. I hold conversations in my head about all the things I so desperately but don’t know how to force out of my mouth, and I have all these scripts written but don’t ever use them when I need them. People think I’m extroverted, but they don’t realize how small the tip of the iceberg they see is.

About the tiny things we did to keep ourselves human, 2020–2022:
COVID came with terror in our city, and it didn’t help that my family was already moving. I gave a presentation about Singapore to my class to announce our move only a few weeks before everything shut down and I barely got to see anyone after that. On Zoom calls for class, my friends and I would use the direct message feature to chat with each other, not realizing then that the teachers could see everything that we wrote. I set up a tent outside for my school project and slept down there one night with my sister, and another night, we pitched the tent on the deck instead and all four of us slept out there (a significantly more uncomfortable way to camp than on regular grass, by the way). Before we moved, I slept over at my friend’s place for the first time, and her sister wanted to watch Coco, but I was scared for some reason, so we folded origami paper stars and played Game of Life instead. She gave me an origami book, and for the two weeks we spent confined to a hotel room after getting off the flight to Singapore, my sister and I got rather good at origami. We called our friends then, even though our eyes hurt from being on screens so much. We had to or else we thought we might go crazy—and besides, it was the closest thing to a proper goodbye we were going to get.
~
Word count: 755 words

March 12th, 2026 Daily:

In the session that dwarves enter the realm of Scratch Writing Camp, there is chaos.

This isn’t anything particularly out of the ordinary, of course; SWC is a place known for its chaotic members and equally chaotic activities. However, the dwarves only added to the utter mischief involved in the triannual camp. The dwarves have a very important task: they guard the goats. More specifically, the mountain goats.

But that’s a story for later.

The first thing you need to know about the Swiss dwarves is that they are, generally speaking, very good natured. They love people, and their ever so slightly (but not too extroverted) characteristics made them fit in particularly well in the realm of SWC. Although they were new campers, they easily found their ways into friend groups—or rather, the singular, very big friend group that is otherwise known as…the Main Cabin.

The second thing that you ought to know about the dwarves is that they can also be very chaotic at times, playing pranks when they’ve been mistreated or insulted

And with that, we bring you to the heart of this story: the day the dwarves launched an all-out attack on Cabin Wars.

It began with a simple act of thievery.

A little dwarf named Julian one day popped out of his little hidey-hole in the Paranormal Black Forest, leaving behind his stash of magical cheese.

This cheese, of course, being magical and all that, was particularly special. This cheese was a never-ending, infinite cheese that seemed to defy all laws of the universe. So long as there was a bit of this magical cheese left after a meal, the cheese would replenish itself.

Only, Gurtle the turtle snuck into Julian’s hidey-hole and took the cheese. Not just took the cheese but ate it. The entire block of it.

Julian, upon coming back home, screamed. How could his cheese be gone? This was years and years of work, his best cheese so far. His specialty. And all of a sudden, poof. The cheese was gone.

Now, this was a great injustice to Julian the dwarf. He scoured the entire camp for Gurtle in search of vengeance for his missing and now forever lost cheese, but Gurtle was nowhere to be found.

Being the mascot that he was, Gurtle must have been under the protection of all of the SWCers, or at least, that’s what Julian believed. He ran as fast as his little feet could carry him (remember, he’s a dwarf, and he isn’t very tall) to the center of the cabin, wildly accusing anyone and everyone he saw of sheltering the mascot.

“YOU THERE!” he screamed at Snowy, who stumbled back, affronted and mildly terrified at the anger of the little man. “YOU’RE HIDING SOMETHING.”

Snowy shook her head violently. “I’m not, I promise.”


“Hmmm,” Julian said, giving her a look that made it very clear that he did not even remotely believe that she didn’t have a part in the thievery. Still, he moved on to his next targets: the hosts. “YOU! YOU AND YOUR MISBEHAVED, HORRIBLE TURTLE.” He took a deep breath, for all the screaming was tiring him out more than just a little bit. “YOU TRAINED HIM TERRIBLY. HE STOLE MY CHEESE.”

And with this, Julian broke down sobbing.

Practically the entire camp rushed to comfort him, but it was no use. Julian was inconsolable. Finally, he up and left, demanding everyone leave him alone. He was done with SWC, he said.

But the next day was cabin wars, and the cabins had no idea what they were in for.

The descriptions began to disappear, bit by bit. The leaderboard began to malfunction. Then, suddenly, comments started turning off randomly too, and the forums were down for hours as the writing competition deadline passed.

“What’s going on?” all the SWCers demanded of each other, utterly despairing. Sadly, none of them had an answer for anyone else.

They did their best to restore the comments and forums and everything else for cabin wars, but every time they created a new place, devised a cleverer measure…gone! Julian the dwarf was smarter, it seemed than they’d thought.

At the end of cabin wars, when the hosts had finally decided to reschedule the event, Julian stepped on top of one of the tables and held a megaphone to his mouth. “Attention all campers in the Scratch Writing Camp,” he began. “You may be wondering who I am. I am Julian, the one responsible for the cabin wars chaos.” He took a deep breath. “You may be thinking this is unwarranted but—” he eyed everyone, surveying the scene carefully— “given the unfairness of Gurtle, I believe that I act only in the name of justice. You have destroyed the only piece of my cheese in existence, so if you want Scratch Writing Camp to get back to normal, you must make me a magical cheese. One that’s as good, if not better, than the one I made. You have twenty four hours.”

And then he hopped off the table without a “good luck” or a “goodbye” or anything of that sort. Thus, the entirety of Scratch Writing Camp turned to Scratch Cheese-making Camp as they struggled to produce the finest magical cheese there ever was—fearing losing any more days of camp to Julian the dwarf.
~
Word count: 889 words

March 13th, 2026 Daily:

“John!” Sherlock called loudly from the living room, straightening his bow tie. For all he knew, John was elsewhere, perhaps getting groceries, but Sherlock could hardly be bothered with going to check. Possibly at some point, John had mentioned where he was going. Possibly Sherlock had responded. But Sherlock’s mind was now focused solely on the task at hand: getting through this dinner party.

It’s for a case, he told himself as he smoothed out his suit. Sherlock wasn’t lying to himself, not entirely; the dinner was to investigate the latest lead on Moriarty, but he and John both had been talking around the subject for days, neither saying it but both thinking it would feel like a date.

After some time of no response, Sherlock gave up waiting for John. He must be out, Sherlock reasoned, rather belatedly.

No sooner had the clock struck six than Sherlock called a cab to the restaurant. Dinner was six thirty. He still had plenty of time, plenty of time to think about it and plan. When the driver pulled up to the curb, he delivered the address and began to get in the right frame of mind: deductions. He told himself it was for the case, always for the case, and not an attempt to ignore the rush of adrenaline.

The cabbie only drove because it was the only job that would take him, but even they mistrusted him. Criminal record, misdemeanors. He wanted desperately to get out of London, but where else was there to go?

“You from around here?” the cabbie asked. Sherlock suppressed the urge to scoff. Obviously. You would have read it by my clothes if you were any less of an idiot.

Verbally, though, he went with a simple, “Yes.” Sherlock was not in the mood for conversation.

He arrived at the restaurant at precisely 6:28 p.m., perfect timing, so John wouldn’t think he was desperate, but not so late that he questioned the arrival.

“I have a reservation,” Sherlock told the maître d’, trying hard not to glance at his watch and wonder when John would be there.

The maître d’ didn’t even bother to look up. “Under what name?” It wasn’t often that people around London didn’t recognize him, but it was a sort of breath of fresh air.

“Holmes. Sherlock Holmes.” He paused before adding, “The other in my party will be here soon.” 6:31 now.

When John finally did arrive, sitting down roughly on the chair opposite Sherlock, he announced his presence with a sigh of irritation and words delivered rather quickly, at least according to John’s standards. “We’ve really hit rock bottom now, haven’t we?”

Dinner? Was that what he was talking about? Sherlock hated the thought of it, even if John had been referring to something else entirely. All of a sudden, he was made keenly aware of absolutely everything that could go wrong.

Thankfully, John clarified: “You know, waiting around for a confirmed murderer?”

“John,” Sherlock said carefully, “lower your voice. There are people here.”

John gave him a look, and Sherlock kicked himself for stating the obvious. Who was he stating the things right in front of their eyes? He was meant to be the genius Sherlock Holmes.

“You don’t think it’s a bit…I don’t know, macabre?” John asked, shaking his head like there was a right answer to the question.

“Hunting him down directly was less than optimal,” Sherlock offered, scanning the doorway, waiting for Moriarty to appear within it.

“Ha. Optimal.” John rolled his eyes, and when he wasn’t looking, Sherlock smiled just a little to himself. Their date could have started on a worse note.

Sherlock passed him a menu. “Come on, John. Try to enjoy yourself.”
~
Word count: 624 words

March 14th, 2026 Daily:

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

You pose this to me like the philosophers you think you are, questioning perception rather than the system. Never ask why no one stood by to listen, never ask why it fell in the first place. Accept it to be true, for the alternative is to question not just perception but the grounds on which we exist.

Forget the trees and the metaphors; look at the photograph past the stained glass pictures. Who paints the landscape? Who frames the portrait? Consider the bias is an easy statement to make when it does not apply to you, when it’s purely theoretical, but nothing we see exists in a vacuum.

To stick to pretty lies, I have learned, is far easier than to confront the harsher truths. Never study history—it won’t get you anywhere. We lie by omission, by covering up the things we hate, by claiming they do not have a sound. The victors write history, but more importantly, they kill it. History is unwritten by the victors.

When they want us to agree, they close the libraries and tell us that everything we ever need to know comes from the textbooks. When a tree falls, it becomes the silence. We let it.

Silence: an absence of noise. Silence, synonymous with “to extinguish.” And silence, synonymous with “censor.”

Words are the weapons of ones who wield true power, because untruths are what plague us, the thoughts that stick in our minds and stay with us. The silence is what we forget.

I did not forget all the things you have tried to make me let go of.

I did not crawl through windows and cage my voice for years only to be neglected when it truly mattered. I’m sorry my truth is less palatable for you, but I did not come this far just to be silenced because your thought experiment forgot the most critical part: It happened either way.
~
Word count: 339 words

March 15th, 2026 Daily:

Songs:
Sunset Tower • Conan Gray
→ “I know what you said as I was leaving your place”

we’ll be fine • Luz
→ “If not forever, then just for tonight”

Stick Season (Live From Fenway Park) • Noah Kahan
→ “I’ll dream each night of some version of you”

We used to think we had our whole futures ahead of us and that the world would fall into place simply because we willed it to be true. Remember that?

You used to tell me, “When we grow older, we’ll get a house,” and I’d add on, “In the best part of town,” and we’d go back and forth describing this perfect time until we fell asleep to the whir of the air conditioning. I listened to your steady breathing. It was so easy to believe.

I remember our time so fondly, even when I know the real image was so far from perfection. We had our fights—loads of them. But it’s easy enough to gloss over them in memory, for hindsight is far kinder to you than I ever was.

Three years ago, I left the apartment screaming at you, even though now, I’ve forgotten what it was we started fighting about. Still, I look back on the ugly things I told you after and wish I could take them back. I wish you’d take your remarks back, too, even if you were right. Because I know what you said as I was leaving your place that first time—“good riddance”—and I want to hate you for it, but you did deserve better.

The knowledge that it was temporary hurts most. We were just kids masquerading as adults, barely out of college and thinking, at twenty two, that we knew everything.

We knew nothing. I understand this now.

The future remains unwritten, but I’ll do everything I can still to make it what I wanted. I’ll dream each night of some version of you and I that has survived everything. Imagining it is better than living in the drought, better than trying to move on from something that never entirely ended.

It shouldn’t be an open door, not the way we left it, I can’t help thinking that maybe we left ends untied because they would later be woven together perfectly.

I saw you in the train station today. I thought of waving, thought of calling your name. I thought of getting your new number and texting you, asking you to come over for dinner on an impulse. If you had, I would have told you. “Stay. If not forever, then just for tonight.” Even if it would have just been temporary, at least it would have been something, some bit of closure.

I thought of telling you I’m sorry. I never did.
~
Word count: 415 words

March 17th, 2026 Daily:

Interviewer: Welcome, welcome everyone to the news tonight, and joining us today, we have an exclusive interview with Lumière teenagers Liana and Jérôme. Now, for those of you who aren’t aware, ever since the Fracture, where Lumière split from the main continent, seventy nine years ago, the population of Lumière has dwindled as a countdown rules their lives. Have I got that right?

Liana: Yeah, about right. It’s called the Gommage, and every year, the Paintress erases all people of the age of the number of the countdown or older. It started at 100, and it’s been going down by one every year.

Interviewer: Is there any way to stop this?

Liana: Um…not that we know of.

Interviewer: But you still keep trying to defeat her, correct? I think most people here have heard of the expeditions. Why don’t you tell us a little more about that?

Liana: There’s not much to say. Every year, a handful of people from Lumière, typically in in the year of their Gommage, journey to the main continent hoping to defeat the Paintress and by extension, the Gommage. So far, no one has been successful.

Interviewer: And is this on a voluntary basis?

Liana: Yeah.

Interviewer: Have you volunteered for the expedition?

Liana: (shakes her head)

Interviewer: And you, Jérôme?

Jérôme: Obviously not. I haven’t got that much of a death wish.

Liana: Jérôme…

Interviewer: Oh, interesting. So you believe the expeditions are futile, then?

Liana: Well, not exactly. I don’t think…

Jérôme: Liana, you don’t have to lie about it. (deep breath) Most people gave up hope in the expedition a long time ago. It gets kind of tiring watching everyone around you die on a designated day of the year, so who wants to extend that to their daily life? Not me, that’s for sure.

Interviewer: Ah, I see. So you mentioned that people usually volunteer for the expedition in their final year, and I was just thinking…so when will you both be Gommaging?

Jérôme: That’s a bit of a rude question, don’t you think? Oh, and by the way, when’s your death day?

Liana: Jérôme, please shut up.

Jérôme: No, you shut up, Liana. I’m just educating him on basic manners.

Liana: Sorry.

Interviewer: No, I apologize.

(silence)

Interviewer: So what do you both typically spend your days doing?

Liana: Working, sometimes, I guess. Other than that…I’m not really sure.

Interviewer: Not school?

Jérôme: No one above age ten goes to school anymore. There’s not enough teachers, and anyway, most of them are twenty or younger.

Interviewer: In Lumière, you call the youngest the final generation, right? Because there will be no one after that?

Jérôme: I guess.

Interviewer: Would you say that Lumière is now in the final generation?

Liana: Almost, but not quite. The current oldest people are twenty one, so we have a couple of years left, maybe.

Interviewer: And are you both…Hmm, how do I phrase this? Are you both planning to have kids?

Liana: (sputters) I’m sorry?

Jérôme: We’re seventeen.

Interviewer: I understand, but you said there are a few more years left, so naturally, I thought…Because there’s only a few more chances, and you may as well give the population the best chance it has of surviving.

Jérôme: Those children would die anyway, too. And no two year old is going to defeat the Paintress. What’s the point?

Interviewer: So does this mean…does this mean that you both aren’t…I mean, that you both aren’t dating?

Jérôme: No, and besides, it’s none of your business even if we were.

Liana: I think we’re done here.

(Liana and Jérôme leave with 15 minutes still left on the interview.)

Interviewer: Well, uh, that brings us to the end of our program. Thanks for, um, tuning in and joining us with Jérôme and Liana, and we hope you enjoyed. See you next week!
~
Word count: 644 words

Part One:

Fandom: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Concept: In the midst of an impossibly dark world where all hope seems gone, is it possible to live? The protagonist struggles with despair and hope, balancing the two, searching for ways to make the most of her all too temporary life on Lumière.
Time: Monolith Year 21
Protagonist: Liana, seventeen years old, born on Lumière
The protagonist’s childhood best friend, Jérôme, spends his days trying to forget the future that awaits, but she’s determined not to become like him—or in other words, hopeless. But as time dwindles and the countdown on the Monolith creeps closer and closer to her own age, she is unable to block out the future. Still, she refuses to let time be the end of her. Above all, she wants to be a force of nature far greater than any Paintress, and the actions she takes are with the intention of proving herself against death; she wants to be more than another life taken. She wants to live. (Edit: I have decided to make this more plausible and less dramatic, and she instead is seeking the thrill of memories in response to her fear of being forgotten and the injustice of forgetting all the life wasted in the Gommage.)

That’s the hopeful side of her. However, Liana struggles the same way as Jérôme, only it manifests itself differently. She searches for meaning in defiance, and while she crusades as someone who desires to live, it’s in part a mask for her fear of death.

“If you could grow old…would you find a reason to smile?” (from the original game, kind of an interesting thought, I guess?)

(276 words)

Part Two:

“You’re not as good at hiding as you think you are.”

Jérôme sidled over to Liana with a bottle in hand, the side of his mouth quirking upward. She knew better than to believe the front, especially when they were only three days from Cosette’s Gommage, but she also knew Jérôme well enough to figure that further questioning would only bring him pain.

“I’m not hiding,” she said.

Jérôme rolled his eyes, letting her know exactly what he thought of that, but she shrugged. It wasn’t a lie. She was just…observing. From the top of the Crooked Tower, Lumière seemed so much smaller, and Liana infinitely larger than life. The best feeling was when she could forget the terror of tomorrow and remain in the present, wholly grounded.

She told herself this as her fingers trembled, as she inhaled just a little too deeply.

At least it was easier for Liana; the only people she’d lost to the Gommage were her parents and teachers, but that was everyone on Lumière. Jérôme, on the other hand, was about to lose the last sibling he had left.

He sat down heavily on the edge, letting his legs dangle dangerously off the side of the tower. “Want some?” he asked, offering her the wine after taking a sip himself. His coat billowed as the breeze caught it, like a parachute for a falling, dying man.

Liana ignored him. “Get away from the edge, would you?” (one sentence redacted because Scratch doesn't understand the context that makes it okay)

“Sorry,” he mumbled, but his half-baked apology was just habit, and they both realized it. But he inched himself backward, a saving grace.

She brushed her hair back as Jérôme took another swig from the bottle. “I thought you’d want to spend time with Cosette. Or something.”

He barked out a laugh, wrinkling his nose. “No, she’s spending the day with her boyfriend.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Liana suggested.

“Whatever you say.”

In the two years Cosette and Léo had been dating, it had become a running joke between the both of them to make fun of Léo. Cosette, Liana and Jérôme agreed, was much too good for him. Still, it knotted Liana’s stomach to poke fun at Léo so close to his erasure. Like disrespecting the dead.

Dead. The thought sobered her up a little, because erasure was just a nicer way to put it. Dress it up in different clothes, but it means the same thing. Just remembering made the silence heavier.

“I see why you come here,” Jérôme finally said, the words thick.

She smiled, just a little. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

“No, I mean yeah, but—” He faltered, but she had any number of guesses as to what he meant. It’s quiet. It’s detached. It makes it feel like we matter—more than we must.

“I get it. You don’t have to explain.”

A flicker of pain crossed his face, but he let the silence fester once again before he spoke again, this time far quieter. “Liana? Are you mad?”

“No,” she replied. “Why would I be?”

Jérôme turned to look back at the happenings in Lumière’s square and shrugged. “We’re never going to grow up. Doesn’t it make you sick?”

He was, by this point, well and properly drunk, Liana supposed, but the apprehension in his voice betrayed an underlying fear—one that Liana had long since trained herself out of feeling. To question the Gommage was to question reality, because really, the inevitability of the Paintress and the impermanence of Lumière were both facts that most had long since accepted. One day, she’d be forgotten, like everyone else.

She owed him an answer, though. “A little, maybe. I don’t know, it’s not like we lost that much when we’re stuck here. There’s not much to do with the extra time.”

Even as she said the words, though, they seemed like excuses, like a justification for the Paintress. An end to their boredom, not a callous murder. Bile rose in her throat as she realized, yes, it did make her sick, though she couldn’t tell that to Jérôme, not at the moment. He was in no state to bear her fears, too.

“C’mon, you should go home, get some rest or something. I’ll walk you back.”

“It’s okay,” he said as she stood and offered a hand to him. “I’ll manage.” His grip on the bottle loosened, and it nearly fell, though he caught it just at the last moment.

“Oh, sure, you will,” she said, and if Jérôme hadn’t been quite so close to the edge, she would have rolled her eyes at the halfhearted attempt to refuse her help.

With a glare, he grudgingly accepted her outstretched palm, and Liana pulled what must have been mostly dead weight until he, too, was on his feet. Jérôme stumbled slightly on the stairs, but she offered her shoulder to help him balance, albeit at the expense of her own.

Next time, keep your wits about you, she thought as they passed the elders—funny to think of people four years her senior that way—on the town roads. Or at least try to look a little more dignified.

They stopped outside the ghost town of an apartment building where Jérôme had lived for his whole life—and Liana for some time, too, in a life before loneliness. No landlord anymore, he’d been through his Gommage two years back, so Jérôme and Cosette and before then, Mathieu. Soon it would be just Jérôme.

“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” Liana asked as he fumbled with the key in the lock.

His head bobbed up and down as he responded, “Tomorrow comes,” and hiccuped.

“Yeah. Tomorrow comes,” she echoed.

***

Doesn’t it make you sick?

The more she thought about it, the more she realized he was right. She was used to it, yes, but that didn’t make it any easier. Death by Gommage was no less violent than any other.

As late afternoon bled into evening and the sun kissed the harbor, Liana paced, as if merely walking around her tiny hometown could relieve her dread. She passed the church, whose attendance had dwindled with the years, no senior ministers to preach to a population rapidly losing hope. The newspaper stands, all printing the same old news, the same story that had been told annually for eighty years. The flower sellers trying to make enough on the transience of life to bring them to their own Gommage. The expedition recruiters calling the mission a “hero’s journey” or whatever their new tagline was, just to get people to do something. Everyone tried to twist it into some grand vision, some great power, but no one ever spoke of the robbery it was. It was always for those who come after and never for those we have now.

All this life left to have…and no one to live it.

The true tragedy wasn’t, she realized, about the erasure at all, but rather, the way so many gave up what little time they had. Every breath a goodbye, every action forgetting possibility, yet they had the chance to make their lives something.

“What a waste,” she murmured to herself. Who will remember us and our unremarkable lives?

A greater person would have reckoned with death in defiance. They would have made it mean something, whatever that meant, but Liana only wanted the memories. A life seemed too great a thing to take back, but the promise of memory, however fleeting, was possible.

As her pace quickened, she passed the café that every old-enough teenager looking to make a bit of extra money used to spring at the opportunity to work at and, on a whim, opened the door. A jingling sound startled the dazed workers, and she had to laugh at the signs boasting 24-hour service when the staff had such heavy eyebags. Who were they kidding?

“Hey,” Liana said as she walked up to the cashier. “Busy time?”

“Not really,” he replied. “I don’t think we’ve filled up this place since I first started working here in year 26. Maybe not even then.”

So he was close enough to his own Gommage, if it wasn’t this year. “I remember I used to come here all the time when I was younger. You had the best palmiers, at least I thought so.”

“Huh. I’d forgotten about that.” A smile passed over his face as the memory hit him, too, a wisp of a life before. “Not much competition now.”

“No,” Liana agreed. “But bragging rights don’t entirely depreciate, right?”

The cashier’s laugh was light, airy, with a kind of joy she’d never have expected of someone so close to death. “True, true.”

“What’d you say your name was?” she asked, even though she knew he’d never told her.

“Georges. And yours?”

“I’m Liana.”

Why bother with names when no one will remember us in a few years? Why care who forgets? Everyone will.

But at least, for a time, they would be remembered. She would remember them. And they, her.

When he wasn’t looking, she slipped a few coins onto the counter, a thank-you for the reminiscence though she never ordered, and the bells jingled once again on her way out.

***

The day of the Gommage brought bright mid-afternoon sun beating down heavily, a sign far too bright for the somber event. Liana stopped at one of the stalls offering “the best roses on Lumière!” and pulled out her pouch as she asked for a bouquet.

“Just one?”

“Just one,” Liana confirmed, handing her the money.

It was strange to see Félicité selling flowers, because Liana’s early memories of her had always been the girl in the hallways, two years older and infinitely cooler. She was so ordinary now, and by next year, she, too, would be gone.

A slight woman laughed, a familiar sound, clutching a man’s arm as they walked past Liana. It took a second to place the voice after two years of distance, but when she did, she wasted no time, for there was precious little left of that.

“Cosette!” she called, pushing through the crowds to reach her.

Cosette turned, and Liana waved as her eyes searched the crowds for the voice that had called her name. They met at the statue in the center of town, and the closeness made her the girl Liana had grown up with. For a second, Cosette wasn’t the stranger she’d been for the past few years. She was the person that came over to Liana’s every other night before both their parents had passed. The sister of her best friend who had, by association, become her sister, too.

It had taken her far too long to remember that.

“Liana,” Cosette said, and she smiled, but the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s been a while.”

If you could grow old…

She nodded, then glanced toward the chain of flowers around Cosette’s neck. “I’m sorry,” Liana told her simply, because what else was there to say? Awkwardly, she held out a flower for Cosette to add to the chain, which she accepted.

Cosette glanced back over her shoulder toward Léo. “Take care of yourself, Liana.” A pause. “And Jérôme, too.”

“I know.” As an afterthought, Liana added, “He’ll miss you. We both will.” And the two embraced one final time, a thousand pasts between them, a future discontinued, a present burned into memory.

…would you find a reason to smile?

Someday, she hoped, someone would have the memories and more. Perhaps not her. But someone. That, at least, Liana had to believe.

(1925 words)

Part Three:
Critique for Ly - 612 words

If it was anything physical—which Spark would probably make it so—

Ok, Ballet?

(OOC but they are PLATONIC OK)

My fingers found their way through my hair, twisting at the curls like they were the only thing keeping me sane right now.

March 17th, 2026 Daily:

Set in the near future, an increasingly polarized geopolitical landscape had led to the emergence of three world powers (to be named at some point, loosely based on China, Russia/the former Soviet Union, and the United States) at odds with one another. This tension has led to rapid developments in technology, leading to a world teetering on the edge of mutually assured destruction with the rise of the Second Cold War.

As scientific knowledge advances, the governments in their quest for domination and power clashes with the increasing awareness scientists have of their precariously balanced world. Once technology exists, there is no way to destroy it, so instead, a league of top scientists hides the codes for technology in the best place they can think of: unsuspecting humanity. But as governments find out about the scientists’ plan, they begin missions to find the people who unknowingly hold the keys to this great power…

One of these people, Ivy, grew up with her father in a mostly rural coastal town, but was taken “for safekeeping” with the government (this is likely the government for the U.S.-inspired society, but to be determined for sure when I actually come up with the finer details of this book) when she was eight years old. Since then, she has lived in relative comfort, as a ward of the government, but also in comparative solitude. Her main interactions come with the government and media officials, who help to publicize the government’s prowess and power to the rest of the world through weekly update broadcasts, and Echo.

Echo, about eleven years older than the now-seventeen Ivy, has been a ward of the government for twelve years and was the first confirmed (I need to figure out a name for the people that Echo and Ivy are, but I haven’t got it yet), a fact the government of (insert society) takes great pride in. To Ivy, Echo is the only sane person in her life now, and she serves as a mentor to the younger girl.

However, as (insert society) begins to pull ahead in the race for power, other societies increase their searches for (the people), even resorting to genocide-like means and technically illegal searches.

There are also some scenes interspersed throughout from the perspective of Deirdre, Ivy’s former best friend (though Deirdre knew Ivy before the government changed her name, instead calling her “Clara Michaels”—her birth name) showing the outside world and the tension between Ivy’s isolated life and the paranoia plaguing the rest of the world.

As you can probably tell, this still needs a LOT of work. I’ve had this idea for at least two years, but I just have not figured out the finer details and am not quite sure how to write it. At some point, though. I really like the idea of a spec fic piece that’s commentary on nuclear colonialism and the lengths to which global superpowers will go to one-up each other until the world rests on the brink of mutually assured destruction.
~
Word count: 508 words