#now I just have this 19yo kid who is as much of a goofball as he is secretly bitter about everything

[hollenka99]

He’s Gone!

Summary: On the way to school, Jackie spots someone getting stabbed. He tries to help the man, with Henrik von Schneeplestein giving him advice. Based on a-heist-of-words' Egoctober 2018 prompt, "He's gone!"

Warnings: Stabbing, character death

Jackie enjoyed the feeling of trees surrounding him. There wasn't much to worry about at 9am when the trees calmed you. Except for maybe being late for class. Or perhaps witnessing a man getting stabbed during a mugging.

He supposed the gazebo was a good place to attack someone. This section of the park was the least populated area. It branched off from the main path that 90% of people used. Of course, people his age liked to visit it frequently. He certainly remembered the Leaver's Dinner last year. At least some of his classmates had the sense to find a more original make-out spot elsewhere.

He'd been minding his own business. He was reminding himself of where his first class was when the incident caught his eye. The thugs were armed. A quick case of stab, steal and sprint. The man had certainly been on his way to work. Why on earth was he walking this way? Jackie didn't think there were any offices nearby. Okay, sure, he was taking a shortcut because it was more convenient, given where he lived. It was possible this stranger lived near him.

Forget the reason why. What was more important was how. How was Jackie going to save this guy? He was a Computing student in his last year before university. His medical knowledge began and ended with basic first aid. Dr Schneeplestein had taught him all that.

Schneeplestein!

As he rushed to the victim, he dialled the doctor's personal number.

"Dr Schneeplestein, it's Jackie. I need help." "What's so urgent at 9 o'clock in the morning?" "Stabbing." "Where are you?" "Uh, you know that gazebo in the middle of the park? Yeah, there. How soon can you get here?" "I don't know. If I hurry and the traffic is good, I might be able to arrive in 10 minutes." "I don't- I don't think he can wait that long." "Then we'll have to keep talking. Keep him breathing. And try to stay calm. Freaking out like a little bitch baby won't help anyone." "I know."

He crouched down to the stranger's level. He introduced himself and explained his intentions. The guy didn't seem to care too much. At least someone was there to help him. He was clearly in a great deal of pain. Having part of your body cut open would do that.

And the blood. Oh shit, the blood. He'd once heard that the human body contained roughly five litres of blood on average. At the time, he didn't feel that was a large amount. Plus he'd also been mentally designing his costume back then. Was that why he'd picked red? Because he had blood on his mind? No, it couldn't be. He just liked red.

"Hey, the first step is putting pressure on the wound, right?" His hands were already on the wound. "Whatever you do, don't pull the knife out. Is it still in there?" "No. The thieves must have taken it with them." Henrik's cursing in German was faint. "Do you have something to use to press on the wound? You need to put pressure on it." "I'm using my hands right now." "Do you have anything else?"

Did he have something? Not really. For God's sake, he was on his way to school. All he had were notepads. He'd bought his latest one two weeks ago so most of the pages were blank. The notepads from the Tesco's down the road were pretty cheap. He was hardly rich but he could afford to lose another pound if it meant helping someone.

What was he thinking? What the hell was paper going to do? And some of those pages had touched the desks. It probably wasn't sanitary.

An item of clothing then. Being October, it wasn't cold enough yet to warrant the need for a scarf. Even if he'd wanted to pull out his costume, he had no need for it at school so it wasn't in his bag. Think. Think! Would his hoodie do? It was light grey, meaning the blood would show. Plus it was the only thing keeping him relatively warm.

Fuck it.

Without the knife stopping the blood flow, there was a decent amount of it leaking now. Five litres didn't seem so small anymore. Come on, what was five litres anyway? It was only two and a half of those massive fizzy drink bottles you could buy. Occasionally, when he simply refused to respect his blood sugar levels, he'd drink a full litre bottle of Coca Cola in one night. You had five of those in your body. Who the hell knew how many bottles this guy was down.

He hoped the wound would clot or something soon, now that it was covered by his hoodie. Instead, more complications emerged. The man was already experiencing issues with breathing. Now he beginning to plain old choke. It sounded... wet. Jackie had always hated that word when it came to coughing. The thought of it made him cringe. This wasn't right. The guy wasn't just struggling to catch his breath, he was choking on a liquid. Almost as if he was-

Okay, even if he was panicking and needed Henrik to prompt him, Jackie still knew vaguely what to do when someone was bleeding out. But this? How was he supposed to deal with this?!

"Henrik?" "I'm still here." "He's choking on his own blood. What do I do?" "Make sure his airways are clear." "But how?!"

Crap. The man slipped out of consciousness. This was getting wildly out of hand. He just wanted to go to class. In school, he just had to focus on exams. If he messed those up, it was only his life he was screwing over. This, on the other hand, was truly life and death. He was at a loss. Henrik wasn't being as helpful as he'd hoped. And the ambulance... the ambulance wasn't on its way because he'd called Schneeplestein instead.

Jesus, what was one doctor going to do compared to an ambulance with paramedics and medical equipment? He's really fucked this up, hasn't he?

He'd never dealt with something this serious before. Before, he'd see a criminal and beat them up. Maybe he'd be in the background and do some hacking. There's also that thing with the lasers. Being able to shoot lasers was cool. However, none of this helped revive someone.

"Dude. Dude! Hey, wake up. You've got to hang on a little longer. My friend will be here soon. Can you hear me?"

He checked the man's pulse. He was always so bad at this. Every Biology lesson that involved the circulatory system, he never failed to be one of the last to find their pulse. A few years ago, back when he was still preparing to earn his Junior Certificate, he would joke with friends that he was dead. Maybe he was putting his fingers too high. He thought he remembered being taught the top of the throat was the best place.

He was wasting time. At least checking for breath was simple. All you had to do was place your hands near their mouth or nose then wait to feel something. So Jackie waited.

No, he wasn't doing this right. He checked over and over. It was to no avail. He'd didn't want to admit it. He was meant to be a hero. He was supposed to help others. To save them. It was his job to bring a little more justice into the world.

He didn't think the trees would be as calming now.

"Jackie!" That was the doctor, arriving too late. "He's gone." Said the 17 year old boy who'd just witnessed a murder, his clothes and hands stained with blood.

[encrucijada]

PÍA RAMBLES #3

i made the mistake of going through some old writing and falling into the false sense of security that i can fix them. so here we are.

[ image id: a forest with sunlight coming through the trees, the word “hideout” written on serif font on the left side. a white silhouette of a fox on top ]

if you saw the unofficial intro post for my novel fantasybane then you know that book came from an entirely different story i tried to write when i was in the eight grade and it was about kids who had powers over the elements. more on that here too. i know i can’t blame 14yo pía for thinking this was her magnum opus because she had fun writing it, but just thinking back on it... it’s cringe, as are most things one writes as a kid. especially when you’re not fluent on the language you are writing on. but something happened while i was suffering through my self-imposed cringe session... i saw potential??

when i was first writing this story i did it without a clear end goal because i never planned my endings, which led it to slowly become a generic love triangle when there was so much i could have done with the things i introduced?? i also saw these prompts and thought they would make the elemental powers a lot more interesting

let me tell you about hideout. the original story basically went like this: eight kids are born with power over the elements and are given to this shady scientist who very evilly said he'll take care of their kids, then proceeds to experiment on them before they get too old (eight years old), upon which he put them in this fake forest that was basically a prison. the plot kicked in when wolves appeared in the forest, which isn’t supposed to happen, there are only supposed to be “animals that can be hunted” in the forest. when they bring the wolves after shooting them to the de facto leader of the group she tells them the wolves aren’t actually dead. this repeats with a crow and the de facto leader’s words are proven to be true when the crow wakes up from its death induced coma and nearly pecks out the eyes of the youngest member. at some point one of the two electricity elementals (they were twins) came across this pretty looking girl who had two coloured eyes like the rest of them, marking her as someone who could control an element. after this point the story turned into a love triangle between the lightning elemental, the fire elemental (the main protagonist), and the mysterious girl. it wasn’t resolved because i stopped writing but, gasp! plot twist! the mysterious girl was in cahoots with the antagonist! what i had planned was everyone but lightning boy and fire girl would get captured and the antagonist would make it snow in the forest to try and kill those two. and then idk i guess they escape the forest in the end.

after reading through all 18 written chapters i wrote down a plot synopsis for the revamp. and now here we are.

let’s meet the characters! i tried to make as little changes to their original selves as possible. mostly just polished them off

evanna then: darkness elemental, main antagonist, condor shifter, 21yo. evanna now: light elemental, 21yo

diana then: mentalist(??) elemental, de facto leader, never left the safe house, snake shifter, 19yo. diana now: aether elemental, still de facto leader, still never leaves the safe house, 19yo

gideon then: water elemental, pretty boy big flirt, dog shifter, 16yo. gideon now: water elemental, our new narrator, 17yo

summer then: fire elemental, hot headed tsundere, good at everything, fox shifter, main protagonist, 16yo. summer now: fire elemental, crush on gideon oh??, 17yo

luke then: lightning elemental, goofball, raccoon shifter, 16yo. lucas now: electricity elemental, goodball but no longer cringe, 16yo

james then: lightnight elemental, brooding because he likes a girl, raccoon shifter, 16yo. james now: electricity elemental, unrequited pining, the root of all problems, 16yo

victoria then: nature elemental, shallow pretty girl, dove shifter, 15yo. victoria now: nature elemental, peacekeeper along with lucas, 15yo

laura “leo” then: ice elemental, brute tomboy, badger shifter, only likes the team baby, 14yo. leo now: earth elemental, afab they/them, the only one outwardly unhappy to be here, 13yo

lilly then: wind elemental, team baby, mouse shifter, 9yo. lilly now: wind elemental, still team baby, coping through silence, 9yo

monica then: nightmare sub-elemental, mysterious sexy girl, antagonist lackey, cat shifter, 16yo. monica now: darkness elemental, still mysterious and sexy, inciting incident, 16yo

the little fox on the header image is an homage to hideout’s cover always including a red fox. they aren’t shapeshifters anymore but it just felt right.

taking inspiration from the maze runner movie, i turned the forest into a bit of a labyrinth with the “safe house” being at the centre. the technicalities like clothes and weapons should not be questioned, though they are semi-explained either way. how exactly are they explained? not really sure i will figure it out. they have a real sense of found family now, as opposed to being more like reluctant roommates all sharing the same space. and i don’t know why i got really endeared over the thought of the older kids passing their clothes along to the younger kids once they’ve outgrown them.

gideon as the pov character is a new and surprisingly welcome change. originally the story was written in 3rd person, mostly focused on summer, but also on james and sometimes we would cut in to other povs like diana or lilly and even monica at one point. i didn’t give much mind to gideon while writing og hideout but after my reread i realise how much potential he has?? i’ve already started writing and he balances this tenuous spot between cynical and genuinely caring. being the oldest around with actual concern for the others since diana is mostly doing her own thing. his relationship with summer was of him getting his ass kicked whenever he tried to fight her in the og, and while that might still be true for this version, the budding feelings are carried over from fantasybane where their new personas (isaías and alba) are in a relationship.

the new plot is summarised thusly: “eight kids with powers over the elements are locked away in an artificial forest in an attempt to keep everyone safe from them. the tenuous peace they have maintained for a decade is broken with the appearance of a ninth wielder who stirs doubt and has been in the forest as long as they have. she has something that they want: a way out.”

as a way to let out all my anger towards the summer/james/monica love triangle, now james’ unrequited pining is the root of all the problems. and him being a whiny about “>:c i like her first” is going to be what almost gets everyone killed. because if he just talked to people maybe they wouldn’t be in this situation. yes, he still likes summer. yes, she’s going to turn him down an mean it. suck on that, pretty boy (derogatory).

also we are holding diana accountable for withholding information.

i’ll probably be posting this online free to read but we’ll see. i am not working on this formally so progress will be sporadic at best.