And there he stood. With his stupid dyed hair as if his horrid face wasn’t already attracting enough attention. His eyes where placed offensively on mine. How dare he look at me? I attempted to ward him off with a sharp statement “if you want my autograph you can just ask” a barked. “Quite the temper you got there” he let his crooked smile grow as if he hadn’t just said something completely stupid. I rolled my eyes and in turn caught a glimpse of what he was wearing. Despite it being rather cold he decided to show himself off by wearing tight athletic shorts and a jersey for the track team. Apparently, he saw literally everything as an opportunity to show how much better he was than anyone else. Of course,he took notice of my constant stare. “Checking out the goods are we?” He turned his attention back to me. “Oh put a sheep it in” doesn’t he ever shut up? “Hey just cause you didn’t make the team doesn’t mean you get to take it out on me toots” I knew he would bring that up, a few weeks ago the tryouts for the track team were held, attended by his group of friends of course, a few randos, and of course, me. Him and his friends all managed to make the teams but I however did not. And he would make sure to remind me of that every time I saw him.

“Penny, I uh, wanted to tell you something… for a while now” I felt a lurch in my stomach. I knew exactly where this was going. And lord knows I did not want it to go there. “It’s just that, well, ever since I met you I’ve felt like things where… different, you know?” Unfortunately, I did know, I knew exactly what he was talking about. Why does this have to happen? Out of all the people he could have fallen in love with why did it have to be me? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Mark. He’s a sweet boy, his heart is always in the right place, well, that was untill now. Now all his heart was focused on is the girl standing in front of him. The girl he’s loved all his life. And now he’s about to find out that the girl never liked him back. I couldn’t stand it as he contended to speak. “And I just well-“ “Mark…” “I think we could be really good together-“ “Mark-!” “I just hope that-“ “MARK!” We both paused. Astonished by the tone in my voice. I never yell, not at him anyway. He gave me a look that I couldn’t bare to sees, I looked away as a sighed. “Mark…so I’m sorry” I know mark didn’t want things to be this way, I didn’t want things to be this way. But it’s just like that some times. Mark could only stare helplessly as I spoke dispare into his heart. “I don’t-“ “You don’t feel the same. Do you?” Mark finished my sentence coldly, almost distantly. “Mark I-“ I wanted to continue but the lumps in our throats where to big for either of us to talk Mark began to cry. “Mark, listen”-I said through a regretful tone, how do I say this? “Just because I don’t love you, doesn’t mean I hate you” “I know” “I’m still your friend and I always will be” “I know” My face was painted with empathy and understanding. I put my hand on marks shoulder. “I won’t think any differently of you because you this. This changed nothing between us, I promise.” But I could see in marks eyes that he didn’t agree. “No” Mark sighed. “It does change things.” “What do you mean?” “Before, I loved you, and there was still a thrill of possibility. There was still a maybe, a chance.” I frowned as he shoved my hand off of his side and began to walk away. “But now I have to live knowing there is no more chance, and that at the end of the day there never was. I spent all my time fixated on something that was never going to happen. You don’t understand how much that hurts.” All I could do was watch as he walked away, all the hope and wonder in his eyes now replaced with tears and disappointment. All the joy in his heart replaced with sadness. But my heart did the opposite. All my pity and sadness had turned to hope. Hope that one day, he mace forgive me. One day he will find some one who loves him just as much as he wants to be loved. Only time will tell.

That’s when I see it, the tall, horrendous monster looming over me clutching my friend in its hand, threatening to crush her at any moment. Come on, think! I have a sword in my hand but it might as well be a spoon, I’m to much of a coward to use it even with my friends life in danger. A cry suddenly broke my train of though “Alex, help, please!!” My friend was still alive and was begging for my help, how could I be so incompetent? I drew the sword to my center and faced the monster with shaking hands “I-I’ll show you!” I stuttered. How heroic. Before I could rethink what I was doing the monster lunged at me with its jaws. I haphazardly swung my sword at it, but it was to no avail. I miraculously managed to dodge the attack but still got scratched up from it. “Alex!” I looked up, my friend still in the deadly hands of the beast. “Throw me the sword!” Now there’s an idea I like. Cara always knew what to do. The monster whirled around and attacked once again, in the least calculated way possible I threw her the sword and slid under the beast, now behind it. Cara, who was much more gracefull and badass elegantly caught the sword and immediately sprang into action. “Eat this, bonehead!” Cara yowled as she sank the blade into the shoulder of the monster. It loosened its grip causing Cara to fall several feet to the ground. Of course, she stuck the lading and turned back around, ready for round two. The beast locked its eyes on Cara who motioned for me to get behind her, I was happy to comply. “You’re gonna regret ever coming near us!” Cara huffed as she struck the monsters leg, hard. The beast then tumble back, right as it did so Cara ran behind it and pointed the sword up at its backside, the beast then fell directly onto the sword, and onto Cara, ending its life. Once the dust settled I ran over to the wreckage. “Cara? Cara?!” I then saw a hand twitching beneath the massive creature, then it began to move. Eventually Cara crawled her way out from under the beast and was now covered in dirt. “Cara oh my god how did you pull that off, sometimes I swear you’re magical” I reached and pulled her into a hug. “Yeah I’m just glad I was able to get ahold of the sword, it would have been a useful as a snail in the salt mines” Cara smiled “yeah yeah, that just means you have to credit me for your victory” “Whatever” Cara rolled her eyes. There was a small pause before anyone spoke again. “So, guess we better get going then? The quest isn’t going to finish itself!” Cara said joyfully while fumbling to get the sword out of the monsters chest. “Yes, I agree” I said trying to hide my slight disgust at the sword being yanked from the monsters stomach. “Well then, off we go” Cara smiled as we both walked deeper into the forest.

Yeah yeah, laugh all you want. And immortal being catching a common cold, how hilarious. But that’s besides the point. I woke up this morning with a sniffle and decided it wasn’t worth it, so I called in sick and that was that. But then it hit me; Now what? I haven’t had a day off since that Jesus guy kicked the can, but that was less of a day off and more of a “we can’t allow you within 20 feet of a scythe less you kill the wrong guy again” kind of day because APERRANTLY that wasn’t our department, and I got a stern warning from the guy upstairs. But again, getting off topic here. So what does a semi immortal being do with a day off? Well I started by day like I usually do accept much later, got up, fed all 6 of my cats and drank my morning tea. It was rather peaceful actually. Then of course I checked my communication device. It’s similar to what you mortals would label as a “phone” accept it’s far more advanced. I get a few “texts” from my colleagues asking where I am, what’s going on blah blah blah, nothing too interesting. After a few minutes of this I got rather bored and made my way to my library. Now a little company secret, every reaper has a hobby that they devote most of their time to whenever they aren’t killing people. And my hobby is… books. Reading them, writing them. Collecting them, all of it. So naturally I have a rather large library, think the beauty and the beast one but bigger. I have the books organized by author alphabetically so whenever I get a new one from said author I can place it with its brethren. I’ve got all the greats, War And Peace, Animal Farm, and of course, where’s Waldo. That one though I keep in a separate shelf, my prized collection. Never have a seen a book so intuitive and humorous. Instead of telling a story with words it speaks to you in PICTURES!! Very genius indeed. Each book has a set of images filled with people and you have to find this fellow named “Waldo” I could do this for hours but I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay sorry guys this is my first submission here and I couldn’t think of how to finish the story but I tried my best on it lol, hope you liked it!!