November 2: The room begins to fill with smoke…

By Mona Jiang

The room begins to fill with smoke… “UNPLEASANT SMELLING BOMB” someone screams from behind me. The party crowd, not yet harassed by the stinky smoke, bops up and down. Their silent disco headphones momentarily shield them from the inevitable egg-rot-barf smell floating towards them. Inch by inch, slowly inflicting chaos on each party person. Down they go, like dominoes, tripping over each other when grappling for the window. “MY KINGDOM FOR AIR” screeches the girl beside me as she attempts to inhale, but her efforts at nul, the stink fills her lungs and she falls to the floor: thump. Tears come to my eyes. This is the worst sweet sixteen ever

By Zaina Khan

The room begins to fill with smoke but my eyes were on him the entire time. Nothing could pull my focus away from his foggy, blue-grey eyes. The corners of my mouth had a mind of their own as they drew my lips up and put an edge to my face. I saw smoke dissolve his body and veil him. I didn’t stand there and wait for the finale.

I plunged into the smoke with my eyes sealed and trembling. Hands splayed and shot in one single direction, fingers reaching until they touched flesh. When they grazed the surface of smooth skin, nails dug until I felt bone beneath sinew. I grasped his arm as if the only thing that could set him free was to sever the arm completely.

He was deluded into thinking that he could make me out to be a fool again. I had already decided the last time he would disappear was long behind us. This time smoke couldn’t save him, he had only to rely on his incompetence.

When he comes crashing out of the smoke, the brief look of horror in his eyes is nourishing me. This is exactly as I imagined it. Beating him at his own game. Let him know that he was wrong about me. I am not weak. I am not another one of his followers, or worse, his puppets. His bloodline will end with him today.

November 9 PROMPT: “I didn’t expect to see you here…”

By Ivy Co

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said to him. Standing in a pitch black warehouse, gun in my hand, blood all over my body? Yeah, I really didn’t expect him to be there.

“Me neither, I was wondering who the psycho was, though,” he says shakily, although I should give him points for aiming at a nonchalant manner.

Sigh. “I guess this means we’re broken up?”

“Hey, cut me some slack, alright? It’s not everyday you get a text saying your girlfriend was cheating on you from an unknown number with an unknown address, just to find out she’s an axe murderer.”

Someone texted him my workshop? “What was the number?” I demanded.

“Seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about right now? Not the fact that you lied to your boyfriend of 4 years, sneaking out, murdering people left and right?” he asks.

“Whatever. I’ll figure it out myself. Your password’s still my birthday right?” I say, more to myself than to him.

“What?”

“I wish you didn’t come here, darling. I did really like you though.” I point, aim, and shoot.

November 10: Suddenly an important newsflash came on the television screen…

By Brooke Lai and Thomas Li

“Québec increases tuition for out-of-province students from $8,992 to $17,000”

The words flash in bold red and white on the television screen.

“There is no way I’m going there now.” I murmured with resignation as I turned off the TV.

Then, a lightbulb lit up in my neurons. Maybe I can write my commentary about this…

November 20: You should have listened…

By Vesper Virgin

“You should have listened,” said my older brother, “when I told you to stay home.”

“Wh-what is this?” The world spun and twisted around me. My stomach felt as if it had been flayed open, curling in on itself. Blood and viscera coated the floor in a sea of red.

“It’s what had to be done.”

My parents’ bodies spun on the floor like a carousel. Mom’s blonde hair, or what was once blonde hair, fell clumsily across her face. She was starting to look more like a ginger with all that blood soaking into her hair. Dad’s glasses lay shattered in the gaping holes where his eyes used to be. His veins tangled with the shiny shards like vines wrapping around a fence pole.

I was pretty sure the room wasn’t really moving, yet still they spun around and around and around and

My brother squeezed my shoulder, leaving red streaks on my shirt. “Are you gonna help me clean up this mess or not?”

“Y-yeah. Right. Of course.” I shook my head, trying to clear the flies from the edges of my vision. Fumbling around in my bag, I pulled out a bag of nitrile gloves and snapped them on. I had washed my hands only a couple of hours ago, but they still smelled of blood. Or maybe that was just the room. It didn’t matter. My hands may have looked clean, but they were so, so dirty. No amount of soap and water was going to fix that.

My brother handed me a mop. I took it, careful to avoid touching the red handprint on the handle. He grabbed a garbage bag and headed toward the mangled corpses, striding over casually but with precision.

We cleaned the scene silently for a while. The world had finally stopped spinning since my brother had dragged the surprisingly light bodies out of the room. I guess it wasn’t that surprising, since most of their insides were now on the outside. Don’t think about that. Just clean.

When the silence between us became deafening, I decided to ask.

“Why did you do it?”

“They found out what we do.”

Oh.

“I told you to stay home so you didn’t have to deal with… this.” My brother sighed, gathering strings of guts into a bag. He looked at me, and his eyes grew soft. “Hey. You know I love you, right?”

I gave him a wobbly smile. “Of course.”

“It’s me and you against the world. Don’t forget that. I. Love. You. You’re the best sister I could ask for.”

“I love you, too,” I said. Dropping my rag in a pool of blood, I went over to my brother and embraced him.

He hugged me back, tight, warm, and full of love, while what was left of our parents cooled on the floor.