Histories [A Collection of Charrie One-Shots]

Last edited by Rune Dragon on Wed May 09, 2012 1:04 am; edited 1 time in total

This is what happens when I'm struck with inspiration in the middle of the night and I have no internet. I've actually done one of my school writing homeworks this way and it turned out better than I could've hoped.

These are only going to be one-shots, because I doubt I'd be able to finish a 500-page novel--and believe me, I've tried. And these are going to be about my characters here in CHB, so if you're interested in reading a little bit about their past, this is for you. :3

Table of Contents:

Taylor I
Caleb I

Taylor I

The skies were clear with barely any cloud in sight. Lofty buildings reached up to the heavens, their walls gleaming from the sun’s radiant rays. A flock of pigeons flew past the window and Taylor watched them fly until the birds became nothing but mere specks against the blue sky. It seemed so peaceful, the world outside. She wished she felt peaceful too.

The click of the door opening made Taylor turn. Panic washed over her as she watched the man enter the room. His auburn hair was barely combed, sticking out in places where it shouldn’t be. He looked like he had just left a business meeting, she assumed from the way he carried his leather briefcase. She could see some bits of paper sticking out of the case, as if Jason had been in a hurry fixing his things. But what stood out the most from the man was not the way he carried himself and not how he seemed to have left in the middle of an urgent meeting. It was the lines on his face, how his eyebrows scrunched up together in concentration, how his mouth was set in a thin line that Taylor could barely see his lips. What scared her most, however, was Jason’s eyes—a pair of dark grey eyes that can send a hundred messages and hold a thousand emotions. Right now, his eyes carried sadness and resignation, asking only a simple question.

Why?

Taylor hung her head, her hands gripping the edges of her chair. She couldn’t bear to look at her father now. She could hear his footsteps draw closer and she shrank down in her seat, as if making herself smaller could shield her from his eyes.

“You were expelled.”

She stayed silent at his words. She knew that she should be sad about the news, but the only thing she could feel was relief. Taylor was relieved that she would never go through all those again. Subjects she can’t even understand with her dyslexia, those stupid girls trying to tell her things, to mock her for her difference. . . She was finally free from all of them. It was the thing she had hoped for weeks—freedom.

“They told me that you pushed the girls into the pool. Why did you do that?”

Taylor slowly looked up at his question. She expected him to be angry, to shout at her for what she had landed herself into, but her father seemed so eerily calm about the situation. It unnerved her a little, how he spoke so steadily when he should be yelling and shouting like any normal parent would. “They were bullies and. . . And I decided that I’ve had enough,” she answered quietly.

Jason sighed. “Why didn’t you just tell me about it?”

“And what would you do if I did? Barge in my class one day and tell them off?” Taylor said coldly, set off by her father’s questions. If he even managed to do that, she would be subjected to even more torment for the rest of the school term.

“It would be better than trying to kill them.”

Kill. The word sent a pang of pain through Taylor’s chest. She had come so close to killing people today and she wasn’t really feeling so down about it. I mean, they’re alive. No real harm done, she thought defiantly, trying to will away the small waves of guilt from her conscience.

Jason seemed oblivious to her thoughts. “There’s something bothering me though. The teacher mentioned that when he pulled the girls back to safety, they were as cold as ice. The pool was constantly kept in warm temperatures, Taylor. Care to explain how that happened?”

Oh, that.

Taylor bit her lip. How was she supposed to explain that? Oh, I just felt like trapping them in ice-cold water and then poof, it just happened. Yeah, right. Like her father would believe it. But it was true, even if it defied any logical explanation whatsoever. Heck, Taylor even saw some glaciers forming!

“Taylor Brooks.”

She flinched at the use of her full name. “I don’t know. Honest! The water just sorta froze by itself.”

But instead of Jason telling her to stop lying—the reaction she expected—, her answer was met with silence. It went for on for a few minutes that it started to get her nervous. Startled, Taylor mustered up the courage to actually stare into her father’s eyes. She hoped that looking into his eyes would give a clue to his thoughts, but her father had already turned away from her. His next statement confused her further. “Pack your bags.”

“What? Why?” she asked frantically, standing up from her seat. “Are you, like, sending me to military school?” The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

Jason glanced at her. He looked older, the wrinkles on his forehead becoming more pronounced. “No. It won’t be safe anymore.” He paused, raising his hand to massage his temple. “Your mother warned me this would happen.”

Taylor did a double take. Her mother? She hadn’t heard her father mention her in years. “What? You mean Mom told you that one day, water will start to freeze around me? Yeah, Dad, totally not weird at all.”

Her eyes lit up as Jason laughed. At least she managed to lighten the mood, even for a little. “Something along those lines. Hurry up, Princess. We haven’t got all day.”

Bewildered but excited at the same time, Taylor hastened to do what her father told her to. She barely felt his gaze on her back as she disappeared into her room. Wondering what exactly her father was planning, she began to stuff her things in one of her large Paramore backpacks. Her thirteen-year-old mind swarmed with possibilities, each as impossible as the next, but none of them actually coming close to what she was actually heading into.

What Taylor didn’t know was that she was entering a world much unlike the one she was used to. A world that just seemed to come to life from the ancient writings of the Greeks. A world where children her age engaged in real combat, fought with real monsters and faced problems that made dealing with school grades and mocking girls laughable.

It was a world where Taylor Brooks, a daughter of Khione, would fit in.

---

I welcome any types of comments and constructive criticism. I won't be mad if you point out mistakes or whatever you want to point out, so go ahead.

I've also finished a one-shot about Caleb, my most evil charrie, haha. I'll post it here a few days from now. I'll see if I can get some feedback on this one first xD

Oh I like it! More! You're a really good writer.

Thanks, ML! ouo

Oh my gosh, I adore this idea, and the writing is brilliant! I'm actually jealous that I didn't think of this . . .

Thanks, Nico! Go ahead and do this if you want to. It's pretty fun owo

Cool. Like Taylor *kicked

Taylor: "Ice jokes--they're getting cold." ~~*shotforlamepun*~~

Thanks, Lm! xD

Caleb I

“Owen, get out of my room right now.”

The young boy looked up, throwing a disdainful look at his stepbrother’s direction. Caleb met the look with his own glare, his hazel eyes gleaming behind his black-and-gold rimmed glasses. Why was Owen just. . . staring at him? Didn’t he get the message? “What don’t you understand with the words ‘get out’?” Caleb seethed, leaning back into the doorframe as he waited for Owen to comply with his demand.

Instead of getting out like what his brother wanted, Owen held up a sketch in his ten-year-old hands and waved it to get Caleb’s attention. “What do you think?” he asked evenly, his eyes filled with hope.

Caleb moved closer to him and snatched the paper from his fingers. Owen watched patiently as his stepbrother scanned his little artwork. A small smile played on his lips. “Well? It’s great, right? I finally got you speechless, didn’t I?”

But the older boy merely shoved the sketch back in his hands. “Is this supposed to be me? The head’s too small, my glasses are lopsided, my hands just suck, and the feet look like they’re twisted in an uncomfortable angle,” Caleb said without hesitation. “I could list more flaws if you’d like. But overall, it looks pathetic.”

He did nothing to stop Owen from crying his way out of his room. In fact, he was a little happy and thankful now that the kid left. Being the son of Momus, the god of both criticism and mockery, it usually didn’t turn out well if someone asked for his opinion. If Owen had a problem with that, he’d better bring it up with someone else because Caleb sure as hell didn’t give a damn about what his stepbrother might think. He just laid down on his bed with his hands behind his head, thinking about how he would soon be in high school.

He didn’t know that he was never going to get that chance.

“Caleb?”

He turned to the source of the gentle feminine voice. Looking at him knowingly, Rissa Wright stood by the doorway.

“If he didn’t want my opinion, he shouldn’t have shown me his sketch,” Caleb said defensively before his mother could say anything else. He watched his mother take a few steps closer to him and sit on the edge of his bed, right next to where his feet were.

“Can’t you take it easy on your brother? He’s just ten,” she told him with a sigh.

Caleb shrugged. Rissa already knew the answer to that question. He didn’t see any sense in repeating it again and again. No. I’m standing by my opinion regardless of who I am talking to. Like I said, if he wanted to hear some sugarcoating, then he’d better not come to me.

“You’re just like your father.”

Caleb groaned. Why did she have to bring up that man—or rather, that god? Did she really expect him to believe that she had hooked up with some figure from Greek mythology? Momus, the god of blame, mockery and stinging criticism. He found it funny how the god matched him so perfectly. His mother was just trying to come up with a reason for his attitude. There was absolutely no way that he was the son of a Greek god. He gave a dry laugh at the thought.

“Mom, I’m almost fourteen. Can you please lay off the children’s stories?” he asked, making an effort not to inject any sort of his usual mockery in his words. This was his mother he was talking to after all, and she was about the only person in the world whom he would actually strive to be nice to.

Rissa laughed, patting his leg as she did. “You’re always so skeptical, Cale. You’d give him a run for his money,” she said almost dreamily, taking a sweet walk along memory lane.

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Caleb raised his eyebrows at her instead. “Can we please not talk about someone who doesn’t exist?”

His remark earned him a slap to his knee. “Don’t talk about your father like that,” she said sternly.

You know, Mom, sometimes I’m thinking of sending you to a shrink, he thought with amusement. “Yeah, okay. I’ll play along,” he muttered.

Rissa only chuckled at her son’s words. She moved closer to him and ruffled his hair, just to annoy him a little. And it worked to a small degree for Caleb began to mumble something about needing another application of hair gel. Smiling, she gave his hair one last pat before saying, “One day, you’ll realize how wrong you are and how right I am about your father. Remember that.”

Caleb watched her leave his room with furrowed brows, wondering if his mother saw him as a four-year-old child who drank in every word from children’s books. Shaking his head, he placed his glasses on his bedside table as he laid back on his pillows. He dreamt about his future high school and how he would shine there, blazing in glory above all the others he deems to be inferior. A smile crept into his face as he thought about the things which—he didn’t know at this time—would never come true.

Caleb is actually being nice... I think, haha. Thoughts?