Not sure if I've posted this here before... I don't think so. I'm beginning to realize that I write a lot about houses coming to life, hm.

~~~

The house is so sad that Anya can hear it crying.

She’s in her room with the door pulled shut, leaning against the headboard of the bed with her knees pulled tightly to her chest. Headphones are firmly placed over both ears and she fiddles with the cord, listening to the music blasting almost loud enough to drown out her parents' yelling. Her lips move unconsciously, mouthing the lyrics.

The lamp on her desk is the only illumination in the room, and it lights up her half-finished calc homework like the harsh spotlight of an interrogation room in a movie. It might be raining, but the shades are closed and the music is too loud to hear the delicate tapping of water against glass. 

Something breaks- she can feel more than hear it happen. A plate, maybe? Or a glass? Probably her mother. She’s the one with the shorter temper. Anya gets up and pads over her carpeted floor to the door, one hand hovering over the doorknob. She’s shaking slightly. She holds the lock between her pointer finger and thumb and turns it upwards with a click. Locked.

Quiet. She slides it back down. Unlocked.

More shouting. Locked.

Anya turns the lock vertical and horizontal over and over again, swaying a little to the song still playing at full volume. Her parent’s voices rise and fall in a parallel crescendo.

The door is wood and thin, painted a shade of decaying white-yellow. Anya knows, realistically, that this plastic door knob lock isn’t strong enough to stop someone from getting into her room. But it feels different; it feels like she’s putting up and taking down an invisible barrier, one that no one can see but keeps everyone out.

A new song begins playing, one she’s not familiar with. Her playlist must have ended. She leaves the door unlocked (just like always) and settles back into bed, twisting the new song in her mouth and tasting the novelty seeping from it like sour citrus.

She doesn’t cry, but the house does. Water seeps from the seams of the walls, drip-drip-dripping onto the floor where the carpet drinks it hungrily like the starved desert ground. Anya can’t hear its labored breathing, but she can feel it tugging on the hair on her arms and neck, air pulled into the hallway/windpipe in huge gulps. 

A door slams, enough to send a shiver through the house. Anya rolls onto her side, curling her knees up to her chest as she braces against the tremors. 

She can feel the tears building into an aching pressure in the back of her throat, so instead she hums along with the song she’s never heard before and pretends like she knows the tune, pretends like she doesn’t see the rising tide of salt water bleeding from the drywall. 

it's really cold and you're walking through the park when you notice these two girls talking at a picnic table and you drift closer to take a look, because who goes on a picnic in January?

one of them's dark-haired with skinny jeans and a blue coat to match; the other's in an old worn-out parka and sweatpants and lacks the style of the first girl, but she's laughing harder

and even though she's blond she's speaking Spanish in the way you haven't heard it spoken for years and suddenly you realize these girls are Mexican, like you

they're so obviously friends; the warmth and loyalty they share is almost tangible, making the winter day seem less icy suddenly. They're talking about the city they're from and it turns out it's the one you're from too and you want to head over to them and say so and be their friend (like it's that simple)

and then they look at you with this question in their faces:

"Why are you staring at us?"

and yeah

they're nice and all

but

they don't really need you

look at how they're laughing and joking and you can tell so clearly that they know each other inside and out; each other's pet peeves, little jokes and likes and dislikes; they've probably been friends for years, probably they grew up together

or maybe they just met last year in school and instantly clicked

but either way

why would they care about you? You're just a girl standing on the fringes of their world; just a girl looking at them in this weird way, and you seem sort of nice but in the end you're just another girl

they don't know who you are, they don't care particularly. They're okay not knowing you. Sure, that's fine, you decide, they don't have any reason to want to know you

but that in itself

is what's making you feel this way.

@admins

I know that my written piece was a bit intense/inappropriate and was kind of worried about that while writing it, but is there anything I could change or is it just not appropriate on the whole? 

I deemed it overall too serious, depressing, and mature for Chatterbox. I don't remember the specifics of it now, having so many comments to review.

Admin

This a short one, and not very good but oh well. 

~

The sun rose bright and high in the sky, shining down on a lone girl. Her skin sparkled in the sunshine, with a chain of flowers atop her head like a crown. 

She lay down on the soft grass of the meadow, adorned with morning dew, glowing like jewels when hit with the sun’s rays. Around her were the vivid colours of the wildflowers and their sweet scent filled the air, along with the puffs of pollen. 

It was calm in such a place, and she was at peace, with no one to bother her. She had been going to this secluded meadow for years, and it was exactly like before. The monarch butterflies flitted overhead, flying to the butterfly milkweed.

She saw the purple coneflowers, just like the ones her mother used to grow, and smiled. The girl stood up and walked over to a patch of sunflowers and plucked one. 

For a moment she held it in her palm, admiring its beauty. She tucked it behind her ear and lay back down, staring up at the clouds. 

They were like round balls of cotton and floated by lazily in the sky. The cool summer breeze brushed against her, a delightful contrast to the sun’s hot rays. 

For at least this brief moment, the girl was free. 

So I found this on my computer and started writing again a little. It's not great, and it needs some editing, but:

Tuinn crept up quietly, hoping not to scare the dragon. He was hunting one, and if he could catch it, he would become a Hunter of the Wood.

He was training to become one of the Dragonhunter Clan, an almost-gone group of people that hunted down and killed dragons. He was so close, he had all of the knowledge that he needed to become one of the clan, all he needed was to kill one. His list of worries was too long to tell, and he was struggling to keep his breath even. Really, he was just hoping that he wouldn’t die. 

The dragon that he was stalking was a Greneld, a timid dragon type that was small and copper-colored. They were not hard to catch, and their armor wasn’t as strong as other types, such as Dwarvenmaro or Salios. 

Now he was close enough to shoot him. Come on, he thought at the dragon. Just move a little to the left. The dragon moved right where he needed. Tuinn thanked Neth’ter’ren and pulled the bowstring back to his ear. The dragon looked straight at him. The only emotion on his scaled face was resignation. But as Tuinn looked into the deep, intelligent eyes, he slowly loosened his grip on the bow. He put the arrow back in the quiver, and quietly set his bow back on his back. He started to turn away.

Wait. There was a voice in his head, rich, slow, but it also sounded… young. Tuinn ever so lightly spun to look at the dragon. Don’t leave. You have spared me. 

“Is that you?” Tuinn asked, so quietly he could barely hear himself. 

You can hear me? Asked the dragon.  

“I can,” Tuinn said, a bit louder. Why did he stop the arrow? Why not just let it fly? He didn’t know what had made him hesitate, and now… and now, what should he do? He couldn’t kill him, he could speak to him! “What’s your name?”

I am Aecour. What of your name?

“It’s Tuinn. Aecour is a beautiful name.” Tuinn trusted this dragon. He was slow and calm, exactly as he strived to be. “I… well, I don’t know how to say this, but I feel like you need help. Do you?” Inwardly he cringed at the words he had spoken. They sounded so odd, but he couldn’t take them back now.