I slam my fist on the table in front of me, rage coursing through me. “You’re telling me we are just gonna let them take all those people away?” I hiss, my voice dripping with malicious intent. I planned to kill them all, all of them. Every single one who decided to capture half the population of a helpless village. It was infuriating and I would stand with the people. My slouched body language in the chair could hardly convey the anger and fury spreading like fire throughout my body. “Lavena, slow down,” Iran had told me, clasping his hands with his eyes wide. As if he could stop me. Nobody could. I laugh exasperatedly. “Slow down..? Slow down!? Are you kidding me?” I exclaim, my voice rising higher and higher with every word. Iran shakes his head, concealing his frustration with me. Iran’s P.O.V Lavena has not been the same since she realized truly how much power she had. She has killed so, so many people and it has only made her more and more distant from herself. And I hate to say it, but more distant from me. We’ve been “enemies” our whole lives and this has just made her hardly want to roll her eyes at me anymore. It makes me sick at my stomach to say I miss it. But I do, I miss our eye rolling. I miss our arguments. I miss all those moments where we acted more like lovers than enemies. Hell, I miss her. The REAL her. Not this… evil side of her. I had to bring her back. “Lavena, please..” I beg, my hands out as if I could reach out and touch her and she’d snap back into it. “What, Iran? What could you possibly say that would possibly fix anything?” Lavena says, spitting out venom as she talks. My eyes widen. She wasn’t herself. It makes me nauseous to know she never will be herself. I watched her demeanor change, her emerald green eyes didn’t glow as bright. Her blonde, shiny hair seemed to shine less and less everyday. It was odd to watch her always stalk around instead of walk gracefully like she always did. Her eyes were also always so wide, like she was on high alert for anyone who tried to piss her off. God I hated this side of her.

       *Back to Lavena’s P.O.V.*

God I hated this side of me. I just wish, somehow, I could erase the day I saw one of my friends’ guts splatter all over me. She had turned to the evil side, and tried to kill me. “You had to Lavena, it was what was right. It’s okay, shh..” Iran had told me. I wish I could believe him. Suddenly, my eyes widen and I look down at my hands. “What am I?” I exclaim, my hands shaking with a million different emotions. Iran’s looks at me like he’s never looked at me. A look that made my stomach do weird things. Weird things I hated. God I hate it, I hate it, I hate- I lash out and plunge the dagger I had had clenched in my fist all this time into his heart. Seeing Iran’s blood splatter everywhere was the most satisfying thing ever. I smirk as his face gets stuck in a permanent look of shock forever. My smirk widens as I look at the blood covering my hands, even more wiping on my hands as I wipe a hand down my face. “I’m such a maniac..” I say, my voice satisfied.

The hummer buzzes as it drives down the road, the sky a odd shade of blue as fog covers everything else. We had been in a forever-lasting winter for about 5 years now, and it had only been this year when I realized there was a war going on. A war going on to stop it. The concept of fighting ‘till the death just to stop this winter was rather odd, but people were dying from starvation because not a single crop would grow, so it seemed right. The hummer slowly pulls to a stop and I find a chill running through my body, but not from the chilling cold outside. A man in a black tuxedo opens the door and black glasses holds out a hand to help me get down from the suspended hummer. Everyone knew who I was, I had been trained in combat for years—since I was 6. I knew every little trick in the book to help put us on the home stretch to bringing back the regular four seasons—Autumn, Spring, Summer, and Winter—that cycled through every few months or so. “Are you Sinthia Hall?” The man asks, his voice was smooth and unsettling. He had done this before. I nod and clench my fists tightly. His face turns grim as he sees the cold determination in my eyes, the calculated percision is every step I take as we walk towards the battlefield. The rubble and destruction was hard to manuever around and I felt another chill run down my spine as I see something under the rubble that look too much like a dead body. My combat boots clink along the debilitated street as the roads get more destroyed and destroyed the farther in we walk. “Ready for this, Hall?” His voice says again. “Ready as I’ll ever be..” I reply grimly, my eyes narrowing as the wind bites into my face and makes my eyes water. Battle wasn’t easy, it never would be. But I would do it all without hesitation. As my blood cools I finally realize I was ready. Ready for war.

“Your time is up, you better run!” was all the motivation I needed to sprint through the brush and thorns, desperate to get away from him. My lungs slowly begin to burn like a raging wildfire as I run, thorns cutting my face open like tiny razor blades. I couldn’t slow down, my legs doing the entirety of the work as I run, my eyes wide like a madman. Except the real madman was the person who had screamed at me to run. He explained his sick, twisted little game after he kidnapped me. “There are bombs in the ground that will go off a certain amount of time after the next. Slow down and..” He had said, making a explosion motion with his hands. My legs burned with agony as I kept running, not sure how much time was in between each explosion. I didn’t want to gamble either, though, so I kept running and running and running until I got out of the woods. He also explained that the game ended the moment I reached the end of the woods. Somehow, I couldn’t stop running. I ran past cars and streets until I was in the city. I was aware of where I was now and ran to the police station, my breath ragged and my face torn up from the thorns as I explained as best I could with what breath I had. The policeman’s face grew darker and darker the more I explained. “I see. This man has been doing this for decades now, y’know,” the policeman says casually. “Nobody has been able to give us a detailed description of the man. Until you came along.” He flashes me an exhausted smile and writes down every single bit of information I breathed out. **** It had been months since I had my near-death experience and I still woke up nightly with nightmares of the incident. Cool sweat dripped off my face every single night as I shot up. One day, the news finally gave me the announcement I had been waiting for forever. “Young girl finally helps police track down the man who has been playing a sick game of ‘Ticking Timebomb’ for decades.” I cringed at my interview, blood still dripping from my face from the thorns and my eyes still wide like I had seen a ghost. It was alright, though, because I was alive. I was the only reason the ticking time bomb exploded for the last time.

My breath doesn’t take long to become steady after the air finally fills my lungs. My hands were tied—far too loose, I might add—behind the rickety wooden chair I had been sat in. An annoying fluorescent light shone into my eyes as I continue to work on breathing steadily. If my body wasn’t calm, my mind certainly wouldn’t be, and a scatter-brain is a recipe for disaster whilst being kidnapped. The man who kidnapped me was eerily tall and he had blonde, swooped-back hair. This man had on a tuxedo—oddly formal, maybe he disguised himself as some sort of businessman?—and a tie that was tied too perfectly. It was weird. His grin was crooked and his teeth were too shiny to be true. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he wasn’t human. “The self-esteemed Ava Blackwood has been, finally, taken down. How humiliating,” he mutters, chuckling darkly at his words. I knew a thing or two about self-defense, so I knew my chances of being found were slim. Considering the fact that I was already at the 2nd location. I would have to either charm my way out, or fight until my last breath. I smirk to hide the chills running down my body. “And who might you be?” I struggle to hide the venom dripping in my voice. He leans in, his breath smelling like literal shit, as his crooked, shiny grin blinds me. “My identity will remain hidden to you,” he hisses, his eyes narrowing with malice. I resist the urge to break out of these too-loose ropes and punch him in the nose. He straightens back up, towering over me with his odd height, and crosses his hands behind his back. I watch as he paces in front of my chair. I groan in annoyance as his figure covers and uncovers the fluorescent light, making it flash. “You see, I am well aware of the abilites you have, most everyone is.” He clears his throat. “That is why I will not be easy on you, whether you are a girl or not.” I struggle not roll my eyes at the way he said the word ‘girl,’ like it was an insult. “And who is to say I won’t use my abilities against you?” I question, my eyes narrowing with fury I so terribly hid. “Who is stopping you?” My eyes widen at his question. He chuckles at my surprise. “I am simply a businessman, I know nothing of the survival instincts you have except for the fact that they are there.” I open my mouth to speak. Finding no words, my mouth shuts again. He was right. Why hadn’t I busted out of these ropes already and bolted out of that door behind him? My hair was down and I had clothes on that clung to my figure, nothing easy to grab if I bolted past him. He sees me eyeing the open window behind him and steps in front of it. “Look at you, already planning on making your daring escape. I’m offended.” He holds a hand to his heart—like he took my glances at the window as an insult—before doing another one of his disturbingly dark chuckles. “Why would you care? It isn’t like you.. want me here. You are just doing this so the whole world knows that the extraordinary Ava Blackwood has been toppled,” I snarl, my eyes narrowing with my no-longer contained rage. He simply laughs faintly and glances over his shoulder at the window curtly before turning back to me. I wanted to slap that crooked grin right off of his face. After my rage subsided, I slide the rope off of my small wrists and stretch it out by opening and closing my hands. I had learned—and successfully completed—this trick and knew it was my only hope; I was right. The rope slides off of my hands silently and I hold back the twitch in my lips that was trying to make them shoot upwards. In the blink of an eye, I have kicked the man in unspeakable places and have leaped out of the window like a hurdler. I immediately look for street signs and landmarks so I could figure out where I was at, sprinting for my life as I do so.

                               *A few hours later*

I groan in annoyance as I see another newspaper headline, featuring my name. ‘The almighty Ava Blackwood… escapes capture..?’ I roll my eyes as one after another newspaper gets handed to me as I walk the streets. I couldn’t help but notice a crowd around a few policemen. A man in a tuxedo with blonde, swoopy hair catches my attention. His face had wrinkles that looked like he smiled quite crookedly. My eyes widen as he looks at me, his eyes burning with rage. Then, as he flashes that crooked grin I knew my captor had been caught. Too easy.

To anyone who reads my stuff, I’m gonna start writing a book and posting the chapters on here like that one guy does. Since I don’t have the pro features, I’ll have to waste random prompts on this.

Thanks!

-Syd ❤️

I cough as dust flies through the air and into my throat. Everything was smoke-infested and dirty nowadays. After our new, foolish leader decided the best way to govern our world was banning us from doing basically anything. I stalk down the street—as for cars were banned—as I clench my fists tightly to my sides, my destroyed winter boots clunking against the cracked pavement. There were many people everyday that were taken by the government for simply existing. The dark, ominous trucks cruising down the streets, the tinted windows showing absolutely nothing on the insides of these trucks. I knew the people behind them were from the government, scanning for anyone who simply breathed wrong. There were no longer innocent cars on the streets. I keep my head down, my face covered with a shirt. Keeping my identity on the down-low was a common thing to do in these days. Only my boring, brown eyes showed. Thank goodness brown eyes were common, or else my identity would be easy to find. It was too easy to do something wrong. I hear the smooth sound of tires on the road and I continue walking towards my desolate house. Multiple symbols and posters were slapped on the siding of my run-down home. The government had done this to almost every house, almost to remind us of our upmost doom. Leaving wasn’t allowed either. The walls surrounding this hell were tall and guarded by the most trained military I had ever heard of. “You there. Stop walking!” A sharp voices calls out from the dark truck driving down the road. I stop dead in my tracks, clenching my fists so prevent them from shaking. I pivot to face them, thankful for my common eye color and covered face. “Yes?” I say in the most polite voice I could speak. “Why, you’re rather young,” the person notices. Shit, shit, shit. They knew I was young. If I let them examine the very few features they could see of my much longer, they would take me away. I say nothing.

                                           ***

Years later, that awful leader’s term ends. The weight of the announcement that our rights were back releases itself off of my shoulders. But I would never be the same. I still feared walking down the street, I still tried to cover my face up with a shirt before stopping myself. I still cringed every time I saw any symbol remotely close to the one that foolish man coined. Everything had changed, but I felt optimistic. I knew that our new leader was also affected deeply by the last leader, and would do everything in their power to make sure someone who was that evil never stepped foot on that podium in the middle of our town. I was no longer trapped under his leadership. So I held my head high as I stuffed the shirt I usually used to cover my face back in my dresser, and stepped into the outside, the cold stinging my face. I look at the sunrise and see something amazing.. Hope was on the horizon.

In a heart-shaped box, a mother keeps her childrens’ teeth. She grins wickedly as she sets the box in a hole in the wall, knowing nobody will ever find them besides herself.

Her house was eerily quiet and it made the hair on the back of the mother’s neck stand up. She didn’t know why, though, because she was not afraid in the slightest. The mother hid her box of nasty, bloody teeth and walked out of her room, breathing in the scent of supper. She smiles at the aroma, her teeth shining as she does so.

The mother walks to the front door, after hearing the doorbell ring. It was the police, who had reported that neighbors heard some screaming. The mother clenches her fists so tightly that her nails draw blood on her palm and she puts on the cheeriest smile she can as she allows the police to come inside. The mother couldn’t deny them, or else they would become suspicious of her.

The police search every single corner of her house, and find nothing.

“Come have supper! You have been searching for hours now, you must be starved,” The mother exclaims, her cheery smile still on.

The policemen look at each other, then back at the unfazed mother before sitting down at her dining table. The mother clasps her hands together in delight and gets supper out of the oven. It filled the entire house with that delicious-smelling aroma once more as she sets it down on the table, cutting up a few pieces of the meat and sits it on the plates in front of the policemen.

They eat the meat the mother had set out in front of them reluctantly, but they couldn’t deny how delicious it tasted.

“Ouch!” one of the police cry out. “I just bit on something hard..”

The mother’s fists clench together again as the man pulls the hard object out of his mouth.

It was a baby tooth.

Red Riding Hood, just a little kid, innocent mind, innocent dreams. Just like we always did.

Red Riding Hood dropped to our world, and her eyes went wide with fear. She looked around the world she appeared in, and thought her death was here.

Red Riding Hood remembered the wolf, whom she had slaughtered so long ago. She realized that in this world, the wolf would’ve been the way to go.

People try to take her left and right, she tries to put up a fight. With all of her might. Yet she falls short.

Because in this world we call our own, we never realize how when you begin to explore. Those who are not familiar with this world are afraid. “Save me from this world!” They implore.

January is dreary and cold, the tempuratures chilling. If you are so bold, stop this cold from killing.

February is the season of love, chocolates and flowers galore. Love is unending all times of year, more powerful than anything above.

March is the forgotten month, not many think about. The birthdays in this month, have to scream to get their shout-out.

April showers bring May showers, but what else can April do? Most deem April as useless. Which causes April to glower.

May is the end of the school year, a time thought to never end. May is a good month overall, dismissing us from fear.

June is the beginning of summer, a time we have all awaited. Bathing in the heat, school no longer a bummer.

July has fireworks and hotdogs, in the Fourth of July Heat. As we celebrate our independence, and we see relatives we can finally greet.

August is my birthday month, my favorite month of the year. Even though we dred the start of school, my birthday is finally here.

September is rather boring, there is not much to talk about. September birthdays are pretty common, So this gets you a ton of “clout” (??)

October is the spooky season, time for tons of candy. Try not to get a stomach ache, or else your night won’t end dandy.

November is time for turkey, and tons of other food. Say what you are thankful for, and enjoy the festive mood.

December is jolly season, time to spread holiday cheer. As we end the year on a good note, the next year is almost here!

As I see the awaiting crowd, my chest closes in on itself.

Where was I?

There were cameras everywhere and people filling every seat. I clench my hands into fists to stop them from shaking as someone walks up to me.

It was a man with short black hair and glasses. He was beaming at me with a strange twinkle in his eye, I assumed this person was rather important to whatever the hell I was doing up on this stage.

“Ready for this, Hannah?” the man asked, his beaming smile still staying plastered on his face as he scrunches his nose to push up his glasses.

Hannah? That wasn’t my name.. wait. I had seen this happen in dozens of Sci-Fi movies. I clench my hands harder as my fingernails dig into my skin, almost breaking through.

I had switched bodies with someone named Hannah.

“Now, just remember.” The man clears his throat. “All you have to talk about is the meaning of life. Should be rather easy, right?” His beaming smile remains as he laughs slightly. I laugh weakly so I don’t seem utterly clueless.

Then, in a few moments, the crowd silences as I walk up to the podium.

I slow my breathing. I had done many presentations in my Oral Communications class, I could do this.

I had to do this.

Then, just as I open my mouth to speak, I jolt up out of my bed, where I had been before I switched bodies with Hannah.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I switch to a channel on my TV and see the real Hannah, speaking more fluidly than I ever could, to the audience. Their eyes were just as enticed as they had been when I was there, they could’ve heard anything fly out of my mouth and thought I was some genius.

I laugh to myself as I realize how foolish that would’ve been, for me to step up and actually talk about the meaning of life like I actually was a philosopher.

Thank God I’m not.