Will someone announce when a new contest begins? I would love to write or draw for it.

 Okay, so this font is going to come up all weird because I copied it from my notes, but this, finally, is the first draft, I repeat, first draft of my story. @Wreeboo please don't judge this, it's not my official story!

Leo frowned at the box in his hands. It was filled with all kinds of clutter that had probably spent 50 years in someone’s attic. He had been working at the Blue Moon Antique shop for a week, and it still confused him. The stuff inside it didn’t. It was just plain old stuff. But the shop itself, and Gloria, the owner of the shop, were anything but plain. Gloria was always talking about impossible things, things that sounded like they had come out of a fairy tale. Leo had figured she was just old, but Amy, who also worked at the shop and was only 14, completely agreed with her.

  He couldn’t help but wonder what in the world they were talking about, and if Amy was legally allowed to work there, since she was not technically an adult.

  Leo sighed and started putting things on shelves. The shelves had all kinds of things on them. Some of them were broken, some were not. He was passing through the jewelry section when something caught his eye. Actually, two things, one of which was a person. Amy. She was staring at an emerald and... Talking to it? Amy was weird, but not that weird. Her back was turned to Leo, so she couldn’t see him. He spoke up to make himself noticed.

  “What are you doing?”

  Amy jumped, turned around, and smiled at Leo.

  “I’m talking to the girl in this necklace,” she said, as if it were perfectly normal.

  “Fine, don’t tell me what you’re doing,” said Leo, frustrated. He started putting things on the shelf across from Amy.

  “Excuse me,” said the distant, annoyed voice of a girl.

  It was Leo’s turn to jump. 

  “Who... Who said that?” 

  Amy smiled again. “Emerald!” She moved out of the way so Leo could see a girl inside the necklace. She was looking indignantly out at Leo and Amy. 

 “I did!” She said angrily. “I am Emerald.”

  “What?” 

  Amy laughed. “Leo, meet Emerald. The princess with a bit of a temper.”

 “I am not a princess!” Emerald said in a voice that told Leo she had had to remind Amy about this multiple times.

 “Right, sorry,” said Amy. Then, after a long, awkward pause, she said, “Um, what are you again?”

  Emerald frowned. “I’m a Fairy Taleling.” 

 “A what?” Asked Leo. 

 “A Fairy Taleling,” said Emerald, as if this was very obvious. “It basically means I’m not a princess in a fairy tale, or a villager, or anything like that. I’m more... In between. There was supposed to be 12. The writer made 13, one of which was an extra, in case he decided he didn’t like any of his Fairy Talelings. But he did like all 12 of them, so he had me locked away in a necklace, which is just great for me.”

  “Oh,” said Leo, still very confused. 

  “Yeah,” said Emerald. “The only way out is this spell, and you need 3 people to do one.”

  Amy perked up all of a sudden. “Hey!” She exclaimed. “How about all 3 of us work together to preform the spell?”

 “No, thanks,” Leo said, starting to back out of the aisle. He didn’t need to get involved in any magic.

  “Oh come on, Leo!” 

  “Ugh, fine,” said Leo. He did not want to get on Emerald’s bad side. “So what do we do? Like, say some creepy chant or something?” 

  “Actually, yes, kind of. Amy, grab the spell.”

  Amy reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded up piece of parchment paper. Some words were written on it in ruby, gold, and emerald colored ink. 

  “I read the ruby colored part, you read the gold one, and Emerald will read the emerald one. Got it?” 

  “Um, sure?”

  “It’s crucial that we get this right. No pressure. Okay, go!”

  Amy looked at the page. “Forgotten fairy tale, hidden far away,” she said. She looked at Leo. Feeling a little silly, he read the next line. “Come out of the dark, into the light of day.” Emerald recited the last line. “Out for  the stars, out for the sun, out for yourself, and everyone.” The emerald started to glow. Emerald nodded. “It’s working! Again!” 

 “Forgotten fairy tale, hidden far away, come out of the dark, into the light of day. Out for the stars, out for the sun, out for yourself, and everyone.”

 The necklace glowed into a blinding light, and Leo turned away. When he turned back around, Emerald was standing there. She had bare feet, long, wavy brown hair, and a simple green dress. She still looked annoyed, but slightly less so.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I never liked fairy tales anyway. I’m happy to be in the real world.”

  “Well, I don’t think you’ll get by with a name like Emerald,” said Leo.

  “Hmm. He’s right,” Amy said. “How about Emma? Em, for short?”

  For the first time, Emerald smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I like that.” Then she walked out of the shop, into the world, and was gone. 

  “This shop really is very weird,” said Leo. But he smiled to himself, because what was so wrong with weird?

apologies, this is a little over 1,000 words. also, I think it's finished but it may need some editing, so this is a DRAFT!

I wrote this as a platonic relationship but I sorta crossed the line to a romantic one towards the end, so... you could read it either way?

And no one has names so if that's confusing please let me know and I'll try to come up with some. 

Regardless, enjoy! 

~~ 

It Could Have Been Beautiful

by Luminescence, a girl with an undecided pen name 

~~

friday, first week of april. morning. “the boat, the sea, and the sun (and i’m dying here without you)”

The sun is rising over the ocean, and he is here, watching. Watching, and dying. 

He stands in a boat, in a way that can hardly be called standing. He is leaning against the mast, well aware of the blood seeping out from his chest onto the sail, staining it a dark red. It would have been beautiful, were the circumstances different.

The boat, his boat, is tossed roughly among the waves, like a piece of old driftwood. It should be terrifying, but it isn’t. Maybe because the waves are so many shades of blue and green, and they are beautiful, even now, he thinks. They capture him in their colors, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to leave.

He’s so alone.

~~

friday, first week of april. evening. “you haven’t come back yet (and i won’t sleep until you do)”

When everyone gets back from the sea, the one person who matters isn’t there. So he hovers, waiting, and begins interrogating the first person to walk up the dock- a woman, dressed in faded red.

“Why isn’t he back with you? Did you see him, he-”

The woman sighs, but she knows who he’s talking about. Everyone knows, because this is the only person he would be asking about.

“Didn’t see him today at all. Thought he never left.”

He tries not to panic. He wonders, not for the first time, if his friend knows how much he cares. When they find him, he’ll make sure he does. They’re both alone, he reflects, but they’ve got each other.

He scans the horizon for the boat he knows his friend is in, and the sun is setting, painting everything red and orange. It could have been beautiful, if the circumstances were different.

He knows he won’t sleep tonight. How could he?

~~

friday, first week of april. morning. “maybe i’m drowning in the sun (or maybe i’m just drowning in the colors)”

He doesn’t feel upset, not really. Yesterday, he would have imagined death to be upsetting. But he feels at peace. There’s a dull ache somewhere deep in his chest but he doesn’t know if that’s because part of him will miss this world and all its beautiful chaos or if it’s because he is slowly bleeding out and he is finally feeling the pain.

But he is at peace. If he could have chosen where to die, this is where he would have picked. It feels a little bit like what he imagines drowning in the sun to feel. 

The sunlight is so bright, so blinding, and so big. It’s big enough to entirely fill his vision, and big enough for him to imagine that in a few moments, he will have sailed into it, never to return.

It smells like salt, here on the sea, and the waves are glassy. Blue and green and white light reflecting off of its surfaces, so bright it hurts, but that’s okay, because that is what living feels like. It hardly makes sense that this is what dying feels like, too, but it makes so much sense at the same time.

He thinks about how he got here. How it had rained, so hard, and how the darkness had fallen, soft and comforting as the sun set. And how like always, he had gotten up early, before the sun had even begun to rise, how he had gotten dressed and how he had walked along the soaked beach in the rain and the dark. 

The waves were quiet and loud, and they pulled in and out, in and out. They didn’t rush, but they weren’t lazy. He had wondered if they ever got tired, sometimes. Tired like he did.

It’s stopped raining, and now, he is here, in his boat, in the middle of the ocean, watching the sun rise and drowning in its light.

~~

saturday, first week of april. morning. “all the things that could be beautiful (but they aren’t, not now)”

He has spent the entire night awake, wondering whether it would be crazy to take a boat and go find him. It would be, he knows. He doesn’t know how to steer a boat and he can’t even swim.

So he paces instead. Back and forth, back and forth. Wondering if he’ll ever come back, and wondering whether his friend knows what he’s putting him through. 

He plans to quiz the same woman again tonight, when they all come back. A knot of dread has been forming in the pit of his stomach. 

He has a bad feeling about this.

The sea pulls and pushes, in and out, in and out, as he stands on the beach, staring at the horizon like he can make the boat he’s looking for appear if he tries hard enough. The waves glisten, reflecting the light of the stars drowned out by the morning sun.

The beauty leaves a sad sort of emptiness in him.

~~

friday, first week of april. morning. “death isn’t so bad, really (unless you really did care, but you don’t)”

He thinks about how even though no one knows that he is dying, he doesn’t have anyone to miss him when he’s gone. Not anymore. Well, miss him, yes, but not miss him. Miss him like he’s the only thing in the world, and he has no one who will die a little bit when they hear about his death.

If he thinks back to yesterday and earlier this morning, he knows he didn’t begin dying on purpose. He doesn’t quite know what happened, just that he had been on his boat, and something had happened. Maybe he fell. Maybe something fell on him. It hadn’t hurt, not that he could remember, anyways, but the next thing he knew, he was bleeding out and hanging on to the mast for dear life.

The thought should scare him but it doesn’t. Maybe it’s a sign he’s almost at the end. The sun shines in his eyes and he doesn’t have the energy to squint.

The ocean dances in his vision, infinite greens and blues and bright bright white. Maybe he’s drowning in the colors. The sun is beautiful, rising over the waves, but everything is so bright, and the white drowns everything out.

He closes his eyes and lets the light carry him away. Dying isn’t as bad as he would have expected.

His heart stops beating, lulled to sleep by the waves and the wind and the world.

~~

friday, first week of may. evening. “part of me died with you (and you didn’t even know i loved you)”

It’s been a month and the knots inside his stomach twist themselves tighter as the boats start sailing in.

The woman, the same woman he’s interrogated every night for the past month, for the past month, heads straight for him. He wonders if he’s shaking.

“They found his boat.”

Is it possible for your heart to stop beating but still be alive? And her voice is too quiet and too heavy. He thinks maybe he knows what’s coming next, but he prays to every god he can think of that he’s wrong.

“He was dead.”

Her voice is even quieter and even heavier. He knows she cared about him, too.

“No. No. No, no.”

He can’t believe this. He refuses to believe it. The words bounce around his head, he’s still processing them. The sun is setting, painting the ocean red.

It’s not beautiful. It can’t be beautiful when a part of him is dying right now, dying with the man on the boat in the middle of the sea.

“Yes.”

She sounds like she might cry, but he can’t care right now, not when the world, the entire world, is coming crashing down on him like waves, except the world won’t heave itself back up like the waves do.

“How did it happen?”

He barely knows what he’s saying. He feels so empty, so empty, so dead. It’s like someone else is speaking, because his voice isn’t even shaking and he doesn’t feel his mouth moving, shaping the sounds.

“No one knows.”

~~

friday, first week of april. morning. “i still miss you every day (and you still don’t know i love you)”

It’s been a year since his friend died. His best friend, his best friend who never knew he was his best friend.

It’s been a year since he died, and he still misses him so much it hurts. And he still feels so dead inside.

All the things he should have said, the things he wished he said.

I love you, and you’re my best friend, and don’t die, please, I don’t know if I can live without you. 

But now he has to.

The sun rises over the ocean, turning everything green and blue and bright bright white.

It isn’t beautiful. 

I finished the draft (I think it is one or two pages back), but I'm not sure if you saw it.  I would love critique if you could give it (from anyone too).