digibutter.nerr

[Plastic Mario]

It's been HOW long since I last posted writing?

Anyway, short story for English. I compressed it as much as I could and it's still 300 something words over the limit.

TOTALLY not reusing character names
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I clung to my best friend, Harmony's shirt as we walked through the gates of Amber High School. From left and right, a barrage of questions came at me, each one invoking the same painful memories.
"Hey, Amity! Did your house really burn down?"
"Did your whole family actually die?"

"Stop it. Can't you see she doesn't want to hear it?" Harmony protested in disgust. "Do you idiots know about 'sensitivity'?!" She turned to escort me through the yard without letting any further damage be done. Tears were streaming down my face.

The rest of school was filled with nothing but more painful reminders. "Brutes." Harmony shook her head while we exited the school grounds at the end of the day. "Seriously, what do they think they're doing by saying all that? Making things better?"
"Uhm..." I stammered. "I don't think they had any bad intentions, just..."
"It's just common sense!" She cut me off in mid-sentence. "Ugh. I don't even want to think about it. Are you still coming over?"
I nodded as we continued to walk.

My family actually had died in the fire two days ago, also scorching away my home. I depended on my family for everything, and now the only thing I have left in the world is Harmony. Everything I owned was destroyed in the fire.
Or perhaps not, a thought ran through my head as we crossed the old train tracks that ran through the city.

My brother and I played near these tracks as kids. We would comb the small ditches on either side for hours, exclaiming in excitement at every discovery we made. The greatest of which was an old coin, more than a hundred years old.

"Harmony... Can we go to the rubble of my old home tomorrow? I wanna see if I can find anything..." I questioned meekly.
"Uh... Alright. I have no plans tomorrow." She replied.

The next day arrived quickly, after spending the day at Harmony's house with her brother, Enmity. He's always been like a second brother to me, and a source of comfort over the past few days.
Another day at school filled with more resurfacing memories flew by, and Harmony and I left together as usual. "What do you plan on looking for, anyway? I wouldn't imagine there'd be much left."
"Mmm... You'll find out." I stumbled over one of the railroad spikes as we headed down the tracks, towards the burnt heap nearby.

"I think I found it!" I exclaimed in ecstasy as I hopped from beam to beam, each charred and laying in a heap on the ground. The coin I held up in front of Harmony's dazzled face kept its brilliant shine, despite living a hundred years, flowing down a dirty stream and being caught in a blaze.
"Not bad." She took the coin and examined it closely. "I wonder how it's still in mint condition after all that..."
"I'm going back to see if I can find anything else!" I leapt from beam to beam, rubble to rubble.
A piece of wood under my feet shifted as if it had a mind of its own, and I tumbled down. My ankle made a resounding crack as I hit the ground. "Amity!" Harmony rushed over after watching my fall. "Are you okay!?"
"I... Think I broke my ankle..." I winced in pain and buried my face into Harmony's shoulder.

Using a piece of broken wood as a crutch, we managed to head back up the tracks. "Dammit. I'm sorry; I should have been with you..."
"No, it's okay... You didn't do anything. Just my carelessness..."
The crutch slid off the edge of a wooden board that made up the track, hitting my foot against the ground. I recoiled for a moment in pain.
It took a good twenty minutes to get where we were through the tracks, but we could see the part where the track intersected with the road already, as well as the person standing nearby the intersection. "Enmity!" Harmony called out, as she ran ahead to fetch her brother. He turned his head, and started towards us.
He froze a second later, eyes wide open. "A-Aren't these tracks abandoned...?"
I hesitantly turned, having the worst of my fears confirmed. A train, smoke pouring out the top, was heading at full speed toward me. "But... These tracks haven't been used in years..." I dropped my crutch.
"Amity! Get out of the way!" Harmony began rushing towards me. I looked to the left. A ditch filled with water. Same thing to the right. I was trapped, in the direct path of an oncoming train.
It pulled closer and closer, as my life flashed before my eyes.

As it drew mere inches away from me, another force pulled me from the side. I was pulled mostly out of the way, but not before one part of my body made brisk contact with the oncoming train.
My head.
I blacked out.

"...ll, well. I can't say we've had something like this happen before." My eyes slowly lifted themselves open to be greeted by two unfamiliar figures in front of me. One male, one female. "I got pretty damn close. Do I get points for that?"
"Shut it, Calamity. You know I don't exactly approve of your 'fun'."
I began to pull myself up. We were surrounded by darkness, like a warehouse at midnight. "Oh, hey. She's awake. That really wasn't supposed to happen, but..."
I kept silent.
The man circled around me. "Yeeeah. Don't bother asking. You're pretty much dead."
A chill went up my spine. "...Who are you?"
"Oh, we're nobody. Call us angels, gods, whatever you'd like. I'm the whatever-you'd-like of death. Yeah. M'kay?"
Another chill went up my spine. The women spoke out this time. "He's had his eye on you."
"Mmyep. Your human lives are just a game to me, and I must say. You're my most skilled player so far. You've dodged death a few times."
A feeling of dread came over me. "Did you... Cause the fire?"
"Claimed a few extras there, but it worked all the same." His voice had a tinge of pride.
My hand clenched into a fist.
"I'll get to the point." The man crouched to look at me in the eye. "As long as you're here, we can't do anything beyond human limits. As long as you're here, well... You're here. Little-miss-funspoiler here wouldn't approve if I just killed you on the spot right now, so..."
He put his hand over my fist and opened it into an open palm, then grabbed what I was holding.
"How about we flip a coin? Heads, you go back to your life and I leave you alone. Tails, you don't. Sound good?"
I waited for several minutes before nodding. I didn't have any other choice. I didn't have any family, or Harmony to make a decision for me.
I closed my eyes as he flipped my coin. An echoing ding came out as it landed on the floor. Several seconds passed as my heart beat faster.
...
I opened one eye.
A golden glint met my eye as I looked at the coin on the ground. The man grunted in disappointment. "Hah. Alright, I lose. If you will..."

The woman took my hand and pulled me up. "You're going to live for a while longer yet, okay?" She held me in her arms. I felt a warm glow around me.
"I'll see you when you wake up, Amity..."

"...ity! Wake up!" My eyes forced themselves open again. Harmony's face was staring straight down at me. "Oh, thank god you're alive..."
Enmity returned with several people to help carry me off the tracks and to the nearest hospital.

"They're saying it's a miracle you survived. Not many people can take a hit like that to the head." I lay in a hospital bed, listening to Harmony's voice. My jaw was broken, so I couldn't speak. All I could do was think.
What did she mean by "I'll see you when you wake up"? Why didn't I see her?
Then the thought came to me.

Maybe I did.

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This version's compressed into 2 pages, the not-so-condensed version's probably gonna be half a novel long. If I ever get around to finishing it.

yaaaay




EDIT: 5.5 out of 6. Highest mark in the class. The teacher wants to read the finished version after it's completed and I got a tiny little class-wide mention for being outstanding.

dammit that's not enough

[Popple]

To be honest it's a little immature.

Fundamentally it's fine, but the concepts and events expressed in it just seem kind of generic and bland.

I really wanted to like this, but I just don't think I can.

[Plastic Mario]

[Tayl]

I like it, but yeah, you can tell you had to leave a lot out. I hope you write out the full version, I'd love to see it.