March 18th, 2026 Daily:

小明上北京国际学校；他十四岁，所以他上八年级。从小时候，他都不会安排时间。他常常浪费时间玩电脑游戏，也没有做他的作业，所以他的老师都不喜欢他。他也常常拿了不好的成绩，所以他的父母说，“如果你拿到不好成绩，我们会拿到你的手机！”

这个让他觉得非常紧张，因为他最喜欢的所有物是他的手机。（他的父母觉得他对手机上瘾了，但是他觉得这个是错的。）虽然他不喜欢做功课，不要学怎么安排时间，但是他不要他的父母拿到他的手机，所以他努力学习。

一个星期后，小明上数学课。他的数学老师说，“你好，同学们！今天，我们有一个数学考试。我希望你们复习，因为我觉得这个考试非常难！”

小明觉得因为他复习，他会考的考试比较好，但是他错了。考试的时候，他不知道怎么解决数学问题，也不可以专心，因为他以前喝了咖啡。他没有时间解决所有的问题。

“小明，你一定要给我你的考试。下课了！”

小明说，“可以给我一分钟吗？”

但是，他的老师告诉小明，“对不起，你不可以。”

一天后，小明的老师说，“小明，你的成绩不太好，对不起。”小明看他的考试成绩，看到他的成绩非常糟糕的。小明哭了，因为他知道他的爸爸妈妈会拿到他的手机。

回家后，小明的妈妈看她的考试，然后他说，“小明，我很失望！我们说你一定要学习。”

小明又哭了，因为他花了很多时间做功课，复习，学习，但是他还是拿到不好的成绩。他的妈妈和爸爸不明白。他的父母拿到他的手机，也说，”小明下次，你一定要拿到一个A。“

小明的压力很大，因为他觉得他的父母可能不喜欢他，因为他不是一个非常聪明的学生，也不太勤奋。

我一定要认真的学习。

但是，他知道他不知道怎么认真的学习，怎么拿到好的成绩。如果他要拿到好的成绩，他一定要偷别人的答案。他一定要作弊。

上英文课，小明的英文老师说，“你们一定要学一个文章！这个是你的考试。”小明觉得很害怕。他可以做什么？

小明的英文老师去外面的时候，小明站起来说，“你好，同学们！我的父母拿到我的手机因为我的成绩特别糟糕的。但是，我要玩网站游戏，也要给我的朋友打电话。我觉得我不可以写文章，但是你们都可以！如果你会给我写文章，我可以给你十块钱。“

他的同学们都说，“对不起，我不要帮你作弊。”

但是，下课后，有一个男孩子说，“如果你给我五十块钱，我可以写你一篇文章。”

小明思考了。五十块钱不太便宜，但是他要他的妈妈给他他的手机。

“好，可以！”小明说。他给这个男孩子五十块钱。

一天后，这个男孩子给小明他的文章。小明觉得很开心，因为她的妈妈爸爸就可以看它有好的成绩！小明给他的英文老师这篇文章。但是，小明的老师说，“小明，这个不是你的文章！”

小明说，“是我的！我昨天写这篇文章。我不是一个骗子！“

但是，他的老师说，”你一定要去看校长。“

虽然他不要看小张，但是小明去，因为他不要老是给他的父母打电话。

校长说，“小明，我听到了你作弊。为什么？”

小明说，“因为我不可以写文章。我的妈妈拿到我的手机，因为我的成绩不太好。虽然我女里学习，但是我就不知打怎么解决问题！我不知道我要做什么。”小明一边哭了，一边说了。

“对不起，小明，”小上说了。“但是，你不可以作弊。如果你不是一时学习，你不可以学新的事物！”

小明觉得他说的是最的，但是他不说这个。
~
Word count: 708 words

March 19th, 2026 Daily:

Dear Paranormal,

I present this letter to you with gritted teeth in knowing that I, of my own volition, enter your cabin. This is unexpected to say the least.

We have, since the beginning of time, been enemies, mostly owing to leader negotiations which I definitely had nothing to do with at all. In the midst of our hatred, though, a certain kind of admiration comes about, despite my conscious dislike for you as a cabin.

For starters, I suppose that you do have pretty good music taste on the whole. There are at least a couple of BLÜ EYES fans out of you all, people who listen to Maisie Peters and more.

Some of you (hi, Tell and Toko!) have tolerated my incessant ramblings about whatever it is that I like and really cannot shut up about. You have engaged in deep conversations with me about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Poppy War (along with other books by R. F. Kuang) and have endured my annoyingness even when it must have taken great patience to do so. (Though, I might add, I have tolerated all yours in return, so don’t you go and forget that.)

A lot of you give pretty good critiques, actually. The profile pictures you have are kind of cool. You also have a storyline that is at least…passably decent. Congratulations, I didn’t expect that of you all! You also have questions of the day, which I’ll pretend you didn’t steal from Dystopian (because anything and everything good comes from Dystopian, obviously), but you do a fairly okay job of updating them on time, and you have at least a few people answer them.

I do sometimes stalk your cabin. Wait. I wasn’t supposed to say that.

But, let’s be honest, you probably do the same, don’t you?

And, for all the amount that we have hated you, you have hated us back in equal measure. It takes a certain kind of love to so actively hate us, doesn’t it?

All this to say…Maybe you’re not completely horrible after all.

Sincerely,
Snowy (on behalf of Dystopian Expedition 22)
~
Word count: 353 words

March 20th, 2026 Daily:

There once was a creature named Gurtle
who was a very green turtle.
On days he was bored, he’d jump over his hurdle
to get to his lair.
There, he laid his soul bare
in a notebook as he pulled out the hair
of victims he’d captured who would stare
as Gurtle plucked from his garden a rose
and from his victims, their toes
before he turned on the watering hose.

***

They sing to their children a quiet lullaby,
watching the sea meet the sand in gentle waves.
They do not know yet that this is a goodbye,
for the shore will be their graves.
They’ll be buried under sand,
listening, ever listening, as their parents sing them to sleep
to accompany them to a safer land
where their sorrowful children need no longer weep.
They tire of the endless war,
and their shoulders ache from the weight of the worlds they bore.

***

It started with clipped wings,
then they the strings
they tied around my arms, just a puppet
for their needs. Hit the bottom of the bucket,
with every performance, a renewed ache
for something else, a body that might break.
They took my voice and told me not to fly,
but without the freedom, I might die.
They’d turn me into wood,
something inhuman, something theirs—if only they could.
~
Word count: 222 words in total

March 21st, 2026 Daily:

based on a poem by Starrii:
The underworld is so beautiful, so full of bliss—
Air invisible like a misty breath.
A quietly inviting abyss—
It calls me, summons me to drink from the magical Lethe.
I heed the call— and I feel the kiss
Of the heavenly river, my lips aneath
The flowing current— but I pay no heed to the hiss
Of my life escaping my memories— nay, the freath
Taking my past from me, enslaving my fleur-de-lis—
Is it not beautiful— the river of death?

Ravynne sat by the edge of the Lethe and retched.

This was not how it was supposed to be. This was never how it was supposed to be.

Ravynne, a villain. Ravynne, a victor. Both of those two facts were true, somehow, paradoxically. Her mother would have been so proud that Ravynne turned into exactly the person she had been groomed to become, but as much as she tried to appreciate the victory, she found herself slipping back into guilt again and again.

The underworld, however, was a fitting place for her, though, far more than the aboveground havens turned horrible as she smiled for the pictures and made herself the one she was supposed to be. This far below, she wasn’t meant to be anything, and no one expected anything from her. To break the laws of the earth was to be human, and Ravynne, it seemed, had done that plenty of times. Far more than enough to be human.

Em. The thought hit her like a stone, and just like that, the brief reprieve she’d had was gone. Ravynne heaved, sucking down air like she’d suffocated in her first life. Still, it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough.

A betrayal—of the worst kind. Everything had been a lie. Her name. Who she was. The side she was fighting for.

What she had to do to win.

Ravynne hadn’t wanted to hurt Em, she hadn’t. But it was necessary to prevent her from further pain, because who knew what Astraia would have done to her if Ravynne hadn’t stepped in first? Ravynne’s mother had always desired the best for her child, the perfect victory that Astraia herself had had in her younger days.

She simply didn’t understand that that wasn’t what Ravynne had wanted. The cost was too great. Ravynne knew that before, and even if she hadn’t, she knew it better than ever now.

Ravynne sat at the Lethe begging for forgiveness in impermanence. A cure lay in its waters, a true reprieve from the past. One sip, and she would be someone different. Her memories gone, true, but she would be free from the pressure of her past, the things that weighed down on her. It would be so easy, so very easy to just drink the water and forget…

And this was why she had come, wasn’t it? To forget. To be forgiven. To live another life.

Maybe Em could love this new person in the way she had Kaitlyn, but this time, none of it would be a fiction. History and time would rewind themselves and give her a second chance when people did not, and how could anyone blame her for a past she no longer knew?

Yes, to drink of the Lethe was the only step forward that made sense.

“Who would you be if you could be anyone?” Em asked.

Ravynne—Kaitlyn to Em—shrugged. “I don’t know. Anyone but myself, I guess.”

“I like you as you are,” Em said thoughtfully, and then laughed. She was always laughing, it seemed, and Ravynne envied her for that. “No, but really.” She paused. “I think I’d want to be Heracles.”

Of course she would. The ultimate hero.

Ravynne had always known the girl in the forest was a fiction, but now, she could make it true. Fiction turned reality, a story unwritten and rewritten, a life righted and a person born on the right side of the boundary.

She dipped her hands into the river and drew a cup of water to her lips. Without a second thought, she drank it, and the relief was immediate.

Blissfully, she was no longer the same. Ravynne was no longer held captive by her memories.
~
Word count: 619 words

Part One:

As a sci-fi story only set slightly in the future, this story takes extensions of existing technology and shapes the world around it—more specifically, the atomic bomb.

The successful detonation of the 1945 atomic bomb called “Trinity” set off a global quest for nuclear proliferation that, in part, became the basis for the Cold War. The Second Nuclear Age, brought about by bigger, more precise bombs, led to yet another quest for nuclear dominance.

These new bombs harnessed the same science of nuclear fission and fusion to create more powerful bombs, but as scientists made a breakthrough in their development, atomic weapons have been able to target both vast and small areas with minimal fallout elsewhere. This means that the dangers of using nuclear weapons in times of war are minimal to the country employing it, enabling them to launch bombs closer to home without risk of adverse effects to its own population by fallout spread. These bombs have built-in mechanisms to calculate, based on current weather conditions and data for weather patterns in specified areas, the exact amount of power to react, giving them a highly specified radius for attack. All this happens while the excess power is concentrated to that radius, bringing greater destruction to the area within its range.

With greatly powerful technology comes the necessity to hide it, and as soon as the scientists discovered the success of these programs, they rushed to hide this lethal technology in humans through near-undetectable surgical implantation of the final piece of the bomb required to detonate it.

(258 words)

Part Two:

This world is set not terribly far in the future (a few decades out, probably) in a highly polarized geopolitical climate. Three world powers have emerged (largely based on the U.S., the former Soviet Union, and China, but taken somewhat loosely), and the smaller countries take sides based on which they think is most likely to make it out of the war as the victor.

While an era of war and fear does dominate the time, it’s not in the sense of hot war. Instead, the Second Cold War brings tension as countries attempt to one-up each other and the population lives under the fear of being bombed in their own homes. No one fears conscription; instead, they fear finding their children have the missing piece to the bomb. No one trusts each other, but everyone masquerades under unity within their society out of fear of being targeted as a public enemy.

In this society, the government and the scientists are mostly at odds, both holding incredible power, while the common people are caught in between, trying desperately not to get hurt in the crossfire in international and civil tensions.

In order to convince the public that they are safe, the government officials of the U.S.-inspired sphere send out weekly broadcasts with scientific updates regarding their weapons developments, pretending they, too, aren’t at the mercy of their scientists as well—until they find any of those missing pieces.

Additionally, the three powers are competing for allies. Everyone wants people to be on their side, so they attempt to display their power through increasingly large shows of power (often dangerous ones marketed as something beautiful) while trying to entice them with promised benefits, most of which come slowly. The whole Second Cold War is like a massive game of manipulation, misinformation, and tension, everyone knowing that the world is very well pushed to its brink but very much so refusing to accept that.

(324 words)

Part Three:

Ivy was used to noise. She was used to the incessant whispers of the media rooms, people telling her what to do and what not to do, the whir of the camera and the echoes of the microphones. But that was a different kind of noise—tense, heavy, waiting.

This place was noisy in that vibrant way, the kind of thing Ivy used to imagine when she was younger, when her name was still Clara and she thought the world would fall into place perfectly. The city—no, borough, they’d said—called Manhattan was lively and filled with possibility. People lined up on the side of the road, snaking into rooms for shows. And these weren’t shows like the ones she was used to, either. On those, she was the star, but here, people came for fun to watch fiction put on stage. Imagine that!

“How do I get in?” Ivy asked to no one in particular as she marveled at the gigantic billboards lining the skyline and the advertisements pasted on buildings.

“You got a ticket?” the man at the back of the line responded.

“Oh,” she said slowly. “No.”

“Gotta get a ticket if you want to see it. Counter’s over there, you can see if there are any left.” The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and indeed, the counter was right there with another line behind it.

Ivy didn’t think she’d ever seen so many people in one place.

“Thanks,” she said, but the man wasn’t listening anymore. Instead of approaching the counter, she walked in the opposite direction, going wherever there was to go.

What was this place? This area where people could see shows for fun, could live without fear of tomorrow, who didn’t need to live in fear of the thing in their hearts? Ivy wondered what it must be like to live without thinking constantly of the threat to her life that existed within her. They seemed so carefree.

She picked up a newspaper from a stall on the side of the road, something she thought that no one did anymore. Then again, this wasn’t her home, nor was it her time.

The newspaper’s headlines talked about singers she’d never heard of (at least, she thought they were singers, by the way they were on stage with a microphone, but for all she knew, they could be anything), wars between countries that no longer existed, and made only passing mentions of the bombs.

You have no idea what you’re in for, Ivy thought, looking around at the bustling city filled with lights. If only they knew…

Thirty years could make such a difference. To think that Ivy’s father could have lived through a time like this and known both the fear of the present and the ease of the past.

Ivy smiled at the people she passed by on the sidewalk, even if they didn’t know who she was, even if they didn’t so much as look at her. It was better this way, to give them a bit of joy before their own lives fell apart like hers did.

But at least they would never be hunted for a cruel choice of “safety.” Ivy, a living, ticking time bomb—almost literally. For now, though, she was just a girl in New York City, looking for a place to have dinner.

It was strange how normal their lives were. Life before consolidation. Life before even terror became utterly and thoroughly mundane.

“You from around here?” the waiter asked, handing Ivy a menu when she sat down at her table in the restaurant.

I wish, Ivy thought. But all she said was, “Yeah. Lived in the city my whole life.”

(614 words)

Part Four:

Clara always felt like her heart beat a little irregularly. It wasn’t quite the steady thump-thump that you read about in books, more of a half-done song with the other hand always waiting to fall. Thump-th-thump, or something like that, she supposed.

But her father always told her never to tell, not a soul. It was a little secret.

Even with him, it was always theoreticals. He’d always begin those sentences with an “if,” like, “If you think there might be something wrong with your heart, don’t say a word about it. They’re looking for the people who will turn themselves in with their own stupidity.”

Clara, of course, understood practically none of that, but she sure as hell did not want to be considered stupid, so she shut up about the arrhythmia and hoped that whatever it meant wouldn’t kill her.

But they extended the searches to individual houses, to going out of their way to find the ones with bombs in their hearts, destructive metal running through their veins. The day the soldiers knocked on the door—so polite, even if the act of putting a stethoscope to her back wasn’t an invasion—and called it a “routine check” was burned into her memory now. The fear in her father’s eyes, the tautness of his features. The way it got worse when the soldiers didn’t let go of her arm, when instead they told him that, “We need to take her with us. Thank you for complying, sir.”

The title meant nothing. The lack of her name, though…

That was something she would soon get used to.

***

The last time Ivy heard her real name be used was that fateful day before she left home forever. And it was funny, wasn’t it? The things that she thought of most. The air here was always cold. She couldn’t remember the way her father’s voice sounded. Maybe if she hadn’t wondered so obsessively about a passing comment or two, she wouldn’t be here at all.

Regardless, though, this was her life now.

The musty scent of her “home” shouldn’t have bothered her, not after nine years, but when she had all the time in the world to think and overthink, it made sense that she would have analyzed the smell, too. It was more fitting for something in medieval times, she thought, not the world now. Though, as a prisoner, she received none of the benefits of her value and all the weight of responsibility—and worse than that, the weight of her past.

That little girl had no idea how much she had to lose, Ivy thought, then shook her head to clear it.

“You okay?” Echo asked from the other side of the room.

“Yeah, just…memories.”

“Oh.”

Silence with Echo was easy; the two of them knew each other so well by this point that any words existed solely to create evidence of their thoughts and less so to communicate.

The thing in Ivy’s chest beat again, a sound she now wished she could silence from years of intimacy in that same manner. Every heartbeat was a reminder of the death that awaited her.

Celebrations. They’ll celebrate you, one day.

Only not in the way she wanted. They’d celebrate her death, her great way to serve her country, never mind that she never had a choice in the matter to begin with.

“They’ll be ready to do the filming soon,” Echo said, glancing at the clock in the room, one of the only bare-bones decorations.

Like she had hundreds of times before, Ivy wondered what would happen if she skipped it. But they’d find out the way they always did, and they’d make an example of her.

Take the bomb from her heart and detonate it. Then they’d show the world who really was powerful there—and one thing was for certain: It wasn’t Ivy.

But all she said was, “I guess we should get ready, then.”

(655 words)

Not any closer than I was a week ago, I have to say. The alchemy bench now has scorch marks upon it because of the most recent experiment. I must say,

(Text: Experiment 28)

We are approaching our milestone of century experiments, but I am not closer to approaching my goal. I'm afraid that I will have to disappoint her yet again.

(Text: Experiment 196)

When you were conscious, we would smile and joke about how late you worked into the night. Is this you, catching up on the hours of rest that you never got?

The last time I tried to feed a potion to you in hopes it would work

(All of Experiment 4250)

you start reading curiously, as the words warn you about the past, of how history could repeat itself again.

the entirety of America

a legend of Broadway, of Hollywood.

a place, where the black moth of the Shoah wouldn’t exist.

a place where stars are a beacon of hope,
of light.
certainly not a sign of hate
as they are now, in 1940.

my once-unshakeable dream is often changed by time- sometimes, I don’t care about fame.

my thoughts are volatile, as now are my castles in the air.

if it ends,
that is.

today’s dawn was the one
which saw us fly away,

away from everything we’d known.
for the past

trust me, reader-

and I believe

and
you can
trust
no
one?

that anyone can write
anything they want
on something
we’re forced to wear?

surely, I can tell you,
castles of cruelty
have fractals of hate
spreading to every single corner of people’s hearts.

and they’re identified by
those signs they put
everywhere:

that’s what good people cannot understand.

d. blind hate

you ignore the instruction, and open it anyway.

I’m not beautiful.
I’m not cute.

my voice which I'm not afraid to use.

then why is it
that even after telling people
my friends
my acquaintances
new students
other parents —
how can you talk to her?
don’t you know there was an official complaint made against her?
she’s a bad influence- you can do better.

you bribe me with sweets,
I refuse.
you give me chocolate for your birthday,
I don’t want it.

that even after your constantly
atrocious behaviour

3. serene fantasies

The verse is very short, but poignant.

trenches.
the trenches,
where I wait for
my
fate.
the fate I

bombs being
thrown at you.

March 23rd, 2026 Daily:

Since the moment she had laid eyes on Matthew, Sarah hated him with all her passion. He was the typical jock, the kind of guy whose entire life revolved around football—which, by the way, Sarah thought was just the dumbest sport ever. Why did all the people at her school like it? Sarah sniffed at just thinking it. It was a terrible sport, and she was the only one who saw sense.

She was much happier to just curl up and read her romance books in the corner of the library, sit there and do her homework. Sarah was in this way very much so different from the rest of her class. At least she was willing to put in the work to do her work, thank you very much. She couldn’t believe people got excited over things such as small as the occasional A, because after all, pulling an A was so very easy; the rest of her class was just pretty stupid, that was all.

Anyway. It wasn’t her fault that Mr. Smith put her and Matthew in the same group, and it wasn’t even Sarah’s fault that she was a bit mean to him. Like, just look at his face, his lack of worth ethic, everything! She couldn’t help but give him a rough time when he had grown up with everything. Meanwhile Sarah’s parents had left her for work before dying in the field.

Though…she might have to revisit that statement about his face. He was pretty cute, actually. His chiseled features, his dark brown eyes that seemed to suck her in, the way his hair was perfectly touseled. And that wasn’t even beginning on Matthew’s brooding self.

She came to the conclusion that she had misjudged Matthew. He was perfect. He was the one for her.

Meanwhile, as Sarah delivered another scathing remark to Matthew, he smiled to himself, because obviously, it meant she liked him. More than that, it might even mean that she loved him.

How had Matthew never seen the brightness in Sarah before? How could he not have realized that the mostly quiet, albeit sometimes judgmental, studious bookworm was perfect to balance out his own nature?

Matthew interrupted Sarah: “Hey, you should come over later so we can work on this project together.”

Sarah hesitated, though internally, she was screaming. “Sure!” She cleared her throat and then said again, less eagerly, “That’s probably a good idea.”

At Matthew’s house, they didn’t do a thing to work on the project. But somehow, they did end up kissing, and then Sarah checked the time and realized it was already nine in the evening, and her curfew was 9:30. She couldn’t let her parents think she was anything other than the good girl she had always been.

“No one at school can know,” Matthew said as Sarah left. “But we should do this again sometime.”

“Agreed. To both parts”

And then she left, smiling the whole way home.
~
Word count: 495 words

March 24th, 2026 Daily:

The air was reminiscent of the sea, with its ever so slightly undertones mingling with the freshness of open waters stretching for miles. It wasn’t home, not quite, but for all she knew, it very well could be. Everything seemed, in one way or another, reminiscent of a place she’d been before—déjà vu, perhaps. Like she’d already been here.

Her childhood home, centered on the coast, always smelled the same, but there, she would wrinkle her nose in the mornings as they brought in “fresh new catches!” from the ocean. Here, there was only the strange cleanliness that came with peace, and with it, the scent of loneliness. She thought that if the feeling were to have a scent, it would be this one. Familiar, yes, but empty of the people that make it truly home. Missing something, always missing something, and regardless of how much she hated the smell of that missing thing, she couldn’t help but feel it was wrong without it.

The morning brought the cawing of seabirds, all in conversation with one another. Around her, she heard the fluttering of wings as they took flight in unison, and she wished she were among them with a flock to call her own. So easy their conversation seemed, so upbeat. They could tell each other anything, those birds, and she envied them for that.

She walked to the edge of the shoreline and dipped her toes into the water, which sent a shiver running through her body. May now, and it was still practically freezing, despite the warmth of that morning. She couldn’t wait for summer, but she knew, as everyone in the Northeast did, that summer brought deadly heat, and no sooner than experiencing it would they quickly decide that autumn was preferable. But for now, she let the waves roll over her bare feet, sloshing up against her skin. Surely they left traces of salt on her skin, but she liked the way it felt like a rebirth when she emerged from the ocean, sand everywhere, salt crusted over, like a shell she would shed to become someone new.

Even in her clothes, she ventured further and further into the depths, trying desperately to escape the loneliness of shore. A rebirth, a revelation—that was what she needed. The currents swept the fabric around her, it billowing out like she, too, was taking flight, and once she got past the point of shivering, she realized it was actually quite pleasant. The water was a shock to the system, stealing her breath from her lungs, but it also was a reemergence into what felt like her true form.

This was where she belonged, far below the loneliness, in flight, in sea, taken wherever the currents asked her to go.

The bitter taste of a land not home disappeared when she took in the salt water, and instead, she was cleansed from the inside out.
~
Word count: 486 words

March 25th, 2026 Daily:

Ellie’s little legs could hardly carry her as she raced toward the edge of the ocean, every step her body pulling her back while her mind pushed her forward. She shrieked with joy, and her older sister, Anna, rolled her eyes from her place on land.

The younger girl looked back at Anna, stopping only just in time to prevent a crash into the water. “ANNA! Come play in the water,” Ellie shouted, and the sound of her shrill voice made a few beachgoers cringe. Clearly, this five year old’s energy was a little much for people who hoped for a relaxing day.

Anna, on the other hand, was used to the noise, but she was in the middle of a truly excellent fantasy book and really couldn’t be bothered with getting up from it to actually play with Ellie. She looked mournfully down at her book, predicting that Ellie would come back up and bother her into joining in regardless of what her response was. “Ellie,” she called out, “can you just give me like twenty minutes or something?”

Twenty minutes, she figured, was not nearly enough for her to finish the book, but it was enough for her to get to a good stopping point. Or for Ellie to forget.

Unfortunately, Ellie was not ready to forget this that easily. As Anna had predicted, Ellie ran back up the shore, kicking up sand as she went, until she arrived at the picnic blanket. Ellie poked Anna with her toe, and the latter recoiled. “Could you not? Dust off your sandy feet, at least. It’s gross.” Ellie, realizing she had gotten on Anna’s nerves, only smiled sweetly.

“I promise I’ll stop being annoying if you come play with me in the water,” she said, batting her eyelashes in an attempt to create that fabled puppy dog face which Ellie had never once succeeded at.

Anna sighed. “Twenty minutes, Ellie.”

“But I want to play in the water now!”

“But I want to read my book now,” Anna responded, holding up her copy of the latest book in her favorite series.

Ellie grabbed the book from Anna’s hands. “You can read later! But we can only play in the water now.”

Anna hated that she was right, but the last thing she’d ever do was give Ellie that satisfaction. “Get your hands off my new book! You’re going to ruin it.” A pause, and then she said, “Okay, how about this? I finish my current chapter, and then I’ll play with you, but after that, you have to stop bothering me.”

“Until when?”

Anna thought this over. If she asked for too long, then Ellie wouldn’t accept the deal at all, but she wanted to prolong the grace period she’d get for as long as she possibly could. “Until Monday,” she decided.

Ellie wrinkled her nose at this. “But Monday is SO far away,” Ellie said, dragging out that last word.

Once again, Anna rolled her eyes. “Today is literally Saturday. It’s two days.”

Realizing this was probably the best deal she was going to get, Ellie agreed. “Okay, fine.”

Thank GOODNESS.

“Alright, go…build a sandcastle or something. I’ll play with you soon.”

Ellie turned on her heel and sped off once again, laughing and shrieking as she avoided hermit crabs and fell into the waves.

Anna, on the other hand, was ready for a little peace and quiet.
~
Word count: 569 words

March 26th, 2026 Daily:

John walked in with his hair a mess (this was typical of John in the morning, though, as Sherlock had observed) and waving papers around. A brief glance up told Sherlock exactly what had happened.

Before John could say a thing, Sherlock piped up, figuring the best way to prevent disaster would be to address it directly. “Ah, good morning, John!” Sherlock said brightly, dropping another fingernail into the fire. “I take it you’ve seen the tax papers?”

“How did you—? No, never mind, don’t answer that,” John shook his head in dismay before running his fingers through his hair. “Would you care to explain?”

Sherlock shrugged. “We both needed flatmates, didn’t we? It’s only logical that taxes were a burden on our financial situations as well, so I took care of it.”

“By having us get married? Without my knowledge?” John thrust the papers in front of Sherlock.

“Watch it! I’m in the middle of an experiment,” Sherlock said, squeezing some chemical from the pipette into the fire, which turned blue upon the addition. After a minute, a minute of horrible silence and tension as John’s eyes bulged, Sherlock looked up at his flatmate and told him, “It did save us a lot of money.”

“Right, well…” Sherlock didn’t seem to fathom the true scale of what he’d done, and despite John’s best efforts to articulate it, none of his arguments seemed to stick. “So how long have we been married?”

“Nine years, eleven months, and fifteen days.” Sherlock did not look up from his “experiment” of fire and roasted fingernails.

“TEN YEARS?!” John took a step back and closed his eyes, muttering to himself.

“Not quite.”

“THAT’S NOT THE POINT, SHERLOCK.”

The two stared at each other for a second, and John opened his mouth to make another fiery retort when a voice from upstairs silenced the both of them. “Boys! Would you stop shouting? It’s barely seven.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock called with no respect whatsoever for his volume.

Clearly, though, this was not a battle John would be winning. Instead, he settled on a different line of reasoning: “You could have at least asked me.”

“I did.”

“Oh, really? When was that, huh?” John was sure that he’d remember it if Sherlock had really asked, particularly given that it was Sherlock.

“You were out,” Sherlock responded calmly, noting the confusion on John’s face. “But I did ask.”

John had no words.

“I asked Mycroft to do the paperwork on our behalf.” Sherlock said this as if it should be comfort to John, but evidently, it wasn’t.

“So your brother knows.”

“Yes.”

“And I didn’t.”

”If it helps,” Sherlock began, and his tone made it very clear that it would not, in fact, help, “you do now.”

John had called it, hadn’t he?

The doorbell rang. Sherlock paid it no attention. “Would you get that, John? I’m in the middle of something.”

John rolled his eyes but, despite his anger, walked over to the door and opened it. Standing in the doorway was Mycroft, dressed in a suit and tie and there far too early for a visit in John’s book.

“Oh, you,” John sneered, wrinkling his nose. Without another glance toward Sherlock, he exited through the open door before slamming it shut.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Mycroft observed as John stalked out of the room.

“He saw the tax papers,” Sherlock said by way of explanation.

“Ah. That.” Mycroft chuckled to himself. “He’ll get over it soon enough.”

“Give him an hour,” Sherlock agreed. “He’s John, after all.”
~
Word count: 598 words

Critique for Starrii:

Okay, just posting my new thoughts in the forums because it’s probably easier what with comment character limits? But this should be short-

Anyway. It definitely looks a lot better now!! The one of the things I noticed is pretty minor and an easy fix, and the other is really up to your own personal preference.

Firstly, I see a lot of em dashes/hyphens at the ends of your lines, which I think creates an interesting rhythm, but it also feels like you’re typically using like two per poem, so maybe limiting that further could help you to make them stronger in the situations where they are used? Some of them are also, at least grammatically speaking, not necessary and may actually make more sense without them.

Secondly, and this is the one that entirely depends on your goals, but you definitely have a lot more poems in the first section than in the second. If you’re looking for a part one and then part two kind of thing, then it may make more sense to add a little to the second part to balance it and give the part more weight? Alternatively, if it’s intended more as an epilogue kind of thing, how it is works perfectly! It really depends on your intentions. If you do add more, though, then it’s definitely worth considering what each poem will add so you’re not just adding for the sake of it, if that makes sense. Like, balance would be important in that case, but more important would be ensuring that you’re not detracting from what you already have.

After that, one thing I always highly recommend doing is reading it out loud! It really does so much for flow and helps you proofread better. Your poetry looks so good, and I’m excited to see how the final product turns out! Good luck with the contest; you’ve got this!

UNPLUGGED)

NOT CONNECTED.
NOT CONNECTED.
Your TV is not connected to the internet. Please check your Wi-Fi connection.

(Stupid thing, just turn on already.)
(Finally.)

You’re here for the 7 o’clock news, ladies and gentlemen.
The date is July 1st, 1946, 2026, and we’ve got
all you need to know about the happenings of the world.
Let’s hand the time over to Gilda on the bombs in—
Oh, right.
We’ll be back in a minute!

We’ve all been there. Your paper is due at eight in the morning, and
you’ve left it for days. Now it’s
3 A.M. and you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. We’ve got you
covered; with Hemingway, you can…

(Not this again.)

NOT CONNECTED.

FALLOUT / What the Textbooks Don’t Tell You

So you need to write something that brings people hope.
So you take the cynical side; why is that?
So you have to decide what’s really important to you: the past
or moving on from it. Because there’s only so much you can do.

“I hate to tell you, but no one really cares about the Marshall Islands, not
right now,” he says. He has a misplaced qualifier, and
I don’t correct him.
I don’t tell him that no one’s ever really cared, look at the textbooks.
A footnote, an unnamed country, a world forgetting,
and history
is more than written by the victors; it’s
unwritten.
But everyone’s a victim, everyone’s a tragedy, and
it’s just another inevitability, another sun rising.

(…)
It was as if the sun came out.
Tremendous.
Even the blind girl in the camp could see it, and
they played in the summertime snow, it killed them, it—
Trinity, a name, a state of holiness, an ascension.
You called it the will of God;
of course it was good.

They bombed that place to hell
and said it is safe for you to go home now, we promise
(as the radiation seeped into your bones,
killed your voice, and
they never lifted a finger to help.)
But I am not supposed to write about the terrible things anymore. They are
stories told, stories buried, stories overshadowed, we’ve
left them behind, so stop forcing us to remember. You’re
disrupting the peace.

They tell me, Don’t study history, it’ll get you nowhere, so I
devalue the humanities,
because poetry never invented anything
and it’s too late to change the past.

They tell me, Don’t study history,
and then we wonder why
history is destined
to repeat itself.

Tragedy Comes Like a Held Breath in a Parking Lot, Forgotten

In seventh grade, I wait in my soccer uniform under shelter
while lightning splits the sky, irritated
that our coach won’t let us play. But
we’re good little rule-followers, not yet taught in the language
of defiance, so we wait,
we wait,
we wait.

The screaming of a ringtone disrupts our chatter, and
my teammate picks up the phone, and hold on,
is she crying?
She asks “Are they okay?” and hangs up and tells us
her cousins were across the street from the shooting
that made the papers that morning.
We hug her and tell her that they’ll be alright, as if
we can will it into being, as if
these words we’ve seen on TV will suddenly make it better.
She says it’s just scary, it’s just
that we’re halfway across the world and can’t do a thing to help them.

Summer after freshman year, I walk out of the Barnes & Noble with my cousins
and my arms full of books. I teeter
under the weight as I get inside our rental car, and my mom jokes
about my endless “to be read” list while black-and-white cars
with flashing red lights filter in.
I try not to notice as a police officer shines flashlights through the windows
of vehicles exiting the parking lot, but despite my best efforts,
I hold my breath.
My mom says, “Time to get out of here,” and my dad hits the gas,
takes the other exit, decides
it’s a drugs case, that’s what it looks like, as
cops from five other towns rush in.

“A shooting,”
my aunt says when we arrive at Trader Joe’s.
It was just down the road, and
I should not be shocked,
not after all this.
But for all I know, I could have been there,
I would have been there,
I should have been there.

Then we forget the tragedy and buy bagfuls of
chips and frozen foods and
all the things we can’t get back home, pretending
that two bags of white cheddar cheese puffs absolve us
from the guilt of so quickly forgetting
a murder.

When we get back,
we tell my uncle, “You’re lucky
we made it home alive,” half-laughing, and
joking is shockingly easy.
We tell my uncle, “Literally,” and
somewhere out there, someone
cannot say the same.

Passive Nihilism

Not another one of these stories,
we’ve heard it before. I close tabs about
the BREAKING NEWS every day to read book recommendations,
to watch snippets from concerts, because
it’s all the same now.
Scroll past genocide, it’s just entertainment.
Let’s watch the highlights from the game last Monday.

A trial put on hold, some murderer with a list of
unspeakable crimes, or maybe this time it’s
a blocked bill, a stock market crash.
Oh, that’s horrible, I think, out of habit,
as I delete the news from my inbox. This is
yesterday’s news, this is
last week’s news, this is
not special anymore, so what’s the point, huh?
You need
bigger headlines, bolder thoughts,
stir us from this stupor with something radical, not
another injustice, that’s boring.

I laugh at economic depressions because it’s
funny that the word also means despondency, as if sorrow
belongs to the money and
not the people.
Yes, that’s right, it’s stolen it from us, but it’s
all for the better,
and we’re stronger for it.

We’re not sad anymore, we’re
melancholy, it’s prettier, it’s better, get it right.
Stop letting it matter.
Stop crying, just ignore it. This is
how the world works,
so grow a thicker skin and
get over yourself, because in a few years,
we’ll all be dead,
anyway.

Places I’m Not Supposed to Love

We debate California vs. Texas again today, a recurring argument,
and it’s pride in where we’re from, sure, but this is the kind of thing
that has torn the fabrics of friendship, easily.
You say, “But the taxes are so high in California,”
as if we know the first thing about taxes.
You say, “The government’s a mess.”
You say, “People are leaving the state, no one wants to be there.”

You don’t understand—
I never thought about the government
or the taxes, it’s just
home.
We walked to the library after school twice a week.
We climbed trees in our backyard and built a zipline from the deck.
We grew up there, and maybe it wasn’t perfect,
but it was good enough
for me.

We debate California vs. Texas today, and
my friend wrinkles her nose every time I mention my hometown.
My mom goes all-out for the Fourth of July; she doesn’t want to be embarrassed
to celebrate our heritage.
And I know: I’m not supposed to love this place,
but I do.

You don’t know this place, do you?
It’s not all bad.
I’m trying to remember that.

Headlines, Systematically

“Have you seen today’s episode of
The Daily Show? It’s just so
funny, here, let me
show you, you
have to see it.”

If I were better at speaking, I’d tell you
to pause it, I already know what they’re going to say.
Headlines, systematically prepared,
designed to elicit a reaction. I’ve seen
the impassioned language,
the questions,
the “THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK PUTS US AT 85 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT
AND WE’RE VERGING ON SELF-DESTRUCTION”
before.

I subscribed to The New York Times in eighth grade;
my teacher told me to.
I talk politics with friends over lunch as if it does something
(they say it does, but really?).
My dad hits the horn in support of protests, and
my piano teacher asks me if they’re dangerous.

They’re voices.
Of course they’re dangerous, but
not like that.

Pull me in with your questions,
tell me I’m missing something, won’t be complete without it,
make me a person I despise, and—
Everyone hates each other, don’t they?
Headlines, systematically engineered to instill fear.
Cynicism is all the rage, but

I just want to love this world.
Is that really so bad?

Goodbye to The New York Times, I delete every email I get
as soon as I see it.
Goodbye to The Daily Show, it’s not funny
when it’s real.
Goodbye to studying the present, it hurts too much.
I don’t want to read this tragedy anymore.
I know the bluster, the abuse, whatever it is, I’ve seen it,
so, please, spare me the details
just this once.

We ask for progress then destroy our hope in it.
How do you expect me to work for a future
I can’t believe in?

On the day my chemistry teacher asks us “What gives you hope?”

We respond with the typical:

My friends.
Family.
Three o’clock. (So going home, then?) (Yeah, pretty much.)
Sleeping.
My dog.
Friends, definitely.
Can you come back to me? (Sure.)
My family.
Summer break! (Wow, looking far ahead already.)
Lunchtime. (What do you have?) (I don’t know. I just like lunch.)
Friends, and—
Graduation. (Ooh, looking forward to leaving us all behind, I see.)
Winter break.
My friends and my dog, probably.

But what is there to say?
Truthfully, I don’t know, I’m not sure
if there is anything at all that makes me believe
in the next day.

I settle on an answer half-true
and hope one day
I will not need a qualifier:

“People, sometimes.”

Footnotes

July 1st, 1946: The date of the first nuclear test in the Marshall Islands, Crossroads Able.

Gilda: A nod to the nickname of the Able bomb, after a movie character in a 1946 film of the same name.

The Marshall Islands: A collection of islands in Micronesia and the location of the United States’s largest and most publicized nuclear detonations between 1946–1958.

“It was as if the sun came out. Tremendous.”: Barbara Kent’s (Trinity test witness) description of the Trinity test.

“Even the blind…the summertime snow.”: The Trinity test was detonated near a dance camp in the summer of 1945. 100 miles away from the detonation site, a blind girl saw the bright flash. Campers thought the radioactive fallout from the bomb was snow, made hot by the summertime, and played in it.

Trinity: The first nuclear test, launched in New Mexico on July 16th, 1945. It was made highly secret.

“You called it the will of God; of course it was good.”: Navy Commodore Ben Wyatt, when telling the people of Bikini Island in the Marshall Islands to relocate so the U.S. could do their nuclear testing, called it “for the good of mankind.” Another video shows the Marshallese leader, Juda, saying (via English translation) they would go, “believing everything good, and everything in God’s hands.” Wyatt responded, “Everything being in God’s hands, it must be good!”

“…bombed that place to hell”: A reference to Bob Hope’s quote, “As soon as the war ended, we located the one spot on earth that hadn’t been touched by the war and blew it to hell.”

“…it is safe for you to go home now…”: The U.S. government publicly promised the Marshallese that their radiation-contaminated home was safe to go back to in the 1960s before conducting studies on the Marshallese to observe radiation’s effects on humans (Project 4.1) with neither their knowledge nor consent.

Credits

A huge thank-you to…
• Zy for critiquing this collection very last minute!
• My eighth grade history teacher for pushing me during our research project then. In case you couldn't tell, mine was about the Marshall Islands
• My chemistry teacher and class for the inspiration for the last poem, which is my recollection of the responses. Sorry if I got yours slightly wrong-
• You for reading!

Description of the outing (I didn’t take a photo, but I just had to describe it):

Okay, so for the 30 minutes I spent outside, I went swimming with my dad! It was like 7:15 in the morning when we got there, and the beach was so clean and the water was such a nice temperature, but the best part? When you got out in the water, you could see the ridges in the sand ten feet below with your head above water. It was gorgeous, and I’ve only seen water that clear one other time (Croatia!). Anyway, it was beautiful, and I’m so glad that we ultimately decided to go in.

March 29th, 2026 Daily:

Treason.

The word echoed in the chamber as the screen cut Panem’s flag. Clio Snow’s fingers went to the end of her braid.

The Mockingjay had worn this braid for her Hunger Games. But to associate with the Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen, was treason, and Clio knew her grandfather would not spare her if she broke the law. He’d punish her only more harshly, for he’d say, “You should have known better.”

She’d learned how to braid her hair within the last year, as they’d been cooped up in the palace for too long with nothing much to do. Clumsy Dutch braids gave way to nimble fingers and near-perfect hairstyles, modeled after one of the country’s most beloved victors. Or most beloved before…everything, Clio supposed. Now she was an enemy of the state, confirmed by the broadcast.

Around Panem, it was a manhunt for the girl who had twice defied the Games, and Clio knew her grandfather would not be made to look the fool. Still, Katniss Everdeen, the Girl Who Was on Fire, was still just a girl.

Of course, that wasn’t the kind of thing she could say.

She pulled the hair tie from the end of her braid, and she began to unravel it, piece by piece. Even this was treason, even if it was just because the braid was pretty, even if Katniss really was only seventeen.

Clio Snow was not a traitor to her country. She was not a traitor to her family.

In another world, though, maybe she and Katniss could have been friends. The other girl, three years older and with a personality fiery enough to match the moniker, might have taught Clio a little about the forest. Both being the reserved people they were, they could have gotten along.

None of this, of course, was even within the realm of possibility in this world, because they’d both be dead within seconds of associating. There was already a reward for Katniss if found dead.

“Darling,” President Snow—Clio’s grandfather—said slowly, making it clear that she was very much so not his darling. “You look so much prettier with your hair down.”

Clio looked at her shoes. The words sounded more like a warning.

“What do you say?” her mother prompted.

I’m not a child. “Thanks,” she mumbled anyway.

In another world, maybe. Never in this one.

Heroes weren’t heroes in the eyes of her grandfather.
~
Word count: 400 words

From the drive there, when we pulled into the parking lot of an ashy building to the drive back, when the sky threatened to open up and cry for us.

and it's flaming fingers reached out to the chalky abyss of a sky.

I tried to be positive, and I really want you to know that.

When the car drove up to her house,

I only know the ones in pieces, the ones wrapped in chains who carry the tales onward, to a future they can’t see.

The last time I sat and talked with her, I doubted there were any at all.

Every night I go back in time and I wonder what could’ve changed, what could’ve been different but what is set in stone stays that way.

I am the one they chose.

But on the other hand, it can be avenged.

imaging I can hear the walls themselves, dusty and forgotten, to let them rest.

Notes and Credits:

This fan fiction is set in Lumière, part of the world in the video game by Sandfall Interactive Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. While the premise of the story is kept the same as the intro to the storyline (the Paintress erases people year by year) and the city of Lumière is taken directly from the game, the plot of this particular short story is original, as are the characters.

A handful of phrases are taken directly from the game, shown below:
“Tomorrow comes.”
“For those who come after.”
“If you could grow old…would you find a reason to smile?”

The rest of the writing is original, though greatly inspired by the original franchise!

I’ve also included a few subtle nods to minor things in the game. Léo’s namesake was a part of Expedition 33 (albeit as a minor character), and the place where Jérôme finds Liana, the Crooked Tower, is also the place where Lune and Sciel meet.

One sentence from the project version is omitted in the forum version due to the fact that Scratch’s filter doesn’t understand the context for a sentence and therefore flags it-

And now for the credits!

Thank you so much to…
• Ly and Starrii for critiquing this fan fiction
• Tell for suggesting the name for Mathieu (and thank you, Les Mis for the inspiration for Cosette and Mathieu as well…even if I haven’t read the book yet)
• My dad for introducing me to the game
• Everyone who has endured my numerous rambles about this game even though I probably am driving you crazy!
• Everyone involved in the making of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (I love this game beyond all words, thank you so much)
• You for reading!

March 30th, 2026 Daily:

Aline. As ever, she is crouched over the painting, colors seeping from her eyes like the cruelest kind of tears. Renoir knew she hadn’t eaten for days, so instead, he took to leaving her food by the Canvas.

Today, he left a croque monsieur, plated and looking far from perfect. It was one of the only things Renoir knew how to cook.

Of course, Aline cared little for the aesthetics of the food and even less for the taste. It was futile, and Renoir knew it, but what else could he do?

Aline had been in the Canvas since that night three months ago, only leaving on the rare occasion to walk into Verso’s room and sleep in his bed. Renoir would lock the door to the room if he could, but it was the only thing keeping Aline tethered to the real world, and Renoir would do anything for the slightest chance to keep her there.

“Aline,” he says, his voice hoarse, “come back. Please.”

“Verso,” Aline whispers, and Renoir knows she does not hear him. She’s in too deep to realize that the world outside the Canvas moves on without her, and she is left behind.

***

Renoir throws himself into the Canvas, though he promised he would never paint again. This is not for him. This is for Aline—one last ditch, desperate effort to get her to stop painting.

Inside, the world Aline has painted is equally bleak, but only for the Expeditioners and the city of Lumière. Their family, the Dessendres, on the other hand, are immortal and preserved for ages.

The first time Renoir meets his mirror, he shudders. Because although this is a fiction, he can’t help but recognize the similarities between that painted version of himself and the person he used to be, back when he and Aline married. Was that who she wanted him to be now?

The second time Renoir meets his mirror, he resolves to be the one to kill it. Aline has made these painted versions immortal, but Renoir is a different kind of destroyer. Renoir is human, and Renoir is real.

Aline has forgotten that, but she will remember. Renoir will make sure of it.
In preparation, Renoir sharpens his sword and begins to paint. To paint again feels natural, but unlike Aline, he has control, and he knows when to stop.

Renoir paints the Nevrons to stop the Expeditioners, because, while the people of Lumière don’t know it, their deaths by Aline’s hand only bring endless chroma coming back to her. Renoir must interrupt the cycle, even if it means obliterating the few bravest of the city.

He does this for Aline. He does this for reality.

But even so, sometimes, hypocritically, he hopes to see the painted Verso, just so he can pretend that the mirror of his son is real. Just so he can stay under the illusion for a little longer. He knows better, though; to become Aline is to lose control, and it is to abandon the family.

Aline’s Expeditioners die not knowing the purpose their deaths serve; it is not a tragedy but rather a necessity. Their deaths prevent a greater one, because their lives are not real.

This is what Renoir tells himself as he walks through the Forgotten Battlefield, a place filled with corpses where their chroma has not disappeared. It is necessary.

In Monolith Year 33, two years in the real world that Aline has been in the painting, Renoir meets the Expedition again. It starts with a red-haired girl eerily similar to his youngest daughter.

Alicia, is it you? he wonders. But this girl has no memories of the time before, and she calls herself Maelle. Alicia must not get involved. Maelle must not get involved.

Renoir masquerades as an Expeditioner, and when Aline’s painted Verso joins, he thinks watching his two children laughing, not bearing the weight of the truth between them the way he does, might just kill him.

This will end. Renoir will have to end this Expedition, just like every Expedition before. Alicia must go home and be protected; she must not become Aline. And Aline herself…Aline must be banished from the Canvas and kept safe. She must move on, the way she was supposed to.
~
Word count: 711 words