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*kix brain*
stupid memory

So, any more stories?

I did this one for my math project. This one is actually a whole one.

On a sunny day, well as sunny as it can get under the bed of a five year-old, Papnie was calling his friend Rin on the phone. He had called Rin fifty times, but always he got her recorder. After trying fifty more times he started to get worried. So he decided to go on his toy scooter to go check up on her. Twenty minute into his ride, the five year old has a big bed; he came across Rin’s little brother Nymph. He was lying on his stomach barely conscious.

“Nymph, what happened to you?!” he asked concern in his voice. Nymph didn’t answer for a while then said.

“It was horrible Papnie. She’s so big.” Then he passed out. Papnie laid him back down and zoomed away on his motorcycle. He was worried about what Nymph meant. Was Rin alright or did something happen to make her swell up like balloon. He shook that last thought out of his head. Ten minutes after he came across Nymph he found Kappa, Rin’s sister, in the same shape as Nymph. Like before Papnie stopped to check. “Papnie s-she rolled over us.” Then she passed out. He drove even faster to Rin’s house thinking that she had become the size of a basketball.

He finally reaches Rin’s house only to not see her. He looks through the house he didn’t see her. He looked in the shed didn’t see her. Then he goes out back and is shocked at what he sees. There were chocolate wrappers everywhere, as high as pencils. There in the center was Rin. She had gotten big, but not Sommo-sized big. She was crying. Papnie sits next to her and asked, “Why are you crying?” All he heard were sobs.

“Because I’m fat!” she finally wailed, stuffing a handful of chocolates in her mouth.

“You’re not that fat Rin. Cheer up!” trying to make her smile the best she can. She just kept on eating chocolates and drinking milk.
I am fat! Tell me the truth! You think I’m fat too, don’t you?” She wailed again, glaring coldly at him. He had two options: tell her she is fat or lie and let someone else tell her. It took him five seconds to decide.

“Yes Rin, you are fat.” He said with almost no emotion. Rin’s eyes started to tear up, angry that Papnie didn’t just lie to her. “But”, he continued, “That just makes you five times better.” He finished smiling as he spoke. Rin looked at him thinking that he must not realize how big she is.

“And how is that better?”

“There’s more of you to hug.” And with that Rin gave him the biggest bear hug she could give, nearly choking him with her arms and gave him chocolate. The two friends sat together talking, having completely forgotten Nymph and Kappa.

Well we don't really know what they were.
I know it infers that they're something small
but it actually surprised me when it said "the size of a basketball".
You need to go more in-depth about that.
But other than that it was good. ^-^

Ascension

I think I always loved him. He was always there, always with me when I needed it, always there to hit me over the head with a book when I was about to do something really stupid. Hell, he was even there when he wasn't supposed to be, at the school dance when I was in the stairwell crying because the person I most wanted to be with wasn't there. I don't think he ever really understood, and I'm not so sure that I did, either.

All I know is, by the time that I realised it, by the time that we both realised it, it was too late. I was already drifting away, both literally and figuratively. I don't remember much from that time, only the soft sloshing of water and later the crashing of waves against the rocks. And the voices. The anguished sobs of my family which had loved me, the flat denial of those who had known me, but most of all the silence of the one that I had never known had loved me. Those are all too clear, all too unforgettable, all too real.

"Jim, do you see that? In the water?" Jim was a guy in my fifth period Physics class. Odd to ask him, since he had glasses with lenses as thick as a pad of Post-it notes. I swear to you, we compared their sizes for a Statistics project.
"No, I don't see anything. Why?"
"I could've sworn I saw something... there! See it? On that rock right there. Look, before a wave covers it again!"
"No, nothing?"
"C'mon, let's get closer!"
"Lisa, I don't think there's anything there." That was a shock. I could've sworn that Lisa and Jim despised one another. But, then, you never know.
"See, look, it's... Oh, God!" I heard the sound of retching, and something liquid splattering onto the rocks not too far away. "Jim, I think it's... dead. It's not moving."
"I'm calling the cops." A rustling sound, presumably Jim digging in his bag for a phone.

Then, I can't remember what comes next. Maybe it was the cops. Someone talking about informing the parents, looking for a suicide note, someone else asking about the school. My school? It was the only one nearby. You didn't get many schools along the coast of Maine. Most people tended to come for the summer and then leave as soon as the temperature dropped below sixty.

"Hal, she was your best friend. Maybe you shouldn't--"
"Shouldn't what? See her like this? Dead?" Hal. How I wished I could speak! But I couldn't feel my body, couldn't see, could only hear. And even that wasn't sufficient. The other voice I didn't recognise.
"Just, maybe you should wait a bit."
"Until they resurrect her, make her fake, make her pretty again so they can shove her in a coffin and stick her in the ground?"
"That's not what I meant."
"That's exactly what you meant! You don't want me to see the real Kiri, because you think it'll hurt, right? You think the fake one won't hurt so much? You know what? Either way, she's gone! Dead! And if I had one wish, it would be that, that day, at the dance, I had just out and told her. I wish I hadn't been such a pansy, hadn't been so scared, hadn't shoved out my feelings save for fear."

I froze. Or, would have, had I had a body that I was aware of. Kiri. That was my name. Why were they talking about me like I was dead? I wanted to shout out, here I am! I'm right here! I just can't talk to you right now. The last thing I heard was crying. I think it was Hal. And then I realised, I was dead. It was me. Dead, on the shore of the Atlantic, with its frigid, choppy waves. But there was no cold like that which seized me then.

Chapter One

There was light. And warmth. I could feel it on my skin, wonderful and soothing. But I was still cold. I could still remember where I was not, and I was not alive. I was not with Hal. I was not anywhere in the land of the living, on Earth, beautiful terra firma. Wherever I was, that was where I most certainly was not.

I looked around. I was lying underneath a live oak, in the dappled sunlight streaming through the leaves. Not far off, there was a cherry tree in bloom, and a redwood. Where was I, that there were so many trees biologically incapable of existing in the same place? It was the stillness that I noticed first. The leaves were perfectly motionless, no slight swaying of the branches, no buzzing of bees, no humming of flies, no chirping of crickets nor rattling of cicadas. All of the sounds that should have been present were gone. Only the encompassing, impenetrable silence surrounding me and the trees. I was entirely alone.

I stood up uncertainly, not sure whether it would be best to stay where I was or try to find someone who could tell me on what otherworldly shore I had landed. In all directions were trees of all different sorts, stubby Douglas firs and majestic willows, sausage trees that surely belonged in Africa and maples that couldn't stand heat. It all struck me as bizarre and utterly ridiculous, like a fever-dream. But I had to keep in mind that this was one dream I wasn't about to be waking up from.

I don't know how long or how far I walked. There was no sense of time, of direction, of space. Everywhere were trees from all corners of the earth. Sometimes I saw people, from all walks of life; there was a bawling boy no more than two but who was draped in expensive furs and gold necklaces; there was an ancient woman in a tattered dress that was more mold than cloth. Neither rhyme nor reason seemed to have anything to do with this place; perhaps it was ruled instead by Eris. The Goddess of Chaos. Always the sun stayed in the same position, neither moving nor dimming. An endless day in this place, then.

The borderlands between forest and great, spired city were nonexistent. One minute fallen leaves were crunching with every step, another step later and I was on a cobblestone road. There was nothing but more road behind me. I approached the first person I saw.

"Excuse me, but, where is this place?"
"¿Qué usted desea?"
"Come again?"
"¿Usted habla Español?"
"Sorry, I don't know what you're saying. Uh, thanks."

I had no more luck with the next. "Where is this? Where are we?"
"Ik begrijp uw vraag niet."
"What?"
"Ik begrijp uw vraag niet."
"I'll ask someone else."

That would be my luck, wouldn't it? Nobody seemed to speak English, here. "Excuse me, but do you know where we are?"
"Nan desuka?"
"This is getting really weird. Where are we?"
"Watashitachi wa koko desuyo."
"This is just too bizarre."

"You don't understand them, do you?" A voice from the shadows. "Well, do you?"
I snorted. "Of course not. None of them speak English."
"You have drawn the lucky card. You're in Heaven! Or did the guy at the gate forget to tell you?"
"Gate?"
He moved into the light then, smirking. A boy, a year or two older than me, but with blond hair and dull silver eyes as opposed to my black hair and nearly black eyes. "You know, the gates of St. Peter. The forgetful saint, really; sometimes forgets to tell people where they are."
"There was no gate," I attempted to explain. "Just a forest. Then a city. This city."
"One of them, huh? Should be interesting. I'm Kaska."
"Kiri."
"Nice to meet you then, Riki."
"No, it's Kiri. You've switched the letters about."
"No, it's Riki. Come here illegally, better change your name. Don't wanna find out you were on the bad list, now do you?"
"But it's Kiri!" I protested futilely.
"Not any more."
It was only then that I moved, enough to see the sun glint off a silver circlet floating in the air above his head. Crap. I really was dead. And now I was an illegal immigrant in... Heaven? Could my life get any more insane?

Hehe, thanks. Chapter 2 should go up by the end of this week. Though it's more an intermission than anything...

((The only third-person part of this story. Hence it being titled Intermission rather than as a regular chapter. The continuation of Ascension.))

Intermission

These were not the clothes that he was used to. The long-sleeved, button-down shirt were bad enough, but the sweater-vest and tie, too? Kiri was the only one that could drive him to such lengths. Hal fingered a chunk of his hair, orange-dyed and spiked, a throwback to the days before he got into politics. Brown was too bland, too much like his opponents. Such lengths were all that he had left now, with Kiri gone.

It had been hard enough when they found her dead, washed up on the rocky Atlantic shore. Worse when medical examiners had found a bullet lodged in her back, the wound washed clean by the salty waves. Worse still when Gerald Hall confessed to the crime he had committed. That he had killed Kiri because of her heritage, because she was half Japanese. "Them Japs is bad enough, but when they get in wit' the local pop'lation, it's worse. Them half-folks is the worst folks there is," he had claimed.

The events of that horrible spring, three years gone, had done more than simply tear away the girl he had loved. They had shoved him into a whole different world, a world of lies, scheming, and corruption. Politics. The hate crime had started it all, really. People had laughed when, at their graduation ceremony, he had spoken for Kiri as much as for himself when he had said that his goals were to end hate crimes for good. Oh, how he would love to prove them wrong, make them take back the comments they had made.

"Mr. Grey, your speech is in five minutes."
"Thank you, Jessie."
"Aww, Mr. Grey, it's no problem! You're the only one as would give a boy like me a job in this town. I'm the one as should be thankin' you!"
"No, really Jessie. Please, just give me a few minutes to myself before I do this thing. I still don't know if I can."
"All right, Mr. Grey. But don' forget to come out when they call your name this time. That was embarrassin' last time." The boy ducked out the door, whispering a quick "Thank you for the job, Mr. Grey!" as he did so.

Frowning slightly, less at Jessie than at the task he was to face, Hal straightened his tie one last time. He spent the rest of his precious few minutes in silence, holding the tears at bay. Softly came the strains of the emcee from the stage.

"Our final speaker of the night, the third-party candidate, Mister Halyton Grey." Always last. Gave everyone a chance to leave; though it was rude, nobody really cared about the third-parties. By the time Hal strode onto the stage, a quarter of the auditorium's seats were empty.

"Good evening. And thank you for being here when so many of your fellows have left. I know I may be the youngest person to ever run for mayor of Athens. I may be the first mayor to not be allowed a champagne toast upon being sworn into office. After all, my birthday isn't until July. But does my age make me any less qualified for the job? Those others give fancy talks about increasing tourism revenues and revitalising our downtown. They've ignored the voice of the people! I know you, because I'm one of you. I know you think tourist season is bad enough already, and I know you'd rather spend eternity in purgatory than allow some big-name corporation access to the streets of our city. I know you don't need all sorts of money to be happy, but only to be safe. And I know you. You're not safe.
"Three years ago, I lost my best friend. I lost the girl I was supposed to ask the prom. I thought I had lost my whole life. And do you know what I lost her to? Murder. Because someone out there decided we'd be better off without her. Hate, not a lack of revenues, is the biggest problem that our city faces. And if I were to be elected mayor, I would do everything in my power to fix that. Because it's worth fixing. Those lives are worth saving.
"But I didn't come here tonight to be elected mayor. I came here to say goodbye. There are too many painful memories for me to stay here. So I am hereby revoking my candidacy for mayor. But think on what I've said. Is money worth what we'll lose? Goodbye and good night. And, again, thank you."

He stepped down from the podium, breathing a silent sigh of relief. All was taken care of. The letter for Jessie was in the post, all accounts were settled, and there was nothing left in this miserable Maine city to leave behind.

The soft whoosh of the bicycle's tires rolling along the smooth pavement was soothing, even if the occasional glare of oncoming headlights was nearly unbearably blinding. Unmeasurable minutes passed, long enough for pavement to go from smooth to pitted and rutted and, eventually, to loose gravel that bit at rubber tires with tiny serrated teeth. But there it was. Clicking the flashlight's beam on, Hal could read the sign clearly. "Eyeress Point. Keep away from edge."

Eyeress Point. A sheer cliff face that plummeted thirty feet before crashing onto rocky waters below. Gerald Hall had used it as a dumping point for Kiri's body. Appropriate, then, for a final farewell. Hal laid down the bicycle and gingerly stepped as close as he dared to the precipitous edge.

"Kiri, it's me, Hal. You remember me, right? Listen, these last three years... they've sucked without you. All this time, I've only wished I could have only a few more minutes with you. To tell the truth. Kiri, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'll say it regardless. I love you. I always have, from the first time you talked to me, all those years ago in middle-school science class. So, I hope you'll forgive me for coming to find you. But I can't wait the rest of my life."

The water was hard, but the rocks were harder still. Either way, it didn't matter, because a minute later, it was only a battered body that silently slipped beneath the crashing waves. That, and nothing more.