Here, students can read creative pieces from other students in the school, including short stories, chapters of longer works, or novellas. If you have a work of fiction - in any genre - that you would like to contribute, or would like to recommend a writer to be showcased, feel free to contact us using the Contact page.
It is a cold night, and I feel more like a child now than I have in a long time. I have so much to say, yet so little time, so please take my hand, I must explain. Attempting to turn such incomprehensible and interwoven feelings into words is quite difficult. I think there is not quite such a pain as growing up, when you look back at pictures of when you were little and realize none of it exists anymore. The little red wagon you would tow your brother in. The warm, cozy parlor of your old grandmother’s house that smelled of pine and cinnamon. Your grandmother, whose voice you realize you are starting to forget. Days of playing in the sun, eating fresh fruit under the willow tree, or sitting on your father's shoulders, never once predicting that there would come a day when he would put you down for the last time.
What is worse is that you never think about it in the moment, it hits you all at once. It catches you, on a beautiful sunny evening washed in a nostalgic glow. So now you think back, grasping at as many memories as you can, and it wrenches your stomach how much you have forgotten. All of a sudden everything is ending, irrevocably, eternally, ending. It only exists now in pictures, in the wallpaper, in your childhood bedroom which sometimes flickers with ghosts and echoes of laughter. It only exists now in your head. What proof is there that any of it was real, once you forget? You see things in a way no other can and feel things unique to you. Flickering fireflies, late July lemonade, you and your brother giggling, rolling down the driveway in a rickety red wagon. So, when you die, where does all of that feeling go? How can something that you experience so intensely just disappear? I don’t mean to scare you, hand holding mine, but it terrifies me too. I look back at pictures of me when I was little and see a stranger. And I grieve that loss as if I have killed him because when I see that picture of me simply wheeling my brother around on a summer day, it is not me anymore. He will only ever exist in that picture now, frozen in that moment of bliss and wonder, never knowing the friends he would make and then lose or the loneliness that would come for him. He will never know the cold fright that would later circulate through his blood when his mother gets cancer or the betrayal he will feel when he grows to realize that this world, in all its beauty, is a cruel place. He will never enter the painful chrysalis of growing.
You ask yourself, desperately and anguished, how do you stop the grief? What can you do to get rid of such heartache? The answer, the only answer I can conceivably provide: is you cry. You not only cry, but you embrace that grief, you hold its hand, as I hold yours now. You hold it delicately, like the hand of you when you were 8 years old. It doesn’t end when you are no longer a child. I pray, I pray to you, do not make the same mistake you now tear yourself up over now, and live. Experience everything in its raw beauty and existence. Appreciate that nothing will be the same 10 years from now, and let your life metamorphose like it is meant to. We are meant to leave our bodies behind so that we can grow wings. But it takes time, mourning, and growth, and it is essential not to rush our time in the chrysalis.
My last message to you, little one, is that you don’t wish time away. And to you, butterfly with wings now tattered, belong to moments. Sometimes you will feel all terrible and ugly inside, but then you set a pot of tea and slice some oranges and things are not so bad. Life is beautiful and you still have time.
…A few weeks later
“Class, this is Calista. She’s that new student I told you about.” Mrs. Henderson said. I waved at my new class. A few kids gave half-hearted hellos but no one looked up at me.
“I’ve gotten this a lot today,” I told Mrs. Henderson. She nodded.
“They’re not the most energetic class.” She joked. I laughed. “Your desk is right there.”
“Thank you,” I replied, looking around the room. A boy was sitting in the back of the room, but weirdly, he was sitting next to a ghost girl. I locked eyes with him and glanced at the ghost beside him. Then I wheeled to my seat.
“You can see me?” The ghost girl asked after I settled in at my desk. I nodded just a little, so as not to draw attention to myself.
“I can see her too.” The boy added quietly. “I’m Owen and this is Carrie.”
“Calista,” I whispered.
“Owen, you can welcome Calista later. But for now, please pay attention.” Mrs. Henderson said. Owen chuckled, embarrassed. I got the feeling that this probably wasn’t the first time Owen had gotten scolded for talking in class.
“Want to sit with me at lunch?” Owen asked quietly.
“Sure,” I whispered back.
“Owen. Calista. Please.” Said Mrs. Henderson.
“Sorry Mrs. Henderson,” we both said at the same time.
******
“You can see ghosts too, huh?” Owen said to me later that day. I was sitting at the wheelchair-accessible table the school had just set up for me.
“Yup. Ever since the car accident. Gira said it’s because I crossed the line between life and death and then crossed back again.” I explained.
“Yeah. She said that to me too, a few years ago. I got really sick. Cancer. It was touch and go for a while.” Owen added.
I nodded in understanding.
“What about you Carrie?” I asked. “What happened to you?” Carrie cocked a smile.
“I fell down a well like the girl from the ring.” She said. “Which is weird, because I share a name with the girl from Carrie.”
“Sadako/Samara,” I replied. “That’s the girl.”
“Well well well. And whatever happened to her? Oh right, she went on a murder spree with a cursed videotape.” Said a familiar voice from behind me.
I turned around and saw Matthew staring at me from the table. His suit was slashed where I had struck him with Gira’s scythe and the blood on it was dripping down onto the floor beneath him.
“Who… who are you?” Owen stammered in fear.
“Well, my name is Matthew. And I’m your doom.” Matthew said, walking closer to us.
“Run,” I whispered. Owen and Cassie jumped up and I started wheeling away as fast as I could.
“Who is that?” Owen asked as we fled.
“His name is Matthew. I think he has some sort of history with Gira and my father. But I don’t know.” I replied. We turned down the hallway and passed a janitor's closet.
“In here!” Carrie called, running through the door. The lock clicked and Owen yanked open the door. We ran in and Owen locked the door behind him. I sighed in relief.
“I think we lost him,” I said smiling. Carrie and Owen smiled too. Owen turned around and audibly gasped. Carrie and I slowly turned around and my mouth fell open at what I was seeing. A board covered in pictures of Carter and me in the hospital and at our new home with our new adoptive mother Jamie.
“What on Earth?” I whispered in shock.
“Do you like my college?” A spine-tinglingly familiar voice came from behind me “I call it Two Little Umbras and their life.”
“What’s an Umbra?” Owen asked in fear. I shrugged.
“No clue. He called me that back at the hospital.” I explained.
“What’s going on here, Matthew?” Said a familiar voice from behind us. I turned around smiling to see Gira walk forward at Matthew. Her black cloak swished around her feet and she gripped her scythe tightly in her hand.
“Ah. Gira. I wondered when you’d show up.” Matthew grinned. He lunged forward at Gira and tackled her to the ground.
“Gira!” Owen and I screamed. I wheeled myself forward and pushed Matthew off Gira with my chair. Gira stood up and glared at Matthew.
“Begone from this place Matthew. This is protected by all the spirits you have taken.” And with that, a large group of ghosts surrounded Matthew, most bloody with empty eye sockets.
“You stole our life.” They chanted. I looked out at the crowd swarming Matthew.
“Go away, Matthew. And don’t come back.” I said, holding out my hand. Matthew’s eyes widened when he saw this.
“I’ll see you again little Umbra. You’ll see.” He said before leaving the room.
“Gira, what just happened?” Owen asked. Gira looked at us happily.
“I think… I think you just scared Matthew away.” She said grinning.
“But he’ll be back. Might as well get ready.” Carrie replied. I nodded.
“I guess I got some work to do.”