Sunday 22 January 2012

I have two stories. Which one should I keep writing?

My newest story. It's called 'Echo'.

Scarlet walked out of school, her two ‘friends’ complaining about a Maths test or something.

‘Scarlet, what do you think?’ One of them asked. Scarlet turned, glaring. The two girls cowered.
‘I think that you wouldn’t be complaining as much if you had been paying attention in Maths instead of drooling at Travis.’ She scowled and kept walking. The girls looked at each other, looked back at Scarlet, realised they were being left behind and caught up with her.
‘Scarlet, you can’t treat us like that. You lucky to even, like, be talking to us.’ The second said. Scarlet stopped and faced them again.
‘Lucky? Lucky? How could anyone possibly think of me as lucky when I have two morons following me everywhere? Your constant chatter is turning my brain to mush. Goodbye Charlotte. Goodbye Jessica.’ And with that Scarlet walked home by herself, feeling like she should’ve done that three weeks ago when the two idiots had started to follow her like lost puppies. Scarlet sat down on her favourite bench at the park and started doing her homework. About five minutes later, a boy sat at the other end of the bench.

* * *

Two boys peeked around the corner. They were looking at an enormous set of doors. The door were tall and grey. They looked like steel, but the boys couldn’t tell from the distance.
‘Dude, it can’t be true.’ The first said.
 ‘Shush! Travis, if they hear us, we are dead meat.’ The second whispered frantically whispered. Travis laughed.
‘It is! I swear, it is.’
‘Prove it.’ Travis smirked.
‘Okay. Look at the entrance. If it wasn’t the entrance, why are there people guarding it? And why are there chains and locks around the door?’
‘Ace, it could be a prison.’ Travis said.
‘Travis! You know that isn’t a prison. You took me to the prison.’ Ace groaned.
‘True. But I still don’t believe you.’ Travis said. Ace sighed.
‘C’mon, if we stay any longer we’ll get caught.’
‘Fine.’ Travis grinned. They headed back to Ace’s house.
‘Travis I am sure that was the place.’ Ace insisted, walking in the gutter.
‘Why? Ace, really, why?’ Travis asked.
‘Because it makes sense. The doors would be small or decorated if it were for, say, the town hall.’ Ace was about to continue, when he saw a girl walking in the other direction. ‘Sorry Travis, got to go.’ Ace ran in the other direction. Travis watched him go and shrugged.

* * *

Scarlet ignored the boy, concentrating on her homework. The boy said nothing. He sat, watching Scarlet intently and didn’t say a word. After twenty minutes Scarlet sighed, put her work down and scowled at him.
‘Are you here to stalk me, or tell me something? Because I don’t like people breathing down my neck while I work.’ She said, impatiently. The boy said nothing. Scarlet glared at him, something that generally made people cower. The boy stared back at her. Scarlet frowned slightly and glowered again. She inspected him. He had short black hair. His eyes were dark and his skin was pale.
‘Scarlet Grant, you have an assignment.’ He said. His voice was deep and menacing.
‘I do. I have a Maths assignment and Science assignment and History assignment- I could go on all day. But I am sure that isn’t what you mean.’
‘You are correct. Here.’ He handed her a folder. ‘You have one week to decide whether you will comply or not. If you do agree, I shall be seeing you again. If not, it was nice meeting you.’ He got up and walked away. Scarlet watched him walk away, very confused. She shook her head and finished her homework. Then she checked to see if anyone was around. No one was. She picked up the folder and looked at the outside. It was cream and made of cardboard. It looked very, very professional. Scarlet opened it up and started reading.

* * *

Ace followed the girl, silently. Eventually she walked into an empty alley.
‘Hello again Ace Collins.’ She said, not turning.
‘I showed him. He didn’t believe me. And I want your name.’ Ace replied.
‘My name isn’t important. I told you that boy didn’t trust you. Are you ready?’
‘Your name is important. Show me the folder.’ He said. The girl turned around and handed him the folder.
'My name is not important. You have one week to decide whether you will comply or not. If you do agree, I shall be seeing you again. If not, it was nice meeting you.' And with that she turned and left. Ace looked at the folder. It was cream and cardboard. It looked extremely official. Ace opened it and started reading it.


Or the one with no name:

Why was it so cold? She didn’t want to move. She was comfortable there. But why did it need to be so cold? She could hear something. Sirens. Where was she? She opened her eyes. Ugh. She was still in her bedroom.
Wait. Sirens?
She rolled over and landed on the floor.
‘Ow…’ She moaned. She did that every day. She needed a bigger bed. She got up and looked at her closet. She picked out jeans and a football jersey. She tripped at the top of the stairs and eventually landed on the floor. She did that every day too. She grunted and got up. She checked her watch. 2:30am. What the hell was happening? She opened the front door and saw that the house across the street had broken windows. Nothing to do with her. She shut the door again and walked into the kitchen. She ignored the toaster completely because the last time she used it, the toaster burnt half of her hair off. She opened the microwave carefully and avoided the small explosion of goo.
‘Ryan!’ She called up the stairs. ‘Get down here!’ She heard a groan, a thump and a swear as Ryan hit his head against the ceiling.
‘Microwave?’ He yelled back, leaning over the banister of the hallway upstairs.
‘Yes the microwave.’
‘I have to clean it don’t I?’ He asked. She nodded.

She sat in the dining room eating cereal and glaring at Ryan. Idiot. He had done that two days ago. She didn’t forget to easy. She saw him shuffle out of the kitchen.
‘Done.’ He mumbled, heading back up the stairs. She watched him slowly make his way up the stairs. God, he was stupid sometimes. But, most of the time he was a complete brainbox. He wasn’t smart in the straight A student sense, he was just… Intelligent. He was in his second year of University and his looks were deceiving. Very deceiving. He had spiky red hair that people made fun of. He was average height and skinny. His eyes were pale blue and his features were uninteresting. He was funny, in a annoying sort of way and they were housemates. It was her, Ryan and Kat. Oh. Kat.
‘Ryan wait!’ She called up again. He looked down again.
‘What now?’
‘Where’s Kat?’
‘She’s still in bed.’
‘Are you sure?’ She asked.
‘Yes, Harper, I’m positive I ch-‘ He paled. ‘I didn’t check. Are those sirens?’
‘Yes, they are sirens. Let’s check the basement.’ They walked down the stairs and knocked on the basement door. No response. Harper opened the door and peered into the room. Empty. Harper started walking up the stairs.
‘The psycho has gone arsonist again. Let’s go get her.’ She said. Ryan sighed and started muttering something about chains as he got his jacket. They walked out into the freezing cold, crossed the road and entered the forest behind the houses on that side of the street. They walked to the clearing at the middle of the forest and saw Kat sitting in the snow, rocking back and forth slightly. Harper and Ryan shared a look, then Harper tentatively reached towards Kat’s shoulder. Kat looked up, her eyes shining.
‘Hey guys! How are you? I’m good though in retrospect it might’ve been smart for me to bring a jacket out here.’ She said cheerily. Ryan sighed and passed Kat his one.
‘Can we go back inside now? I’m freezing.’ He shivered. Kat smiled and got up. They walked back to the house, trying to stick to the shadows. Harper stared at the back of Kat’s head as they walked. It was amazing how she could blend into any environment and still grab the attention of every boy she went past. Kat had blonde hair and grey eyes. She was tall and had a couple freckles. Harper had been jealous when they first met, but had decided since then that she was quiet happy being herself.

The three of them walked into the house and Kat started walking to the basement. Harper grabbed the back of her shirt and pulled her back. Ryan then grabbed Kat’s shoulders and forced he onto the couch.
‘Kat, this really needs to stop.’ Harper sighed. Kat smiled.
‘This is serious Kat. It needs to stop. You’ll be fine for weeks and then, Bam! You go nuts again.’ Ryan scolded. Kat frowned.
‘Ryan, Harper, please let me get some sleep. I’m tired.’ Kat said. She got up and walked into the basement. Ryan looked at Harper and shrugged.
‘It’ll sort itself out eventually. Everything does.’ Ryan yawned, ‘I’m going to bed too.’ He turned and walked up the stairs. Harper sighed and walked up the stairs after him. She walked into her bedroom, pulled the covers off her bed and wrapped them around herself as she sat down at her computer. She logged in, checked her e-mails, there was one from the publishing company. She flinched and opened it. She quickly scanned the page and sighed. Denied. They denied her. Again. She scowled, fighting back the tears, and opened up the word document on which the story was written. ‘Frivolous Attempts’. She selected the entire story and hit ‘delete’. She then moved to close the document. A pop-up appeared. ‘Do you want to save the changes you made to Frivolous Attempts.docx?’ She sighed and hit ‘Don’t Save’; she wasn’t giving up just yet. She closed the page and looked at the screen. She could see her face reflected in the monitor. Short black hair, pale skin and far too skinny for her liking. Harper hated her reflection. She only looked at it when she doubted she could feel any worse. It never helped, because all se could ever see were the things that she hated about herself. Mainly her eyes. The were probably the prettiest part of her face, but she still hated them. They were dark brown, and mysterious. Harper had no idea why she hated them, but she always had. She yawned and checked the time. 3:15am. She turned off the computer and leaned out her bedroom window, thinking. She heard a loud BANG! Come from the basement. Harper sprinted down the stairs, followed closely by Ryan. They pelted down the second set of stairs and met Kat, who was shaking and couldn’t open the door.

‘Kat, what happened?’ Ryan asked.
‘I don’t know! I went to open the door, found it was locked and I was trying to jimmy it open and something inside exploded!’ She squealed. She then growled and kicked the door. The explosion must have weakened the hinges or something, because the door fell. Harper moved to go in but Kat stopped her abruptly. Kat went in and replaced the door behind her. Ryan and Harper looked at each other.
‘What was that about?’ Ryan said, bewildered. Harper was about to knock down the door again when they heard the sound of an electric screwdriver reattaching the door to the hinges that were stuck to the wall.
‘Ryan, I thought you were asleep.’ Harper yelled over the noise.
‘Nope. I couldn’t sleep, and I have that huge assignment, remember?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Harper trailed off.
‘Have you gotten the response from the publishing company yet?’ He said, trying to make conversation, knowing that Harper had been worrying about the response for days. Harper said nothing. Ryan didn’t get the message.
‘Did you hear me?’ He yelled, ‘I asked if you got a response from the pub-‘ Harper scowled and nodded. No tears. No crying. Ryan was about to ask what they said when he figured it out. He paled.
‘Oh, God, Harper, I’m so sorry.’ He murmured. Harper shook her head.
‘Whatever you just said, I didn’t hear it.’ She yelled, the screwdriver noise cutting out halfway through her sentence. Harper blushed. She then banged on the door that had just been fixed. There was a slight scrabble on the other side, and then Kat’s head popped out.
‘Yes?’
‘Let me in. Now.’ Harper said, with a no-nonsense air about her. Kat opened the door wider, letting Harper have a glimpse of the room.
‘Nothing suspicious. Please let me finish fixing the door.’ Kat said, innocently. Ryan peered over Harper’s shoulder.
‘Kat, something in there blew up less than five minutes ago. Let us in, you can keep working on the door.’ He said. Kat scowled and grudgingly let them in.
‘Just don’t touch anything.’ She growled, and promptly continued working on the door, mumbling something about ‘Not letting the undesirables in.’ Ryan and Harper shared a look, and looked around the room. There was nothing broken and no sign of a commotion. Everything was clean and tidy. In fact, the room looked practically untouched. Which was weird, considering Kat spent all of her free time down here. Ryan and Harper decided to leave Kat to it, and went to bed.

The next morning Harper got up at seven feeling incredibly tired, walked downstairs and made herself breakfast. She zoned out while she was having her second bowl of cereal for that day, dwelling on her book. She knew that it was good. She was positive it was good. Why didn’t the publishing companies see that? She’d sent ‘Frivolous Attempts’ to three different publishing companies now, and none of them liked it. Harper was frowning into space when Ryan bounced down the stairs.
‘Good morning Harper! It’s sort of a new day!’ He said cheerily. He then remembered about the book. He smacked his forehead and swore.
‘God, I am such an idiot.’
‘No, Ryan, you’re right. It’s fine. Really.’ Harper responded, snapping back to Earth. Harper checked the time while scooping a spoonful of food into her mouth and nearly choked.
‘Crap, I’m almost late.’ She coughed. Harper ran up the stairs, got ready in two minutes and ran back down almost tripping, but not quite. She stumbled to the door and called back, ‘Make sure Kat doesn’t blow anything else up, Okay? Bye!’
‘Have a good day!’ Ryan yelled back, smiling. Harper was almost late every day, but never was. He got a new spoon out and finished Harper’s cereal. Kat came up about five minutes later, had some leftover soup for breakfast and went down to her room again. Ryan watched her the entire time, thinking about his assignment for Uni. He had to design a modern building, with more than thirty floors, having a new and innovative ‘look’ for the outside. The inside needed to be an office building. He was working for his Bachelor of Architectural Studies, and he was loving his course. The small problem was that every time he got into the stage of work when the ideas came at him like he was a magnet, Kat would distract him. Which was annoying. He walked to his room and sat down at his desk. He then spent five minutes chucking everything on his desk everywhere looking for his sketchpad and pencil. He then remembered that it was on his bed. He climbed up the ladder next to his desk and grabbed his sketchpad. Ryan looked at his previous drawings. There was work and drawings mixed in together. He liked drawing indefinitely when he couldn’t think of anything. He took one out. It was a rough sketch of Harper, which he hadn’t shown anyone. It was her wearing a dress, but it had been mainly guesswork because she didn’t own any dresses. He had often thought about showing it to Harper, but always decided against it. He sighed, put the drawing back and flipped to the front of the pad. He began to outline ideas for his assignment.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Kat was sitting in her room with her head in her hands. She really liked living there. She liked Ryan and Harper, and she loved the feeling of people enjoying being around her. But she hated keeping secrets from them. No. Right there and then Kat stood up. She wasn’t going to hid anything from that second onward. Kat was about to tell Ryan but something in her head told her to think about what that would entail. She stood there completely silent and unmoving for a long moment, she then flopped onto her bed. She was conflicted. Telling the others about this would lead to serious damage to her health. But is was getting hard to keep things from them. Kat sighed. Okay, she would stop keeping things from them then. Which meant any secret from before then would be kept a secret. Now she needed to decide what to do next. Get a job or apply for Uni? When she said job she meant in the proper sense, not what she had been doing before. At which point she actually whimpered. Her old job was serious stuff. Secret serious stuff. How was she supposed to quit? She didn’t even know who employed her. In fact, how did she even get the job? Kat had never put any thought into this. Why had she never questioned it? She questioned everything. Something very odd was happening. Kat’s stomach rumbled. She checked the time. 1:30pm, or time for lunch.

Ryan heard something smash downstairs and groaned.
‘Kat! What are you doing?’ He yelled.

So, it's up to you guys to decide which I should keep writing. SO PLEASE COMMENT!!!

Signing out, Sparky. ;)


4 comments:

  1. Honestly I like both. They are both well written and I would like to see both completed, but if I had to choose...number 2.

    Really good though, keep it up! :)

    Now read my blog! >:(
    http://myuselessshortstories.blogspot.com/

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  2. I like number one the most I think, they are both brilliant though Sparky!!

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  3. You should probably continue with the second one.

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