Fauna ~ Riiight . . . so this kid named Max is asking me my name.

I stay silent. Silence is always the best weapon.

Suddenly she says something quite perky, about getting to know me or something. I was only half listening, though. I was trying to keep awake, my eyes slowly dripping closed. That's what I get for staying up late partying with my friends. Oh well, even though I do it like five days a week, I know the nerd down the hall will always be ready with meh homework.

I got no problems . . . 

@Indigo, you've read Ender's game?! OMIGANDALF, I IS SO HAPPPPYYYYYY!!!!!!! Sorry. I just love that book. ^^ 

Silva~

Yup, I'm stuck here with a bunch of crazies. Whoopee! I hate my sarcastic brain. I grab some food, not really caring what's on my plate. It's food, right? Whatever can get me through this day is fine.

The girl in front of me chirps, "Good morning, Ms. Ladens!" Oh, give me a break. I do not want to hear happy sounds till nine.  

I toss my hair over my shoulder, book under one arm, tray in hands. The only spot I can find is ... Oh, great. Right next to that chirpy little girl. I'll probably like her-- five hours from now.

I sit down on the floor, open my book up, set it in front of me, and start eating. The girls at that table keep chatting, not as happily nor as much as the little girl. I shrug slightly and start reading, The squire, his knight, and his lady. 

The series is probably the best Arthorian spin-off I've found. Not that I spend a lot of time reading them, unfortunetely. 

I'm sorry that I can't post today; I'm leaving for a trip right now... 

Cherry

~~

I can feel people’s eyes on me as I walk into the cafeteria for breakfast. I know what they’re looking at, but I don’t really care. In a school as drab as this, I think. SOMEone’s got to do the job of spicing it up! Once I grab my food, I scan the room for a place to sit. Being new here isn’t easy, but with the right people it becomes much better! Finally, my eyes land on a table with a few girls sitting around it. There’s a seat still open--perfect.

I confidently stroll up to them and plop myself down. A girl with long golden hair glares at me, as if saying “Oh, not another!” I ignore her, forcing a smile onto my face. After all, like mom said, ‘Always be positive, even if others are not’.

“Hi!,” I say, trying to sound as bright as I can. “What’s your name? I’m Cheryl, but you can call me Cherry.” Most of the table seems annoyed at this, and the golden-haired girl even mutters “As sickeningly sweet as a cherry too.” Just as I'm beginning to feel like this table is nothing but sadness and bitterness, the girl sitting next to me perks up at this.

“My name’s Max!” she says. “Nice to meet you, Cherry!” Finally, some positivity! I think.

“Awesome!” I reply, beaming. “I love your hair!” Eventually we slide into a conversation. I find myself beginning to like this girl. She’s so… trusting and kind. Unlike the golden-haired girl, who I find out is named Fauna.

Maybe this won’t be so bad after all, I think. Even though… I’m not so sure about that dog.

Briar~ 

"Attention, students. We would like to remind you that touching any dogs that wander the property OR picking up their fur or scat is forbidden. Also that there is no such thing as the Shatter, that is just an urban legend. And there is not a meteorite under the school. Thank you."

The announcement clicked off and multiple people in the lunch room stared pointedly at Briar.

Briar continued eating. "The Shatter?" Fauna snorted. I gave her an irritated glare. "Yes," I said, it's an entity. It causes things to break and seems to be the dark figure of a man. And I have fur from the grey dog right here."

"That's idiotic," Fauna said. 

Briar now had a faraway look in her eyes. She stood up, packed her things, and began to walk out. The last thing the people at her table heard was "a meteorite..." before Briar vanished down the hall. A minute later they heard the elevator ping.

(OK, so I was thinking that your charries could follow Briar down to the meteorite?) 

~Grace~

Fun? I practicaly choke on my sarcastic laughter. Fun is sleeping in. Or being allowed to finish my eggs. I sigh, shoving aside my plate. Of course, I think to myself; of course you follow the idiots investigating the suspicious business. They're always the first to die.  

Briar~

Briar stared at the black shard that reflected her face, warping in and out of the flickering lamplight. She heard the elevator creak behind her and whirled to see, of all people, her ENTIRE lunch table staring back at her.

"What are you doing here?" Briar hissed, "Go back up!"

"What are you doing?" Max asked.

"Getting a sample. Now go," Briar sighed.

"That's dangerous," Grace said.

"Then leave," Briar said, "I don't want you guys getting in trouble."

"Put down that shaver thing," said Fauna, pointing to my rock sampling tool.

"No," I said, "I need it."

"Put that stupid thing-" Fauna strode up and snatched at it. I backed towards the pulasting, gleaming black surface.

"No!" I yelled. Silva and Max started crying out. Fauna lunged one last time, and the shave tool embedded itself in rock. A wave of nausia swept over each of the girls, and in turn, they blacked out.

The man stood as a glimmer in Briar's subconscious, which was inactive at the moment. He wandered it, perusing her fears and desires like a collector perusing antiques.

Finally he reached her soul-the very culmination of her humanity-and touched it. Just a bit. Warmth spread through him, burning, aching. He recoiled back, and felt himself being thrown out of her body. He woke to find that his power to break-or, rather, shatter-objects in the mortal world was gone.

But no one could hear his cry of anger. He was nothing more than a fading memory of a whisper, dust on the wind.

Briar woke up in her room, with no memory of how she arrived there. 

Max~

Max wakes up and screams.

Im so worried for this--

How did I--

Oh She's So--

I hate her-- 

A million thoughts swirled through her head, and coming from who know's where. She arched her back and screamed again, clawing at her bed sheets.

Maybe I should--

I'm going to--

My friends are horri--

Max rolls out of bed, holding her head the entire way. She looks at the clock. It's the next day--? How did she end up here? She couldn't think straight. There was a meteor, and... And a shaving thingy? And, and the people she had met at the table. She limped out the door and tried not to scream again.

******

If you couldn't tell, her telepathy was coming at her at full force. 

~Grace~

Briar is standing out near this big black stone that gleams oddly in the light, holding an odd shaver thing, looking like she's going to try to cleave the rock.

"That's dangerous," I start to point out. It's too early in the morning for me to think more than semi-competently, but she's holding the blade too loosely- it's pointed down towards her feet, and if one of the other girls moves suddenly, she might drop it in surprise.

She says something about us other kids going back to the school while advancing on the rock. I consider her statement- honestly not sure why I'm out here either- but snap out of it when I see what's-her-face lunging at the blade.

She whacks at the blade and it lodges itself firmly in the rock, which seems to ... pulse. I can see it pulse once, twice, the bright light half-blinding me and spklotching the world a dark navy. I turn my head slowly, feeling like someone trying to move through thick, sticky maple syrup. I can see that the others have fallen; my knees crumple in as well and I descend into darkness.

Dark splotches blind me even in a half-asleep, half-awake state. I wander blindly along a dark corridor, following thin neon threads that coat the walls of the corridor like spider webs. They grow thicker and thicker as I draw nearer to the center, and I have a sense I'm a fly, being slowly drawn in to the hungry spider at the center of the web.

I'm right, in a sense. At the very center of the labyrinth is a throne with tall, spiky backings. Around the throne lie the brilliant strands of energy, swirling around him weeds in a hidden current.

"Finally," he murmers, looking up and staring me straight in the eye with eyes of brilliant blue. I feel the barest touch in my mind, and as I slip back from my odd dream into dreamless sleep, I see the angry red lines curling around him, squeezing him... I wake up feeling more alive than ever, and somewhere far away, someone sleeps the sleep of the dead.  

~~~

Basically the person who Grace got her powers from had been cursed by other people with powers. He didn't have anything to divert them to so he had been having to hold the other magic at bay using a tremendous amount of energy. In giving Grace his power, he was choosing to die.

~Grace~

The world is different.

That's the very first thing I can tell, before I even begin to comprehend what happened, wonder where I am or what time it is. Before my brain reaches back for an explanation it stumbles, trips, over how different the world is.

The air is dryer, slower-moving, the light brighter, but coming from many directions. I can see the tiniest impressions of the slowly-shifting dust swirling in whorls around me even though no thick shaft of light illuminates it. 

I turn my head to follow a swirl of dust and almost grow dizzy with how fast my vision swings, my head whirling over the somehow sharper, more precise lines of the room-my room. I can read the slanted writing on the book I left open on my desk from where I lie on my bed. It's like low quality videos turned to HD; did my luke warm vision suddenly get a prime upgrade?

I slip out of my bed, my feet padding gently on the floor. I'm still wearing my school clothes; even my shoes are still on. I slowly slink around the room, moving slowly so as to not dizzy myself.

Along one of the walls I see the barest dot of electric blue. It's moving towards me, stretching into a string -- I dodge, ducking instinctively. I roll on the floor, panting as my head spins with vertigo. I sit up, staring at it. It stretches across the room taut, stretching through from one wall to another. As I look at it, it breaks like a rubberband. I wince back, then relax when the odd string/line thing flops down and is slowly drawn in back through the wall. When it's completely gone I check the wall. There's no holes there- the wall is completely solid. I'm about to run my fingers along the wall when I see that there is some blue left, just a dusting. I'm moving forward to peer at it when I swear I see a muted blue line in my peripheral vision. 

I spin and I can see a line stretching tautly in a diagon movement that just cuts the corner off my room. I open the door and duck under the line -- looking like an idiot, I'm sure, considering it's probably just residue light or light damage on the retina or something... Oh great, there's my sarcasm.

I follow the line with my eyes. It's going into the room in the hall behind mine, it looks like, one to the left of where mine is in my hall. I wander down the hall, then into the other hall. I'm right. I pause just before the door, about to swing it open but unsure. Some part of me expects it to be a real life spider, sending an electric blue line wrapping around my neck, choking me...

No way. You're just being weird, another part of me says, and I shove open the door.

The hyperactively cheerful girl is lying on her bed, convulsing. The brilliant blue lines are coming from her -- they're stretching out of a little ball of them glowing right through her chest. I stare at her, horrified. She's not going to be hyperactively cheerful anymore, I think with grim humor, then, shut up. That was out of turn, Grace. She's in pain for crying out loud!

I pinch her. She flinches away slightly, but doesn't seem to pay much mind. The brilliant blue ball of energy seems to, though -- it sends a half dozen feelers at me. I duck and roll, then sit up. They appear to have connected, and from what I can tell they can't disconnect from somebody immediately after connecting. I sit up and pinch her again, shaking her. A feeler reaches out for me, but instead of ducking aside, I bat it away. It curls back into the ball in her chest without trying to fight back. Armed with this new knowledge, I manage to get the other feelers under control.

"Are, you, oh, kay?"  I pant. 

~~~~~~~

Grace can stop Max's magic because Max isn't in complete control. Sort of like if somebody punches you because you startled them and they're trigger happy, it's a lot easier to dodge. Regarding Max's telepathy; how about whenever Max only announces a use on it of a main character at the end of a post. That way the charrie's owner can write out the thoughts for Max to read, so there isn't any god modding. We all good?  

Cherry

~~

I stand there, my mouth wide open in shock. The huge black rock in front of me is simply… I don’t know. I don’t have any words to describe it. Mysterious? Ominous? ...powerful? Briar stands over it, a knife in her hand. She look like she wants to dig it deep into the rock, to have the energy come pulsing out. Grace, a slightly annoyed expression on her face. “That’s dangerous,” she says. Briar ignores her and continues standing over the rock.

I turn around, hoping no one’s seeing this. Briar says something about us ‘going back’ and ‘not getting in trouble’, which to that I say come on! We have just as much chance of getting in trouble as you do. But when I turn back around, Fauna has walked up to Briar and and the tool of fastened deep in the rock. I choke no words coming out, and a black wall washes over me.

A man stood before her, his silver eyes flashing. Their surroundings were pure white, and he slowly walked up to Cherry. She was lying on the floor (or whatever; there was no way of knowing), barely breathing. The man reached out his hand ever so slightly and felt her soul respond, a deep, pulsing warmth.

With a sudden jerk, the man slashed out at it. The white drained from the room until they were surrounded by nothing but smoky black. Then he simply turned and walked away, vanishing into the abyss.