The fluorescent lights of Mr. Hemmingsworth’s AP Sociology class hum with a clinical, soul-sucking frequency. I sit three rows back and two seats over from Luanne, hidden behind the broad, stiff shoulders of my own jacket. Mr. Hemmingsworth is droning on about “social structures” and “the invisible threads that bind us,” but all I can see is the island of oak where Luanne sits alone.
She doesn’t look like an invisible thread. She looks like a jagged, purple lightning bolt in a room full of
The smudge on my thumb is stubborn. It’s a deep, galaxy-purple stain that refuses to wash off, a leftover mark from mapping the Iron Peaks until two in the morning. I like the way it looks against my skin—a reminder that I can build something out of nothing.
I check the mirror. I don’t look for a person; I look for a vibe. The green turtleneck is clean, free of orange cat hair for at least the next ten minutes. I pull it on, feeling the wool hug my neck like armor.
An orange blur strea
The lobby of the library is a quiet, neutral territory, and it is the only place I feel like I could stop pretending. I sit in one of the high-backed chairs, hidden behind the ‘Arthur’ version of myself like it was a heavy winter coat I wasn't allowed to take off. I watch people come and go through the glass doors, but my eyes always drifted toward the girls my age—the way they tucked their hair behind their ears or the specific, effortless way they took up space.
Every time I see th
So, I don't know why, but this is something that I wrote for an assignment a while ago, and I decided to turn it into a story.
"Come closer."
The voice was not loud, but the acoustic engineering of the central, circular stage carried it to every ear in the massive auditorium. The automated lights above flared in a bright, cold blue, a sudden punch of light accompanying a heavy, resonant musical note that vibrated through the floorboards.
A video feed, focused only on the sh
They speak of the Shards as gods. Distant, powerful, inevitable forces. But they forget the truth: each was once a person. A mortal with hands, a face, and a heart that beats with fear.
Torshi ran down the wet pavement. Today, it was cold and raining in Edöl, the capital city of Altaakanûl. This was not normal. Altaakanûl was a world of three suns and perpetual, warm daylight.
Its people, the Kanûlians, were a sun-worshipping culture whose very essence—their Identity—was
‘BEEP BEEP BEEP’
I rub my eyes and look at the room around me. The curtains are closed which creates a dim glow eminating from the window. As I sit up I look at my calendar. It was August 11th. Tuesday. Wait, Tuesday? The 11th?
It was not just a normal Tuesday. It was the Tuesday. The Tuesday I had been waiting for my whole life! The entire point of my existence!
The sole thing to keep me going through my long and arduous days. Today I was going to Aldwyns!
I leap out of bed
The power was a scream—not a sound, but a powerful force in the Spiritual Realm that violently bled into the Cognitive and Physical Realms. It had no name or purpose because its Vessel had been killed right after the Shattering of Adonalsium, during the first conflicts between the new gods. Its raw power had been left untouched for thousands of years, a wild and untamed force.
Aris, a scholar of Realmic theory, had spent her life studying this power. She knew that an untended Shard w