The stories you never wrote. Post those misbegotten and unborn phantasms here.

[mrsimple]

Second part.

Spoiler

There was only a second or two that passed before I got back up. I had to catch the bus, and I wasn’t going to let myself miss it.


Especially after making a fool of myself by tripping over my own two feet in front of everyone.


Around the front of the bus I ran, came to the high automatic door, and waited for it to reopen. Thankfully, it did.


Up the couple of dark steps, it looked completely void of light. I could make out the shape of the driver, but he or she appeared as nothing more than a seated black outline. The arm of the driver was stretched out, holding onto the handle that geared open the door.


To show I was happy, I smiled and gave a little wave to the driver.


Nothing.


No asking if I was alright, exchange of names, or a single word. Whoever the driver was didn’t even make a gesture of acknowledgement I existed.


Well, I supposed the door being opened counted. And I only made my greeting in silence.


So I spoke. “I’m sorry for being late, but thank you for waiting for me.”


Still nothing. I began to worry if I had caused this driver to be upset with me. As if I would be on the troublemaker’s list. I knew those were very real, and that the best way for bus drivers to respond to those incidents, they had to be disconnected with that particular passenger.


No socializing. The less of a relationship they had with the bad seed, the easier it was to be hard and get whatever was required to be done. Like punishments.


That was not gonna be me. I had intended this for the teacher, but I would have to make a sacrifice here and now.


Taking one step up, I took a hold of the gleaming steel rail and pulled myself up to skip over the next step onto the bus.


Strangely enough, I still couldn’t make out the facial features of the bus driver. The dark shade and hat they wore was obscuring anything I could’ve normally have seen.


Kinda eerie.


Without being dissuaded from my plan, I offered the red apple to the bus driver.


Finally, there was movement. The driver let go of the handle and held out a strikingly pure white hand. I had an idea now that perhaps this person made their corner of the bus dark on purpose.


Being of a redheaded stock, I knew exactly how painfully easy it was to be burnt by the sun.


That knowledge being set aside for now, I smiled a little more and set the apple down on the driver’s palm. Long and snowy white fingers grasped the red fruit and pulled it back close to their obscured face.


Just barely, I could make out the gleaming teeth behind a smile.


-CLACK!-


I jumped at the noise. It took me a moment to figure out what caused it.


Over my shoulder, I took note of the door having closed behind me. I must have been distracted by that smile to have missed the driver closing the door.


Returning my attention to the driver, I gave my own greeting. “I’m Jake.”


The only response I was given had been a nod. Then the apple was settled down someplace in the driver’s lap.


One white hand rested on the steering wheel, the other groped the stick shift, and that was taken as my cue to find a seat. I hurried past to be down the aisle in search.


There were others on board, but I couldn’t make out any of their faces. Even when I stooped over for a moment, I missed the opportunity to inspect a face when they turned to look out the window.


It was like they were avoiding my gaze. I had no idea why, unless they already thought I was a loser.


One fall, and that was it to earn a label.


That was enough for me to try an empty seat rather than score some points with familiarizing myself with somebody here. I took to the bench and slid myself snug against the side window.


Just like everyone else, I looked out the window. I spotted my mother.


With a single-knuckled knock, I tried to grab her attention. I would at least give her the chance to capture my smile and wave onboard, if not out on the street.


But she just stood there. Her hand was covering her mouth for some reason. And her eyes were on the ground.


On the black asphalt, I couldn’t make out too much, but I saw something green laying there...


It hit me just then. I didn’t feel the crush of my bookbag between the seat behind me.


“Aw, man,” I looked to see if maybe my sleep deprived mind had simply forgotten that I had set it down someplace. Like right beside me. “...Nope.”


Not a thing there but extra ass-space. And I bet everything I had that was what my mother had her sights on in the middle of the road.


“Hi!” And I jumped right up and out of my seat at that high pitched greet.


Right when I had looked up from the seat beside me, there had been a sweetly smiling face staring right back at me. From their posture, I supposed they were seated in front of me. Likely from how they twisted around that seat, they were still sitting down as the bus went into motion.


Not to be rude, I settled back down in my seat and said, “Hello.”


“Jake, right?” I again supposed this person overheard me speaking with the bus driver.


“Yeah.” Before they would ask, I announced: “New here.”


In the darkness of the aisle, I could barely make out who or what kind of person this was. All I knew, they sounded like puberty hadn’t hit yet.


“Was that your mom?” And with that being asked, I looked back out the window to spot her.


As we drove away, I thought I caught Mom crying. If anyone else saw that… I instantly slid down my seat and hid beneath the window.


“Uh…” I had no idea if it was good or bad to acknowledge the emotional woman out there being my mother.


“That was your mom, right?” I looked back at the person and caught the whites of their teeth behind a smug looking grin. “To walk hand-in-hand all the way here, she must’ve loved ya.”


“Uh, yeah.” I couldn’t help but cringe at being seen holding hands. To change the subject, I asked: “What’s your name?”


The grin had been covered behind a their hand. I supposed they exhibited either shock or a mockery of it by doing that. I wasn’t able to read what kind of person this was yet


My excuse was because of how dark it was in this bus -- regardless of the morning and the windows to welcome that light in here.


Behind that hand, I heard a muffled apology and name. “Sorry. I’m Jessie.”


“S’okay.” And despite having a name now to call this person by, that didn’t answer one thing: the name could be for a boy or girl. Either way that swung, I said, “Nice to meet you, Jessie.”


The hand dropped away from their lips before I heard a request. “May I sit with you?”


“Sure.” I thought, <i>’Maybe I was wrong about being categorized as bad news?’</i> “Do you mind if I take care of that first?”


“Huh?” I wasn’t sure what Jessie meant, but I took notice they were pointing at my face. “Something on me?”


“You fell, right?” I winced again, but silently nodded in response. “If you don’t mind, here.”


Before I figured out what was about to happen, Jessie brought up to my face a piece of white cloth. I wasn’t aware of where that thing came from, but I assumed from their pocket or a bookbag.


...I didn’t see a bookbag, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one sitting in the aisle. I tried to straighten up and look over Jessie, and instead had shifted to face a collision course with that piece of cloth.


A slight swip along the side of my right cheek, then under that side of my eye, up and around the brow, and higher across my forehead. When the cloth was pulled away, it was red.


Blood red.


Blood.


“Jesus!” I instantly brought my hand up to my head and hair to feel around for any outstanding injuries. Anything that was out of place. A tiny bit of pain or something that felt off.


“Hey, you’re cool.” Jessie got comfortable right beside me and tucked the soiled cloth down by their thigh and out of my sight into a pocket of their beige short-shorts. “Chill-out. No creepy-crawlies are in your hair.”


“What?” I actually started to feel tingly pricks on my scalp from the thought of something in my hair.


“Ah, sorry. I mean, you’re fine. Just a -- here.” Without asking, Jessie grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand out of my hair. “Right here.”


My hand was directed and pressed against the border of my forehead and hairline. I felt the gash. Then Jessie slipped something between my hand and this wound.


Fabric is what I felt. And when I pulled it down to look, I saw another white cloth in my hand, and I simply reapplied it to my head.


“It’s not bleeding anymore, but just in case…” I understood the meaning.


“I… I hit my head,” was my explanation for this.


“Yeah, I saw.” Jessie nodded back, as if to gesture at something or someone behind them. “And so did everyone else.”


With a bloody face, it was no wonder nobody wanted to look my way. I wasn’t labeled as a loser, but I might’ve now been considered creepy by everybody.


Except maybe Jessie.


And yet, I felt ashamed of myself. I had distressed my mother, caused the bus driver to wait for me, and disturbed every single passenger on the bus.


All of this because of a game.


“What made you go full throttle like that anyways?” I blinked in confusion and wonder.


“What?” I hadn’t been certain what Jessie meant.


“You know.” Jessie pointed past me and towards the window. “You ran out --”


“Oh, that.” I thought that was obvious, but apparently not. “I thought the bus was going to leave.”


For a moment, Jessie dropped their pointing finger and just stared at me. Then smiled.


“This bus?” With a shake of their head, Jessie claimed: “No way would we leave without you.”


“How do you know?” I was genuinely curious. “What I mean is, I’m new here. How would anyone here know if they were short one somebody they never met?”


There were a few questions I had about this bus too. I would’ve liked to have known why it was so very dark in here.


So before Jessie could answer the one question, I asked another. “Why is it dark in here?”

 

[mrsimple]

Third part. I'll upload more incompleted works if ya still want em.

Spoiler

“Oh?” Jessie looked around and shrugged. “I’m used to it. The bus normally is like this.” When that didn’t explain the <i>why</i> portion, I gave Jessie an open armed gesture for welcoming more details here. “Tinted windows.”


“Wait… isn’t that illegal?” At least, I thought I remembered my mother mentioning something about that.


With a shrug, Jessie stated: “Dunno. I like it.”


“Really? Why?” I wasn’t sure why anybody would like to be in this darkness. It felt like the further back in the bus I went, the more this darkness enveloped me.


And with a grin, Jessie responded with, “You can get better shuteye.”


“Oh.” I supposed that was true.


“Other than getting the sense knocked out of ya… you look tired.” Jessie had pointed that out about me, but went further to ask: “Sleep well?”


In sarcasm, I asked: “What sleep?”


“Ha!” A little laugh from Jessie, then I was asked: “Too nervous about school?”


That was true, but not the entire excuse behind my sleepless night. I explained as much. “Yes, sorta. I was busy.”


“Busy with what?” The more curious Jessie became, the closer they scooted against me, and I was suddenly getting the impression this wasn’t a boy.


If Jessie was, then I might have to be careful.


...Actually, even if Jessie was a girl, I still had to be cautious. I didn’t have time for a relationship!


Priorities: I had a game mod to get working.


I heard a soft-spoken: “Poke.”


“Ow!” I first felt the light poke in my ribs, but when Jessie mentioned doing it, I don’t know why but it seemed right to make it out that hurt worse than it had. In irritation, I asked: “What was that for?”


“I ask you what kept ya up all night.” I lightened up and cringed.


“Sorry,” was all I could start with before actually answering. “I was working on a game.”


“Wait.” A much more curious face invaded my personal space and directly asked: “Working on one?”


“Uh, yeah?” Even if it was pre-existing mods, I technically was working on the game until I could get the list of mods to work. “I didn’t get it to work, but I was close before having to head for the bus.”


“What is the game about?” I had to think over that question.


There were two difficult answers to explain. One being, I was ashamed to admit that the game revolved around a dating simulation. But the other was that I had been reconfiguring the theme to be more like a role playing game rather than a visual novel.


So my answer had to start with a question. “Do you know what a simulation game is?”


“Pretty much. You play out a scenario?” Being put that way, I supposed that was vaguely accurate.


“It is designed for whatever purpose to copy the realistic aspects of our world, or the imagination of someone else’s world, and put you through a situation under their circumstances.” I saw that I had lost Jessie in this explanation. “Such as one example: however their mechanics work, you have to live through those conditions until you meet the requirements for advancing towards the next stage. Then either you set it up, or just as before, experience it.”


“So… you’re playing pretend?” Once again, that would vaguely describe what the simulation game world was about.


“Kinda.” To emphasize on this point, I asked: “Don’t we all pretend to be the characters in the game?”


“Not really. Some, if not most, like to rack up points.” Jessie shrugged and claimed: “They don’t care about background. The numbers are all that matter.”


“That sucks.” I couldn’t envision the idea that math was all the fun people got out of games. It felt like… Like work.


Just the same as it was for me modding all night. I wasn’t certain I could call that fun, but I was more invested in it than catching some sleep. But I knew once the mods had been correctly installed, I would’ve had a thrill in the afternoon today.


“Anyways, I was working on modifying a simulation game.” Jessie raised a brow and leaned in a bit further to hear what I had to say. “It uh… well… I was converting its theme into something more… well, more.”


“More what?” If that was so easy to explain, I would’ve said it already.


I took a second to sigh, a moment more to think about this, and decided I had time before reaching school to try discussing what I planned. Even if it took a long time to discuss, Jessie appeared to be interested.


Having noticed this, I wondered, <i>’Did I make a friend?’</i> I supposed time would tell. If Jessie got bored with this, I knew later on who wouldn’t be sitting next to me on the bus.


“First of all, have you ever heard of the game called Fable?” I watched as Jessie shook their head no. “In that game, the main character’s role is to become whatever your actions results in. Such as, if you play an evil and disgusting person, those aspects begin to manifest on the character’s person. Flies, shifty eyes, maybe some burping, a dark aura, and things like that.”


“Something like morality?” In response, I nodded to that.


“But a little more.” To return and talk about what I said earlier, I mentioned: “Remember being disgusting doesn’t mean you’re bad. Just gross.”


“Life choices.” Jessie finally leaned back and away from me, but smiled more. “I am getting an idea what you mean by a simulation. Good choices come in too, right?”


“Oh, yeah, but they’re kinda boring.” With that said, Jessie looked surprised by my statement. “They -- well, some of the bad choices are boring too. The game devs have an issue with implementing stupid evil.”


A squint and a, “Huh,” later, Jessie asked: “Stupid evil?”


“Yeah, that’s like doing evil for the sake of being evil.” I raised a hand up. “No real gain other than lowering your alignment.” Then lowered my hand. “At times, it makes no sense, but the same could be said about the good stuff too. Like when going through all the trouble to get a reward, then being given the choice between giving away your gains or keeping it for yourself. Charity earns the good points, but to not give it away is seen as selfish. Bad.” I dropped my hand and stated: “It’s stupid.”


“I got it.” Once Jessie had said that, I watched as they reached down into their pocket to pull out an apple.


A red one very much like I had given away. I had wondered, <i>’Did Jessie steal that from the bus driver?’</i> But then I reconsidered and thought, <i>’Maybe that is their own apple? Why would I be the only one to bring an apple into school?’</i>


One bite into the apple later, and with a mouthful, Jessie asked: “Ish s’that wha’ ya been workin’ on?”


“A part of it. I wanted to have the…” And here was the part that worried me. I’d have to disclose what kind of game this originally was. “The main character, the heroine --”


And Jessie coughed a couple of times before swallowing and asking: “A girl?”


“Yeah.” I was a little nervous to say this, but I did. “The main character is a girl.”


“Just to be clear.” I waited for it. “You are playing a game that has you living the life as a girl?”


“Uh,” I wasn’t sure how to follow up with that. How Jessie phrased the question felt extremely tricky to talk around. So after my stalling, I honestly explained: “...Yes, but I’m modifying it.” I had hoped that would clear up any misunderstandings. “The girl I play as will be different when I’m done.”


“Okay.” Jessie leaned in again, but with a trace of amusement on their face. Not smug this time, but a type of keen interest in… Well, I suppose in me. “Sounds like you’re really into this game.”


“I want to make it the way I first thought it would be.” And that seemed to have confused Jessie again. “The -- when it was first released, they made a lot of promises and I guess the deadline was too short for them to include everything. That and, VNs -- those are Visual Novels -- they tend to be linear.”


“Linear? Straight forward?” That was once again vaguely correct.


“Have you ever heard of being railroaded in a storyline?” Jessie’s eyes drifted to the side as if that question was being considered. I expanded on it. “The intention is to keep you on the intended tracks. No opportunities to explore elsewhere, like a sandbox.”


Jessie looked back at me and silently stared in what I could only assume was more confusion. I was losing this battle of either comprehension or interest. I knew full well that this topic would bore any normal person to death.


Especially if they didn’t understand everything I was talking about. It was like trying to break down a complicated joke. By the time they got it, the humor would be lost.


“Poke.” Same soft toned voice, and I was poked in the ribs again. “I’m listening.”


“Ow.” I rubbed my side as I said, “What?”


“I’m listening.” There was that smug smile again. “Just because I don’t get it, doesn’t mean I won’t. Keep going.”


“Oh, sorry.” Now I felt that I had been rude. Again, I apologized. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to explain everything before the bus gets there.”


“Ah,” the smugness was gone, but Jessie still smiled. “Don’t worry. Take as much time as you -- and I guess me -- need for us to be on the same page.” I was patted on the shoulder before asked: “Sound cool?”


I was feeling more at ease and nodded. “Sure. Sounds cool.”


For however much time we had, I explained what I could about all that I was doing with the game. And hoped Jessie would continue to be interested in me…

 

[Tilgarial]

An immortal, fed up with life and hidden away in a village far off from anything, is contacted by an alliance of various countries. Through ancient contracts and memories of the forgotten, they convince him to go on a journey to defeat another immortal, one that is working to get rid of all life in an attempt to end his own.
To make sure the first immortal does what he is supposed to do, the various countries each supply him with a follower of some type that also act as overseers.

 

[Tilgarial]

An immortal, fed up with life and hidden away in a village far off from anything, is contacted by an alliance of various countries. Through ancient contracts and memories of the forgotten, they convince him to go on a journey to defeat another immortal, one that is working to get rid of all life in an attempt to end his own.
To make sure the first immortal does what he is supposed to do, the various countries each supply him with a follower of some type that also act as overseers.

Wouldnt have remembered this if not for this thread, thanks xD

 

[Yorda]

MC reincarnated & her life changes "novel genre" at random times. She thought she's reincarnated to a game, a dress up game where even robbery is settled by fashion battle. Then she found out she's so wrong.

Wow. That sounds awesome. A world where a person's life is a dress up game fashion battle!
Bizarre and funny!

 

[tak]

Wow. That sounds awesome. A world where a person's life is a dress up game fashion battle!
Bizarre and funny!

the game i meant is Nikki. An actual plot in the game are:

• Robber return the stolen good because she's less sexy than player
• Convincing a guy to tell us all about his country's internal conflict by fashion show
• Proving the opponent is a false prophet because she lost a fashion battle
• Escaping illusion by fashion show
• Queen is decided by fashion contest (background story, not actual play)

 

[mrsimple]

So here's another one. Lemme know if ya want me to continue with these or quit it. I really do have a lot of unpublished and unfinished works. And, again, I'll have to post twice to fit this all in. Sorry...

Spoiler

Bewitching Mother

Chapter 1: The One Who Shall Not be Named

“’Magic is real,’ was what I excitedly thought the first time I laid eyes on the vindictive performance my mother had done,” I quietly said to Mrs. Vase. “During some course over the years, I’d picked up that the art of witchcraft could be amplified and extended, with a signed contract on the correct credentials, all to not require pots, stews, somatic incantations, and all that wickedly boring stuff.” I waited a moment to see if she’d ask me anything about that, but so far nothing. I kept talking. “That would’ve explained why all my mother had needed was to look at someone and they were bewitched --”

“Your mother,” I stopped talking to listen to Mrs. Vase. “Would you tell me about her?”

I nodded, sat back more comfortably on the cushy couch, and explained: “My first conclusion was that we were a family of witches, like my elder sister claimed to be. For the longest time, I had thought that to be the case for our family. For my sister, some of my cousins, and a few aunts, yes, that was the case. For better, and for worse, I had made those discoveries --”

“Jesse, I asked about your mother,” I had shut up, realized I wasn’t looking at her and hurriedly did look her way to make up for that disrespect, and nodded in response.

While I was staring at Mrs. Vase, I had to wonder if her hair was red or brown. Her hair was in a small ponytail, which I supposed made her hair fall only down to her slim shoulders. There was an interesting flutter in her shorter bangs, waved to the left side of her face, that permitted me a closer look at the roots.

A darker color. So I thought, ’Maybe her hair is brown, but lightens up in the sun?’

She did have a nice dark tan for me to believe she had an outdoor life. And her sleeveless one piece dress, a blended red with black straps over her shoulder, gave me a display of her bare arms and legs. Not fully bare legs, but… the skirt hugged her thighs, and everything below the knee was exposed, which allowed me to get an idea how well she kept herself in shape.

I thought, ’Maybe she likes to go jogging?’ That would explain the short ponytail. But her outstanding figure didn’t interest me. I just thought her hair was interesting…

“Jesse?” Having snapped out of it, I nodded in response to her. “Were you --” I caught her gaze drift down for a second, glancing at her fit body, but she shook her head and said, “Never mind. You were going to tell me about your mother?”

With a smile, I nodded again and tried speaking about my mother. “But my mother wasn’t a witch. What she was… well…”

Mrs. Vase sighing had stopped me from trying to talk about my mother. Instead, she asked: “Okay. You sound happy when you bring up magic.” Once I nodded, she flipped the page in her notebook and readied her pen. “Jesse, go ahead and tell me.”

I nearly shouted: “Anyways, the first time encountering magic!” Wincing a bit, I bobbed my head done and gave her an apologetic look before quietly continuing. “That first time was the only incident that gave me an incredibly overwhelmed sense of joy about the existence of magic. The discovery was akin to opening a door to a world of possibilities that were once imagined impossible.”

“When was that?” Hearing her ask me that, I paused to recollect how long ago it was I first learned of magic. That was a difficult question to answer with so many gaps in my memory.

Instead of directly answering her, I brought up my earliest event of encountering magic. “Back then, how magic worked was beyond me, but I learned from the little puzzling clues I picked up on the way until… well, something bad happened to me, and it became worse, but everything ended in a way that broke the laws of magic.”

“What happened?” She asked me that as she was scribbling in her notebook, which was good for her and me…

...So I felt the confidence to continue. “Ever since I started the first grade, I must have frustrated my teacher, Mr. Long, because he had been keeping indoors when everyone else enjoyed recess.” My attention was across from our seats, to where Mrs. Vase wrote in her notebook. “The issue was I had trouble with writing, it wasn’t chicken scratch, but it was hard to read, so he had me writing the absolute dumbest things.”

“May I ask what he had you write?” Her pen was held up, hovering over the notebook, readied to write the next thing I had to say down on paper.

Realizing I had stopped smiling, I smiled again and answered: “Like, for example, my name: Jesse. I lost count how many sheets of lined paper were tossed out with the graphite wall of ’Jesse’s’ darkening their fronts and backs.”

“Jesse, are you aware of your manner of speech?” Glancing at her, down at her notebook, and back at her, I just nodded.

“I know. You are writing exactly what I am saying.” I was aware of my smile faltering as I said, “I want to be remembered being smart.”

“You are a bright child. Coming to see me was a smart thing to do.” I simply nodded to that praise. She asked: “Would you like to take a small break?” I silently shook my head. “Okay, Jesse, keep going.”

“...” I paused and tried to remember where I was.

Mrs. Vase assisted my memory. “Mr. Long. He kept you indoors, writing --”

“And he was the kind of guy who believed in practice makes perfect.” I remembered now, and resumed my therapy. “So instead of exercising the cafeteria meal, and all of that energy from sitting around all day, out of my system, like everyone else was gladly doing, I was kept to scribble away my fun time inside his classroom until I had something he could actually read without squinting at the paper.”

“That sounds like he was bullying you. Did he have something against you or your family?” I shook my head. “Was he a nice man?” No response from me there, because I couldn’t remember what the man was like.

Instead of answering her the way she wanted, I tried explaining a memory I had of what he did. “After a few months, during the first big fall of snow, I had watched from my seat by the class window as all my classmates created snowmen -- or tried to with giant rolled up snowballs.” I held my hands up and showed her our size differences between an adult, her, and a kid, me. “You know what I mean, right?” She smiled and nodded, which I pointed out and said, “Or they’d laughed or cried with glee in their midst of a snowball fight.” I remembered how much fun everyone from school had at recess. All but me. “At home, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this because of where we lived. Our family wanted privacy and settled with a house outside of any known neighborhood.”

“What town?” She asked, but I didn’t know how to answer that. “This town? Do you know where you live?”

“Home. I live at home.” The way she looked at me with my response had me wondering if I had said the wrong thing. “In a house.”

Mrs. Vase smiled and shook her head. “It is okay. We can come back to that at a later time.” Flipping her notebook around, she wrote down something before returning to the upright and correct page we were on before making a special note. “What was your mother’s opinion about how Mr. Long treated you?”

That almost made me laugh. “At first, when I told my mother that I was always missing recess to do extra school work, she didn’t believe me.” I stopped laughing and thought for a moment on why I had thought that was funny.

“Jesse?” Not to be distracted, I had ignored her for me to remember what had triggered that laughter. “Jesse? Jesse, can you -- okay, I think we should take a break.”

“No,” I immediately had said, and apologized: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, I was… I tried.”

When I felt my eyes begin to burn, I instantly shut them. Facing away from Mrs. Vase may have been rude of me, but I didn’t want her to see my tears of frustration. She would mistake it for something else…

I resumed on what I could remember. “There was disbelief about a grown man, who had obtained a career for being mature enough to practically help raise and teach a classroom full of children every year.” Raising my arm up, I wiped the tears quickly away, and as I said, “The idea was ludicrous that he’d pick on a small kid -- I wasn’t short stuff, but compared to my mother who stood over six feet, I was small in comparison.”

“She’s… your mother is over six feet?” Blinking my eyes clear, I was shocked to have said that. Very slowly, I nodded. “Is the rest of your family tall?”

“No,” I said, but immediately shook my head and corrected myself. “We are not all tall, a couple of uncles are really big, but… did I really say that?”

“Yes, Jesse. You said your mother is over six feet tall.” After being confirmed I said that, I nodded once more. “Are you certain you wish to continue?”

“Yes,” I said, and then pleaded: “Please?”

“Jesse, let’s take a small break from your mother.” I was a bit confused about that, but then she explained: “Could you tell me what you thought of Mr. Long? You said, your mother didn’t believe you. What was your impression?”

I asked: “For the record?” And she nodded, got her pen readied for more of my words, and I answered: “I didn’t believe Mr. Long was picking on me, but genuinely trying to improve my writing.” I shook my head at the memory of my delicate labor. “But I wasn’t improving, and I thought my teacher was keeping me from going outside on purpose.” After reflecting on what I just said, I didn’t believe I made myself clear, so I elaborated: “He was doing it on purpose, but not with malicious intent. You know what I mean, right?”

Mrs. Vase paused her hand and softly nodded. “Yes, I understand. It resembles the same circumstances of why I have sent my recommendation to remove you from your school.”

I wasn’t aware of that, and cried out as much. “I came to you! I wanted help...” Taking a timeout, I composed myself before my trembling caused my resolve to crack. When I was better, having thought over what she had said, I asked: “Can’t I go back?”

“Yes, Jesse, you can after a couple of days when I’ve confirmed you are able.” That had meant I would be at home. She added: “I assure you -- Jesse?” I sat up straighter, setting my hands down to be crossed over each other upon the top of my thighs, and gave her a smile. “Just checking. Jesse, I’ll make certain you won’t have to repeat the fifth grade.”

The thought of repeating a year did fill me with dread, so I was relieved that Mrs. Vase was ensuring I wouldn’t be at risk of that happening. I didn’t want to disappoint my mother.

Drawing my legs up on the couch, I hugged my knees close against me, rested my chin while I had wiped the smile off of my face, and I thought about what I’d do in the meantime at home. Then I wondered, ’What did I do at home? What was I doing during summer?’

Right now, I only had the memories of the subject we’d been discussing. Without being asked to continue, I said, “I was a kid and I told on him.”

“Mr. Long?” From over the top of my knees, I gave her an affirmative smile.

Then I dropped my smile. I continued to talk about what I had said and done. “Mom didn’t believe me. I asked her to call the school if she didn’t believe me… I think she might’ve started believing me then.” Closing my eyes, I tried hard to focus on how my mother reacted, but I couldn’t picture it. I just continued: “And after my mother called, I don’t know how, but she obtained Mr. Long’s house phone number.” I shrugged at Mrs. Vase and said, “She called him up to confirm my story, and she was appalled for two or more reasons. I only knew the two, because while on the phone with my teacher, I lost… I can’t remember all of what she said. What I do remember was she slurred the words “selectively targeting” and “ostracizing.” I supposed that was what he was doing, I was narrowed down to one pick from all the other children at school --”

“Was that the impression you received from their conversation or how you perceived Mr. Long treated you?” She surprised me with that question and I didn’t know how to answer, so I remained quiet. “Jesse?”

“I don’t know,” I said after hugging my legs tighter.

“Jesse, I’d like us to take a break.” I was about to protest, but she gestured to the other side of her office. “Water? Juice?”

After some hesitation, I asked: “What kind of juice?”

That made her smile. “I have cran-apple and cran-grape, or plain cranberry.”

I rolled my chin over my knee as I tilted my head in confusion, and asked: “Cranberry?”

“Sorry, yes, I have an infection that needs to be regularly flushed out. Cranberry juice does the trick.” I didn’t quite understand, but I also wasn’t going to embarrass Mrs. Vase if she wasn’t willing to divulge the details.

“I’ll try cranberry,” I said while straightening myself back out on the couch with my feet placed back on the floor.

“You’ve never tried it?” She stood up from her chair, as I silently shook my head in response, and she walked to a small fridge tucked away between a tall black cabinet and a standing gallon water dispenser. “I’ll give you half a cup. If you want more, just ask.”

“Okay,” I said as I watched her open the fridge.

There were a number of bottled drinks in there. Some were not in their original containers… at least, I thought so. Each identically clear bottle wasn’t labeled, but had a different colored juice in them. I even saw an orange one!

To let her know what I spotted, I asked: “You have orange juice?”

“No. No, no, that’s not what you think it is.” Mrs. Vase immediately pushed that bottle to the back of her fridge. Closing the fridge up, she appeared sheepish when returning with a bottle of cranberry juice for herself and pouring half a cup for me.

I took the offered juice, but I asked: “If it’s not orange juice, what is it?”

“Sometimes I need to unwind.” I didn’t understand, and I think she realized that with the look I gave her. She bit her bottom lip, and looked back at the fridge for a moment, then shook her head before saying, “Keep it a secret?”

Now sitting perfectly straight and still, I smiled and said, “Sure!”

“Adults call it a screwdriver.” That deserved a puzzling look from me and she clarified simply the most important aspect behind the weird name. “That means there is alcohol in the orange juice.” After she said that, I held my mouth open to say something, but I couldn’t think of what to respond with. She said, “Keep it a secret. Okay?”

Then I responded: “Okay.” And before I had sipped the juice, I said, “Thank you, Mrs. Vase.”

“You’re welcome, Jesse.” As she sat back in her seat, she asked: “Good?”

“Mhm,” I sipped again in response to her asking me about the juice.

Looking relieved, she also asked: “Feel a little better?” And I gave her the same response. “Would you like more?”

“Sure.”

“You know…” Mrs. Vase looked down at her bottle, then back to me, and said, “Most boys your age don’t behave as well as you do.”

Looking down in my cup, I asked: “That is a good thing, right?”

“For boys and girls, yes, it is.” When she didn’t say anymore, I looked up and saw her gaze had shifted away from me to the written down notes on her notebook. She eventually returned her attention to me, and smiled, then asked: “Would you like a refill?”

“Yes, please.” As she stood back up, I held my cup out for her to pour more juice in. “Thank you.”

“The way you talk,” before I could take another sip, I paid attention to her speaking over me. “Could you talk this way when we resume?”

“I won’t sound smart,” she smirked at me in response to what I said. “Shouldn’t I appear intelligent when they read your report on me?”

She leaned down to cover my eyes with her hand, only for a second, and smoothed back my hanging hair out of my vision for me. In a soft voice to me, she said, “Jesse, you are a bright child, but the board would find some of what you said to be confusing.”

“So I have to dumb it down for them?” What I said made her laugh.

“Yes. Yes, please, dumb it down for them.” She laughed a little more before returning to her seat.

“...But they’ll believe me, right?” In response, she held up her notebook.

And she said, “That’s why we need to be plain and simple.”

Despite my age, I felt a little dissatisfied having to sound like a kid. I asked: “Have I been using any words incorrectly?”

“Hum… I’ll look,” she said and did so in her notebook. After a couple of minutes, she looked back at me and said, “Some, but the board have enough sense to get the gist of what you meant.”

“Oh,” I wasn’t dissatisfied anymore, but rather disappointed I’d had said something wrong. “I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about.” She took a drink from the bottle before she said more. “You are trying. That is commendable.”

“I… I try. I’ve always tried…”

But apparently the phone conversation was a bust for regaining my permit for recess. I don’t remember that night very well because of what my mother could do. After this incident, I began to take into account the missing gaps in my memory. But anyways, my mom was furious over being hung up on and she was scary when upset. My memory was being forced to forget what I had heard… what I had seen.

If I was talking with someone or overheard people speaking with one another during a memory gap, I could work out lines of the conversations if there were similar phrases to trigger their emergences. Very rarely would I remember something I had seen. That might account for why that night wasn’t entirely forgotten, but too muddled for me to remember clearly: all of it happened in our home. There were a lot of imagery to spark my memory back into the right gear.

But back to what happened that night...

 

[mrsimple]

Spoiler

After the phone conversation had ended, I only remember running upstairs, trying to flee into my room. My sister, Claire, had blocked my path and told me to go back downstairs. Claire didn’t want our mother coming upstairs when she was like… like… she was dangerous when angry.

I did remember one thing Claire told me before being shoved back toward the stairs, “Take one for the team.” And I walked down, otherwise she would have had me pushed falling down the stairs.

Walking. That was all I remembered after that. I walked down to see Mom, but there was no memory of what happened after I did see her. I just knew I was terrified to the point I was sobbing uncontrollably before I took my last step off the stairs.

That was it. No more memorable slideshows of that night.

As for the next day, that was remembered, and a different battle between Mom and Mr. Long. Mom silently drove me to school that day, and I supposed I kept my silence too, at least until the confrontation with Mr. Long.

Strangely enough, we’d arrived and no one was about outside or in the building. When I thought that maybe we missed something, like school being canceled, I had been about to bring the subject up with my mom, but she instantly pressed a lone finger down upon my lips to hush me. After I quietly nodded -- at least I thought I’d agreeably bobbed my head -- she used that same finger to direct my attention in pointing into my classroom.

With the exception of the teacher of the moment, the class was empty. My mother and I had entered, with me sidling along the wall to keep out of the crossfire, and my teacher taking notice of us when my mother closed the classroom door. Mr. Long stood up from his desk, perhaps readying to speak his mind about what he’d thought of the two of us, but his voice cracked. Then came out in a little wheeze.

Expecting some clash between the two, I stood back, and kept an eye on my mother. Something told me she was responsible for how my teacher was behaving funny. Instead of a shouting match, much like how the conversation over the phone had gone, this incident took on a new form of parent teacher retaliation.

Cupping her hand behind her ear, she leaned forward for better hearing. With her other hand, she had gestured with a hooking index finger for my teacher to come closer. And surprisingly enough, he complied and walked toward her. Nothing strange about that…

Not until I had ended my surveillance over my mother that I caught Mr. Long had lost a foot of height. Then another, and another with each step he took costing him his stature. By the time he reasoned out something was wrong, probably by how his perception of everything dramatically changed to look higher and bigger, he had already been struck down to size to the point he was shorter than me.

Since he stopped coming to us, my mom relented her location and closed in on him. She leaned down to slur a whisper, which I thought was a good bit of advice. Loud enough for him and me to hear, she said, “Pick on someone your own size.”

Needless to say, the teacher was fucked.

My mother left us alone together. I supposed she wanted me to do something with him. Mr. Long was absolutely terrified of the two of us. Me, towering over him, and my mother with what we could’ve done in that moment of vengeance. Either of us could have kicked him like a sports ball and knew he’d be done for life, if he’d survived.

Now it was just him and me.

But I was enthralled by the fact magic existed. I didn’t care anymore about my teacher, recess, or my terrible writing. The thought, ’Magic is real!’ took all priority over all else in my mind.

Because of my enthusiasm of discovering magic, I didn’t stay in class for long and chased down my mother before she left. I thought I had seen her exit the double doors leading outside, but once I was out there: nothing. No Mom, car, or even a sign of life. I had no one to ask if they’d seen my mother.

Also for the record, Mr. Long was given his height back -- give or take a few inches. Right after I had been about to go back inside my school, he ran out, gave me a wide berth, and ran for the parking lot. Soon after that week, our class hadn’t seen him for so long that we’d believed he had quit his job.

Nobody ever mentioned seeing or hearing from him again.

On the brighter side of that incident, once I had cleared my initial shock of the day, I had a few questions on my mind. One was a frightening and confusing one, ’Why didn’t Mr. Long report this?’ The second being a bit more exciting, ’Can I learn magic?’ Then the third had me wondering about my sister and others, ’Does everyone else in the family know magic is real and are they using it?’

What I should’ve been asking myself was if any of that magic was being used responsibly. Mr. Long’s experience should’ve been a warning to me. He did return to normal, give or take a couple of inches, but that experience alone had been enough to send him running for the hills.

Later that day, as I was returning home, I had thought of the many questions that had been stacking up and prioritized for when I would interrogate my magical mother. As before, I was excited about the entire concept of the many possibilities laid out before me.

But all of my questions were rendered useless. My mom was waiting for me outside the front door.

To describe what I had seen, so all would know how I felt as I returned home, I would have to envision the sight as I walked closer and closer, across the lawn, to the front porch, in front of my tall mom just sitting and waiting for me to come to her. And I gave my mother a hug, thanked her for what she did, and told her I loved her… but I couldn’t remember what happened after.

Just as the night before, my memory was gone. All she had to do was glance down in my direction and any thought I had became blank.

Those questions I had never passed from my lips.

Breaking away from the hug was difficult. She never wrapped her arms around me, so I couldn’t explain why I had trouble disentangling myself from her. I had a good look at my mother, to figure out the mystery of why I was so glued to her.

That was another disturbing feature of my spaced out moments: I never could recollect what my mom looked like. With magic being in the bag, I figured it was due to some hocus pocus trick she had going on. My theory for that was hinted at with Mr. Long’s height adjustment. If someone were to witness her in the act, and she didn’t spot them peepers first, then she’d at least be unrecognizable.

Only when I was in her presence… well, I just knew she was my mother. Not recognition, or belief, but good and honest knowing that was my one and only mom. That could’ve been another enchantment she had on herself, and I wished I could ask her about it, but I couldn’t.

Whatever spell she continued to cast one me, to rid me of any thoughts on talking about magic, worked wonders. I never once brought up the magic word around her or our family. Since that day at school, I wasn’t sure if that had been the only memory of the arcane being displayed in front of me or not.

For all I knew, I could’ve been subjected to many mind bending instances in my childhood.

Only once was I ever excited about magic. Every other example of magic I’d experienced had put fear into me. And my experiences only became worse, but that was no longer because of my mother.

My sister, Claire…

 

[Yorda]

So here's another one. Lemme know if ya want me to continue with these or quit it. I really do have a lot of unpublished and unfinished works. And, again, I'll have to post twice to fit this all in. Sorry...

Spoiler

Bewitching Mother

Chapter 1: The One Who Shall Not be Named

“’Magic is real,’ was what I excitedly thought the first time I laid eyes on the vindictive performance my mother had done,” I quietly said to Mrs. Vase. “During some course over the years, I’d picked up that the art of witchcraft could be amplified and extended, with a signed contract on the correct credentials, all to not require pots, stews, somatic incantations, and all that wickedly boring stuff.” I waited a moment to see if she’d ask me anything about that, but so far nothing. I kept talking. “That would’ve explained why all my mother had needed was to look at someone and they were bewitched --”

“Your mother,” I stopped talking to listen to Mrs. Vase. “Would you tell me about her?”

I nodded, sat back more comfortably on the cushy couch, and explained: “My first conclusion was that we were a family of witches, like my elder sister claimed to be. For the longest time, I had thought that to be the case for our family. For my sister, some of my cousins, and a few aunts, yes, that was the case. For better, and for worse, I had made those discoveries --”

“Jesse, I asked about your mother,” I had shut up, realized I wasn’t looking at her and hurriedly did look her way to make up for that disrespect, and nodded in response.

While I was staring at Mrs. Vase, I had to wonder if her hair was red or brown. Her hair was in a small ponytail, which I supposed made her hair fall only down to her slim shoulders. There was an interesting flutter in her shorter bangs, waved to the left side of her face, that permitted me a closer look at the roots.

A darker color. So I thought, ’Maybe her hair is brown, but lightens up in the sun?’

She did have a nice dark tan for me to believe she had an outdoor life. And her sleeveless one piece dress, a blended red with black straps over her shoulder, gave me a display of her bare arms and legs. Not fully bare legs, but… the skirt hugged her thighs, and everything below the knee was exposed, which allowed me to get an idea how well she kept herself in shape.

I thought, ’Maybe she likes to go jogging?’ That would explain the short ponytail. But her outstanding figure didn’t interest me. I just thought her hair was interesting…

“Jesse?” Having snapped out of it, I nodded in response to her. “Were you --” I caught her gaze drift down for a second, glancing at her fit body, but she shook her head and said, “Never mind. You were going to tell me about your mother?”

With a smile, I nodded again and tried speaking about my mother. “But my mother wasn’t a witch. What she was… well…”

Mrs. Vase sighing had stopped me from trying to talk about my mother. Instead, she asked: “Okay. You sound happy when you bring up magic.” Once I nodded, she flipped the page in her notebook and readied her pen. “Jesse, go ahead and tell me.”

I nearly shouted: “Anyways, the first time encountering magic!” Wincing a bit, I bobbed my head done and gave her an apologetic look before quietly continuing. “That first time was the only incident that gave me an incredibly overwhelmed sense of joy about the existence of magic. The discovery was akin to opening a door to a world of possibilities that were once imagined impossible.”

“When was that?” Hearing her ask me that, I paused to recollect how long ago it was I first learned of magic. That was a difficult question to answer with so many gaps in my memory.

Instead of directly answering her, I brought up my earliest event of encountering magic. “Back then, how magic worked was beyond me, but I learned from the little puzzling clues I picked up on the way until… well, something bad happened to me, and it became worse, but everything ended in a way that broke the laws of magic.”

“What happened?” She asked me that as she was scribbling in her notebook, which was good for her and me…

...So I felt the confidence to continue. “Ever since I started the first grade, I must have frustrated my teacher, Mr. Long, because he had been keeping indoors when everyone else enjoyed recess.” My attention was across from our seats, to where Mrs. Vase wrote in her notebook. “The issue was I had trouble with writing, it wasn’t chicken scratch, but it was hard to read, so he had me writing the absolute dumbest things.”

“May I ask what he had you write?” Her pen was held up, hovering over the notebook, readied to write the next thing I had to say down on paper.

Realizing I had stopped smiling, I smiled again and answered: “Like, for example, my name: Jesse. I lost count how many sheets of lined paper were tossed out with the graphite wall of ’Jesse’s’ darkening their fronts and backs.”

“Jesse, are you aware of your manner of speech?” Glancing at her, down at her notebook, and back at her, I just nodded.

“I know. You are writing exactly what I am saying.” I was aware of my smile faltering as I said, “I want to be remembered being smart.”

“You are a bright child. Coming to see me was a smart thing to do.” I simply nodded to that praise. She asked: “Would you like to take a small break?” I silently shook my head. “Okay, Jesse, keep going.”

“...” I paused and tried to remember where I was.

Mrs. Vase assisted my memory. “Mr. Long. He kept you indoors, writing --”

“And he was the kind of guy who believed in practice makes perfect.” I remembered now, and resumed my therapy. “So instead of exercising the cafeteria meal, and all of that energy from sitting around all day, out of my system, like everyone else was gladly doing, I was kept to scribble away my fun time inside his classroom until I had something he could actually read without squinting at the paper.”

“That sounds like he was bullying you. Did he have something against you or your family?” I shook my head. “Was he a nice man?” No response from me there, because I couldn’t remember what the man was like.

Instead of answering her the way she wanted, I tried explaining a memory I had of what he did. “After a few months, during the first big fall of snow, I had watched from my seat by the class window as all my classmates created snowmen -- or tried to with giant rolled up snowballs.” I held my hands up and showed her our size differences between an adult, her, and a kid, me. “You know what I mean, right?” She smiled and nodded, which I pointed out and said, “Or they’d laughed or cried with glee in their midst of a snowball fight.” I remembered how much fun everyone from school had at recess. All but me. “At home, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy this because of where we lived. Our family wanted privacy and settled with a house outside of any known neighborhood.”

“What town?” She asked, but I didn’t know how to answer that. “This town? Do you know where you live?”

“Home. I live at home.” The way she looked at me with my response had me wondering if I had said the wrong thing. “In a house.”

Mrs. Vase smiled and shook her head. “It is okay. We can come back to that at a later time.” Flipping her notebook around, she wrote down something before returning to the upright and correct page we were on before making a special note. “What was your mother’s opinion about how Mr. Long treated you?”

That almost made me laugh. “At first, when I told my mother that I was always missing recess to do extra school work, she didn’t believe me.” I stopped laughing and thought for a moment on why I had thought that was funny.

“Jesse?” Not to be distracted, I had ignored her for me to remember what had triggered that laughter. “Jesse? Jesse, can you -- okay, I think we should take a break.”

“No,” I immediately had said, and apologized: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, I was… I tried.”

When I felt my eyes begin to burn, I instantly shut them. Facing away from Mrs. Vase may have been rude of me, but I didn’t want her to see my tears of frustration. She would mistake it for something else…

I resumed on what I could remember. “There was disbelief about a grown man, who had obtained a career for being mature enough to practically help raise and teach a classroom full of children every year.” Raising my arm up, I wiped the tears quickly away, and as I said, “The idea was ludicrous that he’d pick on a small kid -- I wasn’t short stuff, but compared to my mother who stood over six feet, I was small in comparison.”

“She’s… your mother is over six feet?” Blinking my eyes clear, I was shocked to have said that. Very slowly, I nodded. “Is the rest of your family tall?”

“No,” I said, but immediately shook my head and corrected myself. “We are not all tall, a couple of uncles are really big, but… did I really say that?”

“Yes, Jesse. You said your mother is over six feet tall.” After being confirmed I said that, I nodded once more. “Are you certain you wish to continue?”

“Yes,” I said, and then pleaded: “Please?”

“Jesse, let’s take a small break from your mother.” I was a bit confused about that, but then she explained: “Could you tell me what you thought of Mr. Long? You said, your mother didn’t believe you. What was your impression?”

I asked: “For the record?” And she nodded, got her pen readied for more of my words, and I answered: “I didn’t believe Mr. Long was picking on me, but genuinely trying to improve my writing.” I shook my head at the memory of my delicate labor. “But I wasn’t improving, and I thought my teacher was keeping me from going outside on purpose.” After reflecting on what I just said, I didn’t believe I made myself clear, so I elaborated: “He was doing it on purpose, but not with malicious intent. You know what I mean, right?”

Mrs. Vase paused her hand and softly nodded. “Yes, I understand. It resembles the same circumstances of why I have sent my recommendation to remove you from your school.”

I wasn’t aware of that, and cried out as much. “I came to you! I wanted help...” Taking a timeout, I composed myself before my trembling caused my resolve to crack. When I was better, having thought over what she had said, I asked: “Can’t I go back?”

“Yes, Jesse, you can after a couple of days when I’ve confirmed you are able.” That had meant I would be at home. She added: “I assure you -- Jesse?” I sat up straighter, setting my hands down to be crossed over each other upon the top of my thighs, and gave her a smile. “Just checking. Jesse, I’ll make certain you won’t have to repeat the fifth grade.”

The thought of repeating a year did fill me with dread, so I was relieved that Mrs. Vase was ensuring I wouldn’t be at risk of that happening. I didn’t want to disappoint my mother.

Drawing my legs up on the couch, I hugged my knees close against me, rested my chin while I had wiped the smile off of my face, and I thought about what I’d do in the meantime at home. Then I wondered, ’What did I do at home? What was I doing during summer?’

Right now, I only had the memories of the subject we’d been discussing. Without being asked to continue, I said, “I was a kid and I told on him.”

“Mr. Long?” From over the top of my knees, I gave her an affirmative smile.

Then I dropped my smile. I continued to talk about what I had said and done. “Mom didn’t believe me. I asked her to call the school if she didn’t believe me… I think she might’ve started believing me then.” Closing my eyes, I tried hard to focus on how my mother reacted, but I couldn’t picture it. I just continued: “And after my mother called, I don’t know how, but she obtained Mr. Long’s house phone number.” I shrugged at Mrs. Vase and said, “She called him up to confirm my story, and she was appalled for two or more reasons. I only knew the two, because while on the phone with my teacher, I lost… I can’t remember all of what she said. What I do remember was she slurred the words “selectively targeting” and “ostracizing.” I supposed that was what he was doing, I was narrowed down to one pick from all the other children at school --”

“Was that the impression you received from their conversation or how you perceived Mr. Long treated you?” She surprised me with that question and I didn’t know how to answer, so I remained quiet. “Jesse?”

“I don’t know,” I said after hugging my legs tighter.

“Jesse, I’d like us to take a break.” I was about to protest, but she gestured to the other side of her office. “Water? Juice?”

After some hesitation, I asked: “What kind of juice?”

That made her smile. “I have cran-apple and cran-grape, or plain cranberry.”

I rolled my chin over my knee as I tilted my head in confusion, and asked: “Cranberry?”

“Sorry, yes, I have an infection that needs to be regularly flushed out. Cranberry juice does the trick.” I didn’t quite understand, but I also wasn’t going to embarrass Mrs. Vase if she wasn’t willing to divulge the details.

“I’ll try cranberry,” I said while straightening myself back out on the couch with my feet placed back on the floor.

“You’ve never tried it?” She stood up from her chair, as I silently shook my head in response, and she walked to a small fridge tucked away between a tall black cabinet and a standing gallon water dispenser. “I’ll give you half a cup. If you want more, just ask.”

“Okay,” I said as I watched her open the fridge.

There were a number of bottled drinks in there. Some were not in their original containers… at least, I thought so. Each identically clear bottle wasn’t labeled, but had a different colored juice in them. I even saw an orange one!

To let her know what I spotted, I asked: “You have orange juice?”

“No. No, no, that’s not what you think it is.” Mrs. Vase immediately pushed that bottle to the back of her fridge. Closing the fridge up, she appeared sheepish when returning with a bottle of cranberry juice for herself and pouring half a cup for me.

I took the offered juice, but I asked: “If it’s not orange juice, what is it?”

“Sometimes I need to unwind.” I didn’t understand, and I think she realized that with the look I gave her. She bit her bottom lip, and looked back at the fridge for a moment, then shook her head before saying, “Keep it a secret?”

Now sitting perfectly straight and still, I smiled and said, “Sure!”

“Adults call it a screwdriver.” That deserved a puzzling look from me and she clarified simply the most important aspect behind the weird name. “That means there is alcohol in the orange juice.” After she said that, I held my mouth open to say something, but I couldn’t think of what to respond with. She said, “Keep it a secret. Okay?”

Then I responded: “Okay.” And before I had sipped the juice, I said, “Thank you, Mrs. Vase.”

“You’re welcome, Jesse.” As she sat back in her seat, she asked: “Good?”

“Mhm,” I sipped again in response to her asking me about the juice.

Looking relieved, she also asked: “Feel a little better?” And I gave her the same response. “Would you like more?”

“Sure.”

“You know…” Mrs. Vase looked down at her bottle, then back to me, and said, “Most boys your age don’t behave as well as you do.”

Looking down in my cup, I asked: “That is a good thing, right?”

“For boys and girls, yes, it is.” When she didn’t say anymore, I looked up and saw her gaze had shifted away from me to the written down notes on her notebook. She eventually returned her attention to me, and smiled, then asked: “Would you like a refill?”

“Yes, please.” As she stood back up, I held my cup out for her to pour more juice in. “Thank you.”

“The way you talk,” before I could take another sip, I paid attention to her speaking over me. “Could you talk this way when we resume?”

“I won’t sound smart,” she smirked at me in response to what I said. “Shouldn’t I appear intelligent when they read your report on me?”

She leaned down to cover my eyes with her hand, only for a second, and smoothed back my hanging hair out of my vision for me. In a soft voice to me, she said, “Jesse, you are a bright child, but the board would find some of what you said to be confusing.”

“So I have to dumb it down for them?” What I said made her laugh.

“Yes. Yes, please, dumb it down for them.” She laughed a little more before returning to her seat.

“...But they’ll believe me, right?” In response, she held up her notebook.

And she said, “That’s why we need to be plain and simple.”

Despite my age, I felt a little dissatisfied having to sound like a kid. I asked: “Have I been using any words incorrectly?”

“Hum… I’ll look,” she said and did so in her notebook. After a couple of minutes, she looked back at me and said, “Some, but the board have enough sense to get the gist of what you meant.”

“Oh,” I wasn’t dissatisfied anymore, but rather disappointed I’d had said something wrong. “I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about.” She took a drink from the bottle before she said more. “You are trying. That is commendable.”

“I… I try. I’ve always tried…”

But apparently the phone conversation was a bust for regaining my permit for recess. I don’t remember that night very well because of what my mother could do. After this incident, I began to take into account the missing gaps in my memory. But anyways, my mom was furious over being hung up on and she was scary when upset. My memory was being forced to forget what I had heard… what I had seen.

If I was talking with someone or overheard people speaking with one another during a memory gap, I could work out lines of the conversations if there were similar phrases to trigger their emergences. Very rarely would I remember something I had seen. That might account for why that night wasn’t entirely forgotten, but too muddled for me to remember clearly: all of it happened in our home. There were a lot of imagery to spark my memory back into the right gear.

But back to what happened that night...

It's great, but you shouldn't feel the need to post for me. It's for you and your stories! This is a lot of content to read through. Maybe you should try putting little synopses at the top before the chapter spoilers. I now have more content on all of the threads I made than I can read. I'm happy!
Just because these stories likely won't ever be written doesn't mean that they aren't really fun and interesting! I absolutely love reading all these ideas. Here is the perfect place for authors to still share their stories with minimal time commitment to writing them. It's like writing, but way lazier and still really fun.

 

[AryaX]

Man living in a mental asylum dreams and fantasizes about being a horny succubus in a fantasy world, and a little girl in a fantasy world has dreams of being the pervy guy in the mental asylum... As the story progresses, the girl befriends, seduces and corrupts a god, while on the other side, the mental asylum gradually turns into something more of a hentai asylum as well, with doctors and nurses eventually wearing kinky latex outfits...

The man gets into a sort of bdsm relationship with his ultra hot doctor lady, while on the fantasy world side, the relationship between the girl and the god, gradually turn towards the same as well... Eventually, on the fantasy side, the god creates a magical slave collar, to control the increasingly pervy nature of the girl, or perhaps because he is turning a bit pervy him self, while on the loony side, the doctor turns up at her office, dresses up in a dominatrix outfit, and gives the guy a slave collar as well... And then... They end up having sex...

Afterwards the guy wakes up and finds him self in the fantasy world, having not only become the girl, but she have also fully turned into a succubus...
The god on the other hand, lost his manhood as a result of having sex with a succubus, and ended up turning into the hot doctor/goddess... And its the doctor/goddess, who is bound and gagged and wearing the slave collar... Which the girl actually tricked the god into making, and now thanks to it, the goddess is forever bound as her slave... The little devil promises that she will learn to love it, at which the goddess can only squirm and moan, but thanks to her mistress training, eventually she does and they live happily ever after, spreading a new religion of yuri and lewdness across the world...

Or perhaps... the guy is still in the mental asylum and have lost his grip on reality...

 

[ShrimpShady]

A dude moves back into his hometown and is visited by a succubus. One thing led to another and he accidentally turns the succubus into his familiar and he has no idea how to undo the contract. He eventually comes to the conclusion that the only way to free the succubus is by helping her transcend into a higher being powerful enough to forcefully break the familiar contract between herself and the dude.

The guy then goes about solving all sorts of supernatural problems while building a cult around this succubus, eventually convincing more and more people that he is some sort of modern prophet and that this succubus is some sort of goddess. Hilarity ensues.

Pretty dumb, I know. That's why it never got past the drawing board.

 

[mrsimple]

It's great, but you shouldn't feel the need to post for me. It's for you and your stories! This is a lot of content to read through. Maybe you should try putting little synopses at the top before the chapter spoilers. I now have more content on all of the threads I made than I can read. I'm happy!
Just because these stories likely won't ever be written doesn't mean that they aren't really fun and interesting! I absolutely love reading all these ideas. Here is the perfect place for authors to still share their stories with minimal time commitment to writing them. It's like writing, but way lazier and still really fun.

That looks like a really good idea. I'll go back and edit in something to describe them in short detail and hence forth do so. Thank ya.

This one is short because it's nothing more than a detailed setup. I had intended to write it, but when I fell asleep and woke up, I forgot how to go about it. I remembered that it was going to be following several POVs, each with their own chapter, and be a lengthy novel. Well, like I mentioned, it's short, so I'll spoiler it, but that might not be as necessary as the others had needed.

Short synopsis: In a medieval fantasy, a tired and frustrated king attempts to resolve the feud between two great houses with an arranged marriage. The proposal gets complicated when the two lords defy the king and engage each other in battle. And the situation goes from bad to worse when the sheltered bride is caught in the raging crossfire.

Spoiler

Accord

House Welf
Ro Welf - Known as the Young Welf Lord. An eighteen year old heir.
- An attractive youth.
- Cold steel-blue eyes.
- Red hair with blonde highlights.
- Light skinned.
Edda Welf - Known as the Delicate Flower. A fourteen year old heiress.
- A beautiful damsel.
- Dark depths of the ocean blue.
- Red hair with blonde highlights.
- Fair skinned.

Cambria - TBA

Dalmar - TBA


First chapter: Young Lord Welf - A council meeting with message of peace in exchange for Lady Eddela’s hand in marriage to the Lord of Dalmar. King of Cambria is tired of the bloodshed. Council meeting ends with all in agreement to meet and negotiate further on the marriage alliance. Young Lord Ro Welf disagrees and performs treason by sneaking out a sizeable force to ambush Lord of Dalmar.


Second chapter: Lord of Dalmar - The Lord enjoys the moment of peace as a well deserved victory. Looks forward to having the Delicate Welf Flower as his wife. Sees the potential in having a Welf stabilizing the countryside. A surprise assault alarms everyone. Learns the Young Lord Welf is leading the assault. Lord of Dalmar can’t waste the opportunity to kill the only individual with a rightful claim to Dalmar.


Third chapter: King of Cambria - Upon waking, hears of the battle that had occurred not far from his own doorsteps. Assembles a force of intimidating size, but of speed to quickly end the bloodshed before the day worsens. Delicate Welf Flower wishes to leave the Garden and accompany the King. King outright refuses, but Eddela will not take no for an answer. She wishes to see her brother, reasons that if her brother had performed treason, who else would he listen to? King accepts, only under the conditions she is accompanied by an escort at all times and wears special armor to secretly encourage discomfort and desire to return to the Garden.


Fourth chapter: Delicate Welf Flower - Takes in the sight of death and carnage over the field after the battle had been won. Young Lord Welf had gained a great victory by slaying the Lord of Dalmar with his own venom-lathed blade. Brother is not well, injured badly from his fight with the Lord of Dalmar, and may also be dying. Eddela beseeches the King to pardon her brother while he still lives. King refuses and calls her brother an outlaw for ruining the opportunity of peace. Young Lord of Dalmar lives and would now have rightful claim to Dalmar with Ro dying. Eddela suggests a new marriage, if her brother is to be outlawed, then the King had no involvement with this attack. King agrees to speak with the Young Lord of Dalmar and see what can be done.


Fifth chapter: Heir of Dalmar - Hearing an incomplete and bias account of the Lord of Dalmar falling in battle by poison, the inheritor of Dalmar, seeks to avenge his father against the treacherous Welf. Splitting into many smaller groups, the paths to and from the Cambrian hold and the infamous battlefield are laid with ambush parties. Laying in wait, the young inheritor spots a party that had to be escorting the one and only Welf lord. From afar, he couldn't be certain that truly was the Welf lord sitting sanguinely upon a white mare, but the former banner of House Welf was enough to confirm their identity. Now was the time to bring justice towards the one responsible for his father's death. Setting off the ambush, knightly guards fall left and right to a hail of arrows. The young Dalmar lord shouts a challenge, but he witnesses instead the cowardly Welf lord turn and gallop in retreat. Taking a shot, he aimed and loosed his vengeance into the back of the fleeing Welf. The high pitched scream he heard from his target stunned him long enough to miss the opportunity to hurry after and claim the Welf's head; the following Cambrian retinue arrived to intervene. Dalmar's forces fall back.


Sixth chapter: Mind and Body - With the accidental assassination of the Delicate Welf Flower, the King of Cambria was at a loss on how to salvage the twice-arranged peace. The news that arrived to the battlefield was that young Lord of Dalmar had avenged his father, shot down the Welf lord in the back, running from a supposed duel. The truth was the young Welf lord was incapacitated, practically in a sate of death, before such an event took place. The mind and soul of the young lord still functioned, but the venom coursing through the boy's body caused a premature decomposition; necrosis. The people of Dalmar and Welf would never be unified, their hostilities pacified, if there were no heads to lead them towards that peace. That was until the court wizard suggested healing the once fatal wound of the girl and placing the still vigorous soul of the boy within the now empty vessel. Oddly, peace still had a chance...


Seventh chapter: TBA

 

[EstelleM022]

I had the summary written out but I forgot somethings of what I had planned with this.
~
Millim Garner was infatuated with the Campus Prince of Star University, Noah Ardent alias 'N'. Until she accidentally stumbles upon an incident where she finds out the Prince was actually a wolf in disguise. After her infatuation died down she gets called out by him and he's asking for a date?! No way, I'm going to be a roasted bunny after this!
~
The only thing I could remember when I was writing it out is:

Spoiler: The Plot I remember

•ML gets rejected by MC and starts stalking her.
•Rather than a Wolf ML is more of a Puppy when MC is involved.
•When they get together Female Rival tries to break them up but falls in love with MC's older brother.
•MC is actually a killer bunny.
•MC's brother is against MC and ML's relationship and tries to use Female Rival to break them up but it backfires.
•This has fashion designing aspect to this story. It involves Handsome ML getting half naked and MC drooling.

I couldn't remember what I had planned for the incident that caused MC losing her infatuation to ML.

 

[taesijr123]

I once wrote a shitty story about a smith/warrior that went back in time.
Unfortunately I couldn't finish it nor do I feel like finishing it.

 

[Yorda]

I once wrote a story about a world that existed in a pocket dimension that was slowly running out of power to generate sunlight and heat. My main character reincarnated, but suffered from terrible visions that everyone and everything was going to die and freeze to death in the dark in the future. The only way to avoid this was to go to a temple in the mountains, which was actually just some kind of ancient technology spaceship, and phase out of the pocket dimension and phase in with another world to survive. The spaceship was like the origin of all life on that world, a sort of crashed Noah's Ark. Technology was lost over thousands of years after the death of the first few generations of survivors. Unfortunately, anyone not on the spaceship would die since they would eternally remain frozen in the dead world, which means that the world would only have a few survivors. The survivors would arrive in another world, but would be outsiders and have to fight to survive against other hostile races and beasts. They no longer had any functioning technology, their numbers were depleted, and their resources were scarce. There were absolutely no humans in my story.

 

[Caffeine]

Vendel Grace was a man of routine. Wake up, go to work, avoid his shady coworkers and even shadier boss, and then go back home to a messy, but ultimately lonely apartment.

Rinni was a normal girl. She had friends. Went to school. Heck, she even had a crush she was planning to confess to. All that was taken away when her mother committed suicide died in a car crash ran away. Her father becomes a dangerous alcoholic, gets fired, and eventually has to sell their house and move into a dangerous part of town. All of this while his naive daughter blames herself for her mother's death disappearance.

Both of them learn of the existence of 'magic' when Rinni gets lost taking a walk around her new neighborhood, and runs into an unsavory group of people intent on robbing her. Vendel runs in to save her, but he's too late, only managing to distract them for a moment. Rinni 'accidentally' kills her assailants and faints. Vendel takes her home and nurses her back to health. They go on adventures, learn about magic, and both eventually overcome past trauma and become better people. The rest... is when I started developing the magic system instead of any plot (aside from the end).

Spoiler: Magic System, longer and more complex than any story I've ever thought up

So the magic here works in two layers. First is Unlocking the magic. Which requires a traumatic event to occur for the person. In this case, Rinni losing her mother, losing her father (in a way), losing her life, topped by getting surrounded and intimidated by a group of scary people in a scary place is enough to do the job. Experiencing a trauma unlocks a Demon, which is associated with a 'negative' emotion and increase their tendency to feel that emotion. Rinni's demon is Obsession, in which she becomes obsessed to a certain thing. In her case it's Vendel, because him rushing to save her is the last thing she sees before activating her magic (more on that later). After unlocking a Demon, a Mage has to experience an extremely happy event to unlock the next stage of magic, their Angel. Which corresponds to another, more positive emotion. You cannot unlock an Angel without first having unlocked a Demon. Problem is, due to the requirements of unlocking them, most people who obtain their demons give themselves in to the emotion entirely and never get a chance to unlock their Angels, leading to a negative outlook on magic and organizations intent on hunting down magic users.

Unlocking a Demon or Angel will also unlock a 'first stage' magic, which is attuned to one of the Elements. There are four elements accessible to humans. Wind, Fire, Water, and Lightning. There is also a fifth element that can only be used by animals to create Dungeons, and is thus rarer. BUT, the Elements here don't work like 'firebending' or 'fire-attunement'. Each element has their own properties.

Fire is the most common element. It tends to 'fuel' the emotion that their Demon is attuned to, and depending on the emotion, create different effects. For the Obsession demon, everything 'burns away' as 'fuel' to completing a goal. This leads to a gap in memories and emotional burnout afterwards, but the user becomes superhuman for the duration the magic is cast. Other Fire Magics have similar effects. Another example includes burning away at the will of your opponent (aka intimidation).

Water is second most common. It correlates to the creation or manipulation of physical reality. In other words, it is the most 'magic-y' of the elements. Summoning a sword out of thin air, any-type-of-element-bending, incantations, magical girl transformations. They're all categorized under the Water element. This is because most of them tend to require fluid movements and/or have visual effects similar to the movements of water.

Wind is the second rarest. It is arguably the most dangerous. This is because it has more subtle effects. Auras are under the category of Wind magic. One (dangerous) example of Wind magic is slowly influencing everyone around you (everyone touched by the 'wind' or 'aura') to believe in whatever you say, regardless of what you're saying. They usually have gradual effects, but are scarier because of it. Cults are usually formed around Wind magic users. Another, less dangerous example is reducing the hostility of anyone in a certain radius around the user.

Lightning is the rarest, and also the most varied. Lightning has the most extreme effects. Time travel? Lightning magic. Deleting things from existence? Lightning magic. Raising the dead? Lightning magic. They all have the visual effects of electricity arcing from the magic user to their target.

The last magic is Earth. Only animals can have this kind of magic. And even then, it's rarer for an animal to unlock magic than a human. Plus, Earth is rarer than Lightning in probability. Monsters of Myth are creatures that used Earth magic. Krakens, Dragons, Hydras. Stuff like that. They manipulate the environment to fit their survival and create Dungeons. Summoning perpetual storms or endless tunnels is Earth magic. Though it's not really endless, more like a spatial anomaly growing over time. It also makes the monsters unable to die via regular means. They have to be killed.

So unlocking a Demon will grant you one 'spell' with one Element, and unlocking an Angel will give you another one. The two have some sort of synergy, so people with Angels are always way stronger than the ones with only Demons.

But all of this magic mumbo-jumbo doesn't matter because the planned ending was...

Spoiler: Warning, do not open if you don't want any negativity or don't like endings

That Vendel speaks to all the friends he's gathered over the course of the story. He details their adventures and exploits in all their magical glory while everyone just gives him a weird look. Rinni especially.

Turns out, he hallucinated everything and has mental problems. The whole magic fiasco? A lie. An elaborate lie made by his hyperactive imagination to fill in the things he doesn't know. Why is this girl sticking to him? It can't be that she's just grateful that he saved her life. The reason she can't remember the incident? It's not like people have suppressed painful memories before. Surely there must be something erasing her memories of the incident. Adrenaline? Psh. His mind says; Here's some magic instead. Oh, your coworkers are being shady? How about you're working in a place that's filled with DEMON LORD CANDIDATES and hey, YOU'RE ONE TOO. At least it'll explain why your life was so shitty (and your name is totally a villain's because it starts with a V and ends with 'Grace' [Remembering Jyu Viole Grace from Tower of God. Thing is, I started reading that after I named him already. Thought it seemed familiar. Now I know why]). Your mother beat you? Your sister works as a w**re? Society as a whole is corrupt and unjust? Surely it's a front for something larger. Oh, and their demons are Rage and Lust respectively. It all makes sense now! If you can't handle becoming a better person without outside influence, I'll make the 'outside influence' for you.

So, erm, yeah. The whole thing's been haunting me for a while now. I have no idea how or why exactly I got the idea, or how on earth it got so dark... I just know that Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san had something to do with it... Yeah, IDK how that happened.

 

[noname007]

An isekai Summoning but the enemy is an abyss world. Human, demon, beastkin, Gods and goddesses are allies vs abyss world and there God.

Mc can create any skill she wants but only one for a week, making her op but getting killed in the middle arc. Making a second book and third.

Reply to me then I'll message you, when you want to know how the story continue. Also GL.

 

[Yorda]

I ate some really bad food, got a stomachache, fell asleep, and had a weird, terrible 3rd person perspective nightmare, which was also really funny. I'll reproduce that nightmare story as a horrible Comedy, LitRPG, Hentai genre synopsis here. I pray this story remains unwritten forever.

Story: Umbilical Embryo (Not a title that I came up with. It was just part of the nightmare and doesn't make sense, but whatever.)

Spoiler

The main character is an airport security officer. He starts shouting, "I'm gonna be a Pokemon Master!" but he was only playing a video game on a tablet. He pushes a button on the tablet and much to his surprise the tablet and room start to give off bright light. He notices underneath his feet that there is a massive magic circle and immediately realizes he is being summoned to another world. Moments later the light pulses and gives off a final flash. The man is disoriented and confused, but he seems to be otherwise fine and still in the airport employee break room. He confusedly looks around, but notices something funny on his face. It's a mask of a mouse. He looks at himself in a mirror and removes the strange mask to reveal a mouse face underneath the mouse mask! He had somehow become a mouseman (The strongest of all beastkin ... not. Cat or lion or something else, but I have never heard of or seen a mouseman beastkin before in a story. Redwall doesn't count.).

He was in a state of complete shock at his brown furred bipedal self in an airport uniform. However, he did not have time to be distracted since other airport security staff thought he was a weirdo and started chasing him. Turns out that his life had changed from normal to being part of a game world where players would fight to become the princess of their dreams. Yes, become the princess of their dreams. As the strongest (weakest shit ever) mouseman he would have to begin his battle where winners become princesses in a hentai game and losers die.

Fortunately for him he somehow managed to change the genre of his heroic adventure saga from hentai to litRPG hentai. By utilizing the new RPG leveling system he was somehow able to perform neither well nor poorly. Also, by pretending to be a medieval mouse in armour cosplayer he was somehow able to avoid being a complete target for law enforcement.

Mouseman LitRPG princess hentai deathmatch.

My advice to everyone is to never ever desire to become a pokemon master and don't eat weird things.

 

[Walk]

So god sends this kid to this world for uh ... reasons. Kid decides to challenge the status quo ... He gathers his posse, runs around the desert doing magic, kicking ass and taking names. Gains fame, a following and lots of money that he donates (I guess). Because the SOB can actually feed an entire crowd on bread and some shrimp ... So why the hell does he need to be liquid? Right? .. and why the hell must he later have an entire table filled with supper ONLY FOR ONE OF HIS BOYS PLAY JUDAS AND HAVE HIM NAILED TO A POST?!!! ... *Huff* *Huff*
.
.
.
Anyway, at some point, some fat, urban Robin Hood factory, slave owner shows up.. and a rabbit that lays eggs ..?

look, I'll sort it out eventually ...

 

[Discount_Blade]

This was a dream that I had when I was 13. No idea what the significance of it was, since I don't remember being a heavier reader than normal. Read more now then I did then. Anyway, begins with me waking up in thia dark room. This girl I didn't know and have never seen before was telling me to get up, we had to go. I didn't know what she meant but I had an instinctive feeling that if I didn't follow her, I'd regret it. I can barely remember anything about the girl. Dark hair, dark eyes. Not pretty or ugly. Kinda plain I guess. She was very persuasive though. I followed her, but noticed these 3 guys chasing us. I asked her who they were, and she said they were with The School. I asked her where or what The School was, and she replied we were in it and we needed to escape it now. In the dream, I didn't recognize the place, but when I woke up, I realized I was literally running around in my local middle school. Weird that. Anyway, me and this girl were running and we finally made it to an exit, these 3 guys chasing us were gaining on us. They seemed faster than normal. Well, one of then managed to get around us and was waiting at the exit. I cant remember how it happened, but the girl ended up getting captured, and I managed to escape out the exit because I abandoned her. I remember her trying to get me to come back and help her but I was like fuck that. Later yo. Yeah I was an asshole in that dream. Anyway I made it into the parking lot in the back and ended up getting attacked by one of those people anyway. Turned into a fight. I remember this guy was super strong. Like he slammed me into a car and I left a dent in the perfect shape of my body. Strong. But I was strong too. Thing was, I was physically stronger than my opponent, but he was more experienced/better trained etc. So he was kicking my ass all over the parking lot. We wrecked dozens of vehicles in the battle. I finally realized that I couldn't win and would be recaptured if I kept fighting so I fled into this extremely fantasy like forest that just so happened to he next to my The School in the dream. In real life, my school is in the middle of Brooklyn so lol....no forest or any trees at all nearby....

Anyway, in the woods, ponds and water in general were orange, trees leaves and limbs were purple. And the rest is fuzzy. At one point I remember a large massive monster sized crow landing on a branch nearby and just staring at me. It didn't attack me, but for some reason I ended up killing it with a rock that I threw with super strength, basically headshotting it like a rifle round. I don't remember what it did, I just remember being extremely angry. I eventually wandered for days and then found a village/town with high walls in the middle of the forest. They refused to let me in. They said something about The School as well but I cant remember. I remember it being important i not mention i came from The School. No idea why since i fled from it and didn't want to be apart of it. And I woke up not long after that. I tried writing a story on it fir a while....got like 50-60 pages in.. I was like 13-14. No idea where the story is though. Probably lost it.