Tutor Writing Challenge! [July]

[Stare]

How does it work? That's simple! Every month, the tutor team will be posting a challenge where you, the members, may submit your writing for a chance to win! Each month, the prompts will be different. Some may be based on pictures, some may be based on situations, some will ask you to refrain from using key words, and some will give you words you have to use! But they will each be designed to test you and, hopefully, allow you to step a bit outside of your comfort zone and try new things. We want to push you as a writer and a creator. Think you can handle a little challenge?

You will need to post your submission down below. Submissions should be new for the event, not repurposed posts. Please try to keep your post concise, but not to the point of detriment. If it feels necessary to leave in that's fine, but if you wish to take your writing further you may create a thread in the AU Roleplay Board and link us to it in addition to your actual submission. This is optional and will not negatively affect your chances of winning if you choose not to do so.

Next, the tutor team will read each submission and deliberate until they've selected a winner, who will be announced publicly!

But wait, what if the opportunity to push your creative boundaries isn't incentive enough? Well! The winner each month will have $500 in site cash added to their account!

The theme for this month:

For some of us, binging TV shows has been a regular occurrence of the past few months. From rewatching the staples of our childhoods to discovering new lovable characters and settings to stumbling upon shows that had spent years at the very backs of our memories, we've been doing it all. It's so fun to watch all the different stories unfold and to trade recommendations!

Your challenge this month is to place one of your characters into the setting of one of your favorite TV shows. It can be a show you loved as a kid, a show you've discovered in recent months, or your all-time favorite - whatever you prefer! If you've created a character for a plot based on a TV show, we'd prefer you not put them back into that TV show setting for this challenge. We encourage you to push yourselves and throw your characters into situations you might never have imagined them in before. The possibilities are endless, and we can't wait to see how y'all run with this one!

You have until 11:59pm CDT on 15 July to submit yours below, and then the Tutors will announce a winner on the 20th! Good luck have fun!

[cass]

Title: I give you everything.

This is from the anime My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia

The synopsis: The appearance of "quirks," newly discovered super powers, has been steadily increasing over the years, with 80 percent of humanity possessing various abilities from manipulation of elements to shapeshifting. This leaves the remainder of the world completely powerless.

*Airmid is the Irish Goddess of healing, and is Opal's Hero name!

o p a l .

Just close your eyes, the sun is going down
You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now
Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound

"Airmid, we’re going to need you, the Nomu’s have injured at least a hundred, Recovery Girl can’t manage this one by herself.” Opal placed the phone down, quickly running to her closet to tug on her hero suit. It was a simple outfit, nothing flashy, a white one-piece, with a belt that contained all the first aid items she would ever need. She grabbed her cloak as she ran out the door, a car was already waiting for out the front of hers and Katelyn’s apartment.

Katelyn, well rather, The Ice Queen, would already be at the scene, she had left for the mission late last night and Opal gnawed on a fingernail, hoping that her wife wouldn’t be one of the victims she’d have to treat. She’d be fine, Opal faced the window, the car speeding through the streets, sirens blaring. Katelyn was ranked number two, the second strongest hero around, with All Might only beating her out. She’d be fine.

Only a few minutes had passed before the car came screeching to a halt, Opal thanked the driver with a quick nod before rushing outside, the sounds of screams filling the air. She blinked, taking in the sight of a dozen crumbling buildings, smoke rising as flames licked at the rubble. It was chaos, Heroes working to free more and more injured from the burning buildings, sorting through the broken parts to find trapped or dead people.

“Airmid, over here,” Opal turned, her gaze meeting Recovery Girl’s as she waved her over. She looked exhausted already, dirt smeared across her wrinkled cheeks, strands of grey hair fell around her face, dark circles lined her eyes. “What happened?” She ran over, kneeling down beside her mentor, as Recovery Girl sat back, taking a deep breath. Opal took over, moving onto the next victim, a civilian with a broken leg.

“There was more then they expected, they came out of nowhere and-”

“Is Katelyn okay?” Opal’s hands moved over the wound, she took a deep breath, feeling her energy bubble into her hands, as she forced her life energy out and into the victim. The wound before her reacted, beginning to repair itself, feeding off the energy she provided. The drain on her body was instant, and Opal grunted, she was familiar with the sensation and knew her limit by now, but it would always be exhausting work. Her quirk was the opposite of Recovery Girl’s, where her mentors used the life energy of the person she was healing, Opal’s healing came from sacrificing her own.

“I haven’t seen her,” Recovery Girl was quiet, and Opal fought against the overwhelming feeling of terror that rose sharply within her chest. There could be any number of reasons why, but Opal knew that once a villain had been dealt with, Katelyn was always the first time to start rescuing victims. She prided herself on protecting and helping and her core being revolved around savings lives. For her to not have been seen by Recovery Girl…

The wound closed and Opal sat back, quickly working to make sure there was nothing else visible on the victim. Based on the bruising and other injuries there didn’t appear to be any internal bleeding. “I need you to work on the more critical victims, injuries like this can be treated by the civilian doctors,” she nodded, picking herself up, trying her best to ignore the momentary dizziness that came.

Shaking it off she moved to the tent with the black flag out front, it meant that the victims had been marked as unsavable by the civilian doctors. If anyone was still alive, Opal could mend the life-threatening injuries to the point that they could be moved to the red tent, where they would be taken to the hospital. This part would always hurt her, picking through the dozens of bodies that lay before her, checking to see who was alive and who wasn’t.

Hours went by, Opal working on each individual who still had life within them, her strength slowly drained with each person she saved. As the emergency workers took away the next person, she stumbled to her feet, the world blackening for a moment. Her breathing was shallow, her face clammy as she wiped away the sweat that beaded on her forehead. She needed a break, some food and water, she was at her limit after twenty treatments of seriously injured people.

As she exited the tent, she looked over to see a group of people gathered around, she noticed a few heroes, some kneeling on the ground with looks of utter shock and sadness that Opal found herself pulled towards the commotion. “Does anyone know what happened?” A voice called out, and her heart began to pound in her chest. “Is she dead?” Another one said and Opal found herself pushing through the crowd.

“I think she is de-”

“Katelyn-”

Opal fell to her knees, crawling the last few meters until she was in front of her wife. Bloodstained her clothing, her hero uniform torn in a hundred different places. There was blood on her lips, and both of her eyes were swollen shut, her face was covered in dirt and her hair was matted and messy. Ice clung to her left arm, and Opal knew that whatever had happened had pushed Katelyn past the limits of her quirk. “No, no, no,” Opal reached a shaking hand forwards, fingers brushing up against Katelyn’s neck as she felt for a pulse.

“What happened?” She croaked, the words caught in her throat, the crowd was silent, and Opal found herself holding her breath, there was nothing, she felt nothing, there-

Tears sprung to her eyes, a wave of relief so heavy that it made her sob, as the very faint feeling of Katelyn’s pulse reached her fingers. Opal moved to her uniform, pulling back the clothing, fingers fumbling through blood as she tried to figure out which wound she’d have to fix first. She looked up, eyes meeting a young hero's, “go get Recover Girl right now,” she ordered. The hero nodded, disappearing within a moment.

The more she searched, the more wounds she found, a deep gash on her thigh that cut into the femoral artery. A wound to her stomach that meant internal bleeding. A stab in her chest that had punctured her lungs. Blood on her lips which meant-

There wasn’t enough time.

She was fading, Opal could see it, it was a miracle she was still alive right now. She was going to die. Opal gasped, tears slipping down her cheeks. She was going to die.

“I’m not going to let you die,” the world needed Katelyn, the world was a better place with Katelyn in it.

The hero that she’d sent off returned and Opal gave him a weak smile, but his expression was dark. The last strand of hope snapped. “She can’t come, can she?” He shook his head.

Ah. Gently, Opal placed a kiss on Katelyn’s forehead, brushing aside a strand of matted hair. She was exhausted, her limit only moments away, a threshold she had never passed.

“I love you.”

Opal pulled on every bit of energy left within her body, drawing it to her hands, feeling the way it made her heart stutter as it struggled to keep itself beating. Her vision blackened, and she took a shaky breath, forcing every bit of her being into Katelyn. She poured, her skin humming, her legs tingling, she started with the femoral artery and by the time the wound had healed, she could hardly breathe.

Next came the one in her abdomen, she felt her legs go numb, a coldness creeping into her chest as she worked, she gasped for air, lungs struggling to get in any oxygen. Her heart was beating so hard that it hurt, and her lips opened in a silent scream of pain as her fingers moved to Katelyn’s chest. Sweat dripped down her face, her skin so pale, her lips turning blue. She slipped, falling to the ground beside Katelyn, a trembling hand reaching for the wound on Katelyn’s chest. Katelyn’s pulse was still weak and Opal realised that she had to heal them all to keep Katelyn alive.

One more. A sobbed tugged itself free from her numb lips, barely more than a gasp of broken air. I'm sorry, she wanted to tell her. Opal's life wasn't worth more than the number two hero, then the future symbol of peace. Opal was not what the world needed, but the Ice Queen was.

The last of her life energy flowed through her fingers, and she felt the wound beneath her hand repair itself. There was nothing left within her. She had given it all away.

Her hand fell and her heart stopped.

elegant

[charade]

Title: Colder than my heart, if you can imagine.

This is from the anime My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia

The synopsis: The appearance of "quirks," newly discovered super powers, has been steadily increasing over the years, with 80 percent of humanity possessing various abilities from manipulation of elements to shapeshifting. This leaves the remainder of the world completely powerless.

*was going to be a TWD au until Cass murdered me, and I needed to do this.

k a t e l y n.

For all that it's worth, I would have loved you until the end
But I'm cold in your heart and you're branded into mine

Her heart started.

Katelyn—

The Ice Queen’s eyes fluttered sluggishly as she tried to rouse herself and remember what was happening. Or what had happened. Her body was wracked by a dozen different pains, but it was tolerable. Just barely. She tasted copper in her mouth and spat, opening her eyes. The sun was out.

That was concerning. It’d been the dead of night when she’d answered the call. How long had she been out?

Dozens of Nomu’s on a rampage, a number that had quickly become scores. Something to do with UA’s students. Again. She hadn’t been the only pro hero to show up, but she’d been one of the first, along with trio of heroes known as The Lurkers and Mirko. The fighting had been tough; some of the nomu had had multiple quirks, and many of them were able to regenerate from injuries.

There’d been one with a serrated whip quirk, she recalled. And one that generated flames. Right. She’d been chasing down a Nomu with a handful of other heroes when a building had exploded. Two dozen Nomu of various sizes and poured out of the wreckage and swarmed them.

She vaguely remembered Kamui Woods getting knocked unconscious. And then they’d been on her. She’d blown them back with an icy shockwave but they’d just kept coming. Biting, clawing, shooting energy projectiles or fire.

Even her new move hadn’t been able to stand up to the assault. She’d been experimenting with generating a second skin, a frozen armor formed out of ambient moisture that cloaked her and protected her from damage. A super-strong punch had cracked her ribs and sent her spiraling through a building. Luckily she’d been able to slow down her momentum by generating a slide of ice.

Besides her control over ice, and the effect it had on her body chemisty, she was more durable than the average hero, having superhuman endurance, though not true invulnerability. She tried to compensate for that by wearing an outfit composed of primarily chain-mail, reminiscent of a knight of old.

It was scant comfort and of little help when a bladed Nomu had impaled her through the torso, or when the superstrong nomu had gotten ahold of her and repeatedly smashed her face into the ground, breaking her crown into little pieces.

It was a blessing that her endurance allowed her to survive such hits, even if they were still agonizing. Her blood was different too, her quirk bringing it closer in composition to liquid nitrogen than hemoglobin.

“Thought we’d lost you there, Queen.”

The voice brought her to the present, and she realized she was still laying in the debris from the fight. Several feet away, a couple concerned looking heroes were standing around.

“Takes more than a few freaks of nature to put me down,” she rasped, her throat choked with dust and bloody flem. She put a hand down to steady herself as she started to get up, but she touched flesh instead of building fragments and it was an alarming change. Was she atop a dead Nomu? Disgusting.

But it wasn’t. Lying next to her in the rubble was the last person she’d expected to see. She glanced down at her own chest and the rents in her costume. The gash in her chest was closed, as was the puncture wound in her abdomen.

“Guess I must have been pretty messed up for you to come out in the field, eh, Airmid?” Opal didn’t reply, and Katelyn shook her head. Opal’s quirk was extremely taxing on her body, and more than once she’d knocked herself out trying to heal people.

Something prickled at the back of her neck as she looked at her wife though, as she tried to rouse her. It was wrong. All wrong. Her lips were blue. Her hands were cold. She wasn’t the one that was supposed to have cold hands.

“Airmid?” she ventured, trying to keep the air of professionalism up, even if their relationship wasn’t a secret it was not good for the number two hero to start panicking. There was no response, and Katelyn’s heart threatened to tear in half when she realized Opal wasn’t breathing.

No.

No, no no.

She wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have. How many times had she been warned about pushing her quirk past its limit? How dangerous it would be for her? “Opal, you better stop fucking around and get up.”

Her heat beat thudded in her ears. Opal wasn’t breathing. Katelyn’s breath caught in her throat. This was every worst nightmare come to life. This couldn’t be happening, but it was. “She pushed herself,” one of the useless heroes standing around started to say, “You were on the brink of death and the world needs you, you’re the number two—“

“To hell with the world!” she snapped, anger, confusion and grief contorting her face. “What good is it if she’s not—“

There to hold my hand.

If I can’t see that smile when I wake up.

If she’s not—

If she’s—

The temperature in the surrounding area plummeted by several dozen degrees. Frost began to form on every available surface, radiating out in a rough circle from where she knelt, her hands desperately clutching Opal’s limp body. The Ice Queen let out a wordless howl of rage and pain, ignoring the startled and panicked cries of the heroes around her as her emotions overwhelmed her quirk.

Icicles sprouted from the ground in front of her. The moisture in the air reacted to her agony and crystallized; a snowstorm formed, one that was rapidly increasing in strength to become a blizzard. She howled again, picking up Opal’s unmoving form in an anguished bridal carry. She could not leave her here.

“Ice Queen,” A hand touched her shoulder and she whipped her head around to stare daggers at whoever it was that dared. “Let me help,” he said, and while she couldn’t remember his name, she knew the costume. He was electric in some way, and she realized what he was about to do, only seconds before he started.

“Clear!” he said loudly, shocking Opal’s body.

Come on, come on baby.

Please.

He tried shocking her again, using the palms of his hands like defibrillators.

“Clear!”

I’m begging you. Wake up.

But she didn’t. Not after the third shock, or the seventh.

Katelyn screamed in anguish, pillars of ice erupting out of the ground all around her. She cursed the sky. She cursed the Nomus and whoever had designed them. She cursed everyone around her for not stopping Opal before she went too far. But most of all, she cursed her quirk.

For her abnormal body temperature made it impossible to cry.

elegant

[✨ zozo.]

PART ONE BC I'M RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!!!!!!!

(once a slut for mtv's teen wolf, always a slut for mtv's teen wolf)

You can't blame Isabelle Sing for shying away at first.

Her secret had always been her shame. Her family's shame, her brother's shame, anything that caused her to waver from their ideals was the worst betrayal - even if she couldn't help it. A hunt turned sour, following her brothers into the night without their knowing, and only when they heard little Belle Sing's blood-curdling screams did the brothers know something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Their parents almost put a bullet in her brain as she bled out on the forest floor. The boys said no, stepped between their little sister and the gun in their mother's hands and told her to wait. Perhaps she'd just bleed out, puncture wounds and scarlet red. Succumb to her injuries. No point turning their mother into a murderer unless they had to, debating over the fate of their sister as she lay twitching in agony at their feet, laid to rest in piles of autumn leaves.

In the end the gun was lowered and they prayed she slip away with the moon. But Belle is a resilient girl. Always had been, always would be, whether she liked it or not. She should have died in that forest, torn apart by the very thing the Sing family had hunted for generations. Twelve years old, still a child, she somehow survived the night and her family gathered around her hospital bed each day, hands clasped together and prayed for a miracle - but not that in which she survived.

They prayed that she would not become one of them. That their youngest child would simply heal and return to a life once lived. That they could craft a story of a bear in the woods, of childish ignorance, of a miracle of modern medicine. They prayed their daughter's eyes would never glow unnaturally, that they would stay brown forever. Every night they whispered as she slumbered. Every night they would pray their daughter would wake from her coma and return to them whole, pure, human.

But on the full moon night her eyes flew open in the cool light of the stars and glowed gold, and Belle Sing felt pain like she never had before.

Every full moon when someone chains her up and locks her in the basement and pretends they don't hear the screaming, the bone-crunching agony, the howling and scratching, Belle thinks her family cursed her for living. She wishes her mother had owned the courage to pull the trigger then. Now she simply wishes the woman had the courage to look her own daughter in the eyes.

A stain, a secret, a shame. Belle Sing was a werewolf. Every code the hunters followed had instructed them to kill their daughter: to plunge a knife of silver into her heart, to cut her up and bury her bones in the very place she almost died, to hack her branch from the family tree and never speak her name again. The Sings were cowards among hunters and cowards among each-other, never speaking a word of what Belle was to anyone, not even among themselves. 
In a way, Belle should thank her brothers for what they did. Sparing her life was the bravest thing they had ever done. To stand up to their mother and father, to defy everything they had been taught, was the second most vile breaking of their laws - it was a miracle all three survived without bullet wounds. She should thank them. And she might, had their prayers worked.But to become what Belle had become was the utmost atrocity. They never let her forget it.

____________________

Two months after her fifteenth birthday the family heads to California. It was ripe with new prey, boasted her parents, after New England had run dry over the past twelve months. Despite her condition, as her parents referred to it, Belle still begged to join them on the hunt. Her heightened senses could be useful, she argued, but each request was met with horror and cold response. It was made very clear to her that her parents now despised who she was. Belle Sing's shame was a reminder of their own weakness: that they were too cowardly to kill their own daughter. 

So Belle learned how to live her life as an omega. Family was an unfamiliar concept. Something the old Belle understood. Her life had been ripped in two: before the accident, and after the accident, but even before she had been taught to bow her head and obey. To never be seen, to speak only when spoken to. A nervous, rugged, wreck of a girl entered Beacon Hills High School torn between wanting to hate herself and wanting to accept what she was, gnawing on her bottom lip and shuffling through the halls. Three more years of school. She could handle it, as long as she kept her head down and ate her lunch in the bathroom and tried to pass algebra. 

When a lacrosse kid bumbles up to her on her first day of school Belle freezes, already on edge. Something about this town made her nervous. Something about this school and these kids sends shivers through her skin - and it's not just the whispers from across the room she hears clear as day. Ragamuffin, poor, weird, basketcase, freak. Belle can handle the names, nothing compared to what her parents use.

"Excuse me," she fiddles with her combination like she doesn't already have the number memorised as he speaks, "can I talk to you?"

"Uhhhh," Belle mumbles, refusing to even look at him. This has happened before: the popular kids invite her to some party only to send her to an abandoned lot and humiliate her the next day. Every part of Belle is a defense mechanism from preventing those experiences happening again. But even if he has good intentions, she can't risk getting close to anyone here. They can't know about her. They can't know about her family. Friends ask questions - not that she'd know. It's what her brothers told her.

"I gotta go-" and when her locker slams she races off, shoving past the boy with a surge of the crowds spilling into the halls and classes between periods. Books clutched to her chest, completely forgetting the map of the school sitting in the back of her locker, Belle turns a corner and breathes a sigh of relief.

"She didn't want to talk, Stiles," "But you said you felt that wolfy ju-ju! Don't other wolves usually respond to that?" "Yeah but she didn't even look at me. Could be a false alarm?" "Scott - when have I ever been wrong about something like thi- actually, you know what? Don't answer that."

Their whispered voices catch at her ears and as Belle sucks in a sharp breath of air the world tips over and she falls with it, hitting the floor with a crack like thunder.

_____________________________

"Want me to call your parents, sweetie?" asks the school nurse.

Immediately Belle shakes her head. "No," she mumbles, the last people on earth she'd want the school to call. "My brother can drive me home."

"Which one?"

Turns out neither of them can pick up their damn phones. Belle swears into the receiver and punches the end call button, screen already cracked from one of her rages, and shoves the old mobile back into her jacket pocket. A few deep breaths and a lie later she tucks a note from the nurse into her backpack and steps out of the front entrance, pattering down the steps into the car park. She'd walk all the way home if she had to, even if it was at least 25 minutes in the car.

Sighing, adjusting her backpack straps against her scarred shoulders, Belle barely makes it six steps before being accosted by one Stiles Stilinski in a beat-up blue Jeep who nearly takes her out with his headlights.

"Hey!" Belle barks, frozen with fright and instinct. "Watch where you're going!"

"Sorry!" the boy yelps, poking his head out of the window of his car before double-taking at the sight of Belle. The girl tenses up at their mutual recognition, eyes glancing to find the senior called Scott who had tried to talk to her that morning being elbowed by Stiles in the passenger seat.

Wolf ju-ju. That's what his friend, Stiles, had said before she'd passed out. Belle didn't even have to look at Scott to feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, for every molecule in her to freeze poised and ready to flee or fight. Someone like her. Someone just as terrible.

Leaving the boys to squabble between themselves, Belle turns on her heel and tries to leave quietly - before Stiles yelps at her again from his seat. "Hey! Where are you going anyway?"

"Damn it," Belle hisses under her breath, blush rising to her cheeks as she gnaws at the fraying threads of her bag straps. "Home," she says as she turns back, waving the nurses note half-heartedly toward the Jeep. 

"You're walking?" Stiles asks, opening his truck door and hopping out of the driver's seat - much to Scott McCall's horror. "All the way back to West County?"

"Yeah, so?" retorts Belle before faltering, her eyes screwing up suspiciously as she folds her arms over her chest. "How'd you even know I live there? You stalking me or something?"

Scott, in the passenger seat, sighs into his hands. It was Stiles' turn to tense, scratching the back of his head and refusing to look at Belle in the eyes. "Well, I-"

"I have two brothers you know," started Belle, taking a threatening step towards the senior as she counted out every reason to stay away from her on her fingertips. "They're tall. And they play baseball. And they work at a construction site all week so we've got plenty of shovels lying around."

Half of that was fiction, but most people found the Sing brothers intimidating. She doubted some kid in a beat-up Jeep and flannel could stand a chance against the both of them.

"I'm not stalking you, okay!" Stiles finally managed, eyes wide and palms raised in the air in surrender. "My Dad's the Sherrif, jeez! It's his job to know who moves here."

Belle wasn't half convinced - she could hear Stiles' pulse racing from where she stood, smell the nervous sweat beading down his neck, see Scott cringing in his seat in the truck. "And is it your job too?"

Stiles looked to Scott for help, who simply shrugged, and when he turned around Belle was storming away.

"Wait, Belle-"

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" she fumed, holding a middle finger up behind her head, too concentrated on being alone to realise she'd never given him her name.

[kap]

Content Warning: Gore/murder, death of an infant, blood, needles
Show: Dexter
Show Synopsis (taken and slightly modified from the Dexter wiki page, here) :
Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst, is secretly a serial killer. His adoptive father saw these homicidal tendencies in Dexter as he grew up. When Dexter admits to having desires to kill people, his adoptive father influences him to follow a "code": only kill murderers who have escaped prosecution of the law. As his father has taught him, he covers his tracks by taking the victim to a prepared room lined with plastic sheeting in order to easily dispose of the evidence at sea.

Ahmanet Oasis

When I was about fifteen years old, I rid the world my baby brother. Once he was born, my parents paid me no mind. They hardly acknowledged my existence, and I'll tell you, when you're once the center of someone's world, you don't want that taken away from you. I'd been replaced by an infant. All the love and adoration I'd once received was now transferred to this young boy.

He didn't deserve all the good he was getting. What had he done to earn it, anyway? He was born? Well guess what, motherfucker, I was born, too, to the same damn parents and clearly that doesn't mean shit.

I wanted to know what it was that made him so special, so for a few months, I tried to figure it out. When I realized it was truly nothing but him being my replacement, I got rid of this new roadblock. I killed him.

Unfortunately, I'm no expert at covering my tracks, and since it was my own brother, it was difficult to hide from. I was caught and brought to the detention center for a couple of years, as the authorities thought that would straighten me out. I was released, but when I got out, my parents wanted nothing to do with me. I was sent to a foster home, but I wasn't wanted there, either. Now, I live on the streets by myself the majority of the time.

When you're out in the open world, however, there are always predators.

I didn't know what was going on when I felt the needle sink into my neck. I didn't have long to think about it either. Apparently, animal tranquilizers cause a human to pass out quite quickly. Fuck knows where this guy got animal tranquilizers.

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was his face. Not my brother's face, no. It was the face of a stranger. This man wasn't familiar to me at all, but I knew that somehow, someway, he knew who I was. The grin of a maniac spread across his lips as he sneered at me.

I tried to move to push his face away from mine but I was somehow attached to a table. I tried to move again. Plastic wrap. He'd wrapped me up in plastic wrap like I was last night's dinner and used it to attach me to the table. What kind of sick fuck-

"Ahmanet Oasis," he chided. "Your poor, dear little brother."

I wasn't going to deny it. It was no secret.

He finally moved back away from my face.

"What about him? He's dead," I shot back.

"You killed him," the man said, his voice as calm as ever.

"Yeah, and? I did my time in the detention center for it," I retorted.

"Except," he drawled, daintily dragging his finger across my cheek. "That's not what Panem does to murderers, is it now?"

I remained silent this time, knowing that if I said anything further that he'd just use it against me. I was usually someone who'd keep taunting their foe, but in this case, I, for the first time in my life, was at a clear disadvantage.

He lifted my head up and forced me to look at a printed picture he'd taped to the plastic-covered wall. This whole goddamn room was covered in plastic. What the hell was with this guy?

The picture was of my brother, back before I killed him.

"Panem, at the very least, cuts out the tongues of those who commit crimes like you did," he hissed.

"Is that what you're gonna do to me, then?" I ask, my sass returning just that slightest bit.

"Oh, no no no," he chuckles. "I told you that's what they do at the very least. I'm going to take care of you the way that they're supposed to."

My heart felt like it was going to beat through my chest so hard that it'd break the dozens of layers of plastic wrap confining me. Unfortunately, it didn't and I stayed confined to that table. This feeling, however, was more so out of anger rather than fear. I wasn't scared of death. I was just fucking angry about it.

"Oh, fuck you!" I shouted at him. Before I could say anything more, however, he stuffed cotton of some sort into my mouth so that I couldn't utter another word. He then took a small knife and cut into my cheek. I winced slightly at the pain. I couldn't see what he was doing until he pulled away from me. That was when I saw that he had a sort of slide in his hand, like the one that you put under a microscope, with a single drop of my blood on it. He placed it off to the side and I heard him grab something else.

He came back over with a knife. A big, sharp-ass knife.

He didn't speak another word in what felt like the eternity between him positioning the knife over my chest and bringing it down towards me.

When it did finally come down, though, I knew it was over. The blade plunged into my heart, and I met my end.

He was far too meticulous for my liking, having covered everything with plastic so that not a drop of blood would hit the floor.

The only thing I knew about this man in my final moments was that he was a very neat monster, and I didn't like that type of monster.

note: since this is very much AU, no, Ahmanet isn't dead, but if she were, I'd imagine it would've happened in a way much like this, with some sort of 'vigilante' killer or something of the like.

[Deleted]

[tl;dr, i am rambling at 1am!]

“So I ran away!”

“You ran away?”

”No way, you can’t do that!”

”Well, I did!” She says, barely the size of a dime. She had never been too tall. Never been too strong, or brave, but she had been quick. Penny would run through the grass blades the first time she had met him, and he would bounce his fingers on the tops of them, they’d run together like that. She’d get some of that energy out and dirt would blend into the felt, but stains weren’t the end of the world.

That’s what laundry machines were for, of course, “I mean, you can’t just run away- what if he needs you?!”

“To do what? Pay for his college?”

Penny plopped down back onto her napkin cover; the rest of them around the orphanage had beds, but they didn’t have one quite her size. The smallest was for two rocking horses with wings - which was utterly ridiculous, since they don’t even sleep - and the beds only seemed to get larger from there. Up and up and up to lengths Penny couldn’t even imagine what to use them for, what she would do with all that space. The best thing she could do was give it up for somebody else to have, but she couldn’t help but imagine what it would be nice to have the cold a.c. breeze on her fabric face.

Instead, she sleeps in a bedside table. The second drawer, to be exact, she climbs in with assistance of Gabrovic. Odd names, the sorts of them, but she’s been trying her hardest to learn them throughout the day. Gabrovic is a lanky man, with a face that blends into his shadowing trench coat, and Penny crawled into his palm and decided to sleep in his bedside table. He is the man with the longest bed, and Penny stretches as she notices his feet hang well past the foot of his bed. Gabrovic, the tallest, and then there is Lucky, who’s the broadest.

This is very important, you see, as his horns need accommodating space, which is why his bed is so wide.

And it’s completely besides the point that he’s just the oldest one here. They made the mistake of telling her that, Penny tosses the napkin over her lap and it feels as if she threw an entire closet on top of her. Damn two ply.

”He didn’t even seem like that bad of a kid. I mean, if he’s got space to adopt, let him know I’m available!”

“You’re so dumb, Carmen,” these two bicker back and forth. Carmen and Myara, but they’ve been the most of Penny’s tour here at the orphanage. A bunny in a red hat and a canary with a too long neck, and a two inch mouse lays down to listen to them. Apparently, Myara would say, her hat came from Basil. Her person- that person. The one who’s supposed to care for you, about you; Penny held onto the straps of her leather rucksack a little tighter when she heard.

Myara walked her through the front room with a limp, taking her crooked strides as Penny worked hurdles to keep up. She would swing from lamp cords and vault up the stairs with a toothpick, and apparently “Basil never loved her,” but they never do. That’s how they wind up here, one day he’s scribbling blushing cheeks onto the fabric around your mouth and the next he’s gone to war. And Penny blinks.

Carmen had her hat.

Penny had his needle.

Like a sword, and she fought an ant with it once! To prove that she could live through it to -- what changed Lorenzo.

That loss of childhood, the abandonment of how simple imagination can be.

How free it can be.

The mind of a child, the love of your only friend.

”He's got the space- why don't you just give him a call, Carmen? He always picks up,” she says, laying down before Gabrovic shuts the drawer.

tl;dr foster's home for imaginary friends au
i SLAPPED this together because im running out of time

penny = lorenzo's need for adventure, want of running, and fear of feeling small
myara = clementa's bitterness and the mimicry of self hate
carmen = basil growing up too fast, leaving childhood behind
gabrovic = elverum's comfort in death, love of silence, need for family
lucky the minotaur = charlie's just edgy
the horseshoe flies = das just helios baby!!

finn's friend was a conch with drooling lips
noah's friend was a pile of sludge with googly eyes
stevie's friend was a bipedal dog with floor length fur, wearing a corset and spectacles

[Stare]

Y'all. Y'all. We were all so impressed by how each and every one of you took this challenge and ran with it. Your entries were all such a pleasure to read and we were sooooo conflicted on who to name as a winner for this one. Ultimately, though, we decided to give the win to both cass and charade - the way that you two played off of each other was wonderful, you did a spectacular job engaging with your chosen TV universe, and you broke our hearts to pieces. Congratulations to both of you, and we'll see the rest of you very soon for our August challenge!