Cori: School is insane.

Sorry I haven't been able to get on, guys. School is absolutely insane...I can barely think with all the stuff I have to do. It's very overwhelming. They're getting us ready for the OGT test (Ohio Graduation Test) already...I've taken two pretests so far, in Biology and U.S. History. Insane, I tell you!

French II is pretty crazy too. My teacher, Madame Marsh, kind of scares me. She makes me laugh at the same time though. Honestly, I'm not too sure how some of the people in my class got into French II...or even passed French I for that matter. But I hope none of them drop out: I really love indulging in America's favorite pastime: laughing at idiots. We spent about a month working on numbers in French I, and went over it about three more times throughout the course of the year...and yet some of the people don't even know what 15 (quinze) is! It drives me crazy.

Surprisingly, I think Art is actually my favorite class right now. Which is kind of shocking, 'cause...uh...I kind of failed Art in 7th grade. It was kind of embarrassing. I'm sure I'll hate Art tomorrow though, because we're beginning a really hard project. Honestly, Mr. Kuntz (it's not pronounced like 'cunts,' I promise! xD! It's coontz), we're in Art I and you're having us do crazy crap already?

Well...school is pretty much overwhelming me right now. To be honest I haven't been on my laptop in four days...which is almost unheard of...I've mostly just been reading and doing homework.

But I'm on today, and actually being productive for once! Jamie and my little sister Beth talked me out of writing an eighth draft of Caged, thank...whatever is up there. We compromised on letting me rewrite two or three scenes...which has turned into five or six. They're good rewrites though, I promise. I fixed up Mirabelle, who was getting kind of close to a Mary Sue, which freaked me out...she's very original and unique now. I took four Mary Sue tests to make sure! She got good scores.

I've decided to make Mirabelle blind in one eye, due to an old injury. She's from a group of tribes that believes in punishments like stoning people to death. Her family screwed up bad and was stoned; she and her brother got away, but a rock hit her in the eye and rendered it completely useless. And...that's pretty much the only bad thing that has ever happened to Mirabelle. She's had an okay life.

The thing that made Mirabelle most like a Mary Sue was her eyes. A long time ago I was into crazy eye colors, so for whatever reason I made her eyes purple. (It was kind of hard to admit that.) So now they're a really foggy gray color, which I think is much better. I'll be slightly changing Khardan's eye color too...bright green to yellow-green.

So, I think that's enough for now. I'll make a post about the sequel to Caged, Frayed, soon.

...10th grade is going to devour my soul.


EDIT: Oh, by the way - here is my schedule. I thought I should tell you guys what classes I'm taking xD!
1st: Geometry
2nd: English II Advanced
3rd: French II
4th: U.S. History
Lunch
5th: Study Hall
6th: Art I
7th: Biology
8th: Biology (biology is a double-block class. I have it for an hour and a half.)

Rachel: For once this is about my life, not about my book.

As promised, I'm going to spend a few minutes ranting about school. It started on Monday, and I already hate it and am working on switching my classes. If you're reading this, Jamie, don't worry--I'll fill you in in person. But for the rest of you who don't have any other way to hear me complain, here's what's going on right now.

First of all, here is my schedule. It is severely messed up:

Precalculus (not honors?!?!?!)
Biology II (not honors, not AP...why???)
English (everything's good here)
Government (not much i can do about that one)
Spanish 4 (I was originally going to take this, but now I might drop it to be replaced with something else)
Band (ME GUSTA MUCHO)

I seriously almost threw up on the first day of school when I saw what they put me in. I am aware that this makes me sound like a major snob, but I've never not been in an honors class before and it was a very unwelcome surprise for me. I also hang out with a lot of very intelligent people who are all in exclusively honors classes, and, though I love them, some of them are the type to look down on me if I am not also a brilliant supergenius freak. I actually am a genius (the stupidest genius EVER, if you ask me, but whatever, that's a different rant) but in this world it's grades and classes that seem to define how intelligent you are, not how intelligent you actually are.

The honors deal is not the only thing that sort of threw me here. In fact, I could live with that and with being judged by my friends if I did not feel so strongly that this is not what is supposed to happen to me this year. I don't know if that makes any sense or makes me sound like any less of a jerk. What I mean to say is that...well, it's hard to explain unless you know about the kind of "unorthodox" (for lack of a better word) things I believe in, but to put it simply this schedule is not part of my game plan. I could settle for it and be just fine, but I WOULDN'T be just fine because this is not supposed to happen and it must be changed!

I don't know if any of you have ever felt an overwhelming sense of wrong, especially about something as silly as classes that the school signed you up for because you were to dumb to turn in a class request form, but this is wrong in a deep and unsettling way. I know that sounds ridiculous, but...again, hard to explain, but I know what I'm talking about. Or at least that's what I'm going to continue to pretend.

Anyway, I'm fighting hard to switch my classes to some unlikely crap. I want to drop precalculus and take journalism instead, I want to get rid of biology even though I like it and take physics and somehow magically get additional credit instead of it being just like I'm retaking the class (working on that...probably not going to happen at this point, which is to be expected), and I want to replace Spanish 4 with an independent study period in which I will take calculus online. So there.

"Why," some of you may exclaim, "That sounds ridiculous! How irresponsible you are! Are you not aware that your senior year is the last chance you have to prove yourself in high school?"

I am aware of these things, and they are noted. But for once in my life I am going to get what I want, goddamn it! I refuse to be pushed around by my mother or the system or myself. This time I am doing my life my way, because it's mine and I am in charge of where it goes and I think I deserve even the small happiness of enjoying my education. I will still be able to get into college and achieve my dreams if I grant myself this one, short, school year to LIKE WHAT I DO. I am so tired of waking up in the morning and dreading school. Education is a wonderful thing and I love to learn, so I don't see why I have to hate something I love when it is SO EASY to fix the problem. I do not believe that changing these classes will damage my future. If I am mistaken in thinking this, well, I'll damn well find out, won't I? And I will accept those consequences. But at least I will have tried, and I will never regret that.

Sorry to make such a big deal out of high school. It's not a big deal. At all. But me standing up for what I want kind of is. So wish me luck.

-Iridian

Kas: I Love College.

Seriously, college is amazing. Also, this will most likely be a super long post about dorm life, just to warn you. :)

I'm sorry I haven't been on lately, my life is extremely hectic right now. I just realized that I never told you guys when I moved into college. It was three days ago, on the 16th. I'm on a co-ed dorm floor, but my roommate and suite mates are girls.

I know i told you guys i was a little worried about how my roommate and I would get along, because she is really reserved and shy. But, i'm happy to say that we're alright. We're never going to be best friends, but we'll be okay living together. Honestly, she is a huge push over so I just do whatever I like and shes fine with it.

So, Thursday we moved in and spent the entire night getting our room situated. I didn't have time to really meet anyone else other than my suite mates that night. So, as i was going to bed i was really home sick and kind of worried that I would hate OU. But, the next day I took my roommate around campus and showed her where her classes are, since i know all the buildings from spending so much time her with my sister. I was still kind of bummed, because i didn't really like my roommate and she was the only person I knew.

Anyways, we went back to our dorms and Kassandra, which is her name, got on her computer and did her whole "I'm socially awkward and I'm just gonna sit here in our room all day" thing that she tends to do. So I decided to go hang out with one of my suite mates in her room. We talked for a while before deciding to go around and meet all of our floor mates.

It was going okay, I liked the people but didn't really think I would hang out with many of them. Then, we meet two guys about three doors down from us named James and Andrew. I'll just start by saying, I Love Them. I've only known them for about two and a half days, but i've spent every hour, except for the 8 or so that i've slept, with them. They're my new best friends. My roommate tried to come hang out with us yesterday, but she just kind of sat there and watched us all talk, so that was a bust. I'm pretty sure she thinks i'm a sleeping with them because i'm in there room until three or four A.M. every night... she's judgy like that.

I've met pretty much all of the people on my side of the floor, which is Walker 5 East, for future reference. I'm so happy I picked the co-ed floor, because I get along so much better with guys.  There are a few girls who are nice, like my suite mate, but I don't spend much time with them.

Anyways, I love Walker 5 East, and I love College. Classes start tomorrow, which is why i had any time to write this. The boys went to bed early cause they have early classes. I'm getting up to eat breakfast with them, though, so I should go to bed too, i guess... Haha.

Well, this was just an update on whats going on with me. Heather, I'm sorry, you're going have to give me about a week to get everything figured out to see when I'll be able to get on...

Night, guys!
-K

Cori: Car wreck.

So my dad and brother got in a car wreck yesterday morning. My dad was dropping Max off at the King's Island amusement park so Max could go to work, when some idiot came speeding down the 45-speed-limit road at about 70 mph. He slammed into my mom's brand new car (with heated seats) and completely crushed the back, flinging our car about 40 meters across the road and into the grass.

Then the bastard spun, hit someone else head-on, spun again, and hit someone else.

Max and my dad are okay. Max has some pretty bad muscle bruising in his right leg, which is pretty skinned up, and his elbow is all cut up. My dad was hit in the gut by the steering wheel, bruising some organs, and his elbow is also cut up. He has a big gash on the back of his head and a bruise on his forehead. They're okay though, and miraculously Max's brand new $400 cell phone survived with nothing more but a streak of paint across it from where his seatbelt holder snapped off and dragged across the back.

No one died in the crash, which is actually kind of a miracle. They were all taken to the hospital and my dad had to get a CAT scan to check for internal bleeding, but he has a clean bill of health and now they're both home and very sore. Max is now terrified of driving.

Thankfully, the idiot who hit them has insurance, which is going to be paying for a new car, new cars for the other two people who were hit, and the hospital bills of everyone he hit. While out in the hallway, I heard the bastard refuse a drug test, quite violently. He was talking in a very...slurred voice. Obviously, he had been under the influence of something. A police officer forced him to take a drug test, but I didn't hear the results...we'll see.

So now we're hiring a lawyer; everyone who was hit is going to sue the guy for all he's got. I'm rather looking forward to a trip to Florida - er, I mean, a new car.

My dad says that he looked up a split second before the car hit them and saw a flash of silver in the mirror, before there was a really loud smashing noise and everything went white for a moment. Then all he could hear was Max screaming.

Max says they were both screaming. He told me that when they both calmed down, he got his phone out and called 911 as a worker at King's Island came running to see if they were all okay. As soon as Max was done calling 911, he went ahead and took a couple pictures of the crash for the rest of the family to see, and as 'evidence.'

If someone had been in the back, they would be dead now. The back seats are crushed against the front seats...the entire back of the car is destroyed. All my baby brother Preston had to say was "Can I come?" and he wouldn't be here anymore. Here's another one.

You can see my dad there, in a neck brace. There's some blood on the seat but not as much as there was on his pillow in the hospital. You can also see Preston's car seat there. He would be dead now if he had come.

And there's what it looks like from the side. And to think that it had been a really nice car just a few minutes before that was taken...

And this is what it looks like from where Max had been sitting. Pretty freaky, eh?

But everyone is okay. Everything is going to be fine, the idiot who hit them might to go jail, he's going to lose a lot of money soon, and we're going to get another car. But my grandma says that the real tragedy is my dad's attire while he was in the hospital. He was wearing a hospital gown, Batman underwear, and dress shoes. I have recovered from the horror of seeing my dad in those clothes.

Rachel: Meow

This post has nothing to do with cats; I just didn't want to think of any sort of real title. This isn't even really a post so much as it is a few excerpts that I decided to put up here after writing what I did last night...whatever it was. Haha I just know I babbled a lot.

Anyway, there were two parts that I wanted to put up here. I know that there's a specific cite for me to do that on that isn't this one, but I'm lazy. I don't really know how long either of these excerpts are, so sorry if they're ridiculously lengthy. These are the two parts that I'm putting up here:

1. Ziv & Vine's weird reunion with Freedom.
2. Tyson's freakish-ness around ZeCat.

These are both things that I mentioned in my earlier post, so, yeah. Here they are. They are totally out of context, but whatever! Oh, and they're unedited, so beware.

*   *   *

“This’s your stop,” the man on the outside of the truck grunted. “Get the hell out of here, and hurry.”
ZeCat and the others obeyed, ZeCat almost falling flat on his face as he did so, which earned him some criticism from the driver.
“What’s wrong with you, do you have two left feet or something? Shut up and try not to kill yourself, huh?”
Once everyone had clambered from the truck, the shadowy form of the truck driver pointed down an empty street that, as far as ZeCat could tell in the limited lighting, crashed headlong into the towering wall. That was how near he was to the outside. It was difficult for him to grasp that he was standing so near to the edge of everything that he had ever known. The wall extended towards the washed-out sky so that ZeCat could hardly tell where it ended and the sky began, but it suddenly seemed so flimsy, so insubstantial. Yes, there was a gigantic wall standing between him and freedom from his Date, but that was all there was. One wall. That was it. One wall.
And it had a hole in it.
“So the people you’re looking for are down that way,” the driver said. “If they haven’t been found out yet, you’ll probably find them. Don’t be too obvious about where you’re going or anything, because if a cop happens to buzz by here you’ll get screwed.”
“Thanks for bringing us here,” Bryony-Rose said as the driver began to shuffle towards the cab. He paused at Bryony-Rose’s words and turned to look at her, his expression indistinguishable.
“Don’t thank me,” he said, his words heavy with some meaning that was gone even before he was driving away, his taillights glowing like the eyes of a monster as the truck coughed down the empty sidewalk and into the night. ZeCat watched it go until it had turned down a road that would lead it back to the more densely inhabited parts of the city.
“Come on, ZeCat,” Bryony-Rose said in an undertone, pulling on ZeCat’s arm to capture his attention. “We should get out of here before someone in one of those apartment buildings sees us and calls the cops.”
ZeCat obeyed; the old woman and Wolfe were already heading down the street in the direction that the driver had indicated, Wolfe seeming flitting in and out of existence like a shadow. ZeCat and Bryony-Rose followed them, slinking below the somewhat dilapidated, dark-windowed residences with all of the quietness they could manage. A light was on in one of the lower floors of one of the buildings, and ZeCat could hear the muffled sounds of a television from inside. He hoped that whoever was up there would not peer out their window before he passed.
The street dead-ended at the wall, so ZeCat and Bryony-Rose took Wolfe and the old woman’s silent advice and followed the wall a little ways to the right. The scenery continued to be the same, with little to no signs of life other than themselves, and ZeCat began to wonder if they had gone the wrong way. He almost voiced his concerns allowed, but sudden shouts from just up ahead disproved his tentative beliefs.
“Hey! Who’s out there?! Show yourselves, you sons of bitches!”
ZeCat and Bryony-Rose inched past a dead pixel building and found themselves face-to-face with a small group of very well-armed individuals with headlamps. Many of them were brandishing at least one gun at the new arrivals, which made ZeCat’s insides squirm. The old woman and Wolfe were already standing with their hands in the air, and ZeCat followed their example. In a strange way, though Wolfe’s face showed no fear, the old woman looked less frightened than him. The thought that Wolfe--a hardened criminal and generally terrifying individual--might be scared ensured that ZeCat was all the more afraid. He had been right; this had been a huge mistake.
“Who sent you?” the person who appeared to be their ringleader demanded. He sounded like he couldn’t have been more than a few years older than ZeCat, though in the limited lighting it was difficult to know for sure.
“N-no one sent us to do anything bad,” Bryony-Rose stammered. “We’re here to help you!”
“Oh, yeah?”
“The guy from The Violet sent us here,” Wolfe growled. “He said you could use some more people.”
The young man lowered his gun, and the rest of his posse did the same.
“He did, huh? Where’s your proof?”
“Didn’t realize we needed to bring a freaking job application,” Wolfe snapped.
The stranger regarded Wolfe silently for a moment, but ZeCat couldn’t see his expression.
“Lucky for us this one has such a mouth,” the old woman muttered to herself.
“What’s your name, kid?” the young man asked Wolfe at last.
“Wolfe,” Wolfe replied.
“You have an attitude, Wolfe. I like that. The first sign of a smart guy is a smartass, you know. The name’s Moore. Tyson Moore.”
Wolfe half-heartedly stuck out his hand, likely more out of habit than anything else. If he expected Tyson to shake it, however, he was sorely mistaken. Tyson raised his gun and pressed it to Wolfe’s temple in one fluid movement.
“If you shake my hand I’ll have to kill ya,” Tyson hissed.
There was a tense silence in which ZeCat resisted the urge to get as far away from Tyson as he possibly could. After a few seconds, Tyson abruptly burst into laughter and stuck his gun into his belt.
“You’re a fun guy, Wolfe, you’re just cracking me up.”
Wolfe looked as though he might very much like to kill Tyson while he still had the chance, but he never got to.
“If you and your guys are here to help us out, you’d better be serious about it,” Tyson said. “Digging this hole ain’t no party. Lucky for you we were just stopping for the night; can’t break down a wall when you can’t see what you’re doing, am I right? I said, am I right?!”
Everyone hastened to answer what would normally have been a rhetorical question.
“Yeah, I know, shut up!” Tyson exclaimed, turning to face his crew. “Stop being lazy-asses and get back to base! As for you…” Tyson said, returning his attention to ZeCat and the others as everyone else scattered. “These your guys, Wolfe?”
“Nah.”
“They just come with you?”
“Yeah.”
Tyson looked all of them up and down. He approached the old woman and stood in front of her forebodingly.
“And what use do we have for you, Granny?” he asked.
“I’ll help you out any ways I can,” the old woman replied. “There’s some life left in these old bones yet.”
“Doesn’t look like there’s much of it,” Tyson said, “but I’m a nice guy. If you prove to be an asset, I’ll let you live, how’s that? And hell, I’ll even let you eat tomorrow, since none of you are eating tonight, obviously.”
“What do you mean?” Bryony-Rose inquired.
Tyson turned to her. Though ZeCat could not see Tyson’s face, he was certain he was grinning.
“Well, pretty lady, those who don’t work don’t get food. I think that’s fair and square, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Bryony-Rose responded quietly. ZeCat got the feeling that whether she agreed or not didn’t matter; Tyson had asked the question as some sort of test. To determine what, ZeCat was not sure, but luckily she seemed to have passed.
“I do, too. Very fair. Now get over to base with Wolfie here. It’s right over that way.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “You, too, Granny.”
ZeCat made to follow his three counterparts, but Tyson got in his way.
“What do we have here?” he purred. “Answer my question, kid!”
ZeCat honestly didn’t know how to.
“My name’s Ezekiel Everton,” he said weakly.
Evidently this was a satisfactory answer.
“Ezekiel Everton, huh? That’s a damned classy name. You sound freaking rich! Are you rich, kid?”
“No,” ZeCat breathed.
“No?! Whaddaya mean no, Rich Boy? I can see right through you, you little snake! No, you’re a rich kid, I can tell by the smell of ya, can’t I?”
“Yes.”
ZeCat was scared out of his wits. Tyson was plainly insane. He was a complete maniac, and ZeCat knew that if he said the wrong thing he would probably end up with a bullet in his forehead.
“Ha, ha, you know I can! Now, Mr. Ezekiel Everton, Queen of Paradise City, are my eyes playing tricks on me, or are you the reddest redhead I’ve ever seen, even in this darkness? Who gave you hair like that?”
“My mom,” ZeCat said.
“Well wasn’t that sweet of her?” Tyson laughed, but sobered up immediately. “You know what I think about red hair? I hate it. I really hate it. That means I really hate you.”
Before ZeCat had a chance to say anything more, Tyson pulled his fist back and punched him in the face. ZeCat fell to the ground, his glasses skidding across the cracked and weathered asphalt as he bit his lip to keep himself from crying out in pain. He was so frightened that he was afraid he might start crying. He didn’t want to die! Oh, God, he didn’t want to die. He just wanted to go home to his mother and brother and pretend that none of this ever happened, but Tyson was going to kill him for no reason at all, and there was nothing he could do about it, nothing, nothing…
“What are you doing lying on the ground like that, kid?” Tyson asked.
ZeCat found his glasses and placed them on his nose before tentatively looking upwards again. Tyson’s hand was extended towards him, palm-up.
“If you’re this goddamned lazy, you’ll never make it out here! C’mon, let me help you to your feet!”
If you shake my hand I’ll have to kill ya.
ZeCat allowed Tyson to help him to his feet, shaking with fear. He was certain that he was about to be murdered and left here to be found by the police long after everyone else had escaped through the finished hole in the wall.
“Get your ass to base!”
ZeCat took off at a run in the direction that Tyson had indicated earlier, struggling with tears of shame.
“HEY.”
ZeCat skidded to a stop.
“I hate you. Cover up your nasty hair, Devil Child, you hear me?”
“Yes, yes, I will!”
“You better hope so, because if you don’t I’ll have to kill ya.”
Tyson’s laughter rang into the night long after ZeCat resumed his run and left him behind in the darkness.

*   *   *

So that's that one. Here's the other. Oh, and to explain it a little Vine is blind, which I've mentioned before but it was a long time ago.

*   *   *

Vine didn’t say anything for a few seconds, giving them time to exit the elevator on the third floor.
“Even so,” he said at last, but this was a good sign; he didn’t argue his point further. “Where’s this room, anyway?”
Ziv looked at the numbers stenciled across the heavy, metal doors up and down the walls. This floor was definitely scarier than the first floor.
“It’s down this way.”
The two of them walked down the hallway, their shoes clicking softly on the linoleum tile as Vine’s hand trailed over the wall.
“It’s here,” Ziv said halting in front of the correct door.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
Ziv pressed his thumb on a pad below the door handle and waited it to recognize his thumbprint. His thumbprint, along with Vine’s, had been taken when they had arrived as workers at the hospital and had been programmed into the hospital’s mainframe so that they could open the higher-security doors. This way patients could not let other patients out of their rooms.
The door clicked and Ziv pushed it open uneasily. Vine walked inside with more confidence than Ziv had in his entire being and Ziv followed him, hoping that whoever was living in here was not completely insane. Actually, now that he was inside, it didn’t look like anybody was living in here; there was no one in sight.
“Hey, what--?” Ziv began as the door clicked closed, but Vine cut him off.
“Don’t freak out, they’re in the bathroom.”
The bathroom door was, indeed closed, and running water could be heard from the other side.
“…Oh.”
“You should just leave those clothes on the bed so we can get out of here,” Vine said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. “I don’t want to spend any more time with these people than I have to.”
“They are kind of freaky, aren’t they?” Ziv said, taking Vine’s advice and wandering over to the bed. “I can’t imagine getting that kind of surgery done.”
“I don’t see the point,” Vine said. “If you know that getting surgeries like that is illegal and that criminals end up in jail, why would you try to improve your life by doing something that you know would wreck it?”
“Maybe they don’t think about it that way.”
“Maybe they don’t think at all.”
“Hello?”
The bathroom door had swung open, and a boy who looked to be a few years older than Ziv emerged. His sandy hair was wet as though he had attempted to wash it (the water in the showers on this floor only worked if they were turned on by an employee, so he must have done it in the sink) and his freckled face was tired and old-looking, somehow. There were scars all up and down his arms, and his eyes, a dark blue, had a peculiar glittering sheen to them that must have been due to devices he had had installed in them; Ziv had never seen anything like them before.
“We brought you some clothes,” Vine said disinterestedly.
At the sight of Vine, the person looked as if he might faint. He took a few steps backwards, rubbing his eyes.
“Oh, God, I’m going insane…!” he moaned.
Ziv took this as an invitation to leave, but Vine’s expression was so strange that he stopped in his tracks.
“Vine…?”
“I know your voice…” Vine said, ignoring Ziv completely. “But not well. Where do I know you from? What’s your name?”
“It’s Freedom,” Freedom said weakly. “Freedom Williams. From--”
“Freedom Williams?” Now it was Ziv’s turn to be shocked. He knew that name. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he knew that voice as well. He had never met Freedom in person, but he had spoken to him over the Celph once or twice. He had been supposed to meet him out front of Station Five recently, but Freedom had never showed. But how did Vine know him?
The answer struck Ziv with hardly an additional thought.
Freedom Williams?! Of course! That name had been all over pixel buildings in Paradise City the day that Vine had been kidnapped, though at the time Ziv had been too out of sorts to take much notice of it. Now, however, this memory was vivid. But even in the light of this realization, what he blurted out was:
“Marrow lubricant!”
Freedom looked thoroughly confused.
“What?”
“Marrow lubricant,” Ziv repeated. “That was what I was supposed to sell to you. I talked to you on the Celph. We were supposed to meet outside of Station Five.”
Freedom didn’t say anything for a few seconds.
“Ziv? Ziv Martell?”
“That’s right, you two know each other,” Vine said. His tone was almost amused. “That came up while you had me tied up in that basement.”
“It was an abandoned life house, actually,” Freedom said. “I’m lucky I found it when I did or I would have been caught much sooner.”
“A life house? So those places really do exist, do they?”
“Yeah, they do.” Freedom nodded, then shook his head as if to free himself from a trance. “I’m sorry, but why are you here, both of you? What’s going on? I can’t decide if I’m dreaming or not.”
“How are you two so okay with each other?” Ziv asked, bewildered.
“Freedom turned out to be much less crazy than he was acting,” Vine replied, a half-smile on his face. “I was going to help him convince my parents to…” He frowned. “You said your Date was moved, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did,” Freedom said, “and it was. If we want to get technical about it, it has been moved twice. Once when the police found out that I am a tech-head, and again when it was determined that I’ll never make it to Almost Heaven.”
“Your Date was changed?” Ziv was stunned. “They can really do that?”
His mind flashed to not so long ago when he had been selling his art on the streets and waiting for Freedom outside of Station Five. Two policemen had come to shut him down and, after thoroughly humiliating himself, Ziv had been let off the hook…but not before one of them could say something that had made his blood run cold.
“I’m not going to arrest you, but I ever hear you’ve been doing something illegal again anywhere in this city, you had better watch your Date.”
This, of course, did not apply to Ziv because he was one of the Golden Few, but still…
“They really can,” Freedom said grimly in answer to Ziv’s forgotten question.
“What do you mean you’ll never make it to Almost Heaven?” Vine inquired.
“I’m too…automated,” Freedom said. “Usually the people who come through here can have their mechanical parts removed, but I can’t. Not if I want to survive the operations.”
“So?” Vine said.
“So I’m going to die here instead,” Freedom said. His tone held all of the appropriate solemnity to go with his words, but his odd eyes said something differently. They suggested that there was more to his story than he was telling. That he did not believe his tale ended here. “But enough about me. Why are you two here? How did you get here?”
Vine explained their situation, or as much about it as they knew.
“I would ask you how you got here, but it’s fairly obvious,” Vine said at the conclusion of his story.
Freedom smiled humorlessly.
“You could have tried to get me out of jail, you know.”
“I did,” Vine replied, “but I was accused of having Stockholm Syndrome and my requests were ignored.”
“That figures,” Freedom said, nodding knowingly. “I wouldn’t have believed you, either. I have a long list of crimes besides kidnapping you that I had to atone for, which doesn’t really help either of our cases.”
“Other than being a tech-head, what did you do?” Ziv asked. He was having difficulty deciding whether he should trust Freedom or not. On one hand, he and Ziv already knew each other, and he seemed no crazier now than he had back when their connection had put them through to each other. On the other hand, the people that Ziv’s connection put through to him were criminals, and Freedom was obviously no exception. What was more, he had kidnapped his best friend, which Ziv certainly should have been more angry about. What kind of a friend was he? Any normal person would have hauled off and punched Freedom in the face as soon as he had figured out who he was, not have stood around for several minutes and made conversation.
These were the thoughts that bounced around Ziv’s head as Freedom listed his various crimes and offenses with disconcerting casualness. When he was finished, Ziv went ahead and said the most pressing thing on his mind.
“I should hate you. But I don’t.”
Freedom looked surprised.
“Why would you hate me? Is this because I didn’t show up at Station Five?”
“No. It’s because you kidnapped my best friend and because of what that did to his parents.”
Freedom’s expression was pained.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He seemed to mean it, though Ziv couldn’t be sure. “I really am. I can’t ever justify what I did.”
“You don’t have to worry about this, Ziv,” Vine said. “I’m fine.”
“But you could have not been fine.”
“But I am fine. And Freedom...” Vine’s face suddenly fell. “It is incredibly barbaric of them to make you die here. If I was still in contact with my parents, I would get the Department of Criminal Acts and Conducts to change that.”
Freedom was silent for several moments.
“What do the two of you do around here?” he asked at last.
“We’re just general caregivers,” Ziv said. “We do whatever we’re told to do.”
“Like deliver clothes?” Freedom nodded at the pile on his bed.
“Like deliver clothes.”
Freedom sighed.
“I have some thinking to do, but once I get that done, I’d like to talk to the two of you again. I have something of a plan…if you’re interested.”
“That depends on what the plan is,” Vine said.
“I have yet to figure out the details, but I am planning to get out of this place before they have a chance to take what is mine. I--” He stopped. “Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“I doubt we’ll even be here long enough to squeal on you,” Ziv said. “We’re eventually going to be escaping from here, too.” Vine had left this part out of their story.
Freedom looked surprised.
“Really? How? Where are you going?”
“I don’t really know,” Ziv said. “We weren’t told much. Just that we would be safe from the government and the Death List.”
Freedom contemplated this silently for a few moments.
“That’s very intriguing.”
Ziv just nodded.
“Let me get back to you in a little while. I’m supposed to have a doctor come in here soon to talk to be about tests they’re going to do, and if I cooperate then I might be allowed out of my room for a while. They let you do that, don’t they?”
“Not really on this floor,” Ziv said.
“They’ll make an exception,” Freedom said, waving Ziv’s words aside. “I’m going to gain their trust, and they’ll at least let me out into the hallway,  I’m sure. I will make sure that they learn to love the name Freedom Williams.”
For one reason or another Ziv was disturbed by this, but he did not let it show.
“We should get back to the staff lounge,” he said. They were always to report back there when their tasks were finished. “It doesn’t take this long to drop off some clothes.”
“Yes, they might start suspecting that Patrick Bishop and Will Millerberg were up to something,” Vine said, straightening his sunglasses.
“I’m guessing that those are your fake names?”
“Yes.”
“Who is who?”
“I’m Will and my good friend Ziv here is Patty.”
A ghost of a smile lit up Freedom’s tired face at the same time that Ziv frowned.
“I’d really rather that you didn’t call me that,” he informed Vine.
Vine shrugged his shoulders.
“We’ll see.”
“Anyway…” Ziv said, heading tentatively for the door. “We’ve got to go.”
“It was nice to meet you in person, Ziv,” Freedom said. “Even under such strange circumstances. And Vine…good to see you again. Once I figure some things out, I’ll touch bases with you two and we can see where things go from there.”
“Right,” Ziv said, pressing his thumb to the pad underneath the door handle.
Click.
“If everything goes as planned,” Freedom went on, “we might just get out of here.” His voice took on a longing quality that made Ziv slightly uncomfortable. “For once, I might just be able to get out of something.”
“See you around,” Vine called as he and Ziv stepped through the door.
“Yes,” Freedom responded. He waved. “Yes, definitely.”

*   *   *

...So that one was long. Sorry. At least it's mostly dialogue. There is a little part I like here right after what I just posted, so I'm putting that up too because I CAN.

*   *   *

The door to room 316 clanged shut and Ziv and Vine stood out wordlessly in the hallway for several seconds. The muffled sounds of someone crying drifted down the corridor, an eerie and depressing resonance that was accompanied by the gentle slap…slap…slap of a doctor’s shoes as he walked along the linoleum on the other end of the hall.
“Well that was weird,” Ziv said at last. “That whole thing back there.”
“It was a little, yeah,” Vine agreed uncomfortably. “You probably think that I’m making it up, but he really was an okay guy back in that life house or whatever. He was much less…”
“Weird?”
“I guess so.”
“I’ve talked to him before, obviously, when I was--”
“Dealing drugs?”
Ziv glared at him, though the expression was lost on Vine.
“I’ve never dealt drugs.”
Vine laughed, a carefree noise that clashed with the weeping of the invisible tech-head.
“Remember when I told Leala that you were a drug dealer and she almost died? She is the most gullible person that I have ever met in my life!”
“That wasn’t funny,” Ziv said. Or at least it hadn’t been at the time, but now that he was looking back on it and he was about ready to collapse from the stress of being Patrick Bishop, it was a vaguely humorous memory. Especially since…
“It’s odd to think that we’ll never see her again,” Vine said, echoing Ziv’s thoughts.
Ziv didn’t say anything to this at first, as this was a realization that was striking him for the first time.
We’ll never see her again.
Never again would he joke with her through the chain-link fence, never again would he shuffle back to his dad’s apartment with pleasant memories of her dancing around his head, never again would he set eyes on that horrifying yellow bandana of hers and wonder how on Earth she could be so brave. He’d never get to say goodbye to her, to tell her what had happened to him, to explain why he and Vine had stopped seeing her so suddenly. Worst of all, he would never get to tell her how he felt about her. Obviously he loved her, though he had never really acknowledged it openly to himself and had never dared say anything out loud. He had allowed his adoration of her to show only in thoughts that kept him lying awake late into the night and in one, very special painting that he was still struggling to perfect. He had planned to present this painting to her one day, perhaps when she turned eighteen and was released from Paradise City Orphanage, but he had never had the chance. Now he never would.
“Don’t tell me you miss her, Vine,” Ziv said at last, feigning a joking tone.
Vine snorted.
“I don’t. It’s just strange to think that someone who you forced me to spend so much time with isn’t around anymore, that’s all.”
But Ziv sensed that in his own, tacit way, Vine missed her, too.

*   *   *

I don't know why, but I just kind of like that last little bit there. In case you didn't get it from that, Ziv is hopelessly in love with Leala. So yeah. I'll end this now and spare you all.

-Iridian 

Rachel: This is a stupid time to post, BUT...

Well, as was the deal with my last post, I am conveniently very tired for this post also, so sorry in advance. It's only ten thirty, but...well, how do I put this? I'm lame. Very, very lame. I'm basically an old man. Therefore ten thirty is kind of late for me. So there.

Anyway, I just wanted to post because I could tell I was going to have trouble sleeping again if I didn't get some of these thoughts out of my head. Luckily you all know what I'm talking about, fellow writers. I keep going to bed with scenes of my characters' futures flashing through my head, and I can't stop thinking about them because they are mostly some of the more epic moments that I have planned. To be honest, I don't really have everything all planned out yet, but I don't care. I'm taking it chapter by chapter, and I like it this way.

So Death List. That's what I'm talking about right now, by the way, in case you didn't know which one of my books I was obsessing about after my last post where I for some reason talked about several of them. No, Death List is still my child right now, and I am being a freakish helicopter parent. I just really like where it's going right now, you know? It's hard to not think about a book that you would be in love with even if you hadn't written it. That's how you know you have a good story...at least if everyone on Earth had the same taste as you. But you don't think about that, because that is discouraging.

Anyway, what I'm in the middle of right now is finally getting all of my characters to start their journeys. These journeys are both literal and spiritual, but the literal part is what is so far causing me the most problems. I sometimes write too much in detail, which can make getting things rolling kind of difficult at times.  I am on page 180 right now I believe, and I still have one character who has not really begun to get where she is going yet. It might just be me, but I think that nearly two hundred pages in is pretty deep to still have characters who haven't even begun their plots yet. I might have to go back and do a lot of editing once I finish with this monstrosity-to-be, but I'll leave that to the future Rachel. JEEZ I'm so sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. I was going to start talking about where each of my characters are right now and what they're up to, so before I can digress anymore I'm just going to jump right into it.

In case you don't remember, which I would not expect you to, my MAIN characters in this book are:

Ezekiel Cato "ZeCat" Everton
Freedom Williams
Wolfe Livingston
Leala Cash
Vine Fairfax
Ziv Martell
Roth Opensaw (which weirdly is a last name I didn't make up)
Alva Everton
Price Herrick

If I forgot someone I'll bring it up later, but I do believe that these are all of the people who the story is told through. I have other characters, but they don't get chapters (I switch point of views every chapter) so right now I am ignoring them. Alva is the only one out of these people who hasn't really gotten started yet, but that's okay for the time being because she's just ZeCat's mom, and her soul purpose is basically to find him. He hasn't been gone that long yet, though, so I still have a little bit of time. None of this will make any sense to any of you probably, but let me fill you in on what's going on so far. Like I said, I just need to get some of this out of my head so I don't keep myself up all night! It would have been nicer of me if I had decided to use a diary or something, but oh, well. Sorry, everyone.

Well, to make this easier I'm just going to blab it out in a paragraph. Not very easy to follow, but so be it. ZeCat is currently hiding out in an abandoned building on the outskirts of Paradise City near the city wall with a bunch of criminals who are trying to break a hole in the wall so they can get out of the city. They're being lead by this guy named Tyson Moore, who is a complete and total psychopath (I did NOT originally plan for that, but he took on a life of his own IMMEDIATELY) and he has taken a real disliking to ZeCat for no particular reason. I'll have to post an excerpt later to show what I mean by that. Oh, and Bryony-Rose and Wolfe are also here. Bryony-Rose is a main character, but she's not a MAIN character, so she doesn't get any chapters. Just so you know. Anyway, Freedom is currently in a hospital just outside of Paradise City that is designed to take people like him apart. He's my character that is make a robot-man, remember? So he's been thrown in there to die, basically (short version of events) but he has no intention of staying there. Vine and Ziv are undercover as low-level workers there and have come across him, so Freedom is already planning an escape based on having them as allies. He's already starting to lose it at this point, but he kind of started losing it from the moment he was introduced as a character, so sorry, Freedom. Ha. Anyway, like I said, Vine and Ziv are there, too. I won't even get started on why they're there--I don't want to stay up posting all night--but they happened upon Freedom by chance and both of them already knew him, so it was kind of a bizarre reunion. Ziv was assigned to deliver some illegal tech-head stuff to Freedom way at the beginning of the book, and Vine knows him because Freedom kidnapped him (Vine's the son of some very important city officials). It's kind of funny, but Vine and Freedom actually kind of hit it off during that incident, and Ziv, who is Vine's best friend, turned out to be much more sore about the event that Vine ever was. Which kind of comes up once Ziv, Vine, and Freedom are reunited. Ziv is not Freedom's biggest fan, which is another thing that I didn't intend to happen but just did anyway. So that's them. Leala is finally getting her own thing going, which is essentially being assisted in escaping Paradise City Orphanage by a minor character, Galatea Reed, who pops up here and there throughout the book. Leala is escaping with Zylo and Price Herrick (Zylo's Price's older brother), who Galatea also chose, mostly by random, to leave the orphanage. They're headed for an apartment in the settlement just outside of Paradise City where they will be safe for as long as they choose to stay there...which ends up not being that long. Their deal isn't as fantabulous as everyone else's right now, but it's very useful in terms of information about government corruption and stuff, so it still has a purpose. Or more than one purpose, I guess. And now for my adult characters: Roth and Alva, who incidentally also know each other. In fact, Roth has something of a history with the Everton family, but that's a story for another time. At any rate he is a policeman (had to have someone on the inside, haha) and he recently made a visit to the Everton household to tell Alva that they had no leads on where ZeCat ran away to. Or at least that's what he wanted to say, but instead he told her just enough of the truth to get her inflamed, namely that the police had barely even looked for him. There's a lot of crime that goes on in Paradise City, and the police tend to focus on people who could present a real problem to the community. ZeCat had no criminal record, so Roth and the other policemen focus on the dangerous people that do. To him it seems logical, but to Alva it seems heartless, which eventually leads her to take matters into her own hands and try to hunt down ZeCat herself with the help of her younger son, Edwin. Why is his name Edwin? I have no idea. I do not get a lot of my characters' names. Anyway, Alva hasn't started her epic mom journey yet, but she will soon. And Roth is about to be up for a promotion that will entail he tracks down basically all of my characters that have gone missing, thus putting him in the position of the main antagonist. This will be quite interesting, because Roth isn't a bad guy. He just respects the Death List and does his job, and does it well. In fact, he does it so well that he eventually tracks down all of my characters, one way or another. Almost all of them end up getting away again, of course, but he still does it. Actually, there's this one particular scene I want to share and then I'm going to bed.

So Roth has finally figured out where everyone is hiding. At this point nearly all of my characters are together and know each other. Roth gets a squad together and they travel far beyond Paradise City to where everyone is and they attempt to ambush them. The characters in hiding, however, figure out the police are coming and have time to take cover and hide...all of them but Ziv and Vine, who aren't with the others at the time and don't know about the approaching squadron. Roth and his forces arrive on the scene and are instantly drawn to where Ziv and Vine are hanging out because it's so obvious. Roth's forces fire upon them before Roth has the opportunity to tell them not to, and Ziv is injured and Vine is killed in a very artful and awful way that I won't describe right now. Roth calls the police off and they go into hiding with a reformed plan; let injured Ziv lead them to where the others are hiding once he believes the police to be gone. It works out exactly as Roth plans and all of the runaways are captured and he is promoted. Basically everything goes exactly as he wanted it to...except for one little thing: Vine's death. No matter how many days separate him from that event, he can't get it out of his mind. The image of Vine's last seconds isn't one that Roth is able to delete from his memory. He can't get over the fact that he was responsible for the death of a teenager, of a child, of one of the citizens that it was supposed to be his job to rule over and protect. He isn't even the person who pulled the trigger on the gun that ended Vine's life, but to him he might as well have been. Basically he obsesses over the needless and unintentional murder of Vine until he can't take it anymore and puts a gun to his own head. Kind of dark, I know, but I can't see Roth's story ending any other way. So, yeah. I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Good night, everyone.

-Iridian

Rachel: FINALLY ON AGAIN

First of all, let me just say that I am so sorry that I haven't posted anything in so long! It has to have been WEEKS. You probably all thought that I was dead, but, fortunately, I was just really, really busy for a long time. I finally have some time to basically do whatever I want, which is to post on SAAWAKM for the first time in about an eternity. I won't write a ridiculously long post catching you up on what I've been up to lately, mostly because what I've been doing isn't remarkably interesting. Instead of going on about it for paragraphs, I will tell you what's been up in list-form:
1. Went to a two-week classical music camp.
2. Went camping.

The end. So that's what has been taking up all of my time. Again, sorry that I haven't been posting in a long time, but I hope that serves as a good enough excuse, haha.

Anyway, the reason I thought of posting in the first place is because I have been quite inspired lately and I have been doing a lot of writing. I've mostly been working on Death List, which is mainly what I have to blabber about sort of, but I've also been going back and forth between my other books. I'm one of those lame people who goes back and forth between a lot of other books. I don't know why. I'll spend a bunch of time on one of them and then I'll randomly get inspired to work on a different one so I will. I just kind of shift back and forth between my different books. Sorry, I'm babbling a little. I forgot to warn you at the beginning of this post that I have gotten four hours of sleep two nights in a row, which doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but I don't function well AT ALL without sleep. My epilepsy gets a lot worse and I keep forgetting what I'm doing, which is why a lot of these sentences probably seem like they are going nowhere. Just keep in mind that right now I barely know what I'm talking about, and that my future posts will be much more coherent.

Anyway, so I've been doing a lot of writing. I've been working mostly on Death List, but I have been planning a lot with my other books. But I don't feel like talking about that right now. I don't know why I mentioned it. Probably because I am tired and insane. ANYWAY, so Death List. I'm really liking where it's going so far, and I plan to catch you up on all the details once I have my wits about me more. In fact, I might do that later today, even, but not right now. In fact, I have to wrap it up; something just came up. So sorry for this weird and pointless post. I just wanted to put something up here for the first time in a long time. Hopefully I'll be on here later!

-Iridian

Cori: NaNo ideas

Last night while watching Fullmetal Alchemist, I got an idea for the next NaNo. Which makes no sense, because the idea has absolutely nothing to do with FMA...but whatever! It inspired me and that makes me happy!

I have a bit of a habit taking overused and cliche ideas and twisting them around, warping them until they're really unique and original. Like in Caged--I've read countless books about prophecies surrounding the main character, who has to save the world. I've also read books and seen movies where the main character is secretly related to someone (cough, Star Wars, cough). So I took both ideas and made them my plot. At first it was just like every other book with that plot, until I started corrupting it so that it was totally creepy and really complex. So I'm going to do the same thing with my NaNo novel.

You know the books/movies/animes/etc where the main character is hunting down someone who did something bad to them? Or the ones where they're searching for the elusive person that stole their heart? You know what I'm talking about.

I'm going to take the idea and switch it around. The main character won't be the one hunting someone down, fueled by a lust for revenge. Instead, the main character will be the one who is being hunted down by someone they wronged horribly. It's going to be much more complex than that, but that's the rough idea.

What do you think? The idea might change, because I've already become slightly bored of it. Haha. But we'll see!

Kas: Whoop, second post of the day.

Okay, technically I posted before at like eleven last night, and its now 7:45 in the morning. So I guess its two days, but since I didn't sleep I'm saying one.

I've always loved staying up all night. There's something magical about having been awake as the sky darkens and then lightens again. It's one of my favorite things. Only problem is that I love to sleep, so I don't usually make it all the way through the night.

Today, I got a little help from Rupert Grint. I watched his movie Cherry Bomb last night, to stay awake. Also, because it has Robert Sheehan in it, who is a sex god.

  That is Robert Sheehan. *Swoon

Anyways, as we've mentioned before, one of the main characters in Silver is Grint who, obviously, was inspired by Rupert Grint. So, as I was watching this movie, which is amazing btw, all I wanted to do was work on Silver. So... I'm going to. 

Heather is gone all through the week, and for some reason or another we just haven't been able to talk on the weekends. But, it is a Sunday so i'm hoping she gets on sometime today. Even though I might be leaving later. 

So, I can't really split Silver into chapters without Heather, which means I'm just going to work on editing scene by scene. And since I only have my notes, i'll only be able to apply the correction that I caught, which sucks cause that means I'll have to edit each scene over again once I get her notes. But, I'm itching to get editing. we haven't worked on Silver all summer, and its really not either of our faults, we've just had other things to do. 

The whole reason for this post was just to say that i'm going to start the editing, and hope that Heather gets online today so we can plan out how to work apart.

-K 

Kas: Hey guys.

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. I've been super busy with college and trying to get as much time in with the family and friends before I move to Norman.

I've officially done all of my dorm shopping, which was way more complicated than I imagined. And more expensive. My dad just gave me his credit card, haha.

I've gotten to know my roommate a little better and she seems nice enough. However shes very shy, and shes kind of just agreed with everything I've asked her about the room and stuff. Which should be a good thing, but i'm not sure its a good thing that shes such a pushover, since she'll be the person i'm around the most in college. Hopefully she gets more comfortable once we move in and grows a personality. We'll see, I guess.

Anyways, as you guys should know by now, I'm a very crafty person. So I decided to make these canvas posters for my dorm room. They have a quote on them that me and Heather have sort of lived by while writing Silver. I think we're actually going to add it into the book. :)

It says,

Risk more than others think is safe. 
Care more than others think is wise. 
Dream more than others think is practical. 
Expect more than others think is possible

I put each line on its own canvas, and I still have one more to go. They're really pretty and I'm super excited about them. I've done so much work when it comes to this dorm room, its ridiculous.

Anyways, Camp Crimson was amazing. I made a bunch of new friends, and it just made me that much more excited to move in.

Heather, I literally haven't talked to you in a month. I don't think we've ever gone this long without talking! :(

Okay, I hope you enjoyed this little update. :D

-K

Cori: Sushi rolls

My friend Emily is over right now, petting my cat haha. We went to a sushi restaurant called Soho tonight; it was really good. We got three kinds of sushi rolls...spicy snow crab (mmmm), California, and philly...Spicy snow crab was the best. Philly was okay - it had cream cheese and avocado in it, and I've never had cream cheese before. It was interesting I suppose. California was all right, I'm not a huge fan of cucumbers.

So why hasn't anybody been posting lately? It's kind of sad, you know? We had around 80 posts in June and in July we had only 30 or so...

Well, I need to go. I'm video chatting with my friend Jennifer, and we're trying to convince her to ask out some guy named Ryan haha.