Water is lapping between your chin and neck, each wave colliding to the beat of your heart, as you try to stay above water. Every wave throws you back under the water, your breathing becoming slowed as you attempt to get back above water. Finally, a huge wave tosses you under for too long, causing your life to flash before your eyes. Birthday party's, school, friends, vacations, everything. Why were you so opposed to swimming lessons in the past? If you had taken them, they would've saved your life. But still, you force yourself above water again, to take a breath before being launched into the unforgiving water again. As you come up again, you catch a faint glimpse of the bridge. Nobody there. They had the audacity to toss you in the water as a ‘joke’ but once they realized you couldn’t swim, they ran. Another wave tosses you under, this time keeping you there, as you make useless attempts to return to the surface. A second wave comes over, keeping you trapped under the water, only being able to thrust your hand above the water. Pointless. Everything seems to be getting hazy. Spinning. It feels as though your body is slowing. Not responding any longer. You let out your breath by mistake, as you stop being able to control yourself, falling into darkness. Suddenly, a hand grabs your wrist and starts pulling you out of the water, slowly but with purpose. You’re dragged over to under the bridge, on the side, where the water does not reach. You cough, desperate for the air to enter your lungs and for the water to exit. You open your eyes and quickly sit up, coughing up water, as a quiet voice murmurs, “You’re alright.” You eventually quit coughing and look up at your savior. He has messy light brown hair and golden brown eyes. “You ok?” He asks, “What happened?” You rub your throat for a second before responding, “I’m ok” You cough once more, “I think. Thank you for saving me. I would’ve drowned otherwise” Your voice getting quieter as you finish speaking. “It’s no problem. Im Wren.” Wren says looking at you. He hesitates before speaking again, “I uh… You.. You’re actually not the first person I’ve fished out of the river.” He talks slowly, letting the words sink in, “Nobody would tell me how they actually ended up in the river..” You look down at the ground, silent. “Please, I just- I just need to know how this keeps happening..” Wren says quietly. You bite your lip, unsure of telling him or not telling him, “Why does it matter to you..?” Wren hesitates, looking around, “About a year ago, my little sister ‘fell’ into this river and drowned. Except she didn’t fall in. She knew not to mess around by this river and she never went near it unless necessary..” “So, you think she was pushed in..?” You say slowly, connecting all of the pieces of the puzzle. Wren nods. You sigh, “There’s.. this gang of seniors.. from my high school..” You say miserably, forcing out the words, “There’s a lot of gangs at my high school. But they formed last year and rose to the top. All the other gangs respected them. I always thought it was odd how they rose to the top so quickly..” “You think they killed my sister.” Wren says, a strange tone to his voice. “I don’t know.. maybe.” You sigh, “They pushed me in..” You say quietly, as ashamed of what happened. Wren goes quiet. You attempt to wring your hair out in an attempt to cover up the awkwardness. Your school uniform is completely soaked and walking home is going to be awful. “What’s your name?” Wren says all of a sudden, breaking the silence. “Uh, Eren..” You respond, a bit startled by the sudden question. “I’m sorry for not asking earlier, that was rude of me.” Wren says looking directly at you, an oddly determined look on his face, “My little sister was pushed off this bridge a year ago, and she was not the only one. I’ve been pulling people out of the river in an attempt to get an answer. Will you please assist me in getting evidence to have those bastards locked up?” You stare surprised, at this sudden change of tone, “I- um, I don’t really know you or anything-“ Wren interrupts, “I know this is a lot to ask of you but please. This may be my only chance.” You sigh as Wren had just saved your life and this might be your only chance at repaying him. Besides, you don’t exactly have a lot of friends and helping Wren might make you friends with him. You sigh once more before giving him an answer, “I’ll help.”

Hi again Journal, It’s me. So I’m actually here under some.. uh.. odd circumstances… I’m currently stuck in a bus. There was this huge awful accident on I-80. There’s so many buses and cars piled up from what I can see. Firefighters are here but I’m not sure how long until they’ll get here. I’m not really injured. Bumps and Bruises. My heads bleeding a little bit but it’s nothing serious. I got lucky. Somehow everyone else on the bus got lucky too. No one on here died. Thank god. But I’m currently using my journal because I need to save my phone battery. I have no idea how long I’ll be stuck here. I’m pretty cold though. I hope it won’t be too long.

-insert cat doodles-

Honestly, I think my cat doodles are getting better. I actually had this idea a while ago; a comic book based from a cat’s view. It would be cute and funny. But I’m not sure I’d be able to do it cuz it seems hard to make a comic book. Speaking of cats, I can’t wait to get home to my kitty. Mom’ll take care of her if I don’t make it back before it’s her dinner time. Y’know maybe I should do my math homework in the mean time. … Or maybe not y’know? I mean, the work is easy but I just don’t feel like it. I’ll do it tonight before I go to bed. It’ll be fineee.. Oh I think I hear the firefighters. That was shorter than I thought. Ok, well then, I guess I should pack up and get back to go. See you soon, Lin

(~Author’s Note - Writing something like a journal entry was not entirely hard but not easy either. I attempted to write a journal entry from someone else’s pov. I wrote it like I occasionally write mine; quick, jumping from topic to topic, not very detailed. Honestly, in my opinion, this one isn’t very good. I really rushed it. Also this little section is mainly for me to criticize my writing and give notes.~)

“They’re barbarians..” Jae muttered so quietly I almost missed it. I shrugged, “ It’s normal here.” “But does it not bother you at all what they’re doing these innocent people?” Jae winced, looking at field and the new blood splatter. “I’m not saying it’s right but that’s how it is” I retorted, losing my cool a split second. I quickly take a deep breath. Most of the time, ‘clients’ don’t get me as riled up as Jae’s doing, “C’mon” I grab her arm quickly walking to our seats. Once we sit down, we have about 20 minutes of silence with Jae wincing at every blood splatter. “Quit wincing.” I mutter to her, “They’re already onto you. You’re just making them suspect us more.” “Us.” Jae whispered, attempting to crack a smile even though she looked at green as the plants growing throughout the stadium, “You’re the boss here..” I rolled my eyes playing with the ivy that was growing next to my seat. The plants were carefully cared for, attempting to make this dump of a city look good. Like it was the place to be. A while later Jae leans over, “But are you sure we need to be here..?” She looked pale now. “As I’ve said, multiple times, they are on to us. Going to The Reaping is about the most normal thing we can do to get their suspicions off of us. We can’t get you home if they’re watching us.” “Yeah, but couldn’t we just do something else?” Jae asked pulling on my sweater. I rolled my eyes. Jae knew the answer. I returned to staring at the field but not actually watching what was going on. Jae shivered, tightly gripping the arm of my sweater. We sat like that for a while

(~Author’s Note - I honestly struggled with this. I had no idea where it was going. Sorry for the ending heh heh.. I might use these characters again. Also yes, the main character is currently unnamed. Time to work on the next :]~)

  Eden stopped. After walking aimlessly in the forest for an hour, she had found it. Her little treehouse from when she was a kid. It had gotten pretty beaten up since she last was in it. Pieces were falling off. The wood was clearly rotting. It looked liked it could fall over any second. Despite that, Eden walked forward, stopping in the front of the tree. She raised her hand, gently putting it on the tree, as if it was an old, dusty, breakable object. Eden felt all the grooves in the wood, the moss. It felt dead. Eden looked up towards the branches. She had once kept all the branches trimmed to not mess with her treehouse. They grew back to their original state, all over the place. But the strange thing was, there were no leaves. The tree must’ve really been dead.. There were no leaves growing anywhere on the tree, there was no color at all. Just the brown of the wood and the dead green moss. It was.. sad..
 Eden put her foot on what was left of the plank “stairs” she had nailed to the tree in order to climb up. She put some weight on the step to make sure it wouldn’t collapse under her. Eden continued climbing, feeling a slight autumn breeze in her black hair. Once she reached the top, she got up and stopped. It was exactly the same as she had left it. Comic books, regular books, notebooks, all scattered on the floor. Her old beanbag on the floor with a couple old blankets. Some flower drawings spread out on the walls, along with her old L’Manburg flag. And her old mirror, shattered on the floor, pieces everywhere. Eden walked slowly to the back of the tree house, her fingers slowly tracing the wall. She stepped over the broken mirror pieces not looking at all at the blood which came the the broken mirror. Eden slowly picked up her old journal, examining the cover. Some of the pencil faded and there was a a thick layer of dust on it. Eden opened it, slowly flipping through it. At first, it was words written in a curly handwriting with doodles on the sides. But as Eden got further, there were less and less doodles and more handwriting which looked like an angry scribble. She tried to flip faster as if not seeing the pages wouldn’t bring back the memories. Before she got to the end, Eden quickly closed the book, dropping it back on the floor. It created a thick cloud of dust. Eden looked around her treehouse. So much had happened here. Her life had practically started in here. It had almost ended here too. 

Maybe it was a bad idea to come here. Eden turned around and quickly climbed out of the treehouse. When she got to the ground, she ran as fast as she could until she turned around and couldn’t see the treehouse in the distance. She stopped and attempted to catch her breath. She probably should have listened to her doctor and not run all the way. Eden slowly turned around and looked into the distance back to where the treehouse was. She silently said goodbye to it knowing she wouldn’t come back. Let Mother Nature reclaim it. And with that, Eden walked away.