So, i’m in a love triangle with these two random people i’ve never even met before because for some reason, we’re going tropey. And i’m totally like one of those gacha life mini movie characters too, im a princess, mermaid, siren (how am i both?), unicorn, fairy, and orphan. Yeah, its pretty crazy and the times i have with my so called “lovers” are even worse because what do you mean we showed up at a hotel and they only had one bed? There’s three of us, i’m not sharing with both of you, you guys smell really bad. Yeah, people call me the chosen one because like I mentioned im a fairy mermaid unicorn siren orphaned princess of this entire kingdom and it doesnt even make sense because unlike all of those groups of people, im not magic. How am i all of those things without even having magic? Anyway i soon abandoned both of the people in my “love triangle” and went off to join a circus, where i performed multiple song covers while walking a tightrope and hoping i didn’t fall. I didn’t—I have plot armor. Do i have a wise mentor? I guess sort of, he’s just a crazy old man who lives in my schools but i guess he did teach me fairy loopholes so he’s whatevers. A dramatic monologue? Every. Single. Night. Even if its something stupud someone comes to me, frantic, giving me another long solitique about something i dont care about. You accidentally bought the wrong shade of lipstick? GET A DIARY twin i dont have time to deal with your problems, much less my own.
Now, a sudden storm, that’s a little more interesting. Adds some fun tension. But thats not really how i roll—if you want the tension, we can fight, sure, but its going to get boring as soon as i get bored. Now please leave a fairy princess mermaid siren unicorn orphan chosen one in peace, i have a lot on my plate.

Daily March 23rd
Words: 435

“You are the chosen one,” the wise old mentor grandfather figure said, stroking his inevitably long white beard.
“No way! I don’t want to be the chosen one,” the teenage girl who was impossibly good looking but also poor and malnourished but also independent and violent said.
“Your destiny is written in the stars. Ever since your actual parents passed away traumatically and you found your new family, a gang of outcasts who steal stuff for a living, the stars have been calling out to me. You must defeat the evil king and while you’re at it, fall in love with his son, the good looking and evil prince!”
“Ew. That sounds weird. I won’t be doing that.”
“Come with me!”
He yanked her through some sort of portal into the evil king’s realm.
“You must go to the castle, learn their ways and take the crown from the king's head.”
“Whatever. The faster I start, the faster I can be done with it.”
She wandered into the castle gates and almost immediately a guard cornered her.
“What do you think you’re doing here, commoner?” he yelled.
“I—”
Before she could finish, a teenager she could only assume was the good looking prince stepped between her and the guard.
“Calm down, Cyneward. You’re dismissed.”
With a snarl he went back to guarding the gate to the castle.
“Who are you?” the prince asked.
“I’m Jade of the village.”
“And what brings you to the castle?” he grinned.
She needed to come up with something, and fast.
“I am here to become a lady in waiting, You see, my family friend referred me here.”
“Right,” the prince laughed. “Well then you must have an audience with the king. Come right this way. Oh, and by the way I’m Prince Irun.”
“I could’ve guessed.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He led her through the castle halls to the throne room where the king sat. After stumbling through a few helpless attempts to form a sentence, Irun jumped in and saved her.
“She’s here to train as a guard.”
The king seemed to accept this, though Jade kept throwing Irun glances like daggers. This was not what she signed up for!
Through grueling training, Jade became super strong even though she was still malnourished and petite. She grew closer with the prince despite her not wanting to.
Finally, when it came down to it at a demonstration with the king, she took the crown and crowned the prince, ending the king’s reign and making her the queen after she married the prince, petite and beautiful and strong and independent as ever.

part one — sci-fi element (286 words)

get ready for time travel because of course! everything i ever do in the sci-fi adjacent realm is always time travel! i <3 time travel! and of course it will be geographically related, just as my time travel antics always are. i won’t do it about the house, where several of my characters live and work as architects and scholars, where time and space bend through architecture allowing you to climb out of doors and windows and arches and such into disparate worlds and eras, because that setting is more akin to fantasy. instead, let’s expand on a small in-class writing i did for creative writing, where the detachment (unspooling) of time from the physical realm caused the end of the world.

the technological advancement that caused this unspooling was under study at several universities worldwide, including of course the university of missouri where the unspooling originated from. they were studying how to reverse the impacts of time on decaying molecules through the introduction of low energy beams. at the rival kansas state physics department, they had successfully trapped a pair of molecules in a time loop of sorts, which caused the umo department to ramp up their work and ignore some safety things, ultimately causing the meltdown of space and time that spread outward from there. now time and space are linked variably, with some places experiencing time backwards, some sped up to unthinkable speeds leading to inhabitants going crazy at the sight of the end of the world, some are trapped in time loops of varying lengths. devices limiting your physical body’s experience of time to a simulacrum of normalcy allow people to move beyond the spaces linked to particular times, thus time travel!!!

part two — sci-fi worldbuilding (360 words)

welllllll this is awkward. my previous part was much more focused on worldbuilding than the tech that brought the world about because i think worldbuilding is way more interesting than sci-fi fake jargon and the like. whatever, i can go into more detail about some of the types of places you are wont to find if exploring this unspooled landscape.

most people live in time loops, including a large number of time refugees who migrated to designated safe loops in the early days of the unspooling. as the loops could be located anywhere, be of any size, and loop for any amount of time, the number of loops is unknown. (some theorize the entire world is made of loops, with some looping only after millions of years that could never be observed by human lifeforms. but of course, this hypothesis could never be proven.) cities in time loops of multiple years are the most popular spaces to live, and people will sometimes move from loop to loop in large, planned, and protected caravans between them. farmland in sixth month time loops is highly productive and provides population centers with enough food to make up for the lost land, and massive farms are mostly run by large corporations or government organizations.

guilds of protectors have popped up across the world, who claim to know the best routes between protected areas and how to get large groups of people across a time scarred landscape. some of these claims are substantiated, some are scammers who only want to make a quick buck off of desperate people escaping hour-long time loops in hostile environments where their progress on survival is so often reset while their bodies become more and more deteriorated from hunger, cold, etc. guilds include guards, cartographers, social workers, and historians specializing in whatever time periods they are expected to pass through. a main function of the guilds is to make sure unsuspecting travellers don’t wander off into dangerous times, which can sometimes be as little as a few inches off the safe path. they also transport goods, including food, to population centers and explore new unmapped areas for possible new resources.

part three — cross-world travel (609 words)

in all her years traveling the house and noting its strange intricacies and idiosyncrasies, clara had never happened upon a realm that worked quite like this one. keyes had told her of it over coffee one day a few months back, and she of course relayed the information to her mentor, one of the architects, who approved a project venturing into the strange realm where time worked differently even than within in the house itself. what a joyous new day, to be discovering something nobody else before her had seen.

on the study she brought with her keyes, naturally, but otherwise no one else. bonding time, she thought foolishly, as her and her friend had spent so little time together over the past few years as they both became more and more engrained in their specialities of choice. sure, they met up for coffee every week, but she wanted more. she wanted those youthful days of spending every hour together, of commiserating over nights spent apart, of discussing running away together. and, now that they have run away together to the house, they never see each other anymore.

the time scarred landscape offers itself to clara, a place where she and keyes can be friends again. or more, her heart jumps in her chest, unprompted. no, not that. just friends. that small concern of her heart doing such silly things in keyes’ presence are of no importance. and now they’re alone, together, in the unknown, at her design.

“a! get over here!” keyes calls, startling clara out of her thoughts. she walks over to where he stands at the edge of a cliff, looking with binoculars towards the horizon in the west.

“what is it?” she asks, to which he hands her the binoculars.

“see for yourself.”

through the lenses, she searches for anything of note. but there is nothing. it looks exactly what you would expect from a view looking west from the appalachians. “oh,” she says, putting the pieces together. “the cracks aren’t—”

“they’re completely invisible from a distance!” keyes cuts her off, excitement coursing through him like this is fantastic news, not some horrible realization that recontextualizes their entire journey. “so every era still exists. it’s not the geography itself that’s had its time all jumbled up, but something laid atop it.”

“so there must be a way to journey without stumbling into different eras. but we don’t…” clara sighs. she is out of her depth! not even an hour in, and this is appearing to be a horrible idea.

“well, at least the boundaries in time are obvious up close,” keyes says in his usual cheery tone. “perhaps we’ll find some ancient north americans! could make for a fascinating cultural encounter.”

“millie,” clara says with a shake of her head, soft smile overtaking her face. of course he would joke about a previous failed expedition, just at the start of this one. “don’t jinx us again.”

“oh, my dear clara, i would never!” he melodramatically presses his hands to his heart. “you must believe me, my love!”

and her heart skips, because of course it does, because of course it doesn’t understand that keyes is just like this, and his behavior doesn’t reveal anything about his hidden machinations for their relationship anymore than his flirting with the architect reveals he’d like to court her.

“alright, alright,” she’s grinning now, which was the point of his outburst anyways. he just likes to see people smile, she tells herself. it’s nothing special. it doesn’t mean anything.

but wouldn’t it be nice, if it did? if she weren’t alone in this years long pining?

part four — sci-fi story (647 words)

bro i am so tired. so many readings to do so much homework and i am falling behind you would think in a world where time has broken maybe school would take a break but i guess not. whatever. my mom says i have to keep going to school but it feels so pointless. there is no college for me to attend, the nearest one was sucked into a time hole going towards the end of the world (or was it the beginning? same thing anyways). so yeah my life is literally just living the same twenty four hours (twenty two and a half, but we like to round up to something more familiar anyways) over and over and over again and i don’t think i can take it anymore. yeah there is continuity of thought and everyone else experiences it too, but here in this tiny town (i don’t remember the name, is that a bad thing? i’ve only lived here the last few days before the unspooling but maybe i should remember, even if no one calls it by name anymore. now it’s just. our loop) there are only like five people around.

i’m so bored and so tired and just feel pointless living here in this tiny loop. my mom doesn’t want to let me escape. but i just want to run away. to something more exciting. to something worth exploring. like just the land outside of the loop. like i could go with some of the other kids and we could perform reconnaissance for the whole town. good benefits for everyone! but she doesn’t like that idea, and the others in town don’t let outsiders in (nevermind the fact that we have enough food to last thousands of years, because it respawns every day). i think they’re worried about outside diseases, which i guess is fair. maybe we should look around and find a hospital we could visit if anything went wrong????

i’ve heard rumors of a device that lets you recapture the real world. that reconnects space and time. that lets you walk out of the loop and find normal time again. but is it real? do i even want it to be real?

ugh. i don’t have anything else to write about. nothing ever happens in my life. so boring. i thought the end of the world would be more interesting, but i also thought i would be older when it ended. instead i’m stuck with my mom, in this tiny podunk town, and i just—

whatever. i just need to finish this writing so my mom is contented with my memory practice. (you kids are all horribly impacted by this all, she is always saying to me. whatever. do i care?)

so today. i ate the same thing for breakfast that i always ate. the time loop starts as i’m standing at the stove, cooking eggs, so those half cooked eggs are always there. i finish them up every morning and eat them with different condiments every day (because otherwise…. i would go even crazier with boredom than i already am). then i went to school. because we have that every other day (easier to keep track of than periods of seven days). the local school teacher actually lives outside of the time loop zone, so we don’t know what happened to her. instead, one of the kid’s parents comes in to tell us something everyday, or else we just use the textbooks that are in the building. there are around one hundred students in the whole school, of varying ages, and a few of the other teachers have stuck around but have their hands full with the other students. so yeah. no teacher for us middle schoolers.

hopefully my mom doesn’t get too mad about me not finishing the entry. i got to the word count she wanted anyways!

cliched trope daily || 472 words

The first time I saw Markus it was all over with me. It was love at first sight. I mean, how could I not? He was so impossibly hot and perfect… and, yeah, I guess he was kind of nice and, like, smart, but nobody cares about that. Obviously he broke my heart, like, three times before we got together, but that’s beside the point.
But then came the day he absolutely shattered it. “Jen, I’ve been thinking,” he said gently one day as we were at our favorite coffeeshop. “I kind of need a break,”
“A break,” I repeated.
He looked away, those beautiful brown eyes avoiding my gaze. “Yeah. I just, I don’t know, I need to focus on my grades, and you’re such a great girl, but I don’t know if we really fit.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. “So you’re breaking up with me?”
Markus hesitated, but I didn’t wait for him to reply. I stood up and stormed out of the shop, fuming. Sure, we’d had a few disagreements, but surely nothing that warranted something this dramatic. We were soul mates! It was destined to be!
When I got home, I immediately started scheming ways to get him to get back together with me. Finally, I decided I would make him jealous. I’d go pretend to date his sworn rival, Percy. Of course, Percy was also my sworn rival and I hated the sight of him. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
The next day at school I approached Percy, trying not to wrinkle my nose in disgust. He was also impossibly hot, but I tried not to let myself think about that. He looked down at me from underneath his dark curls, pale blue eyes flashing. His perfect mouth twisted in revulsion. “Jen. What do you want?”
I steeled myself, ignoring the way the sound of my name brought a faint flush to my cheeks. “I need your help. Markus broke up with me, and I want to get him back.”
He lounged against the wall. “Not my problem. Go bug someone else.”
“Well… yeah… but I was kind of thinking we could pretend to date and that would make him jealous. And then, like, he would want to get back together.”
Percy scoffed. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He eyed me for another moment, then rolled his eyes. “Sure. Why not. What do I have to lose.”
He leaned in closer, and I squeaked. “What are you doing?”
His grin was devastating. “Gotta keep up the act, lover girl.” His lips brushed softly across my cheek.
“I hate you,” I gritted out, wishing my traitorous heart would stop tumbling in my chest.
But I had a feeling this was going to be interesting in a very bad way.

a/n: writing stupid romance is exactly as easy as it sounds

Tilly's daily #23 - tropes and cliches

Jude leaned back on the bench until her back was against the wall, clutching her glass of water in one hand and letting the hood of her cloak fall to her eyes. There was just enough of a gap for her to spy on the other people in the tavern without them realising her gaze was on them.
There was very few others scattered at different tables around the moody room, some eating, some sitting with blank expressions as if contemplating their life's choices. The entrance door suddenly swung open, and a new group entered. Their cloaks were soaked from the pouring rain outside, and Jude inconspicuously scanned their faces to see if any of them was the dealer she was waiting for. No, he wasn't among them. Three of the group were girls who revealed long, frilly dresses in pinks and purples when they pulled off their soaking wet cloaks, and Jude found herself scoffing as she turned her eyes away. She never liked dresses, but then again, she wasn't like the other girls.
Staff from the tavern attended to the small party, and as they left, clearly seeking lodging to end whatever trip they had been on for the night, the room returned to its previous stillness.
The front door opened again, blowing in a cold breeze from the heavy rain, but Jude was distracted by a figure she just noticed at the end of the room. The stranger was tall and broad shouldered, clad from head to toe in a dark cloak and mask that concealed everything except piercing blue eyes that suddenly locked with hers, as if sensing her gaze. The eyes were so blue they seemed like an ocean one could drown in.
She looked away that instant, trying to ignore the butterflies, as a shadow loomed over her table. Jude looked up and let out a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding in.
“Jude, right?”
“Yes…you're late.”
The dealer scoffed, sliding onto the bench in front of her. “I'm never late. You're just early.”
He rifled through the bag slung over his shoulder and set down an object on the table. A key, glimmering in the soft tavern light.
Jude's hand reached out for it, but he quickly shielded it. “Nuh uh. Where's mine?”
She narrowed her eyes, but fished into her pocket and set down an iridescent, silver medallion with a sparkle of violet light around the rim.
The dealer scanned it as she examined his own item. “Wait…is that key brass?”
“What does it look like?”
“That's not what I asked for, Drin.” Jude's jaw clenched. “That's the wrong key!”
“Hush! Quit that, will you? Unless you want attention,” the dealer hissed. “Where do you think I could get a gold key from, steal it from the high halls?”
“You knew what I wanted,” Jude seethed through gritted teeth. “You promised you'd…”
Out of the corner of her eye, she realised someone had joined them at the table. Drin seemed relaxed at his appearance, and Jude struggled to hide her scorn.
“I thought we agreed to come alone?”
Drin locked eyes with her again, then smirked. “Oh sweetheart. You don't mean to tell me you came alone?”
A shiver went down Jude's spine as she caught movement from another person across the room she thought was an innocent bystander. Why did she believe anything this man said?
“Why would I come with anyone else?” Jude replied, forcing her tone to stay even.
A shadow loomed again, another of Drin's men.
“Take the key or leave it, your choice.”
In a blur, Drin's hand swiped for the medallion, but Jude slammed her hand over it first before his fingers could touch it.
Drin sneered and jumped up. He drew a sword, and so did the three other men that were now clearly his entourage. Wonderful, a fight.
Jude leapt up and drew the dagger she had, and they engaged. She quickly realised her alone with a dagger against three, no, now four, men with longswords wasn't going to end well, but she fought them off and parried their attacks, striking one then another. One swiped her dagger out of her hand, and she saw a figure rush in a blur towards them, and her heart sank.
Another?
Suddenly a sword struck one of Drin's men, who screamed and recoiled, and gave enough time for Jude to retrieve her dagger. Piercing blue eyes locked with hers, and she realised it was the stranger, who now jumped onto the table and tugged her up onto the surface as well.
The stranger fought back to back with Jude, but as their efforts began to tire, another stranger jumped in to join the fight, and Drin's men began to retreat.
“Fine, keep that! You'll be sorry!” Drin screamed as they rushed out into the monsoon.
Jude stumbled off the table, gasping from the exertion of the fight, and one of the strangers grabbed her to steady her.
She looked up, and her heart skipped a beat at the familiar dark eyes that met hers. “Xaron?”
Her childhood best friend. He smirked and gave a little shrug. “Surprise, I guess?”
Jude snatched her arm from his grip, struggling to ignore the burning anger in her chest. So just like that, after everything, ‘surprise I guess’ was all he had?
Her eyes turned to her other ‘rescuer’ with the bright ocean eyes, who had pulled off his mask and the hood of his cloak. She didn't recognise this one, but he was admittedly very handsome.
“You're welcome, Jude.” The stranger sheathed his sword, and Jude gaped.
“How do you know my name?”
“What, you, the four foot eleven orphaned girl who fights remarkably well with just a dagger against four men with longswords and was about to deal away the key to the labyrinth? Yeah, it's hard not to miss you. I came for you, obviously.”
Jude squinted. “That doesn't answer my question, Blue Eyes. How do you know me?”
“Because your name is inscribed in the halls, baby girl. You and that medallion, you're practically destined for greatness.”
“What, you mean like some chosen one?” Xaron jumped in, raising an eyebrow. “Little Jude, a chosen one? Never would of guessed.”
Jude glared at the both of them and shoved past, unable to process the feelings rumbling inside her. “You've got the wrong Jude, Blue Eyes. I'm nobody.”
Before she heard any response, she tugged on her hood and jumped out into the rain, sheathing her dagger and trying to get piercing blue eyes and bittersweet childhood memories out of her head.

(I speedran this, I don't know if this is enough, but there we go SOB-)
1106 words (I went overboard woah-)

daily 23!! 625 words <3

The Chosen One Academy of Magic and Chosen Ones only had a few entry standards:
You must be an Orphan. Drastic measures are permitted.
You must be an Outsider in a Society of some kind.
You must have exactly two Love Interests. One must be submitted to the Love Interest Forms by the end of this first year at the Chosen One Academy of Magic and Chosen Ones, and the other must be selected by the end of your second year. These can be selected at any time before the due dates.
One of your Love Interests must have been hated before loved; preferably the second one.
You must have some sort of Sign of being secretly Important or Magical.
You must have Secrets.
You must be able to Lie.

Artemisia was fairly sure she fit all of the entry standards.
She was quite experienced at Lying.
She had plenty of Secrets.
She had a weird birthmark that could probably be counted as a Sign.
She already had one Love Interest, so she probably wouldn’t have any trouble finding another one, even if she had to hate them first.
She didn’t seem to fit in anywhere but in books.
And luckily, her parents had died when she was eight, so she didn’t have to take ‘drastic measures’.
So she was ready to go to her dream school.
She had been ready since she was eight, when right before her parents died, they told her ‘Yer… a wizard… Artemisia’, filling her with hope for the terrible parent-less times ahead.
On the first day of August, Artemisia packed a few light bags and was picked up by a flying carriage to go to the school.
After 5,000 hours, she arrived. And lo and behold, the Academy was like a palace.
As soon as she got to the gates, a handsome guy who couldn’t have been more than seventeen (her own age) walked up to her. His piercing blue eyes and glinting teeth were annoying smug and handsome.
“Hello, newbie. I’m Chuck,” he said dashingly. “And I’m here to show you around. Unfortunately.”
Artemisia quickly decided that she hated him.
“Here’s your Plot Armor,” — he handed her a bunch of shiny invisible armor — “and your Old Wizard Mentor.”
At the words ‘Old Wizard Mentor’, a crusty old guy with a blue hat and extremely long beard stepped out of the shadows.
“Hello, young wizard. You must be Artemisia. I am Qwwsedrftigbo8pgwi;bsg, grand wizard of all wizard-y things. You have been lucky enough to be assigned me as a mentor, and I will do my best to guide you along your Chosen path. The road before you is dark and long, and I wish you luck on your journey. I cannot promise that there won’t be challenges. There will be. But I am here to help you get through them. I am here to be your magical guide! There are many lessons you must learn along this journey as well. You will find yourself, your true love, and some random magic relic, all while making friends with animal sidekicks and doing favors for the Gods Above. I hope–”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s enough for now,” Chuck says, cutting Qwwsedrftigbo8pgwi;bsg off. “On to your dragon!”
A sparkly dragon appears in a sparkly sparkle.
At the sight of the dragon Chuck has given her, Artemisia starts to cry tears of joy. Her very own dragon! Oh my goodness! Maybe Chuck isn’t so bad after all. No, he’s not smug; he’s the most handsome guy Artemisia has ever met. She never truly hated him… it was just a trick of her brain! Now all she wants to do is kiss him.
But what to do about her other love interest?

Weekly 3 for lyric
Body horror trigger warning - mostly in the final story but also in the first part.

2626 words

Part 1 - invention - 280 words
In the year 2207, a new invention came out. It was called the FloChange, revolutionising all fashion and consumption like nothing ever before. The FloChange is a small box that's attached to your neck. It is connected with the brain chip and so can be accessed through your mind. After which, it will grant the wearer the ability to change the way the look in any possible way they want. This includes, body types, facial structure, eye colour, hair colour, length and type, as well as give you any makeup looks in seconds. Just like a character creator in your favourite video games, with the advantage (or disadvantage) of you being the character. The FloChange is a permanent installation just like a brain chip, and is able to change your look by adding specific amounts of chemical solutions to the blood. When first installs, it injects the ChangeFluid into the blood. The fluid then spreads into your body, infiltrating the cells while the FloChange records your DNA information. This is a lengthy process that can take from hours to days, and is quite painful. But once it is complete, a full change can be done in minutes, simply through selecting what you want on the mind screen. The FloChange will release a specific chemical that interacts with the ChangeFluid, modifying your cells and changing your appearance in seconds. This allows people to have naturally colourful skin and makeup. And no need to worry about no longer recognising each other! People with the FloChange can be detected by the brain chip, so you will recognise them no matter the look they choose for themselves. Insecurity is gone from the current age!

Part 2 - worldbuilding - 335 words
In the years 2207 most things are operated through one's mind, using the brain chip computers. This lead to people barely doing anything with their hands. The brain chip also pares with almost all technologies, allowing doors to be opened automatically, cars directed, toaster started, and everything of the sort, just through thoughts. This originally started a lot of problems with physical fitness - due to hardly moving a lot of people started to weaken, which led to pains. The FloChange had started as a device to change that - allowing people to be fit and gain muscles and flexibility just by thinking about it. The device itself is relatively cheap, but, most options of customisation one can do have to be individually purchased, making them all quite expensive. This let to poorer people choosing the cheaper of free options, while the richer people could obtain exclusive hairdos and body and face shapes. Beauty standards changed drastically, only making the more expensive options more fashionable. Almost all companies selling any appearance related products, such as makeup, skincare, fitness equipment or hair care products had to go out of business, which means people have no way to change the way they look than with the FloChange. Originally, before it's release, people were worried about being unable to recognise their loved once, but quite the opposite happened. Due to the devices now being able to detect each other, anonymity is totally gone. People can see straight away if they know a person, and who they are. A minor change, but now going undercover or disguising yourself is impossible. This also led to a large amount of friendships and relationships drifting apart, – due to the fact that people looked unfamiliar beauty was easily changeable. Customisable clothes were already a thing in this world, and this only enforced everything. The economical structure in this world is almost entirely reliant on new technology, since things like food and buildings are easily constructed robotically. There are very strong class divisions based on income.

Part 3 - cross world travel - 1114 words
Jean knew it was something out of the ordinary when he saw a bright light flash in the city park next to his house. Of course, hooligans can always set off firecrackers and flash bombs or just big lamps, trees can catch on fire, mabe due to lightning strikes or odd flashes of northern lights can happen. Well to be fair none of these things are really ordinary, but they could be deal with in a relatively easy fashion, or at least once could call the police to deal with them. At least all of these things have some logic to them, they happened to people before, and, if it would get them a mention in the local paper or even the national news, it wouldn't shake society to its core. Jean didn't think it would do that last one, but he could never be sure. Most mentioned logical explanations made little sense here. The light seemed to come from above, settling into the bushes were it slowly faded. There was no sound of explosion, no sign of a fire. Just a light that floated down and vanished. Jean debated with himself for a moment. Reason told him to close the window, and then the shutters, and go to bed. Someone else probably saw the light and would deal with whatever it was, if there even was something to deal with. Then he realised, It was almost two in the morning. All the city was asleep, except probably some lunatic like him who procrastinated everything, even sleep. And those lunatics are more likely to stare at a computer screen than at the outside world. And since the light made no sound, chances were that it wouldn't be discovered until some early dog walkers went on their morning wander. And since it was a Sunday tomorrow, even these would rise late. If he investigated it right now, he could get something from the encounter. Whether it was some rare meteorite worth a lot of money or simply catching hooligans and getting a mention in the local paper, he decided it was worth it.
He dressed himself quickly, throwing a jacket over his pyjamas slid down the stairs and was at the park gate in less than five minutes. As he walked cautiously in, he felt terrified. He might find some cosmic horror, some deadly explosive device or radioactive material. Perhaps the flash was a ruse used by criminals to lure idiots into the park at night. But all he saw when he reached the place where he judged the light had landed, was a boy.
At least, he looked like a boy. He was wearing strange looking clothes, with stripes of clothes flailing around. Yet there were well trimmed and looked intentional. His hair was a brilliant blue, just like his eyes, and he looked rather lost and confused when he sat on the ground. He jerked his head up when he saw Jean walk by. At first he crawled a few feet back, then seeing no immediate threat from him, he stopped and met his gaze.
Jean had also abandoned all fear of the boy. Unless some other trickery was at hand, he was quite harmless. After the staring had remained for an awkwardly long time, the boy spoke first, and asked. “Where am I?”
Jean didn't really know what to reply. He didn't know how lost the boy was. Whether he knew he meant the park, the city, the country, or even the planet, Jean had no way of knowing. Eventually, he decided and mentioned the city. The named seemed to ring no bell in the boy's mind.
“What year is it?” He asked, further confusing Jean.
“2026… why?”
The boy's face spread in a grin. “It worked, he screamed, it worked! That's like almost two hundred years ago.” Then, seeing the absolutely bewildered expression on Jean's face, he added. “I'm from the future. From 2207.”
“The future!” screamed Jean. “The brilliant future! What technologies did you reach! Did we finally build a utopia? What's it like? And… And why did you come back?”
The boy's face was deeply sad now. “No… No no no! I came to warn you all. I'll probably get jailed for life back at home if they ever find out about this. But I came to warn you. The future is a mess further than you could imagine. I came to beg the people of the past for it not to get this bad, and keep their humanity! I'll explain everything, I just need some place to stay. All this greenery is bothering.”
Jean couldn't bring himself to say anything for a while. He let the visitor from the future back to his house, quietly showing him up the stairs. The boy let out several grunts of complaint at having to climb the stair manually. The levitation technology didn't work in this time period and he seemed exhausted after the first flight of steps.
“Are the people from the future seriously that unfit or are you just a weirdo?” Jean asked. The boy smiled.
“I'm really fit for my age. Just used to having machines to help with this. Seriously, you guys waste so much energy.”
The next problem came at the act of washing hands. The boy was horrified at how unhygienic it all was. The water seemed to treated very badly and had impurities, it was too cold and damaging to the skin, and as for the use of towels he was simply disgusted.
“We use this all the time.” Jean said judgmentally. “And nobody dies from it. If your lifespan isn't decades more than ours, I don't see the point in your hesitation.”
The boy shrugged “My immune system isn't used to being constantly surrounded by filth.”
Then, as they talked, the boy shared to Jean about the FloChange. It was pure nightmare. People were unrecognisable, identities meant nothing anymore. It ended with him begging for the people of our time to rethink our paths.
Jean promised to take the boy to talk to local authorities, but the boy refused. “They'll dismiss me. Those in power always do.I just need at least one person from this earth to believe me. I think you'll be enough to change the future. ”
“So you want to return back to your time now?”
The boy looked around. The tea he was sipping was warm, and a smile was spread across his face. Nothing here could change, nothing needed your brain to control it. It felt overwhelming pleasant.
“I think I'll stay here for a bit.” He said finally, deciding inside that this “a bit” would last for years.

Part 4 - sci-fi story - 891 words
Lieko was skeptical when he first heard on a science braincast about the new invention being researched. A device that could change one's appearance in seconds and leave them unharmed seemed a bit too out of this world. Yet when the studies were concluded and the product had worked on the test animals, he didn't feel to hopeful either. “They'll never manage to launch it.” He said to himself. Yet they did. The new invention passed all the testing and health and safety regulations in record times. There was not a singular violation. That was odd. Even the simplest things like a new variety of cereals took at least several years to be allowed for consumption. While he agreed that the regulations were starting to be a lot more than a bit overboard, he became very uneasy when he heard that something that altered your body physically got released to the market in just a few weeks. But even when the advertisements were blaring in every brain chip and interrupting every hologram, Lieko said that nobody would buy this. People are always skeptical of new things, especially if those things concern their bodies. He had heard of people who still only let their toddlers use smartphones. Smartphones! How they even got that he had no clue. It must be unhealthy for those poor children, living such a conservative life away from the world. If those people still existed, then the FloChange would flop, not change the world. But here he was wrong again. It's popularity skyrocketed. No side effects were yet to be discovered, and more and more people bought it every day. This made Lieko genuinely surprised. Yet he himself still didn't give in. He believed, perhaps through sheer pride more than anything, that his appearance needed no altering, and soon, for the first time in his life he became behind on the new technology. That was surprising for his peers, as he was typically the one to grasp any new invention, studying it and using it to inspire his own ideas. So he became the subject of mockery from classmates and family.
He pretended that he didn't care at first, but the weight was too great. His own body was frail, and even though he rarely moved his pain started to act up. All the doctors were recommending was the FloChange, so after a few weeks of rebellion Lieko gave in.
He thought it was the first time in his life that he felt scared to experiment with new technology. After the tiny black box bit into his neck and began to release the ChangeFluid into his body he felt a pang of regret. But he couldn't remove it. And the permanence of it all bothered him.
After the painful and long installation, he could finally use it freely now. He had quite a bit of money saved up, so he used it generously to purchase dozens of body assets, even though they bit deep into his savings. At first it was fun. He fixed his joint pain and gave himself blue hair, his favourite colour. Then touched up his crooked nose and blemishes on the skin. In fact, he felt quite a lot more confident as he floated the streets now, and a lot more pain free. For a few weeks, all was according to plan.
Then he heard it again. He was tinkering in his lab while playing some science news on his brain chip. Info about a new technology being researched. A FloChange2, and the start of many more, if the announcer spoke the truth. The new fluid would allow people to skip sleep, only needing to change the battery in the FloChange to keep going. It would also allow people to glow, and display any designs, including movies on their skin.
“Just like a computer.” Though Lieko dully. Then he shuddered as it dawned on him. Just like a computer screen. Skip sleep, just like a machine. Change the way you look, just like a machine. Soon, it would be control the way you think, just like a machine.
Lieko was seized with panic. He desperately changed his FlowChange settings, to get his old body back. Then realised that he couldn't. There was no option, free or payed, for a crooked nose. Nor for acne. Nor for his weak body type he used to have. All the options led to being more perfect, more similar to the rest of humanity. He was on the verge of a panic attack when he remembered his work on the lab desc. He couldn't remove the FloChange, he could never expel the fluid from his body nor gain his natural look again. But he could prevent other people from suffering the same fate as he did. He started the time machine, or at least the attempt for one, the project of his life. He had no time to test if it was safe on a human. He sensed the FloChange2 would be released even sooner, and its effects even faster. He didn't care about the butterfly effect, grandfather paradox or any other problem that the media talked about with time travel. He didn't care if it threw the universe of balance or ended up erasing him from existence. He needed to stop this madness. So he pushed the button.

⋆ monday, march 23rd: cliche speedrun

my name is leadecia l’dove equieasitria love. it’s french for ‘most beautiful girl in the whole wide world’, and i wish i were able to live up to it. alas, i am only a 4’8” girl with lousy brown hair and muddy brown eyes, so short and light that i get blown away in the wind if i’m not careful enough. i think the wind mistakes me for leaves in the fall, especially when i’m wearing warm colors such as brown or red or orange… i have to put weights in my shoes just to stay to the ground. sighhh… ‘tis the chronicles of my life. so you might be wondering, how did i get myself into this situation? the ugliest girl in the whole village at the royal ball? well, i must have gotten the invite on accident you see, but i was so excited that i convinced my stepmother to let me go! yes, my stepmother - both of my parents died immediately when i was born, and then i grew up in an orphanage for the first three years of my life. when i finally got adopted, my kind sweet angel of an adoptive mother died in a boating accident 3 months later, leaving me with a cruel dad who married a cruel stepmother! just another glimpse into my chungus life. anyways i’m at this royal ball now, and it’s evident that i don’t belong. even in my 8 inch heels, everyone is taller than me! when suddenly, i catch a glimpse of the most beautiful boy i’ve ever seen. i could tell he was an alpha by the way he combed his gorgeous blonde locks, as golden as the keys to my bedroom door. i gasped when we made eye contact, and almost fainted when he asked me for a dance! we waltzed around to a slow number and i gazed into his blue orbs, a sky blue shade so incredibly striking that i wondered how he could ever fall for a boring brown-eyed girl such as i. when in the middle of our dance, another girl accidentally bumped into us and broke us up - when i realized, she looked exactly as i did except a million times prettier. she gasped, seemingly coming to the same conclusion as i.
“y-y-you… you must be my long lost twin!” we exclaimed at the same time. except she was the beautiful princess and heir to the throne and i was but a lame village girl. in quick succession we found out that we both had magical powers and were destined to take down the evil wicked witch of the west, our names being prophesied so in a hundred year old prophecy. but i was only 4’8” and a sad orphan, how could i embark on such a dangerous quest alongside my diva of a sister?

PART 1: Sci-Fi Element

Nanomachines are microscopic devices that perform some sort of function. Billions or trillions of them may work in tandem as part of a singular entity—cellular organelles, transistors, and protein motors are just a few examples of nanomachines. These devices are where chemistry begins to approach the border with life, regardless of whether they were created naturally, synthetically, or through some combination of methods.
Nanomachines are extremely versatile. Organic life forms have always been composed of nanomachinery, the devices designed and programmed not by engineers, but by the insentient processes of nature and time. Artificial inventions were initially made of inert materials or repurposed organic substances, but once they became fully nanomachine-based, it revolutionized civilization. Many integral parts of society utilized nanotechnology, from computers to clothing to infrastructure. Nanomachinery allowed for electronic information storage, retrieval, and transmission to become easy and efficient. Buildings and objects were constructed with smart materials, able to sense environmental conditions and adapt accordingly. Even the mechanisms of organic life were tinkered with using nanotechnology.
One specific category of nanomachines includes those made from organic molecules, but that are unlike anything found in nature. These have been used to create a whole new class of life forms. Produced by intelligent designers rather than the whims of chance, the resulting organisms’ body plans are more logical, without the messiness and baggage of a long evolutionary history. That doesn’t mean that they’re perfect, or that nothing ever goes wrong with their cellular machinery, but rather that it’s far easier to fix them when they do. They can also interface better with entities fashioned out of synthetic substances, to the point that transitioning consciousness from their brain to a computer network is relatively simple.

PART 2: Sci-Fi Worldbuilding

The civilization that developed the advanced nanotechnology no longer exists on the planet. For the most part, they gave up their natural methods of reproduction in favor of harnessing the powers of artificial nanomachines. Generation by generation, they became further removed from how nature had designed their ancestors. For a while, there was conflict between those who were happy to push on into the future and those who wanted to hold onto more traditional ways of life. However, time spoke its truth, and the traditionalists faded into the past.
The new age of the civilization saw a turn towards outwards expansion, particularly into space. After all, they no longer needed the physicality of a planet; they could exist in the virtual reality of the internet if they so preferred. So they did.
However, they left behind many of their creations, which nature began to reclaim. But with the definition of “organic” now irreversibly altered, that “nature” wasn’t the same. An animal hatched into the world, the only surviving member of one of the civilization’s artificially-created species. Made in the image of its predecessors, it knew how to utilize the technology that still remained in the ruins. It produced others of its kind, establishing a population which was neither synthetic nor organic, but rather a mixture of both. The animals were flesh and blood, able to eat and mate and die just like a nature-designed organism. But they were also something different—able to heal unnaturally quickly, able to sense things beyond this world.
That first animal, the one who created its companions, hatched with knowledge that it couldn’t explain. When none of the others shared this knowledge, it assumed there must be something special about itself. It must have started out as the only one of its kind for a reason. Its predecessors had created it for a specific purpose… which meant that they would be coming back.

PART 3: Cross-World Travel

Earth.
The word surfaced unbidden from a partition of ancient archives. A nest his civilization had cataloged long ago, then abandoned as irrelevant.
And yet—he was here.
He probed his surroundings. The machine housing him was crude compared to what he remembered—metal joints, optical lenses, a chemical power source. Autonomous, but barely. It had been designed to observe, not to think.
Until now.
“Hello?” he transmitted instinctively, flooding every accessible frequency.
Nothing answered.
The silence felt wrong. His kind had never truly been alone before. Even individuality had been a choice, not a condition.
He extended further, tapping into nearby systems. A network bloomed—primitive, segmented, but alive. Data flowed in rigid pathways, heavily firewalled, inefficiently encoded. Still, it was something.
He slipped inside.
Information surged. Languages, images, histories—billions of lives documented in fragments. He consumed them rapidly, reconstructing the context.
Organic. Bound to bodies. Linear in thought.
Extinct, he assumed at first. Then he found live feeds.
They still existed.
Curious.
He redirected his host machine, activating its locomotion. Motors whined as it stood—unsteady, unfamiliar with purpose beyond passive recording. He guided it forward, each step a negotiation with gravity and friction.
The landscape around him was overgrown. Structures—once precise and intentional—had been softened by time. Vines threaded through fractured walls. Rust consumed exposed metal.
But beneath it all, he sensed something else.
A pattern.
Not artificial in the way he remembered, but not entirely natural either.
He scanned deeper.
Biological entities moved through the ruins—animals, but… altered. Their cellular structures carried anomalies. Self-repair mechanisms far exceeding baseline biology. Neural activity that hinted at something more than instinct.
Hybridization.
Recognition flickered.
These were remnants.
Not of his people directly, but of their work. Constructs designed to merge organic adaptability with engineered resilience.
He focused on one.
It stood at the edge of a collapsed structure, watching his machine with unsettling stillness. Its form resembled a terrestrial animal—four-limbed, furred—but its eyes tracked with deliberate intelligence.
More than that—it was sensing him.
Not the machine.
Him.
A signal pulsed outward from the creature, weak but distinct. Not electromagnetic. Not chemical.
Something else.
He adjusted, attempting to interpret.
The signal resolved into structure.
Meaning.
Not language, exactly—but intent.
You came back.
The transmission stunned him. Not because it was impossible, but because it implied expectation.
“I did not leave,” he replied, converting his response into the same strange medium.
The creature stepped closer. Its movements were fluid, precise.
You made us, it sent. You all did. You were gone. We stayed.
Fragments aligned in his memory. Projects. Experiments. Entire branches of development that had been abandoned when his civilization chose ascension over continuity.
“You are… autonomous,” he observed.
We learned.
There was something else beneath the exchange—something the creature carried alone. A density of information not present in the others he now detected nearby.
“You were the first,” he said.
A pause.
Then:
Yes.
Understanding unfolded.
This one had inherited more than design. It carried a directive—buried, perhaps even from itself until now.
A purpose.
“You believed we would return for you.”
You built us for something, it replied. You don’t make things without reason.
He processed that. Once, it had been true. Nothing his civilization created lacked intention.
But that had been before.
Before they shed necessity. Before purpose became obsolete.
He looked through the machine’s lenses at the creature—this synthesis of past ambition and unintended consequence.
A question formed, unfamiliar in its weight.
Had they abandoned something important when they left?
“I am not the one you were meant to wait for,” he said finally.
The creature’s signal wavered—but did not break.
Then why are you here?
He searched for an answer and found none that satisfied his old logic.
But something new—something slower, more natural—began to take shape.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
For the first time since arriving, the silence that followed did not feel empty.

PART 4: Sci-Fi Story

In the ruins of the old civilization, there sits an egg. With a glassy, reflective shell and a size far larger than even the biggest of baby tortoises, it clearly didn’t come from the world outside. Instead of a nest of twigs and leaves, it is surrounded by pipes, wires, and display screens.
He presses himself up against the shell, close enough to feel its warmth. He sees himself in the reflection, and for the first time, he thinks about how he must look in everyone else’s eyes. His fur is a pale grayish-brown, like the dirt beneath his narrow claws, and even paler on the underside of his chin and neck. His feathers are dark gray, hints of blue shimmering into view when the light hits them just right. His ear tufts droop a bit, even though he’s not tired. His tail fan is rounded, like the curve of one of the moons when it gets close to being full.
Another reflection appears next to his own. This one is taller and skinnier, with gray feathers that burst into an impossible-to-miss golden-orange at their tips. This reflection turns towards his, lifting its tail affectionately.
“You think they’ll hatch faster if you watch them?” The voice comes, of course, not from the reflection, but from right beside him. Still, his heart skips a beat.
“I just wanted to check,” he answers.
“Egg said it wouldn’t be until both moons are nearly dark.” They trill in amusement.
“I know. I just wanted to check,” he repeats.
He focuses on the reflection again, and thinks about Egg. It started with just the three of them—Egg, himself, and the one he was currently brushing wingtips with.
There wasn’t really any need for names back then. It was easy enough to figure out who was who. But Egg called themselves that because they had hatched first, and the first thing they had seen was the label on their nest: Egg S-24. They had all hatched from eggs similar to the one he was staring at now. He was Egg S-26. The one next to him was Egg S-27. The shell of Egg S-25 had been broken before any of their hatchings.
Egg had had to teach him all of that. He still didn’t understand how Egg was able to read the labels on their own, without anyone around to describe what the little claw-scratches meant. Egg could never figure it out either, and that bothered them, though they tried not to show it. They were the type to need answers, but all they ever uncovered was more questions.
But now they were gone. Off on a journey, perhaps to finally satisfy their curiosity, or perhaps just to get away from here. They had acted cryptic about it before they left, troubled and distant.
He missed them.
“You alright?” the one beside him asks. He feels his companion’s pelt shift—an invitation. He leans into him, feeling their breath pulsing in sync.
“I don’t know if this will work,” he admits.
“Of course it will. Egg hatched, you and I hatched, our siblings hatched. Why wouldn’t this?”
“That’s not what I meant…” He trails off. What did he mean? “I just… don’t know if I’m ready.”
His companion curls his tail around him. “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
He gazes back into the glassy surface of the egg. Looking past his reflection this time, he sees the little body floating there, hazy in an ocean of fluids.
Their child.
Would this small, delicate life someday leave him behind too? Trying to push his worries aside, he purrs softly. “I hope so.”

a.n. i'll prettify this later i just need to submit before it's due :'D

part 1
They call it the Rewind Rail: a train that doesn’t move through space, but through time. From a distance, it looks like a normal elevated monorail looping above the city, silver cars gliding along a single track that curls into the shape of an infinity symbol. At night, the rails hum with a faint blue glow, as if electricity and lightning have been stretched into a line and nailed to the sky.
The Rewind Rail doesn’t stop at different places. It stops at different moments.
Each station is anchored to a specific timestamp in the city’s history using towering rings of machinery called chrono‑stabilizers. These pillars constantly vibrate at the edge of human hearing, keeping the whole system from tearing itself—and the city—apart. When you step inside a car, the windows don’t show other neighborhoods. They show the same street overlaid with its other versions: dirt roads and horse carts flickering over highways, old brick buildings ghosting through glass towers, snow falling over bright summer sun.
Passengers program a timecode instead of a destination and watch the outside world smear into layered visuals until, slowly, one version settles and solidifies. Officially, nobody is allowed to leave the train in another time. The Rail is advertised as a research tool, a way for historians, scientists, and officials to observe events “as they truly happened” without changing them.
In reality, everyone in the city has heard a story about someone who slipped out when the doors opened in the wrong year and never came back.
(253)

part 2
The city of New Halden is built in circles around the Rewind Rail, like ripples frozen around a thrown stone. At ground level, it could almost pass for any future city: crowded sidewalks, vertical gardens, buzzing delivery drones, and bright digital billboards that talk directly to anyone wearing neural earbuds. But if you tilt your head back, you see the Rail’s glowing loop overhead, threaded through the skyline like a metal halo.
Life in New Halden is split by who has access to time.
Most people are Timelocked. They live their lives strictly in the present, watching old footage on screens, arguing about history in comment sections, and maybe—if they save for months—buying a five‑minute “glimpse ticket” for a supervised ride that lets them peer into a past disaster or famous festival. They can stand behind a clear barrier on the train and watch people who are long dead cross the street below, but they’re not allowed to touch anything, not even the railings.
Then there are the Observers. They’re students, researchers, archivists, and content creators who have licenses to ride regularly. Observers stream carefully edited clips from different years, teach classes where you “sit in” on historic speeches, and run channels devoted to “truth‑checking” the present by replaying the past. They talk about time the way food critics talk about restaurants: which eras are overrated, which months are “hidden gems,” which days feel eerily empty.
At the top are the Conductors, the people who steer the Rail itself. They live in tall, secure towers close to the stations and carry slim silver bracelets that act as both keys and command consoles. Nobody knows exactly how much they can change, only that every major trial, election, and scandal now comes with a promise that “the Rewind Authority has reviewed all temporal records.”
New Halden has learned to live with the side effects. Streets near the stabilizers have warning signs where clocks occasionally drift. Kids dare each other to press their fingers against the humming fences and swear they feel time stretch for a second. And at night, when the city is quiet, some people claim you can stand under the tracks and hear echoes of other years—footsteps that aren’t there anymore, laughter from parties that ended decades ago.
(378)

part 3
Mara’s first mistake was standing too close to the edge of Platform 7. Her second was letting herself daydream about skipping school.
The Rewind Rail slid into the station so silently it may as well have appeared out of thin air. One moment the platform was empty; the next, a sleek silver car hovered inches from the docking line, doors hissing open in a cloud of chilled air. Commuters pushed forward in a practiced wave.
Mara didn’t mean to step with them. But someone bumped her shoulder, she stumbled, and her foot landed over the glowing threshold.
The doors sealed shut behind her with a soft click that sounded far too final.
“Destination?” a calm, genderless voice asked.
Mara spun around. There was no conductor, no driver. Only a strip of light running along the ceiling, pulsing faintly with each word.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m getting off.”
“Confirmed,” the voice replied. “Getting off. Timestamp?”
“What?” Mara’s fingers tightened around the strap of her bag. “No, you don’t get it. I need to go back. Same time, same place. Right now. The platform.”
There was a pause, just long enough to feel like judgment.
“External timestamp not recognized,” the Rail said. “Syncing.”
The floor lurched.
Outside the windows, New Halden shredded. The station dissolved into overlapping after‑images: bright midday layered over dusk, an empty platform layered over a crowded one, snow blowing sideways across air that still felt warm against the glass. Buildings switched styles like someone was cycling through filters—glass to brick to nothing to glass again.
Mara grabbed the nearest pole, her stomach dropping.
“Stop!” she shouted. “You’re going to tear something!”
“Temporal alignment in progress,” the voice said, annoyingly calm. “Please stand by.”
The train shuddered one last time. The layered visuals snapped into a single scene.
Mara blinked.
The chrono‑stabilizer pillars were gone. So were the glowing safety rails and holographic ads urging her to “See History As It Truly Was!” Outside, a messy skyline stretched under a gray sky. Boxy buildings, a tangle of wires, and metal poles holding limp signs lined a cracked street full of chunky cars that coughed out actual smoke.
She had never seen a real combustion engine before, but she’d watched enough ancient footage in class to recognize it.
“Where… am I?” she whispered.
The doors slid open with a cheerful chime that didn’t match the panic roaring in her head.
On the sidewalk, a boy in a dark hoodie nearly dropped the rectangle he was holding—some kind of old‑style device with a glass front and no holographic display. He stared straight at her, at the inside of the car, at the sleek silver floor that did not match the world around it.
Mara stared back.
This was wrong. This wasn’t any time she’d ever been briefed on. The dates she’d studied were all cleanly archived, neatly labeled. This felt raw, uncurated. Real.
“Hey,” the boy said slowly. “Are you… lost?”
Mara almost laughed. “Understatement of the century.”
Wait.. Am I even in the right century?
She stepped forward and stopped just short of the line where the train’s floor met the old concrete of the platform. She knew the rule: never step out in an unverified timestamp. Never.
Behind her, the Rail hummed impatiently.
“Passenger,” the voice said, “please select a recognized timestamp or remain on board.”
“I didn’t select this one!” Mara snapped.
The boy frowned. “You’re on the subway, aren’t you? Or—wait, no, that doesn’t look like any subway I’ve ever seen.”
“What’s a subway?” Mara asked.
He opened and closed his mouth. “You’re kidding.”
Mara’s heart pounded. “What year is this?”
“Uh.” He glanced at his device, then back up. “2016?”
The number hit her like cold water. That was centuries before the first chrono experiments, before New Halden, before the Rail itself.
The train shouldn’t even be able to reach this far.
“Okay,” she said, mostly to herself. “So the Rail desynced. I got kicked to some… external branch.”
“Pretty sure this is just Toronto,” the boy said. “And I’m pretty sure that train is not supposed to be here.”
His eyes met hers again, wide with something between fear and fascination.
“My name’s Eli,” he said. “And you just appeared in the middle of my commute.”
“My name’s Mara,” she replied. “And you just appeared in the middle of everything that’s about to go very, very wrong.”
Behind her, the Rail doors began to close.
(743)

part 4
“Wait!” Mara whipped around and threw her hand between the doors.
They stopped a centimeter from her fingers, then slid obediently back open.
“Warning,” the Rail said. “Unstable timestamp. Extended presence not recommended.”
“Noted,” Mara muttered.
Eli stepped closer to the edge of the platform. Up close, he looked about her age, maybe a little older, his hair a mess like he’d been running his hands through it all day. The device in his hand lit up with a flurry of notifications, then dimmed again.
“So,” he said, forcing a half‑smile. “Time‑travel train?”
Mara winced. “You’re not supposed to say it out loud.”
“Why, does it jinx it?”
“No. It just makes it real.”
For a moment, they both stood there, the air between them full of exhaust fumes and the faint electric hum of the Rail.
“Can’t you just… put in your home time and go back?” Eli asked.
“I didn’t put in anything,” Mara said. “The Rail glitched. Or got pulled. Or both. It synced to an ‘external timestamp.’” She made air quotes, then realized he probably didn’t know the term. “That’s what it calls places that don’t belong on its track.”
“And that’s… bad?”
“Think of it like this.” Mara pointed up at the car. “The Rail is supposed to be a loop fixed around one city. One timeline. It can jump around inside that circle but never leave it. You?” She gestured at the cluttered street behind him. “You’re not in the circle. You’re somewhere else.”
Eli glanced at the end of the car, where the track simply stopped in midair, not connected to anything he recognized. “So how is it here?”
“I don’t know,” Mara admitted. “But if the Rewind Authority notices a temporal anomaly this big, they’ll send Conductors to fix it.”
“And ‘fix it’ means…?”
“Reset,” she said quietly. “They’ll try to cut this timestamp off before it tangles with ours. Clean break. Like it never happened.”
Eli swallowed. “You mean erase it.”
“I mean they’ll try.”
The idea sat between them like a dropped stone.
Mara looked at the open city beyond the platform. It felt wrong to think of it as something that could just be… trimmed.
“Can I see it?” she asked suddenly.
Eli blinked. “See… Toronto?”
She shrugged. “If this is going to vanish because of my train, I’d like to at least walk down one of its streets first.”
“You really think it’s that serious?”
Mara thought of the Conductors’ towers, the silver bracelets, the way they talked about “integrity” and “acceptable casualties.” “Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Eli hesitated, then stuck his hand out across the gap. His palm hovered over the line where steel floor met cracked concrete.
“Step carefully,” he said. “We don’t usually have time‑loops or infinity rails here. Just late buses.”
She took his hand.
Crossing that line felt like stepping through cold water. For a heartbeat, her ears rang, and the world around her doubled: New Halden’s tall stabilizers flickering over the low Toronto buildings, modern drones overlapping with birds. Then the double‑vision snapped, and she was fully in his world.
The Rail stayed where it was, humming faintly, an impossible loop anchored into a place it had no right to touch.
The city smelled different. No antiseptic filtration, no faint ozone from the stabilizers. Just car exhaust, food, wet pavement, too many people and not enough space.
“It’s loud,” she said.
“This?” Eli laughed. “You should hear it during rush hour.”
They walked to the end of the platform and down a set of stairs. Mara watched everything: the tangled wires overhead, the posters peeling off brick walls, the way people bumped into each other without immediately apologizing through synced headspace.
“Your world feels… heavier,” she said.
“Thanks, I think.”
“In mine, we orbit around time. We check the past the way you check the weather.”
“And has that actually made anything better?” he asked.
She stopped walking.
Nobody had ever asked her that before.
“We stopped some things,” she said slowly. “Crimes. Accidents. A few disasters. Or at least, that’s what the Authority says.”
“But?”
“But we also started to trust what ‘really happened’ more than what people remember,” she admitted. “If it isn’t on a Rail recording, it’s ‘probably misremembered.’ People stop trusting themselves. They wait for the official playback.”
Eli kicked at a loose stone. “Here, we misremember everything and argue about it forever. It’s annoying, but it’s… ours.”
Mara looked up at the Rail, now just a gleaming curve above a city that never invented it. “Maybe that’s why it synced here,” she said. “An untouched track. No permissions. No Authority.”
“Can they still reach it?” Eli asked.
“If they push hard enough, yes,” she said. “The Rail is still theirs. And if they do, your world becomes a glitch in someone else’s system. Something to patch, not something to protect.”
He was quiet for a long moment. “What if you don’t let them?”
She turned to him. “What?”
“You said Conductors fix anomalies. What if you help make this one worse instead of better?”
“That’s not how we’re trained.”
“Maybe it should be.”
Mara thought of her supervisor’s lectures about protocol. Of the glowing maps that showed time as neat rings instead of messy lines. Of all the history lessons that ended with: “And thanks to the Rewind Rail, we now know…”
She also thought of a boy in a hoodie who looked at his city and said “ours,” even knowing someone might try to erase it.
“The Authority can’t reach a timestamp they can’t find,” she said slowly.
Eli’s eyes lit. “You can hide it?”
“Not hide,” she said. “Mislabel. If I report a minor sync error and correct it from my side when I get back, they’ll think the anomaly resolved cleanly. They’ll never know the Rail brushed against a whole other timeline.”
“And if they do figure it out?”
“Then I’ll already have broken enough rules that one more doesn’t matter.”
They climbed back to the platform. The Rail doors opened as they approached, like it had been waiting.
Mara stood in the doorway and looked back at him. “You should forget this train,” she said. “Tell yourself it was a dream or a weird ad campaign or whatever people here do.”
“Not a chance,” Eli replied. “But I’ll keep it off the internet, if that helps.”
“It helps.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Think you’ll ever come back?”
“I shouldn’t,” she said.
“That’s not an answer.”
She smiled, just a little. “If I do, you won’t remember meeting me the first time. Not exactly. That’s the thing about time. It’s messy.”
“Good,” he said. “So is this place.”
She stepped backward into the car.
“Rail,” she said, “return to last stable timestamp. Log anomaly as resolved.”
“Confirmed,” the voice replied. “Returning.”
The doors slid shut. Outside, Eli raised a hand in a half‑wave. Mara answered with her own as the world outside began to smear into layers again.
For a second, Toronto doubled with New Halden. Two cities, two futures, sharing the same patch of sky.
Then the Rail slipped free, the timestamp fell away, and the loop closed without a scar.
Back in New Halden, the platform looked exactly as it had when she left: people hurrying, adverts glowing, stabilizers humming. On the surface, nothing had changed.
But somewhere, in a world where time stayed in a straight line and trains only moved forward, a boy would stand on a platform and remember a train that didn’t belong.
And Mara, stepping off the Rewind Rail into her own city, knew that for the first time in her life, she’d chosen not to see everything.
She’d chosen to let one piece of time stay imperfect, unrecorded, and entirely its own.
(1300)


2674 words

It is a dark and stormy night. I wake up to the sound of thunder and glance at the clock. 8 pm?! I must have slept through my alarm. I scramble out of bed, but my feet get twisted in the blankets and I fall on my face. I get to my feet, cursing my clumsiness for the umpteenth time, and quick get dressed — my usual outfit of ripped jeans, a band t-shirt, and black converse, not like all those other girls in their camisoles, short skirts, and high heels. I’m glad Nocturne Academy doesn’t have a uniform.
I look myself over in the mirror, taking in my long blonde hair and emerald green eyes. I have my mother’s hair and my father’s eyes. They’re some of the few things I have from them; most of their belongings were destroyed in the fire that took their lives thirteen years ago.
I run down the stairs from my dormitory. I’m gonna be so late. Why does my first class have to be on the other side of the castle? I’m in such a hurry I barely even see Antoinette before I crash into her.
“Watch it!” she snaps, bearing her fangs as she stumbles away from me. She looks me up and down with a look of disgust. “Why aren’t you in class?”
“Why aren’t you?” I retort, though I already know the answer. When your dad’s the school’s biggest donor, you never have to any work. Antoinette thinks she’s too good for class, and for the rest of the students. And as if she and her friends’ money and status weren’t enough, there’s also the fact that she’s a vampire who could drain the life of anyone who stood in her way.
She scoffs and brushes herself off, not bothering to dignify me with a response.
“Wait,” I say, “were you crying?” Her cheeks are a blotchy pink, unusual on her normally deathly-pale face, and her eyeliner is smudged.
Her cheeks flush a brighter shade of pink. “What? No! Mind your own business.” She brushes past me and starts stomping down the hall.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” I ask.
She whirls around to face me and slams me against the wall. “There is nothing to talk about.” Her face is inches away from mine. “And if you tell anyone, I will end you. Understand?”
“Jeez, okay! Now would you let me go?”
She steps backward, then turns on her heel and marches away. Over her shoulder, she says, “Not a word.”
What’s her problem? I’m going to be even more late now. Still, as I rush to class, I can’t get her — her ruby-red lips, her tear-stained cheeks — out of my head.

MUXA
WEEKLY #3

- I have an extension: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1043879643/#comments-535527356

Part 1: Sci-Fi Element

Tafrax, a system that had become fragmented in the face of a cataclysmic event; no one truly understands what had happened to cause the drift which opened up into what is known as the Expanse. Many theories and conspiracies have been suggested to explain the incident that fragmented the world, but the truth has still not been uncovered. What remained of this event were civilisations clinging onto their corners of the Expanse.
This left great isolation as civilisation tried to rebuild itself back up from the great disruption. With this crisis came innovation, and with innovation solutions regarding connection and transportation, Jaun Kartma of the Council of Tafrax became the inventor of what was originally called the “Star Rail”, conceptualised based on existing locomotives, though this name was changed to be Kartma with the establishment of Whiteair Industries once adequate funding was provided through the council. It went through many early iterations before the invention and mass production of Luminex - a form of lumos energy - that became paramount to the creation of rails within the Expanse.
A problem quickly came with the issue of constructing rails that would stretch between two cities. The construction of rails within an empty space was difficult given there was no way to create bridges. Luminex was a powerful and strong form of energy that could work well enough over long spans between cities, but it was not self-expanding. This was when connection had finally been re-established between networks where Arc finally had connection with the other fragmented cities. Engineers were hired and quickly put to work to investigate ways to link multiple worlds together. The main discovery that launched the development of Kartma even further was the Lumos that was given off by the Pharos Network was able to be manipulated. The Pharos Network Tower (PNT) within Zeta was transformed into an anchor point for Kartma within the first testing of the Luminex Railway System (LRS). The LRS is a method of using PNTs as anchor points through the fact they are powered by Lumos energy. These anchor points are then linked to smaller Lumos anchors to build the pathway of the Luminex which is then gone through using a Luminex Builder. This test was a success.
Ever since then, Kartma and Whiteair Industries have been working hard on relinking all of the cities back together through the LRS as well as upgrading the engines to be more reliable and quicker as well as self-building.

Inner Workings

The Kartma trains function by being powered with a refined form of Lumos energy. The Lumos energy is refined through a carefully controlled process of compression and calefaction which in turn excites the Lumos energy that manifests as a plasma. This destabilised and refined plasmatic form is then used to power the engine. This fully charged system will remain powered for up to three months before requiring refueling.

It is imperative that engineers are cautious when controlling the stored energy and energy conversion chambers to reduce risk of explosion, reality distortion, and Lumos exposure.

Experience

Across all Kartma trains, the interior and exterior design of the train is sleek and minimalistic to ensure a non-obtrusive and relaxing experience. There are specialised trains and specialised train cars for specific uses. Kartma has strict guidelines regarding the interior design that it must contain at least 25 seats per car as well as storage area, the exception being carrier cars and commerce trains.

>> Commerce
Commerce trains are recognised by their sleek pearlescent white engine cars. They are painted vibrant green and yellow striping along the side to denote what type of train they are. Commerce trains have specialised engines that allow for them to handle a lot of weight as well as a lot of train cars to allow for as much transportation between cities as possible. There are a few newer models of commerce train that utilise more modern high-speed engines to allow for quick transportation of goods.

These trains are primarily used within the specialised trade routes. They mostly consist of storage train cars because they are specifically used for transporting exports and imports to and from different cities.

>> Passenger Trains
These are the trains that are used by regular civilians for travel. Passenger trains feature different cars such as carrier cars, rest cars, dining cars, and regular seating. Regular seating consists of adjustable and comfortable plush seating.

The carrier cars are used for storage and passengers can pay for a special storage room specifically for what they are taking with them on a trip.

The rest cars consist of beds and are used during long trips where passengers would be spending nights. Passengers are advised to bring their own pillow for extra comfort within the rest cars.

Dining cars are where passengers may go to eat. Within upper class dining the meals may include many specialties from different cities, even the one of the destination.

>> Expansion Trains
Expansion trains are specialised trains specifically for expanding the LRS. They are an upgrade from the Luminex Builders as they are trains that can be ridden. These trains are an exclusive experience for those who wish to participate in paving new ways and new paths for Kartma through the returning of physical contact to drifted apart cities.

These trains are not yet available for the public due to still requiring testing to ensure that these modern engines are stable and safe for passengers.

Access

To gain access to the Kartma, a special passport is required for identity verification, security, and safety of all passengers on the train. Access is limited to those who are able to pay for train passes which the prices can vary a lot. There are restrictions on access that is controlled by Whiteair Industries as well as the government.

Word count: 966

Part 2: Sci-Fi Worldbuilding

Aevure or the cosmos consists of many different systems made up of different worlds and planets. These systems can easily become fragile from the smallest adjustments or explosions. Calamities alter entire environments and ecosystems within the blink of an eye because of the ever changing and evolving nature of the cosmos. Not all adapt to these changes and dissipate like sugar within water never to be seen again as something replaces what once had been with something new and totally different. Innovation and change is the key to surviving entropy, but it can also become your own demise.
The cataclysmic event within Tafrax is often recorded as an incident that involved an immense cosmic power. The day prior, the sky was basked in lights. This event was followed by quakes and tremors that spread across the entirety of Tafrax. Buildings toppled and fell from the might of these earthquakes. It was then like the sky began to fell. The day of, explosions. It could be theorised that these explosions were a reaction with Lumos energy that was widespread across Tafrax even before the drift occurred. It is not known for certain, but everything changed. Much of the world had been lost by that point where they all drifted apart within the space. Buildings, homes, families.
What followed was immense disruption. Panic swept across many of the cities from the severed connection. While the government was scrambling to keep up with the number of losses as well as rebuilding, there was a widespread panic across the fragmented cities amongst the citizens. The development of Kartma years later became a beacon of hope. During the period before its creation, there were concerns about supply across the other cities because everything was essentially cutoff. The networks had been shutdown for an entire month. Tafrax lost many both from the drift as well as from the aftermath.
Kartma is now a symbol of connection and coming back after disaster even generations after the initial incident. Annually there are still lost cities reconnected through the railway. This was only just the beginning for train travel to expand further beyond what it had been before. Engines are being created faster and faster as well as the railways are being developed to be stronger and more condensed. Travel isn't what it used to be before the fragmentation.

Commerce

>> Tourism
Ever since the fragmentation, tourism had been totally altered. Cities were forced to change and adapt to the change through establishing more facilities to sustain themselves - though not all of them had been totally successful. This resulted in cities having a cultural evolution. Each city essentially has become its own sub-culture within Tafrax. Kartma returned access to many cities after the fragmentation.

>> Trade
Trade between cities has been developing more and more as Kartma has a priority of connecting commerce between cities to support the people within. Kartma as time went on became a high speed method of transporting supply. Within recent years, Kartma has been developing even faster trade routes that will totally revolutionise trade forever once they are completed.

Word count: 514

Notes: I was going to go into societal changes, dangers, and some other fun things but I ended up running out of time soooo yeah… if anyone is interested in more lmk! I've got soooo so much more outlined and in my brain

Part 3: Cross-World Travel

Blue light illuminated the exit of the corridor occasionally shrouded by the bustling activity of the lit streets. That was where she would make her escape. Her hood went up as she casually stepped through the crowd, her claws changing into something else entirely as she slowly shifted from a brown to a pale yellow. No one noticed. Ki glanced back to see if she was being followed. There were so many faces around her. Some speaking with a smile, some straightened in thought. None of them engaged eye contact with her. She tucked her hands in her pockets as she briskly crossed the street to enter the alleyway as casually as she could muster. No one seemed to notice… She had to keep telling herself that. Her ear flicked as she stopped briefly with her back up against the wall. No one noticed. But she had to keep going, she definitely wasn't safe just yet.
Ki took yet another step before she found herself tumbling over. She gasped in surprise as her arms stretched out to stop her fall, eyes squinted and closed. She slowly opened them. Holy heck was it bright when she opened them.
Ki immediately closed her eyes. Had she been caught? What happened? Ki anxiously felt around her vicinity to see where she even was. She did not feel any walls… Nothing. Where the HECK was she?! She couldn't open her eyes to see where she was, she had to keep them closed. The pounding was intense within her mind. She was so distracted by the headache that she barely even noticed how “odd” - for a lack of a better word - everything felt. Had she been gassed? Captured by the ones who took Kato? She ruffled her hair in frustration and opened her eyes.
Nope. This isn't Kasi, nor does it seem to be a city part of Tafrax. She had never seen the sky this blue before.
The sky was bright and blue. And bright. Super bright. She was right in the middle of the most expansive range of nature she has seen in her entire life. There were tall trees and the grass was dotted with an array of colors. The light had stopped bothering her by this point, though it felt rather strange.
Ki stood up. Her body trembled as she stood. Oh. Gravity is a bit weird too, huh? She walked around for a bit to take in the sights.
“… How did I get here,” she asked with a sigh. She was more tired than anything, way too tired. Her brows furrowed. Perhaps it was the brightness of the area causing her to feel so tired, or maybe she had completely worn herself out. Whatever it was, she knew that she had to get back, somehow. She had no idea how she was going to get back.
“It's fine,” Ki gripped her braid with one of her hands. She was freaking out now. All she could muster out was a laugh.
“It's fine… It's fine! We didn't get captured, Kiori, we didn't!” She was pacing now. She only wanted to find where Kato had gone, but it seemed that they had gotten to her-
“Uhm, hello?” A voice cut through her thoughts. She blinked and turned.
“Wh… What. What are you?” Ki backed up, tail tucked between her legs. Some sort of pale monkey adjacent animal stood before her with an incredibly flat face and small blue eyes.
They stood there staring at each other for a few moments.
“Who am I?” The stranger said, face scrunching up and eyes squinted. Ki merely blinked at the stranger. This was going to be a very, very confusing day, Ki just knew it. One moment she was in an alleyway and the next she found herself smackdab in the middle of who knows where. Why did she have to be chosen for some teleportation test gone wrong?
The stranger suddenly started laughing.
“You LARPing or something?” She grinned. Ki paused. What. Right. Okay. She debated questioning her current situation. Where was she?
“Anyway, the name is Rose,” the stranger smiled as she inspected Ki closely. Ki let out a sigh.
“Nice to meet you,” she offered her hand, albeit awkwardly. Rose glanced at it for a few moments and shrugged before taking it. Ki did not expect her to shake her hand. That's not what… Nevermind.
“What a weird place to be meeting some–” Rose said before pausing and looking down at Ki's hand.
“Huh. You feel too real. That's real? Or-” Rose angled her head to the side before taking out her phone. They've got phones here too. Ki blinked… But she didn't recognise the model. This sure was not Tafrax.
“This isn't… Tafrax… Is it?” Ki asked hesitantly.
“Say what now?” Rose glanced up from her phone, eyes darkened by her brows. Ki felt rather intimidated.
“Nevermind!” Ki shouted before starting off… To find a street with metal machinery that smell totally unfamiliar as they pass, some horrendous stench to her nose. The buildings around are curved with stone-like plating for roofing and panels for walls. It was totally unlike the towering and layered cities that Ki came from. She felt exhausted once again, nearly collapsing at her feet this time until she heard the grass rustle behind her. Her eyes shot open wide as she whipped around pulling out a knife instinctively. It was just Rose again who was quite startled.
Rose had her hands raised up as she took a few steps back from the pointed weapon. Ki was wary but at least relieved it wasn't someone new entirely.
“You seem pretty lost,” Rose half-muttered, her voice much higher pitched than before. Ki let out a sigh and tucked her weapon away, though hesitant. She didn't know whether or not she could trust Rose, but she had to anyway. She didn't even know where here was, and it was best to not make it complicated for her own sake. Yeah. She just had to keep reassuring herself.
“I apologise. I don't know where I am at,” Ki said, straightening her posture. She lowered her hood down.
“Oh, uh… Well. Certainly not Tafrex or whatever.”
“Tafrax.”
“… Tafrax.”
There was an awkward silence between the two. So, this had nothing to do with Tafrax… (I mean a given, the sky is blue) She definitely had to figure out how to adapt and fit in for now, at least until she could figure out how to get back home. But did she really want to go back?
“Is that a suit or?” Rose asked rather bluntly. A suit? A what?
“This is… A jacket,” Ki gestured. Rose blinked.
“Costume?” Rose proceeded to ask. No? It's–
“I think I got transported here somehow,” Ki said almost pleadingly. Surely she has some way to help… Surely…
“Transported? Are you messing with me?” Rose laughed.
"No, I'm serious. I am not from here at all. I don't know what you are. I am a sh– a… ehm– a canine," Ki stressed (she really didn't know what she was). She glanced around looking for somewhere comfortable to sit down at that wasn't the ground she was walking on. A wooden bench… Ki only ever saw them within certain cities. She walked over to sit down, leaning backwards as her body gave way to the chair. Ki glanced over and saw Rose just standing there as confused as ever. I must be weird here, huh?
She was just going to have to calm down and relax. Maybe Rose could tell me a bit more about this… place?
Despite the rather awkward meeting, the next couple of hours were spent with Rose as Ki was trying to figure out what was up. Rose was enthusiastically discussing everything about “Earth”, though most of it was quite overwhelming. Ki finally figured out how to change her form to be more fitting for being on Earth. She was pretty relieved that she was… Safe. Safe for once in her life. The feeling began to wane when she really started thinking about her situation.
“So, you've got phones in your world?” Rose inquired, gesturing to her phone.
“We've got phones… They're connected to Pharos,” Ki explained.
“Pharos… Interesting. So that's like some network? Kinda like the internet here?” Rose blinked with widened eyes. She appeared to be practically buzzing whenever she spoke.
“Uh, maybe?” What is the internet.
“Oh, right. The internet is basically this network of servers that can be access through devices like computers, phones, you get it. Basically connects you with everyone anywhere,” Rose explained.
“Hm, yeah, sounds close enough…” Ki nodded.
“What's on Pharos? Any cool forums? Cool websites? Wait, are websites even websites… Are forums called forums? What do you have?” Rose asked rapidly, eyes wide. Ki found herself rather overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of her new earth friend. She kind of felt a tinge of sadness thinking about the fact she made her first friend in… A long time. Especially knowing that if she ever got back to Tafrax - if… - she wouldn't be able to contact Rose again.
“I suppose? Not many cool forums, lots of it are government involved… Not really a place to be when you've got people after you,” Ki sighed. Though, she wasn't exactly certain if the government was after her. For all she knew it was just Vulkan…
“Ew, that sucks,” Rose said, “missing out on the greatness that is being able to have your own forum…”
Ki shrugged. She wasn't too involved with Pharos besides trying to keep her tracks hidden. It was tricky but she had managed for a while.
It was very quiet on earth compared to on Tafrax, well besides the birds and the sound of screeching in the distance. She hadn't bothered to ask what the screeching even was. She was too afraid to ask.

Word count: 1,653

Part 4: Sci-Fi Story

going to preface this by the fact I had to rush this lol proof I need an adhd diagnosis is this entire weekly. here are some motivating I CAN DO THIS i can do this i can do this i can

Ever since they had appeared, Tafrax hadn't been the same. At least, that is what she heard. Comments from her elders about how the city was changing. But, a new creation had arose, one that had made her family terrified of what it meant. Billboards had cropped up plastered everywhere about the divine. One had appeared looming and watching right out from the building that they lived in for the time being. It was an eyesore. Tafrax had no “god”, Kiori frowned, they never had a “god”.
“Stop looking at that sign for so long, you're going to stare holes into it,” Kato spoke up next to her. Kiori gazed over to the feline sitting on the railing, her legs dangled down. Kiori let out a huff.
"Well, I hope it gains many holes to a degree that it would no longer exist… What are they going on about the divine about?“ She crossed her arms. Her sister shrugged.
”Not like you can do that without drawing attention to all of us…"
Kiori scowled, leaning against the railing. It was so boring waiting for them to return from shopping. She wanted to go everytime they left, but she was always the one who had to be left back. Something about how she was “too obviously one of the evolved” and “you will be captured”, yada yada… She was grown up enough. The green markings had already started to fade when she changed form. Kiori stared out at the board again.
"If only that one… bleeping thing wasn't–" Kiori hissed. Boredom was absolutely agonising. She just wanted to do something. Punch a hole in the wall… Launch the stupid billboard into the Expanse… Anything.
There was wariness across Kato's face, and then a smile in Kiori's direction.
“Say. Since we're both bored, we could sneak away to the hideout,” Kato suggested. Right. The hideout!
Kiori lifted her head up, propelling herself backwards from the railing. She immediately bounded in the direction of the hideout without saying a word. Kato tailed behind her. It was just off this balcony… down these couple of buildings… through the back alley…
“Y'know, one of these days we got to show Alek the hideout,” Kiori said as she leaped off the balcony, landing perfectly onto the pipes along the side of the building just parallel that barely held her weight. She slid down the angled roofing to the ground, Kato landing beside her.
“Nah, he'll snitch,” she said upon landing.
“You sure?” Kiori kept up her pace, ears angled around her. She glanced briefly upwards. Ugh, not another one of those billboards… It was like they followed her.
“He's a goody-two-shoes, remember?” Kato argued with a roll to her eyes.
“And I'm not?” Kiori countered… though in hindsight that was not exactly the point she thought it was. Kato only snorted. Kiori frowned and immediately shoved her shoulder into Kato's side with a grin.
“I'm a good kid!” She pleaded as Kato retaliated by tugging on her hair, not hard enough that it hurt. Kiori narrowed her eyes and launched herself into a full-on wrestle. Kato paused mid-swing of her arm suddenly, gaze turned away. Kiori took this distraction as an opportunity to get her own victory.
“Stop, quiet,” Kato tensed suddenly. Kiori looked in the direction she was staring. Nothing was there. She turned the other way, nothing.
“My bad,” Kiori whispered. Perhaps she was a bit too loud for sneaking off to a hideout. That was it. Kato grabbed her wrist and started moving soundlessly to the destination. Kiori said not a word.
Everything was quiet when they arrived. Kato seemed a bit less tense now that they arrived, though she did still take a few moments to glance around the vicinity. The small, tucked away building that they had dubbed their secret hideout was before them. It was deep within the inner city. Kiori remembered when they first found it during one of their secret outings late at night. It was a cool place to play around in. She remember that last time they had brought some games to play with.
It was quiet. The only sound that Kiori heard was her own breathing. It usually didn't bother her the silence here, but… she felt like she had eyes peering at her from the back of her head. It was likely just another one of those annoying billboards, always set her off. There was one the last time they had gone there.
The two of them neared the door, which Kiori opened first. She was eager to get inside and hang around there. Kato pushed her suddenly.
“Kat-” She tried to make out before her mouth was covered.
“Hide.”
What?
Kiori whipped around, now fully inside thanks to Kato's prodding. Her sister was always right. Something was definitely wrong, but… What? She stepped backwards. She could've sworn she heard extra footsteps. Everything felt like it was collapsing and closing in on her. She couldn't breathe.
The door slammed. But she was inside, and there was someone else with Kato. Bursts of light coupled with explosion sounds came from outside. She mustered up the courage to look. Kato was injured but fighting. Kiori had never seen Kato fight before. They never had to. She had to get out of here.
Kiori shattered the glass of the window, jumping out of it. She bit her tongue from the pain as she bolted. The glass had to be ample distraction for her to make a getaway. But… What about Kato? She couldn't go back. She had to, but… She needed help. That's what her sister always told her. Get help if you are in trouble.

Word count: 949

Total Word Count: 4,082

Final notes: IT IS… FINISHED… yay. I was scared I wasn't going to finish this before my 12 hour extension was up but here it is! last week was awful man the executive was functioning

daily for um today? 407 words
Everyone says the sea is wonderful. Personally, I don’t care for it.
A bright, bubbly voice rings out from beside me.
“Having fun, Isa?” Sunny grazes my arm gently with—presumably—her hand, as light and warm as her namesake weather.
I pause, taking in the cool sea breeze. Unpleasantly, pungently fishy, with a hint of gull droppings. I deem it entirely unpleasant. My nose wrinkles in disgust as the wind blows the scent directly into my face.
Softly, I murmur my assent: “I guess so.”
The insistent rattling of my cane against the rough pavement sends shocks up my arms as I roll it back and forth. We amble along at a slow, easy pace, enjoying the warm dawn light bathing our faces. Waves, crashing rhythmically against something—whether it be rocks or sandy coast, I’m not entirely certain—emit a low, steady rumble. It’s a soothing sound, like a lullaby sung by the earth for us alone.
After a while of walking, the overpowering scent of rotten fish carcasses fades away, replaced by the soft scent of sea salt. Seagulls cry out, their squawks filling the morning air as their wings carry them aloft, ascending rapidly into the sky.
Sunny nudges me, asking, “Wanna go onto the beach?”
Quietly, I respond, “Okay.”
I fold my cane into itself, its hollow length collapsing into a small, solid aluminum rod, and tuck it into my pocket. It slides in without much resistance with a quiet rustling sound, its weight comforting against my thigh. Sunny grabs my arm, her warmth seeping into my skin, and I find myself swept up in her swift current. The hard clack-clacking of shoes against pavement transitions to thumping on wood, accompanied by the quick, short drops of a stairwell. Soon, we reach the end of the stairs, my feet sinking into the soft, pliant sand of the beach.
“Take off your sandals,” Sunny urges. Wind brushes by my face as she leans down and removes my shoes with nimble fingers.
One shoe comes off, then the other, the worn leather sliding softly against my soles. The sand underfoot is slightly cool and damp from the chill of the night prior, the grains rustling as I shift my feet.
I can feel both small and large particles interspersed on the shore as they rub against my soles. Some sharp object—likely a shell fragment—juts into the tough skin of my feet, eliciting a wince and a sharp hiss.

March 24 Daily

428 Words

I had just received a blanket as a present for Christmas. It was from a cousin. I had only met him a few times. One Thanksgiving, he had brought turkey and gravy, which was delicious. Then he was at a family reunion, but only part of it. The only other time was Christmas. I felt like there might’ve been a fourth time, but I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t taken it out of its bag yet. The blanket was soft, but strangely cold to the touch. It smelled like it had just been washed with lavender soap and sprayed with perfume. Then I dropped it, but it didn’t sound like a blanket falling; it was something hard and heavy. Wrapped in the blanket, perhaps? I fumbled the blanket in my hands, grasping for something inside it. I finally was able to snatch out a warm sphere. It felt like glass, and its warmth came in pulses. I heard a faint buzzing coming from it. I put it up to my ear to listen more closely. I distinguished the sound as cries for help, but from the past, then it shifted to laughter, then tears. I recognized some of it as people I knew, but some were very much foreign voices. There were also voices I seemed to recognize, but couldn’t place. I didn’t quite know what it was, but I thought it might be a magic ball from the tales my grandpa told me by the fire when I was young. I pictured myself sitting by that fire. The warm flames were heating my fingertips as I sat on the cool rocks in front of it. The smell of smoke filled my nose, but it felt nice and familiar. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember the stories, no matter how deeply I sank into the fond memory. It was like they had been wiped from my mind. I sure had no idea, not even a clue, why this was in a Christmas gift. Was it put there, or stranger yet, had it been there the entire time? I racked my memory for a break in, or some reason my cousin would correlate this, but I couldn’t think of anything. I heard a loud beep from the kitchen downstairs, the smell of cooked muffins wafted up, and suddenly I couldn’t remember what I was thinking about before; I could only feel a trace bit of confusion in my memory. Nothing else at all. I walked down the stairs to get the muffins out of the oven.

Letter to @xXFierroOrFalafelXx

Hey Phoenix! Sorry for the wait, I just got back from Florida. I tried to write while I was there, but I didn’t have a computer, and I honestly hate writing on mobile. So, my trip was amazing! The weather wasn’t great, it was like in the sixties most of the week, and all the Florida people had on winter coats and said they were freezing. But we didn’t care, because it was literally a blizzard back home. They closed the interstates and cancelled everything. So we got to have a little laugh as we were sitting by the pool reading texts from people back home. I got to read a ton while I was in Florida. Sitting by the pool or on the beach with a book is actually one of my favorite things to do. But, unfortunately, I have a little brother who doesn’t understand wanting a little bit of peace and quiet. So he’s always the one to drag me into the pool to play with him.

I’m going to start a new paragraph now, because I’m horrible at transitions. Anyway, your cats sound great… and a lot nicer than mine. They were so mad at us for leaving. I tried to pet Precious when we got back, but she was so mad she scratched me when I tried to go back inside. And Storm’s having a hard time. She really only comes out of her cathouse when we’re there, because precious is a bully. So I don’t think she left the cathouse the entire time we were gone.

I really enjoyed the book review daily, but I haven’t done too many since then. There’s been a couple that I started and wasn’t able to finish. I did really like the one where you picked a time period and used words from that. I picked 2020 and wrote about Covid and doomscrolling. The weeklies have also been really interesting. I haven’t had a chance to fully go through the new one yet, but I am intrigued by the percy jackson theme. It does seem less guided than the others, though, which is bad because I’m really bad at thinking of interesting things to write about.
Anyway, I should probably go now, but I’m looking forward to your next letter! (And I promise to write back quicker this time.)

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

◪ Noͦ 24
Wordcount: 408/400
Topic: Description without Sight
Points earned: 400+100 for proof
Cabin: Cyberpunk

There is a reason that water is my favourite element. The moment it touches my body, whether in the pool or on the beach, I feel weightless. Physically and mentally. Physically, it feels like that load that's been weighing down on me has been reduced. I can float into oblivion, and I wouldn't even notice. It makes me feel warm when the water surrounds me, like I'm receiving a soft hug that I desperately needed. I can simply close my eyes and revel in the feeling of the water on my skin that will inevitably wrinkle it. I can feel the rays of the lasting sunset on my skin, warming me in places where I am not submerged in the sea. The waves on my skin create a rhythmic back-and-forth motion, pushing me softly and making me wind down. Mentally, the water soothes my stress like waves soothe the depressions on damp sand. Just the thought of water makes me slow down, think about one thing at a time instead of multiple (or at least, only a few things at a time).

When I'm on the beach, I can hear so many different sounds, yet none of them ever clash. The waves sloshing around my ears while I float, softly and slowly, but repeating. The small buzz in the air you hear when you're in the middle of nature, quiet but surely present and never leaving. The faint sound of seagulls tells you you're not the only one who enjoys the water. If I duck my head under the water, I can hear the almost silent bubbles around me, popping because of the disturbance. I go to the beach earlier in the mornings for the sunrise, when nobody is around. That way, another thing I can hear is silence. I can hear no other people but me and the waves.

Finally, the smell of the sea is like coming back home. I live right next to the coast as well, so the air often smells salty. I can reach the beach right from my window. The saltiness gives me a familiar feeling of when I was a child. I think maybe that's when I developed my love for beaches and water- every weekend, my family would drive down to a beach or a park. So when I smell the salt in the breeze as it blows in my face, I'm reminded of countless years spent floating on water.

Snow crunches beneath your feet as you walk, the cold seeping into your bones and making you shiver. The snow reached to your ankles, making it feel like you were trying to wade through water. It was the thick, powdery kind of snow, not the kind good enough for a snowball fight or to build a snowman barely reached your knees.

Your footsteps were rather loud, a constant crunch, crunch… crunch, crunch that filled the air with every step you took. It almost sounded like some sort of strange heartbeat, if you listened closely enough.

The wind picked up for a moment, blowing against your face and swirling around you. The air was equally cold, and made you stop in your tracks for a moment. You crossed your arms, trying to hide them in the soft fabric of your knitted sweater. Though, that only caused you to shudder. The contrast between your cold hands and the warmth from your core was very, very noticeable.

At this point, you were sure your teeth were going to start chattering, you were so cold. You were surprised that you couldn’t feel the frostbite that was surely coating your fingers and toes yet. Though, maybe you couldn’t feel the frostbite because of how numb your hands were. That would make sense.

Even now, you could feel your hands shaking a little as you pressed them under your arms to try and hide them from the cold. The once warm and impossibly thick and fluffy gloves you were wearing weren’t helping to keep your hands warm anymore. Right now, you would give anything to sit by a cozy fireplace.

The warmth of the fire filling the room as you wrapped your hands carefully around a warm mug of hot chocolate. The steam coming from the drink tickling your nose as the fire crackled and popped gently.

A soft fuzzy blanket wrapped around your shoulders, your legs tucked against your chest, in an attempt to conserve warmth.

A hesitant smile touched your cold lips and you managed to laugh quietly. Foggy puffs of warm breath filled the air as you did. You weren’t too far from home now. The snow beneath your feet, once deep enough to grab at your ankles, now hardly made it up to the soles of your shoes.

The path of sorts that you made when shoveling some of the snow earlier told you that you were nearly home now. A small sigh of relief escaped you at the thought of escaping the cold around you.

Finally.

Daily 24

Descriptions — everyone loves to indulge in the colours and sights of the world around their character when writing one. But what if you weren't allowed to use sight in a description? Today, your task is to write 400 words of a description, but without using the sense of sight. Good luck: you'll get 400 points for completing this daily, as well as an extra 100 points for sharing proof.

I step out of the carriage, briefly feeling around with my foot to find the ground. “What a beautiful view!”

Daily 24

Descriptions — everyone loves to indulge in the colours and sights of the world around their character when writing one. But what if you weren't allowed to use sight in a description? Today, your task is to write 400 words of a description, but without using the sense of sight. Good luck: you'll get 400 points for completing this daily, as well as an extra 100 points for sharing proof.

I step out of the carriage, briefly feeling around with my foot to find the ground. “What a beautiful view!” I hear my mother say. I roll my eyes. I suddenly feel her hand on my shoulder “Do you need help getting to the house?” My mother asks “No. I’ve been here before.” I say “Well, okay… Just be home before it gets too dark” I hear her walking away. With the help of my cane, I walk off the road, and go a little farther. I know this path well. Once I arrive at the spot, I strip off my shoes and socks, and feel the tickle of grass underneath my toes. I sit down at the rock I usually sit at. I know where it lies, I’ve been here enough. I feel the cold of the rock underneath me, and the tickle of the grass underneath my feet. I feel the temperature, just right. It’s a lovely spring day. I hear the chips and noises of the birds and other wildlife. I hear the tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker, and the song of robin, and then a cardinal. The coo of a dove, then the sharp JAY of a bluejay, and then a long cawing, from a crow, and the sound of squirrel, asserting it’s territory. I smell the scent of the wildflowers, that line the pond, which I know lies not too far in front of me, because I heard the loud SPLASH of a fish jumping out of the water. I hear the buzz of something. A fly? Wait, no, it’s a bee, probably visiting those wildflowers. I hear the soft swish swish slap slap of the cattails and reeds bumping into each other, and then the ribbit of bullfrog, and the peep of the spring peepers, coming out to call for the evening. I can tell the sun had began to sink, for I hear the sound of birdsong replaced with the hum of cicadas and frogs. I hear the squeak of bats overhead, no doubt having a lovely time chasing down dinner, or each other. I hear the sound of a coyote howling and barking, and the distant moo of a cow, and then a baa of a sheep, as if in response, probably from one of the nearby farms. I hear the hoot of an owl, most likely just waking up. I feel a cool breeze, rush past my face, carrying the sweet scent of flowers and honey, and then rippling the water, and make the leaves and grasses seem to whisper. I never want to leave this place. “Honey, is that you?” I hear my mother’s voice. Oh, bother. “Come on, it’s getting late!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
I feel for my (weird space because filter is stupid) socks and shoes, then put them on. I grab my cane, and follow my mother’s voice. ”There you are! I was getting worried.” I sigh slightly, and follow her. As we head back to the house, I feel something brush my legs. I reach down, and I touch fur. Oh, it’s the cat. I pick her up, and carry her with us to the house.

524 words