First Flight

Elaina Woodward

"Time Flies"

Time moves fast,

We only get a few years of childhood.

We grow up too quickly

When you see that time flies

For now, we are in high school,

Though it feels like 5th grade was last year.

When telling your family how old you are turning

They deny how quickly time flies.

Now only a few more years till we are adults.

We are getting older, and so is everyone around us

Oh, how time flies.

by Rebekah Johnson

Digital story, "Dear Justin" by Kaelyn seals

"Letter to 6th grade me"

by Zoey Bonney

Digital Story, "The Mushroom in the Tree," by Deena Holman

Featuring

Brennan Ward

"La Fete du Printemps," by Rebekah Johnson

We walked for about half an hour before I decided I wanted to walk outside. The garden is always beautiful, but it is even more so in the moonlight. It was like a curtain of blue light swirling down from the heavens.

Marie and I walked the gardens several times over before we noticed dark clouds of rain lying overcast.

“O, I hope it rains! I love the rain! I could go on and on about rain!” I cried looking at the overcast sky.

“Oh yes! J’adore la pluie!” Marie agreed, inspecting an iris garden.

“It’s raining!!!” I announced feeling a few drops fall on my hand.

“If you want to stay out longer, I will draw your bath, Ma Dame,” Marie announced standing straighter.

“Merci Marie!” I thanked her as she walked off into the Chȃteau.

I looked toward the sky and held my arms as I took in the rain that fell faster and faster. I twirled looking up.

“Oh, là là! My hair is so heavy!” I exclaimed, taking out my wet hair and letting it fall onto my back. I continued to spin in the rain, letting it cool my thoughts and allowing me to relax.

“I love the rain!” I yelled up to the sky. I whispered, “I wish someone would dance with me.” I kicked off my shoes letting the stones cool my feet.

Looking up at the sky I heard a voice, “Excuse-moi Ma Dame, would you like to dance?” My head shot down to see an extended hand reaching towards me and a tall young man in a bow.

“Oui Monsieur!” I cried, taking his hand. A smile reached across my face, my dream has come true.

“Merci,” He said standing up, showing his face.

“Monsieur Alexandre!” I exclaimed taking a step back, him still holding my hand.

“You said you wanted someone to dance with you, and you agreed to dance with me,” he replied smugly.

I took a breath and stepped closer and placed my other hand on his shoulder. He smiled politely, pushing a mop of wet hair out of his face. We started swaying at first, stiffly. I watched the hair he pushed out of his face as it stuck for a little bit before it fell back where it was before. I laughed as he let go of my hands to fix it, pushing on it to stay.

The rain fell harder in a 3 pattern. Monsieur Alexandre led us into a waltz.

“What were you doing out here to see me, Monsieur Alexandre?” I asked looking down at our feet, mine bare, and his boots.

“Uh- I was walking around and noticed you out here,” he stammered, “and please call me Alexandre, I do hate formalities.”

“Very well Alexandre. And do call me Annette. I do not like them as well.”

“Yes, Annette,” he replied.

I looked up at him, his eyes glinting in the faraway candlelight. He caught my eye and smiled.

I was quiet for a few moments as we spun across the courtyard of the garden. I started leaning into his light touch, giving in to the dance. My purple dress drenched in water was still able to flow softly with each movement.

He pulled me out in a little turn as my wet hair slapped me across my face.

Alexandre laughed and pulled me in close. We paused breaths away, rain falling onto our faces.

I pulled away. “I must go, my bath must be drawn. Thank you for that dance.”

His hand lingered on mine as I stepped from his grip and walked back to my chambers.

Abigail Onsurez

Summer Haze

Forced outside. Can’t come back till street lights turn on.

Summer heat & tan lines

Scraped knees & peeling bandaids

Bike chains broken, making us pretend mechanics.

Green grass tints on elbows and knees.

Now it’s staring at screens & no scraped knees

The bike tires now lie flat in the corner of the garage.

School work overrides our time & drama fills our heads

What was once summer fun is now distant memories.

–Shaia Hersh

Iyla Yunt

Birthday Daze

Party fun ablaze, my friends surrounding me,

Happy cheers and adults having beers.

The love of the crowd, too much for my ears,

So away I would step to my quiet solitude,

Until I drifted from the party one last time.

Wishing now I wouldn’t have left,

My birthday now split in two,

What once was peace is now war.

If only I would’ve savored that lovely,

Birthday Daze

–Anya Panella

I'm here

by Elaina Woodward

You feel scared, unseen, and unknown.

You feel unloved, lost, and alone.

You're not sure which way to go, you're scared to go into the unknown.

I will walk with you so won't be alone, oh oh.

I'm here little one, come here little one ohhh.

I will walk with you so won't be alone.

I'm here little one, right here little one ooh.

I'll hold you tight, I'll keep you close, I'll stay by your side through your darkest nights, ooh.

Your sacred to go into the unknown, but I'll walk with you so you won't have to walk alone

I'm here little one, always here little one ooh.

I hope you know that you are loved and you are known, you are never alone.

I'm here little one, still here little one ooh.

And if you fall down on your journey's road, I'll help lift you up until you can stand on your own.

I hope you know that you are loved and you are known.

I will walk with you so won't have to walk alone.

I hope that now you can feel a little more joy, a little more hope, a little more loved a little more known, ooh.

I'll walk with you I'll stay by your side through your brightest days or your darkest nights, ooh.

I hope you know that you can rise even if you stumble, you are loved and you are seen and you are known, I hope that now you can see that you were never alone, you are never alone.

LISTEN TO THE SONG

Part 1

I miss you every day and night

I miss our calls

I miss when my favorite place was in your arms

Or at the dinner table playing games with your family

I wish I could tell you what my mom said last night

That made me punch my legs until they bruised

Or scratch up my arm again

I wish I could tell you what my dad said

The made me jump up and down with happiness

But I can’t

Maybe in another universe

Lacy Mize

Part 3

Breathe, just breathe

They say

But I can’t without you

Eat, just eat

They say

But I can’t without you

“I think we should break up”

I thought I was ready,

I wasn’t

Its been two weeks since the end of

1 year, 6 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days

Its not getting easier

No one will ever come close to you

To us

Breathe, just breathe

They say

I can breathe without you

Eat, just eat

They say

I can eat without you

Sleep without you

Live without you

Elaina Woodward

When The World Went Braindead

By

Hayden J. Whitaker

Chapter One

January 26th, 2147

It has been six days since a major pathogen, named CAN-47 was released to the public. From what I can gather, one of the major pharmaceutical lines let it out. We don't know how bad the situation is outside, but the sirens are still going off. It sounds like there's supposed to be an air raid outside but the only thing in the air is that pathogen. The president announced a national emergency two days ago.

Marcus saw it firsthand, God bless his soul, when he was walking down the street the same day it happened. He was feeling really sluggish and saw a body facedown on the ground. An old woman, he said in his hysteric mania, with gray hair and an oxygen tube torn out of her nose. After a couple minutes she - we think - released some sort of fumes or spores and got Marc infected too. We're having his funeral tomorrow night, but none of us will be able to attend. We cannot get sick now. Not now.

Will write tomorrow after we drop him from The Window. Here's hoping no one else gets sick before we do so.

God save us all.

I close the leather-backed diary and back away from the window. I had found it in an office building, just off the road from a

supermarket where I had been hiding out. I'd seen the Office Group - as they were often identified - dropping bodies out of this very window, but only ever from the ground and several hundred feet away. The fumes They released when they hit the ground were too strong even for gas masks to keep out.

I began to thumb through the notebook several more times. There were three other entries, and from what I could see, each one got shorter and written more wildly. The last page interested me the most - there was nothing but a hasty scrawl I couldn't read. From what I could understand, though, this person - whoever they were, they didn't sign - had gotten infected like Marcus and dropped from the window. Or they jumped themselves, because I'm sure the others of their group wouldn't have left this relic behind. I put the book in my bag and start heading back down towards the stairs.

Of all the floors, they chose to drop their poor members from a dirty window on the 69th.

The place reeked. No one from the Office Group was around anymore for one reason or another, and the building was abandoned. When I was coming up to this floor, I found parts of hallways and rooms where they had seemed to resort to Scorched Earth tactics; patches of burnt carpet, black walls, and lots of charred wood. I hadn't heard of any territorial scuffles between the Office and other groups stationed around the area, so they must have had too much infighting or something else that would have caused them to abandon such a good post. High regions like this didn't get sprayed when pharmacies released vaccines to the public. This was too good of a place to have left behind.

I get to the bottom floor and there's a commotion in the corner of the room. Some sort of dog going through a large trash bag. I don't fear the animal - it should never be affected by CAN-47. We learned, about three months after the world went braindead, that CAN-47 was an exclusively human disease, the same way AIDS was an animal disease - at first, anyway. So far no one has managed to introduce it to animals that we know of, so most of them are tame enough to be around. Rabies and worms and such were cured long ago.

I realize I haven't introduced myself yet.

I'm Robin, and please only call me that. I've found myself allied with the Marketgoers just down the road. They used to be the Swimmers, but the public pools in the city have turned into mass graves and dumping grounds. You'll find that it is very dangerous for groups to stay in one spot for longer than a year.

I also recognize that I haven't explained the situation. You probably feel like you're wandering around in the dark amidst the whole apocalypse thing.

The year should be 2147. Maybe it's 2148. Regardless, it had already been nearly a century since humans had been using artificial intelligence to help speed up the process of getting a vaccine on the market. Dr. Warrd had to describe it to me in great detail. Testing vaccines in the lab environment was time consuming and expensive and the AI was supposed to cut down on that. AI could also automate the actions that a human scientist would do, which sped up the time that vaccines got on the market, because there didn't need to be human eyes on every part of the testing.

In order for a vaccine to work, Dr. Warrd had said to me, it has to have a target. It has to have a reason for working, and then they have to make it work. In the case of CAN-47, it was supposed to attack brain cancer cells. As we would later understand, it would end up attacking the entire brain.

But vaccines are supposed to be tested on animals before humans, which is where another issue came into play - CAN-47 wouldn't affect animals at all. There was just no reaction whatsoever, at any of the fancy-shmancy levels. By the time that scientists figured that out, it was already getting distributed. An explanation of this is to follow.

The way our society had gotten set up included various hoses and pipes that were part of city infrastructure. These were supposed to spray every couple of months and fill the air with vaccinated aerosol against various diseases that would still crop up after a few decades. This was the easiest way, our city decided, to keep ancient "anti vaxxers" from getting the rest of the population killed. You can still find some of those nozzles along the sides of roads and buildings.

It was all very humane, I assure you.

But unfortunately someone was feeling a little silly when writing the code for this bot or maybe they spilled a cup of coffee because low and behold, the artificial intelligence in charge of the monthly sprays released CAN-47 before it made its way into human trials.

The biggest mystery, however, was trying to find who loaded the disease into the spraying chambers. We most likely won't ever know, because of the whole apocalypse thing.

Brennan Ward

Dear Future Maddy,

I am writing this to you to show you how much you have grown. How strong you are even when shit hits the fan. I am taking you back to the darkest day of your life. The day that altered your thinking on life and what it means to live. It's crazy to think about, you were only 11.

I collapse on the floor. The brown carpet soaking up my tears as they fell from my face, its rough texture scraping my knees.In that moment, I felt like the world had just ripped out my organs, twisted and mutilated them, then crammed them back in. I felt sick. I felt confused. I felt desperate. I felt lost. My room was small, condensed and suffocating. No matter where I went, I never felt safe. Even my own room seemed like a glorified prison. How far gone was I? Would I ever feel happy again?

Suddenly, the little voice in my head screamed at me.

“WHY THE F$@k ARE YOU CRYING. Stop being dramatic and sensitive. Pick yourself up and get over it! Why are you always like this, just moping and crying. Why can’t you just fucking be better. Look at your sister and brother. They both have problems too and you don’t see them folding over into a ball when things get tuff. Now, stand the fuck back up!”

I place my hands on my head, like a mother cradling a baby.

Ok.

I stand up, unwrapping my hands from my head. Tears still rolling down my cheek.

“Was that so hard? Tsk. You are so weak.”

I know.

I walk over to the mirror. In the reflection I can see my bed littered with feathers from my consistent “feather pulling.” It was a nervous habit that I had one day picked up. Even though it was small, it let me have control over something. In the left of the mirror I can see my dresser. I noted that one side was the tiniest, smallest bit further out than the other.

Why do I notice these things?

I turn my head back to the mirror and meet my eyes. Dark puffy circles surrounded my eyes. My hair is messy and unmanaged. I bring my hands up to my face and run them across my jaw, my ears, my nose. I move to my shoulders, hips, legs. I hate it all. It's all ugly and not worth loving.

A single tear rolls down my cheek. I just want to be happy.

I feel something holding my throat.

A leech.

A parasite.

My reason to stop.

Out of the corner of my eye something sparkles. Like a key to a locked door. I turn around to see my answer. In my cup next to my bed, a pair of scissors, sharp, ready to use. I glide over. My body feels light. My fingers tremble as they wrap around the cool plastic cover. The maroon color is dark yet ever so light and freeing.

I raise the scissors to the back of my arm, freckles dotted my pink skin. I open the jaws of the scissors and glide them across my skin. An audible scrape can be heard, like a comb through hair. I press harder. My skin turns white as the pressure pushes the blood away.

It's ok, just one cut.

Go

Go

Go

I can’t commit. My hands are shaking, tremors shoot into my fingers.

“Do it! You weak little…! Why can’t you just do something right!” My brain was furious. However, it knew that I couldn’t.

I lay the scissors down and stare at them.

“Weak.”

~~~~~~~~~

Now, 4 years later, that is all a distant dream. Something of the past that has shaped you into the person you are today. It's weird to look back. To see how sick you were. To see how sick WE were.

After that night, you finally told someone. You were scared to be judged. To be told that you just needed to get over it. But you were heard.

You still had to work, though.

It's been 4 long years and we are still working on some triggers and thoughts. I am proud of you, though. Impressed, in fact. I want to leave you with a quote. I feel this one really describes us. “Flowers grow out of dark moments.”-Corita Kentu

Madelynne French

Elaina Woodward

Oh, no

Oh, noo

Ooh, no

Oh, no

Late at night

I can’t fall asleep

What happened to us

It still scares me

It’s funny how some things

Never change your mind

And it’s funny how

I could have been so blind

Is there still a chance (still a chance)

We could meet again

Any chance (any chance)

Oh, please, I would take it

And I’m struggling with a lot of things

But I guess it just

Wasn’t meant to be

It’s funny how some things

Never change your mind

And it's funny how

I could have been so blind

So is there still a chance

We could meet again

Any chance

Oh, please, I would take it

Oh, no

Oh, noo

Ooh, no

Mm, mmm

Ava Essay

conclusion, "Octopoedeia"

The sea is filled with little orphaned octopodes,

Though they don’t generally mind.

That’s how it goes

When you’re an octopus:

You do not particularly feel like mingling.

You thoughtfully grind shrimp in your beak,

feel the sea, salt-silky, baste your tentacles,

Observe the soft bobbing of your own wave-jostled noggin

And all the thoughts that float therein

Not to mention those of your eight other brains.

You are the octopus: peerless, unmoored, inaccessible.

A lonely hunter, and talented, too.

You work, you feel joy, you muse, and you wait

For your time to come.

Jennifer Mitchell