#something cj wrote yesterday (?) made me think of this

[lingeringscars]

idk how to word it but shauna struggling with empathy but not compassion. shauna is an extremely compassionate person, but she struggles putting herself in other positions and feeling other people's emotions. she rolls her eyes and is disgusted with lottie not waking up, but she also is someone who comforted javi, mari, and tai. she can be kind; she is not nice.

[aerielz]

Cj/Toby - Fluff #4?

“Shut up and hold me.”

This was supposed to have been out yesterday. It was also supposed to be just around three hundred words. Guesstimates are not my forte.

I had no idea where to go with it, so it ended up taking an interesting turn. Hope it still counts as fluff? Thanks so much for the prompt!

It starts with something stupid that Josh says, as many things have for so long, now, and probably will for the rest of his life, if he’s lucky enough.

Toby pushes him into accepting a guest lecture at Columbia, claiming that a few days outside of DC might do him good, and he accepts it, much to his surprise.

He hasn't seen Josh in a while, and the distance makes itself clearer and more acute while he watches Josh take the stage and command the auditorium with an authority he's never displayed before. A kinder, softer, authority. He has a gentler hand, now, a more apt hand to steer questions into answers and world views into realities.

He's changed, and later, when Toby asks about Donna, he's made fully aware of how much she's changed too. How much Sam changed. He feels a little bit stranged, then. Far away from the new world they've made, far away from them. Even if Josh is right there in front of him.

He's alright— he really is. This loneliness, he's used to it by now. But he's been wondering, these days, if this is what Andy meant, so many years before.

Maybe the question is apparent, because Josh says—

“You should see someone."

He scoffs, “Are you really going to stand there and tell me a woman is the solution to my problems— unbelievable.”

Josh chuckles a laugh, “No— I mean. Well. It wouldn’t hurt to get out of the shell for once, you know—”

“Why are we having this conversation, again?”

“—but I mean a therapist.”

He huffs and grumbles, and says thanks but no thanks, and changes the subject, and two weeks later he’s sitting in a beautifully furnished room inside a brownstone somewhere uptown, listening as his new therapist tells him that it wasn’t healthy — wondering why the fuck it is that he decided to pay any sort of attention to Josh Lyman.

“Excuse me?,” he says, half laughing.

She shrugs, “It wasn’t.”

Only he doesn’t need anyone to tell him that, does he?

The White House, a traumatic experience? Of course not, he says, mouth full of barbed sarcasm, “I’ve only lost my family and the better portion of my reputation— not to mention any peace of mind I can claim to have ever had and whatever was left of my hair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she deadpans, “you still have plenty of hair.”

“Thank you, but I think I’m still more interested in, you now, all the other stuff?"

“Well, can’t help you there. You said it yourself, that’s all gone.”

This type of frankness is something he’s more used to listening to in his own voice. And someone else’s, but he doesn’t want to think about her. He's managed to not think about her for months now, he’s not about to start.

“I see I’m getting my money’s worth of good life advice.”

“Toby—,” she says, leaning forward, ”it’s gone. It’s not coming back. And you knew that would happen when you leaked the—”

“This is not about that.”

“—but I think it is. I think it is and if you want me to help you then you have to stop trying to bullshit me,” she says, dead serious, but with an amused smile on her lips. “Otherwise we’re in for fifty minutes of verbal sparring a week and I'm sure you’ve had eight years too many of that.”

It's after the first month that he allows himself to picture her face again. It's a memory. The day she found out.

"Once you said you lost your family," his therapist says that week.

"Yeah," he answers, "in more ways than one."

"What do you mean?"

And that's how he learns a thing or two about opening up and about emotional honesty. That easily. By just deciding to.

He hates it. Almost makes the decision to go back, too.

Then he calls Andy for the first time in seven months, instead of the other way around—

"Tobias!," she says, before he can get a word in, "I couldn't understand shit of what you wrote in that last article, but I'll applaud any attempt at academically calling out congress on our bullshit. When's the next one due? Oh, and Huck and Molly are going nuts about the whole summer in New York thing, won't shut up about it."

— and wonders if his isolation wasn't a little bit self inflicted.

"Just because what you had is gone, doesn't mean you can't have something else," his therapist says. "Don't you have a new reputation, now? Haven't you found some peace again?"

"Hair's still gone."

"Well, you said you preferred the other things."

Can't have everything, he says, he thinks, to himself and remembers of her voice.

"No, no, you can," his therapist answers, having heard him very well, "Just can't have the same thing twice."

It takes him years to understand that one. It takes a beautiful, blue, envelope in his desk, his name written on it in fancy calligraphy.

It takes seeing Josh place his hands on the small of Donna's back, like he's watched him do so many times. It takes Donna's exasperated smile, her eye roll, the naked affection playing in Josh's face. The slender ring on their fingers that's somehow a contrast to the walls of the East Wing ballroom. It takes everything that's always been there being now so completely different.

It takes the sight of her, coming from the other side of the room in a green dress that makes her tanned skin shine golden.

The pain of longing is there, surrounding his heart, threatening to wash over him, but he finds it that he likes what the distance did to them. There's a lightness to him that wasn't there before. And her smile is brighter, somehow.

They walk towards each other like drawn by gravity — naturally, inevitable, painlessly.

"Oh, God, I missed you," he lets out with a laugh.

She laughs, too. CJ laughs the laugh of recognition, and it's light and beautiful and a little bit shy, and he's falling in love with her again before he can even name the feeling.

"I don't think I've ever heard you say something like that so openly," she comments. He finds himself shy, too. It's a delicious feeling, the giddy happiness that washes over him. “Who are you and what have you done to—”

“Just— shut up and hold me, will you?," he retorts.

She steps into his arms, sinking into the warmth of his embrace. He encircles her tight, fitting himself around her and remembering the size of her against him like he would a rhyme from a childhood song. Uncertainly, bathed in tentative affection.

"Gladly," she says, against his neck.

The familiarity of it clashes with his newfound internal honesty, with the walls of the White House, with the reality that he doesn't owe anyone anything. "Don't let go."

"Wasn't planning to."

She clings to him, a little bit, unashamed to do so.

And he likes it best. Whatever this new thing is that he has now, he thinks he likes it best.

[amarantine-amirite]

November Syndrome

Imagine that you're a freshman. You're away from home for the first time, out from under the thumbs of veganism and expectations for high achievement that were previously foisted upon you. You have no sense of obligation other than avoiding being yelled at by parents and school. No discipline. No idea how to schedule anything. No sense of organization or time management. The only reason you ever got anything done before was because you had been emotionally beaten into submission by your higher-ups.

What happens? You go crazy. End of story. For the first two months, you go to every party and social event on campus, then, come November, you go bonkers over how much work you have to do, but you don't actually do any work. Instead of working, you escape into things like writing fanfiction, playing Fortnite, or something else unrelated to your studies. It's almost like you evolve into a master procrastinator.

Worse, you don’t even notice your lack of discipline until there’s no one saying “no” to every one of your ideas. As a premed, one of the courses I had to take was called "Computer Science for Scientific Applications". It sounded better than it was. It involved having to hand-write code. On top of that, we had to write in pen! It sucked. My handwritten braces looked like sideways boobs. It was just awful. What really sucked was that I write in cursive, so I did my code in cursive. The professor was not pleased when I handed my assignments in. Our assignments were graded based on whether or not they worked. We don't know until we hand anything in if it works. We don't test the code ourselves, he runs it for us. He put our assignments were put through a scanner, and the scans would be put through a piece of software that would convert the text on the image of the page into actual text. The text that it scraped would then be entered into the IDE for the language in question. Usually for freshman computer science, the language was Java, but our steam (recall I was in premed at the time) did Javascript. The only sort of editing that had to be done to the code once it was scanned and in the IDE was typically spacing related/missing character (the software was good but not perfect).

How was your assignment scored? If the code ran, you passed, and if not; you failed. And I failed my assignment (I only did one) because my handwriting always created a ton of problems for the transcription software. It was kind of a weird program. The software had an auto-detect-language-and-translate feature. Sounds cool, but because of my writing, it thought that I was writing in Hindi and it would "auto-translate" my code. Since the translation module for the software was not that good, stuff got mistranslated…a lot. I remember on one of my assignments, I wrote something in the comments and it got garbled into "radish boots". Ever since then, my nickname amongst my friends in CS was Radish Boots. I didn't hand in any more assignments for that class after that.

See, that's how it starts. Something very small, very unexpected like that. That's how you get the idea that your assignments are optional. And that was all it took to turn me into a master procrastinator.

Once I got the idea that assignments were optional, I just really let myself go. Within three weeks, I went from "good student" to "crappy student" to "how the hell did they get into university?" With no actual work weighing me down, I went ahead and participated in every campus social event ever. Paint-your-own flower pot day at the library? I was there! Fitness event? I was there! Halloween party? Take a guess? I kid you not, I was acting like one of those guys in a college movie. Rather than studying, I went to social events. It was great, except for one little thing. Turns out (and I learned this at board game night), people find people who act like they're in college movies really annoying.

Anyway, the incident that happened at board game night was related to something that happened in chemistry. We had one of those semester long group projects where they put you in groups of seven or eight people. One of the people in our group (Anne, I believe it was) was at the event, and she gave me an earful. Not going to lie, she was really mad that I wasn't doing any work. That's bad enough on its own, but she was angrier than I had expected her to be because we lost five people in the group (four of whom died in rapid succession in some bizarro chain reaction):

last Monday, Laura died of obesity related complications

last Tuesday, Alejandro took up jogging to avoid dying like Laura. He got hit by a bus

last Wednesday, Kevin became afraid of the outdoors (thanks to what happened to Alejandro) and sought refuge in playing video games. Come the weekend, he died of a blood clot from playing Starcraft for 62 hours straight

on Sunday, Melissa shunned all technology (because of what happened to Kevin) and went off to rough it in the woods. She died eating poisonous mushrooms

and yesterday, Michiru dropped out because she couldn't handle the pressure of doing the work of the people that died 

Now, our group only had two people, and we had to do the work of seven people. Actually, scratch that. Since I wasn't pulling my weight, poor Anne was stuck doing the work of seven people. Understandably, she was fuming with me, and more than a few swear words were uttered. Anne made a point of saying that if I didn't step up in times of crisis, I had no business being a doctor. I would have agreed, but I had my first taste of freedom in my life. There was no one telling me how I had to respond, so I did what people in movies did: I told her to fuck off.

I don't blame Anne for being so ticked with me. After all, she was doing the work of seven people and I was being a coward, hiding behind a mask made out of lies and excuses. No one likes that.

And then, it happened. November rolled around. The amount of stuff that was past due was insane. Seriously! I missed literally every single assignment that wasn't a test (actually, I think I might have missed a couple of tests, too). I made the mistake of buying into the delusion that assignments were optional, and I ended up paying for it.

I needed to get my shit together and do work, but I couldn't. It went beyond lack of discipline. I never built a workflow, and now I couldn't, for it was too late to dig myself out of the hole. And so, instead of doing the work I needed to do, I did a bunch of irrelevant crap. I had run out of time as a procrastinator, but I acted like things were OK. The reality was, they weren't. My situation with school was beyond dire. Worse, I lied to myself about how it wasn't a big deal. Rather than own up to anything, I escaped into a world of playing video games, writing crappy fan fiction, and other bullshit that would in no way help me get on top of school. November called, and I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was stuck where I was.

I know that I sound like I am repeating myself a lot, but I really want to emphasize how I still didn't get my ass in gear even though things had gotten to the point that I really, really had to buckle down and actually do a ton of work to just pass. More specifically, I wanted to emphasize how much stupid fan fiction and creepypasta I read and wrote during that period. I don't know why I gravitated to creepypasta. I think I was trying to hide the fact that I was a coward, afraid to face the consequences of my procrastination. Liking works of fiction involving surreal horror and demented episodes of beloved childhood cartoons somehow must have translated in my mind to not being afraid of anything. Regardless of how the logistics of that excuse supposedly worked, I ended up being a creepypasta addict.

And that bled into my fanfic writing. I know because I tried to write this ridiculous JumpStart fanfic. It was supposed to be a creepypasta/fanfic (like the infamous Cupcakes), but it just came out incredibly stupid. The concept that powered the story was the little animals from the early elementary JumpStart titles (Frankie the dog, Eleanor the elephant, Pierre the polar bear, CJ the frog, etc…) acting like the folks on South Park. For instance, Frankie the Dog was "Kyle", CJ the Frog was "Stan", Eleanor the Elephant was "Cartman" (albeit with a hidden softer side), and I don't remember who was "Kenny" (I think it was Pierre the Polar Bear). Anyway, the actual story was this thing with vampires. The story was that, at some point, Eleanor got bitten by a vampire (and consequently, turned into a vampire). At the same time, Pierre (I think) was in the hospital with some pretty heavy duty muscular dystrophy, and CJ was trying to persuade people to fund stem-cell research in the hopes that they could save Pierre. However; Frankie thought CJ's thing was dumb and said that they could get Eleanor to bite Pierre so he'd turn into a vampire, thereby curing him of his muscular dystrophy. The only problem with that was, well, Pierre would be a vampire. Eleanor ends up being conflicted by the whole thing, and that's the conflict that drives the story.

I remember some time after I posted the first two chapters online wanting to have a twist ending (I'd written about 75% of the story by this time). I didn't know whether I wanted to do "you think it's the future but it's really the past" or "you think it's the past but it's really the future". I guess it didn't matter, because I noticed that I had only two hours left before the submission deadline for my biology term paper. After trying to convince myself that no, I wasn't dreaming this, I wrote the bare minimum of what I needed to write to fit the guidelines for the term paper disclosed on the webpage; then uploaded the results to turnitin.com, fingers crossed that I would at least pass.

Except I didn't. Not only did I not pass the term paper, I didn’t even hand it in. I found out the next day that I had actually uploaded the fourth chapter of my dumb-ass JumpStart fanfiction (and it was a scary chapter too...it was the flashback to when Eleanor gets bitten by the vampire). The prof was not impressed. Let's just leave it at that.

You have no idea how badly I screwed everything up. I managed to get a flat zero in every single course this term. The only exception was CS, where I wound up getting only 2%. Bottom line is that I failed everything. Yes, everything. My only shot at academic redemption is the final exam.

Even still, it might not be enough. As of this writing, I have less than twelve hours before I go in to write the exam. This is bad. I can't sleep even though I'm exhausted. I have to stay up and work. I need to sleep, but I can't. I'm stuck. I've made this bed, and now I'm going to die in it.

No, really. I feel like I'm going to die.

When I first started cramming, I was fine for the first hour and a half. After that, though, I started seeing static in my field of view. The static thing lasted for a couple of hours until it progressed to seeing shadow people. Or, at least I thought they were shadow people. They weren't even remotely humanoid. I was seeing weird, shadowy spider things. They looked like giant tarantulas, all four of them, and they were coming for me. Just before they got me, they vanished.

They were gone. They were 100% all gone. It was like it never happened. No static, no ghost spiders, nothing. Crisis averted. Back to work.

Nope. It's not that simple. The minute I went back to reading the textbook, I could feel my heart race. I tried to highlight stuff and write down key points, but I couldn't, since my right arm is numb. I switch to writing with my other hand, but that doesn't work. I can't write with my other hand too well. Worse, the minute I get the hang of writing with my other hand, I start throwing up like a volcano. After that, it's over. I can't study if I'm throwing up every three minutes. Even if I weren't throwing up the way I am, I wouldn't be able to focus on studying right now. I can barely form coherent sentences, much for your time like to undarastamnd the impotence of teh book biology and chemistry. Chemical biologrehcal flerbut connection ffrhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

AAAAAAAAAA!

@the-writer-s-hideout

[noahxsweetwine]

mistletoe

(no one sent this prompt I just wrote it bc I’m igyts trash. Also, I’m not a writer so this is probably bad asfflkajskl)

Jude Age 14

I hate mistletoe.

Given my trademark infatuation with the superstitious, most assume mistletoe is one of my good omens. In fact, Grandma Sweetwine’s Bible makes no mention of the spiky sprig, so I am left to turn to traditional ancient lore to find meaning in it.

The Druids believed mistletoe was a magical cure for every ailment. On the eve of their new year, they gathered it from oak trees, careful to not let it touch the ground. Then they hung it over their doorways and made it into drinks to take advantage of its fortuitous properties.

Mistletoe is actually poisonous. What’s more, it’s parasitic. It invades the soil around another plant’s roots and seeps the life out of it in order to live. The Druids were trying to cure one poison with another. 

The more well-known connotation seems ridiculous to me. It’s as if we ignore the obvious danger of the plant for its seemingly harmless and beautiful appearance. (Better not walk under the mistletoe unless you want to smooch someone! What a joke.) Even if I did, the boycott is under full effect. They say if a woman is not kissed under the mistletoe at all during the season, she is destined to stay single for a year. That’s absolutely fine with me.

Some well-intentioned (or possibly mischievously-intentioned) CSA students thought it was a great idea to line the halls with the offending parasite. I’ve managed to mostly avoid it, but I have to check before I walk through doorways. (This isn’t too much extra effort: doorways are an auspicious liminal space anyway, so I’ve always been careful. Depending on who you ask, walking through an entryway backwards can be good or bad luck. Though, most things are either good luck or bad luck depending on who you ask.)

Once, though, I was in a rush to get to Anatomy (the science requirement for CSA students - it’s meant to be more tailored towards aspiring artists. I like it better than traditional science classes, but they still haven’t taught me what I really want to know. How can your twin brother’s beautiful brain suddenly stop communicating with his body? Why does my heart still feel pain when I’m hurt if emotions are controlled by the mind? What happens to the human body when it’s run through with a car?) In my haste, I didn’t look up before entering, and ended up nearly colliding with Caleb Cartwright (art-is-truth, I-have-no-filter Caleb Cartwright). I only dropped my pencil, but when I bent down to pick it up, there was snickering from within the classroom.

“Mistletoe,” one boy with purple hair pointed out. He looked immensely pleased with himself, despite the fact that he had spinach stuck in his teeth. “Wouldn’t want to defy tradition, would you, CJ?”

I gritted my teeth. In fact, I did not subscribe to every superstition out there, I wanted to say. I borrowed from what I saw fit, but Grandma Sweetwine’s Bible was my only obligation. Instead of saying anything, however, I pushed past Caleb, who looked like he couldn’t care less, honestly.

“No offense,” started Randy Brown. “But you look red as a tomato, CJ.”

I probably did. I willed my body to cease its vasodilation (a word I learned in Anatomy. See, education is not wasted on me.) The CSA kids aren’t nearly as malicious as those at my old school, but they often don’t have the tact (or the desire, maybe) to keep themselves from saying whatever came to mind. I wondered how Noah was surviving at the normal high school. 

The bell rang, and I took my usual seat next to Fish. (Most CSA teachers changed the seating arrangements regularly to “promote evolving artistic collaboration,” but Anatomy was different because it involved lab partners.) Fish was staring intently at a Rubik’s cube she was holding in her hand. I wondered when she had gotten it, as I’d never seen her with it before. 

I snap out of the memory. The mistletoe has started disappearing over the past few weeks, but I keep up my constant vigilance. I spot a sprig laying on the door frame leading to the art wing.

They say if mistletoe is allowed to touch the ground, disaster is sure to follow.

I flick the mistletoe off the door frame. I’m Calamity Jude, after all. Disaster seems to follow me anyway.

Jude Age 16

Maybe the Druids were right.

I keep finding bits of mistletoe in the hood of my jacket. Maybe it’s the work of my fellow CSA students, but I can’t imagine what reasons they would have for that and I doubt they would keep up the prank for five days in a row. More likely, it’s one (or both) of my matriarchal specters who is responsible. If it was meant to frustrate me, it’s probably Mom. If it’s supposed to...encourage me, or get me in the “holiday spirit,” it’s probably Grandma.

The French called mistletoe the “specter’s wand” and thought that its holder would have the power to see and communicate with ghosts. (I’ve never needed help with that.)

Regardless of the planter’s intention, the mistletoe has brought me good luck for once. Or that’s the way it appears.

Guillermo has agreed to mentor me, and English Guy (whose name is OSCORE!) is...certainly something. I keep having to remind myself of the boycott. Yesterday he tried to return the orange to me, telling me that “satsumas” are traditionally given as gifts around Christmastime in his home country. 

My mind keeps drifting back to my last class before break: Thematic and Symbolic Art History. The lesson of the day was about, of all things, mistletoe. Or, at least, it was mistletoe-inspired. We learned the history and controversy surrounding works depicting the act of kissing. As in, The Kiss. All three versions: Klimt, Brancusi, Rodin. I wish Guillermo’s works had been included, now. 

Guillermo is introducing me to his methods of teaching. I thought Oscar’s modeling would be a one-time thing, but apparently I need a lot of practice in portraiture if I’m going to ever sculpt my mother. I’ve drawn Oscar a lot now. His face is practically seared into the back of my mind. (Does it violate the boycott if I’m thankful his face is so nice to look at?)

Some ancient peoples believed that mistletoe had the power to open all locks. (Do hearts count as locks?)

Am I stupid to dream?

Jude Age 18

I’ve warmed to the mistletoe idea over the years.

It might have something to do with the fact that Noah is currently enthusiastically hanging mistletoe around the houseboat. Like the boat’s name, his sudden interest in the superstition, statistically my area of expertise, is a mystery. (Or maybe not: he only started decorating after Dad and I extracted a promise from him that the kissing rule would not be under effect. I doubt he’ll tell that to Brian, however, when he comes back from vacation tomorrow.) The anniversary of Mom’s death seems to loom less ominously than in previous years.

My wary appreciation, however, doesn’t entirely stem from my brother’s antics.

Christmas isn’t really a big thing in the Sweetwine family. When we were little, Noah and I made sandmen instead of snowmen, and our gingerbread houses were definitely not indicators of our level of artistic potential (at least, I hope not). But now the only tradition we have is ordering pizza and staying inside to watch movies, which happens year-round (especially the pizza part when Noah has anything to say about it). 

I can appreciate the sentiment of the holiday, though. Renewal. Gratitude. Family.

Love.

I’m sick of losing soulmates. I’ve lost too many, especially in winter. Grandma. Mom (and Dad, for a while, around the same time). Zephyr.

At first, I thought the best way to heal was to cut out all possibility of love in my life. It seemed to be working for Noah. Hence, the boycott.

That went out the window as soon as I met Oscar and Guillermo. “I’m not okay,” Guillermo had said. “I’m not okay either,” I wanted to reply.

When I became Guillermo’s student, I felt like I was healing, through art and through Oscar. But over time, I realized Oscar had his own problems and we tended to amplify one another’s issues rather than resolve them. Being reciprocally “not okay” wasn’t an automatic path to a relationship. The inevitable breakup was mutual (if we were ever even in a relationship). It was nowhere close to being as messy as it could have been.

The whole Oscar thing should have made me more bitter about love. But it was more of a learning experience, really. A person can’t fix you. You can’t fix someone else. And too much of anything can kill you, as my toxicologist father often points out.

Mistletoe is the same way. It’s a parasitic species, yeah, and that shouldn’t be overlooked. Too much, and it seeps the life out of the forest. But in the right amounts, it has its place.

There was Zephyr. There was Oscar. There will be other chances. But for now, I’m content to have all ten fingers to draw and paint and sculpt with, a father and a brother to depend on in this rocking boat of a family, and the resolution to stop avoiding mistletoe as I walk through doorways.

When I think of mistletoe (and when I think of many things), Grandma Sweetwine’s words come to me:

Quick, make a wish. Take a (second or third or fourth) chance. Remake the world.

(Not confident I got the timeline right but just go with it. I know NoahandJude’s birthday is a bit before winter break, Jude met Oscar and Guillermo during winter break, and Diana died during a winter break....merry christmas/happy holidays!!)

(source for the lore)

[demi-angel-novel]

Chapter 4:  Its time for hell-I mean class

     Have you ever woken up to a trumpet blast? It freaking hurts. I woke up with the sound of an impossibly loud trumpet blare, which caused me to fall out of my bed on my back!

“Ugh-what the heck was that” I groaned as I lifted myself up. “Why, just why would you do this?” I muttered as I rubbed the dust from my eyes. When my eyes focused again they immediately went wide by surprise.

     The room I was in had silver floor tiles with navy blue walls with bookcases stacked to the brim on each. Filled with books that I have and wished to have read. The lining and corners of the room were black and when I looked at the ceiling it was literally the sky I could see the progress of the day and currently it was the early morning with the sky and clouds being engulfed in orange light from the early sun. The bed I was sleeping on was I’d say king size with a wide berth most likely for our wings.

     The bed possessed sky blue covers peppered with black storm clouds with white and gold pillows at the top of the bed. To my left beside the bed was a giant walk-in closet with tons of space for racks and clothes and anything else you would want to add. What really got my attention were two circles hidden in the wall and floor nearly fitting perfectly within the rest of the structures but with enough of an indent to notice. So when I pressed the circle on the wall the floor slide away revealing a staircase.

      “Note to self-explore the stairway at some point”. While I continued to explore the room I noticed it smelled exactly like the Payne’s shop, this immediately filled me with happiness and calmness. I looked to the left and saw a doorway with bathroom on a plaque and when I walked through it I saw myself. I had piles of soot and ashes all over and with my clothes, I found them in tatters and with many pieces missing.

     For the first time, I got a good look at my wings and I gotta say they look awesome but when I looked closer there seemed to be separations in threes of each one huh weird I thought. When I looked at myself I was still pretty much the same still extremely skinny with barely any muscles but I was at least healthier than I was as a kid I was at least normal somewhat. I decided to take a shower to at least get all the gunk and grime off of myself, and when I came back out with a new toothbrush in my mouth I saw a note on the bed with a new pair of clothes. I picked up the note while brushing my teeth and read it in my mind.

“Dear Mr. Di Angelo, we noticed that you lacked a pair of clothes to wear due to your…particular upbringing and the events of yesterday-so we have provided you with a set of clothes until you have bought your own. Please enjoy! From Angelus Sanctum” 

     Beneath the note was a white long sleeve dress shirt and black slacks. When I finished brushing my teeth I put on the free clothes I kept my shirt untucked and noticed two things they fit perfectly and underneath them was a white sash with a blank silver pin on it and when I touched it to examine it closer the sash immediately turned dark blue and the pin turned silver with bronze folded wings.  The heck is this school am I literally in Hogwarts right now!?  I sighed well I might as well wear it.  After I put on my sash and sneakers I went outside of my room and saw CJ wearing a maroon hoodie with a bulldog with M.S.U underneath it with a pair of forest camouflage jeans and shoes.  Over his shoulder was the same sash but, his was scarlet red with the same pin as mine.

“Oh, good morning Thomas!” he said excitedly with a bright wide smile.

“Ciao, where are you heading off to?”

“Breakfast!  wanna join me?’

"Um, sure I’m hungry enough to eat up a whole kitchen”

“Cool follow me!"  He led me through a bunch of corridors and hallways, wiith us finally making it to stairs.

“Jeez, you’d think they would add a map with this maze of a school.  Hey, I was wondering, where’s golden locks?  That trumpet blast wasn’t exactly soothing.”

“Blake has classes later than us, so he didn’t get the alarm.  I think his classes are in the afternoon.”

“What?! how?”

     “Believe me I’ve asked that question many times myself,” he said as he patted me on the back.  After walking down the stairs we wound up in front of two black doors with a plaque above it with the same symbols but now they seemed easier to understand as they turned into English that read Cafeteria.  When we walked through the doors I saw a room with polished marble floors with pure white walls with gold trims and to my right on the wall were empty plates with cups, glasses, and mugs, and peppered throughout were floating stone circular seats that had built in red padded seats and tables with each a different height from the ground some where high in the air with people flying up to them while others were closer to the ground with people who had new wings or people without wings at all.  I saw CJ go over to the purple draped table with the cups and plates and grabbed a large plate with a medium sized cup with him motioning me over with his head.  So I followed and picked up a plate with a mug and followed him to one of the tables floating close to the ground.  When we sat down I noticed food appear in CJ’s plate and cup which was an oversized stack of pancakes and stakes for some reason with a side of orange juice.  On his face was a look of pure joy as like a fountain syrup appeared and dripped with each stack.  My face must’ve looked pretty funny because he choked on his pancakes.

”Cough, cough, dude whats with that face?  Never seen someone eat 20 pancakes before?“

"No, but that’s not the main reason, how did food appear out of thin air!?”

“Oh, that?” he said nonchalantly "That’s how we get our food just think of what you want to eat and it’ll appear no big deal man" 

“You can’t be serious” I doubted

“Dude, you’ve seen all this stuff and you question food magically appearing on a plate?  Just trust me on this it’ll work”

“Alright if you say so” I sighed out as I imagined the food I wanted, which was a plate of waffles and bacon and in the mug, I imagined a cup of coffee I always ordered at the Payne”s and when I opened my eyes I saw the food in front of me.

“Okay, i’m 90 percent sure I’m in Hogwarts right now,” I muttered before I took a bite with the utensils that appeared as well and the food was delicious beyond what I can describe and when I drunk a sip of the coffee it tasted exactly like I remembered like it took a cup of coffee from the cafe itself.  When we finished our food we went to our classes and my first class was Power Studies.  I followed the schedule and saw above the door a sign that read P.Studies F-1.  

     The classroom had faded yellow walls with a wooden gym floor, it had no desks or chairs.  When I looked at the students around me I saw that I was the only one with wings.  Apparently by the time I walked through everyone was already in a group chatting together which left me alone.  For a total of two minutes until one guy with really dark brown skin and a guy with long black dreadlocks with light brown tips.  He had a stocky muscular build with forest green eyes.  He wore a faded grey shirt that hugged against his body with dark blue jeans with brown farm boots.  He had a radiant smile on his face as he walked over to me and I realized this guy was at least seven feet tall so he towered over me who was at least 5 10 in a half.  When he made it up to me he spoke in a booming deep voice with an African accent.

“Welcome fellow classmate!” he boomed as he slapped me on the back nearly knocking me to the ground. whoever this guy is he is freaking strong and nearly knocked me to the ground with the rest of my breath. I thought as he continued.

“Oh, my apologizes how rude of me my name is Arden Oak!  What’s yours?” he continued booming.

“uh, Thomas Di Angelo, nice to meet you,” I said regaining my footing.

“I must say Thomas, that show that you did yesterday was spectacular! if I do say so myself.  I mean controlling that unruly spirit so easily and having such a thunderous voice, whew it nearly shook the school!”

“Yeah being a human lightning was great,” I said sarcastically

“I must make sure I am not outdone by you, my friend!”  He grabbed my whole body and forced me against him in a forced side hug and had his hand clenched in the air in front of himself.

“Let us strive for greatness together!” he spoke proudly.  I couldn’t help but smile his energy was infectious.

“Sure let’s do it!”  Without warning an impossibly loud whistle broke through the ocean of conversations causing all of us to hold our ears.  After the torture stopped we looked up to see a man with short blonde hair that was styled in a buzz cut with rectangular glasses on his nose with electric yellow eyes paired with his fair skin.  He wore a black t-shirt with gray gym shorts that barely reached his knees and around his neck was the dreaded whistle and tennis shoes.

“Alright listen up class my name is Mr.Watts, I’m going to be your S.E teacher!  That’s short for spirit energy.  Today’s lesson is unlocking and understanding Spirit energy or S.E. for short”  His voice was commanding but at the same time inviting and carefree.  He sat on his desk and pulled out a black stylus which when he grabbed it glowed yellow and in front of himself he wrote in the freaking air which floated in yellow font.

“Now, as I’m sure you can guess from the name spirit energy is the energy from your soul or spirit.  This energy exists in every living being, creature. plant, and animal, and especially in us.  And before you say it no this is not the force that’s just one of our old students naming something in his movies.  This is also the energy that allows us to use our powers.  Like I said earlier any living being in this world has this energy and we have the highest abundance of it because one of our parents were angels or children of other Demi-Angels or maybe even descendants of a Demi-Angel.  Most organisms most likely don’t know they possess this energy but in little ways, they use it.  The reason we are able to use this energy so freely and easily is that-”

“Hey Mr.Watts where are your wings” a random guy blurted out.

“Hm, oh, sorry children I had business in the human world earlier”  Out from his back shot out large yellow and black wings.  “Ah, that feels better I forgot I had them tucked in now on with the lesson, the reason we are able to use this energy so easily is that we are the children or in relation to angels beings that exist in the spiritual world.  Originally humans possessed a much higher percentage than they do now but after countless generations, it became diluted and weaker so in a way to protect humans from their newfound blindness a group of Demi-Angels and Angels wove a veil around the world to protect and hide them from the supernatural. We call it the veil but it can go by many names such as mist, glamour, and etc etc.  Spirit energy is the energy of the soul which in turn if large enough can turn into spiritual power and pressure as byproducts.  And ill give you an example of both.”  He held out one of his hands and the air immediately filled with static making my hairs stand on ends and from his hand sparked yellow electricity that arced around his entire right hand.

“This is S.P and as you can tell my power is electricity” the electricity stopped as he began to talk again.

“Now spiritual pressure is a whole other thing it is the amount and power of your soul.  This can also carry certain characteristics of your spiritual power and when I demonstrate my spiritual pressure know these two things, brace yourselves because this will be your first encounter with it and the other is to find the characteristics in mine.  Now let’s begin”  He stood up and lifted up his left foot as if he was listening to music and slammed it back to the ground and as soon as he did a large weight fell upon each of us.  Forcing us to the ground on our knees the air became filled with static as the pressure increased to the point where we each felt our ears about to pop when just as swiftly as the weight appeared it lifted and when it left we each breathed out the air we were apparently holding. 

“You suck for that Mr.Watts” I muttered

“Heheheh, come on class you all rested yesterday time to get up and ready for the next part!” he said with mock excitement which caused all of us to grumble in annoyance at him.  “Alright alright, I’ll let you have a break while I go more in-depth with Spiritual Pressure.  If you could tell my S.P had traits of static in it, but like most people, no two are ever the same.  Each person has a different trait in their Spiritual Pressure, like some have scents, sounds, tastes, feelings, etc etc.  Through unlocking your S.Pressure you also unlock an aura, this is the physical form of your S.E and S.Pressure they can come in many shapes sizes and forms but most times they have a certain color or shape like mine for example”  Around him a thick yellow energy flowed and arced in different places several times.  “This is my Aura as you can see its yellow and arcs like electricity but its shape is pretty basic. 

 An Aura can act as a shield, weapon, healing device if none are around, limbs, and many others.  With the more advanced the usage is the more it can drain you physically because most times your soul is stronger than your body but with practice, these will become easier and what I just told you is barely scratching the surface of the uses for Auras.  Well, I’ve talked for long enough on with the next lesson”  The class groaned, “Fine if you don’t want the chance to activate your wings be my guess.”  the class immediately shot up off the ground with newfound energy and interest.  “uh huh I thought so.  I’ll be unlocking your spirit energy, pressure, and aura.

  For this, I’m going to call you up in alphabetical order by your first name so-Arden Oak step up please”  Arden stood proudly and saluted Mr.Watts and stepped forward and stood head to chin with Mr. Watts.  Mr.Watts made an aura around his hand and pressed against Arden’s forehead and when the energy flowed into him immediately afterwards the scent of pine trees filled the room as a small weight was placed on our shoulders and around Arden flowed a brown and green aura with the brown coming from the bottom branching out into green.  If you were to describe the shape Arden’s body made up the trunk and out of it appeared two large green leaves coming out of his back made of a darker shade than his aura and when his aura finally subsided the two large leaves were left.

“Your parents were Demi-Angels weren’t they Mr.Oak”

“Yes sir they were” he spoke stately

“Ah, okay go back over to the  wall and let’s get the next person”

After what felt like forever he finally made it to me. “Hello Mr.Di Angelo please stand still you should only feel a small pinch”  When I felt the energy enter me I felt a sharp pain in my head and my chest as I felt something suddenly flow into me rapidly, as the area around me smelled of ozone with the scent of fresh rain and the sound of thunder in a drum beat with the feeling of static in the air.  Around me was a mixture of clouds that wrapped around me with jagged arcs of lightning.  The clouds were black and grey and white with the arcs being mixtures blue and silver.

“Thunderstorm huh, nice alright next!” Mr. Watts called

     After Mr.Watts got done with the rest of people I saw a bunch of different wings somebody even had the wings of a plane for some reason but they act like regular wings. But strangely enough, they felt like metal.  His name was ironically Jet.  He had shaggy dark grey hair with metallic eyes and tanned skin.  He wore a brown flight jacket with a white tank top and blue jeans with black boots.  He’s actually pretty laid back and nice.

“Alright class now on to spiritual power and unlocking it what I need you to do is sit Indian style for this.” when we did he continued.  “For your powers, they can range from many options elemental, physical, mental, and so on.  When you each unlocked your S.E you were given some hint to your power some more obvious than others.  To use these powers imagine what form your aura took as well and make the shape a reality like this.”  Mr.Watts summoned his aura again and when the aura began to arc it turned into an actual bolt until eventually, his whole aura became electricity.  “If you don’t get it on the first try don’t worry keep at it no one is great on their first try now as a secret to help you, imagine a bottle or some sort of container and picture the power you think is in their imagine it trying to break out and imagine opening it and allowing it to exit rapidly spilling out.  It helped me when I was your age alright let’s get started”

     From what I’ve been through these last two days I was sure of what my power was.  So in my mind, I pictured a raging storm trapped in a bottle fighting and longing to escape so I imagine the cork popping off and when it happened the storm rushed out with a fury.  In my body, I felt a pull from my chest and my stomach and out of instinct I snapped open my eyes seeing a raging storm rage around me with the same thunder drumbeat with silver lightning arcing violently everywhere.  My eyes were enraptured by the swirling storm around me with my sight being broken because of a sound to my right which was the gym floor being spit and broken apart as a mass of trees broke through the ground wrapping around Arden.  While I was looking at Arden I noticed my lightning being attracted to his trees as when as soon as the lightning struck it either absorbed it or was burned away but was immediately replaced with two more in its place.  To my left was a cyclone of water which also got attacked by my lightning and as I kept looking at everyone else’s I noticed that Jet had metal beams and pillars appear from the ground which also dragged in my lightning.

“Okay, class listen up what I want you all to do now is…to just play around with your powers. Get used to them make them apart of yourselves.  In other words, go crazy” he said as he started reading a sports magazine.  The class cheered for this and we all immediately started playing with them.  I outstretched my hand and disrupted the clouds and twisted, condensed, and just do whatever with the storm.  And on one of these times when I condensed the storm, I tried doing what Mr.Watts did by generating silver lightning bolts and when I did I pushed it out making a tornado with lightning striking everywhere from the ceiling to the walls and floor and from this other peoples powers got sucked into it with water being the first then a few of Arden’s trees then fire them a few beams from Jet and so on and so on until we had made a tornado of powers breaking and destroying everything in its path to the point where even Mr.Watts saw this getting out of hand so he clapped his hand together making a massive thunderclap destroying the tornado and sending everything that was an object flying into the upperwalls above us.  We all looked around and saw the classroom in shambles, floorboards were missing holes were in the floor the wall had fractures and holes it was just a shadow of its former self.  We were expecting to be yelled at but we heard laughter coming from Mr.Watts.

“hahahahaha, children that was great oh my lord I’m so proud of you all just next time try not to destroy my classroom I really don’t want to keep on rebuilding it each day”  Trumpets blared “Ah, there’s the bell okay class tomorrow we really start class so be prepared alright ill see you all tomorrow have a good rest of the day.”