September Writing Contest

[♫~Leap~♫]

Sweet! We're moving onto our third contest! This is the writing contest! Really, you can write about just about anything. A part of a fanfiction, maybe. A piece of your own work. Something that you've created specifically for this very contest. Whatever it may be, we want to see it! ... As long as it's under two thousand five hundred words, of course. Nope! No going over the limit on this one! So! What do you get~? Prizes are as follows!

for every entry - twenty points.
honorable mention - one hundred points.
winner! winner! - two hundred points.

So get to gettin', ya'll, and write us up some fancy stuff!

[♫~Leap~♫]

Imperfect.

The word fit him. Matched him. If anything, he was the very word's definition.

Imperfect.

Everything from his ghostly pale skin to his tomato red hair. To his all to skinny frame and his all to large height. To every wrinkle in his forehead and every finger that's been balled into a fist. To his anger and his rage. Everything is imperfect. Everything.

But he doesn't care.

Or, at least, so he likes to tell himself.

There comes a point in one's life that all of their little mistakes, wrong doings, and imperfections become all to apartent and their insecureties take to the skies like a rocket. Even this is true for the most uncaring, most apathetic of people. People who don't think that they'd ever be worried about how they look in the eyes of other people. People like Silver.

So all of those imperfections came tumbling onto him like snowballs during a mid-winter snowball fight, hitting him hard and leaving a stinging sensation in their wake. They didn't come all at once, though he wished they did. Instead, they came one by one, piling up on one another until they'd created a tital wave that threatened to swallow him whole. It all began on that fateful autumn morning, where the cries of nearby Pidgey were noticibly quieter and a chilly breeze nipped at any unfortunate soul who decided to wander from the warmth of their homes. Not a cloud in the sky. Not a figure out on the streets of the infamous New Bark Town. Not a figure save for the slim frame of a criminal-to-be. They didn't shiver or shake, dispite the biting cold. Their eyes narrowed in utter concentration as they tuned out the rest of the world, seemingly oblivious to everything else around them.

Silver pressed his cheeks against the freezing glass of the local professor's side window. He'd been there for what seemed like an eternity, watching intently as a slim figure scurried to and fro, unaware of their potention stalker. Oh, how much he wished he could be in there, as well, basking in the warmth as his tennis shoes clattered against ugly, checkerboard like tiles. However, it wasn't like he could simply waltz into the building like he'd done it every day in his life. Afterall, if he were to succeed in his current mission, the lab coat-wearing man could not, at all costs, know of his presence. So he stood in the cold, half his mind focused on the brunette and the other longing for a bit of warmth.

And it was on this lovely autumn morning that she first came into his world. Chocolatey brown pig-tails illuinated by the blinding sun above them, equally vibrant eyes, ironically the same color, glittering with life, and a smile that screamed, "Hello, world! Would you be my friend?", she was the prime example of people he wanted to avoid. But these were the people that he found that he couldn't seem to avoid. He couldn't understand why he was still surprised when a girl no older then himself - maybe younger by a few years? - strolled casually up to him and smile from beneath her terribly knitted scarf.

The first thing that he noticed about her was her hat. Perhaps, on ordinary circumstances, this would not have been the item to catch his eye. However, when said hat is as white as fresh snow and molded into the shape of a mushroom, it'd be hard to miss on someone's first glance. Then, his silver eyes caught sight of the ugly, dark pink shirt she wore, partly covered by an equally ugly pair of overalls and he stared at her with all the scorn he could muster. She'd done nothing wrong, of course, but the sooner he could scare her off the better. He eyed her thin, short frame as she practically danced in front of the building, mumbling to herself about meeting the professor. And that was the moment when she took notice of his presence.

"Oh, hello, there!" she chirped happily, taking long strides to stand before him. "Didn't notice you, hiding behind the professor's lab..." A snort escaped his mouth and he returned to what he'd been doing before her arrival. But, he discovered, his attention was not focused on the whistling old man inside, but rather the all to cheerful girl who'd only gotten closer. "What are you looking at? You're not stalking the professor, are you?" The light hint of laughter in her tone told him she was joking. Unfortunately, he realized, that's probably what anyone passing by would assume he was doing. His cheeks blossoming a slight shade of pink, he whirled around to face her.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Silver snapped, his words scathing. The female, however, pays him no heed.

"I'm Lyra, by the way. I live a couple of blocks down from here."

He says nothing in response.

"Hey, aren't you going to tell me your name?"

"No," he deapanned frankly, turning away to watch his target once more. This did not get the girl - no, Lyra's hopes down. Instead, she maneuvered around him until she found herself propped between him and the window. Her face was mixed with delight of seeing a new face and determination to get him to warm up to her, if only in the slightest. When she said nothing, however, he forced himself to form words. "Why don't you bother someone else?"

"Because I haven't seen anyone else scrunch their face up against Professor Elm's lab like that before," she replies as though she's said it one hundred times before. His flushes even more.

"My face was "scrunched up" against anything."

She throws her thumb in the direction of the transparent glass behind her. "Tell that to the poor window." He tries to counter her statement with something, anything, but nothing comes to mind. So, instead, he keeps him mouth closed. It is during this silence that she takes the liberty to offer a deal. "Okay. How about we meet each other halfway? If you tell me your name, I'll leave you be. All you have to say is one measly word, and you don't have to look at this face for the rest of the day! Sound fair enough?"

As much as the prospect of her leaving him alone appealed to him, if she knew his name... The idea of him coming up with a fake one seemed a little idiotic, though. As he contimplated his choices, burning a whole into her eyes with his hard, metalic stare, he couldn't help but sense the disappointment wafting off of her. Let out an all to breathy sigh, he gave in. "... Silver," he murmered after a moment's hesitation. "My name is Silver. Now, would yuo please go away?"

Lyra jabbed her hand into his grasp, shaking it up and down vigorously, saying, "Well, Silver, it's been a pleasure meeting you. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some business with the professor!" She waved enthusiastically at him. "So, erm... See you around!" Within a matter of moments, he was alone again, save for the brunette who was poised to open the door to the building he'd been sitting next to all morning. It was at this time that he thought the most absurd thing that would haunt him for years to come.

This girl, annoying as she was... was strange.

Different.

And, dare he say it?

Perfect.

With smooth hair that curled ever so gently upward, soft skin with, from what he could so, not a blemish on it, two eyes that reflected the world around them, and a voice as sweet as honey itself...

It disgusted him.

"Oh, and one more thing..."

He released the breath he didn't know he was holding in as her voice snapped him back into reality.

"You might want to cut off some of that hair. I thought you were a girl for a while."

He practically snarled at her, his face twisting into a scowl. All she did was laugh, turning the knob and slipping inside the building as he tried to hold back a thousand insults. "Whatever," he growled, throwing a final glance inside the window to where Professor Elm was shaking Lyras hand before crubling to the patch of dirt below him. "Stupid girl..."

However, that night, while renting a room at the closest Pokemon Center, he couldn't help but spend a good fifteen minutes staring at his reflection, wondering if he'd look better with short hair.

And it didn't just end with that. Upon every single meaning, she always managed to point out more and more flaws about him. Flaws he didn't even know he had. She usually wasn't even trying to make him insecure, just pointing out what she noticed. However, he took everything to heart. He found more and more things wrong with himself with their every meeting. Eventually, he didn't even need her to be around for him to begin pointing out his mistakes. He began comparing himself to the perfect girl without a single mistake, a single error, growing more and more bitter the larger the gap between them on the perfect scale grew. He hated her for being perfect and himself for not being able to catch up with her. She even became champion, the most perfect trainer in the world. Who better for the position then someone without a flaw to ruin their ridiculous reputation?

He began to wonder if he was going crazy.

The red-haired male traced his fingers across his ribs, painfully realizing that you could count almost every single one. He numbered each and every vein visible through his clammy, ghostly pale skin and wondered if each one threw he and his rival further apart. He kicked the base of his all to small bed, gritting his teeth as he remembered how small he made Lyra look when they stood next to one another that day. He found himself in the store multiple times, looking at different kinds of products that would dye his hair a color different from his vibrant red. However, the last time he tried, he hid inside for a month so no one would see his almost-purple strands of hair.

Yes, he decided. He was probably crazy.

Or falling in love.

But the former sounded much better.

...

"Oops! Looks like I win again! How many times in a row, again, Ethan?"

Silver scowled, raising his right hand to his brow in a futile attempt to sheild his retinas from the blinding light of the outside world. He didn't want to be outside, here, at the Lake of Rage. He wanted to crawl back to the Dragon's Den, where he could train and point out new flaws in himself that aggrivated him to no end. But no one asked what he wanted. Not like he would expect his kidnappers to care much about his opinion on the matter at hand.

Lyra and her all to short-tempered partner-in-crime, Ethan, had attacked him from behind during one of his daily training sessions and dragged him out to the clear waters of the largest lake in Johto. He recalled being here - once. News that a pig-tailed girl had fought a particularly dangerous Gyarados out there made him jump into action the moment he could. Of course, by the time he arrived, she was gone, off with the former champion of Johto in a successful attempt to stop Team Rocket's efforts in the small town just south. He hadn't been back here since. That was probably why the two dragged him to that very spot - to go sight seeing at a place he'd only caught a glimpse or two of.

"I don't know. I lost count at one hundred thirty-seven." The stormy haired boy burst out into laughter, Lyra looking at him with her typical" oh, Ethan" look and Silver only grumbling even more to himself. Apparently, the Day-care couple's grandson enjoy watching him get beat into the ground by his best friend, so, before the tallest of the three even had time to relax, he'd been thrown into yet another battle. However, that and him most recent loss were not the things concerning him the most at that moment. Perhaps the only female in their little trio took notice of this, because she skipped over before he could even say anything.

Thrusting her hand in front of him for a handshake, she began, "Good job! You battled wonderfully, as per usual! You're getting better at this, I can tell! Just a little more training and -"

"Lyra, do you think someone who's... imperfect can become perfect?"

The words spilled from his mouth without his volition and, angered, he chomped down on his tongue in his own form of self-punishment. He knew the answer, obviously. She'd think he was crazy for thinking such a thing. She'd say something along the lines of, "nobody's perfect" and laugh it off. Except... she would be wrong by that statement. Because she herself is enough proof that people can, in fact, be perfect. But, so far, she was the only one who met that standard.

"Oh, Silver," she cooed with a giggle. "Everyone's imperfect. You, me, Ethan... If you're worried about what other people think about you, just know that they're just as imperfect as you!"

"It's not that..." he protested weakly, knawing on the inside of his cheek as though chewing on the words he wanted so badly to say themselves. But she'd never understand. He didn't care, for the most part, what others thought of him. It was what he thought of himself that mattered. If he couldn't be as strong or perfect as Lyra, there'd be no way... He'd never have have a chance at... She'd never... She would never feel... "Oh, never mind," he growled, whipping around and stalking away. "I'm going to go... I don't know, fish, or something. Leave me alone, will you?"

His inability to put his thoughts into words was just another one of his many, many faults.

...

Everyone's imperfect.

No one can be perfect.

But that didn't mean he couldn't try.

2372 words.
excerpt from my fanfiction, imperfection.

[ASHER]

Snow crunched beneath his worn boots, the crystalline shards shattering and compacting as he walked over them. His breath came out as a vapor before vanishing into the sea of white. The lake, the trees, and all of his surroundings were blanketed by a thick layer of snow. His hands were stuffed deep into the pockets of his heavy trench coat that stood out in stark contrast against the innocence of the world around him. The coat was dark in color, faded from black. He paused.

“I will turn back from here,” he breathed, “No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.” He continued on his trek, his bright orange hair causing him to further stand out against the world around him that had been drained of color. He was far away from home. No – Julius had no home. He ducked his head down as a particularly cold gust of wind passed him, whipping the tail ends of his coat against his baggy winter pants.

Trees surrounded him. Every now and again, one was bowed with the weight of the snow. A small bird caught his attention. Julius looked up as it fluttered in front of him.

“Are you far away from home, too?” he asked. The bird twittered in response before flapping its wings to put as much distance and as many trees as possible between the two. Julius watched in interest as he continued his walk around the small pond. The bird darted from tree to tree, always checking back – always wary as if the young human boy was after him. Then, he hopped down from a tree branch and opted behind an odd sight. Julius stopped, staring in awe.

In front of him, a cord of wood sat precariously stacked up against a small, thin tree. Curious, Julius walked over to it. He bent down and ran his fingers against the wood. It was cold and frozen, just like the world around him. The little bird flew off, but Julius’s gaze was transfixed. He felt the wood beneath his fingertips. After helping his father fall trees for the past six years, he knew the wood. It was maple. The wood was warped and the bark was peeling. Surely it wasn’t a fresh cut. As his eyes traveled over its surface, he gauged it to be at least two years old. And the cord was superbly stacked, balanced between the tree it leaned against and a small stake. He looked around, finding no footprints leading there.

“Who would’ve left this?” he asked himself, exhaling warm air and inhaling a breath of cold air that pierced through his system. It wasn’t an easy task to chop and stack a cord of wood like this. Surely someone forgot about it, though he wasn’t sure how. Nonetheless, Julius pulled his hands from his pockets as well as a pack of cigarettes. He tugged one from the pack and held it between his lips. He fished for his lighter in his pocket, pulled it out, and lit up his death. Someone else forgot about it, but Julius was alright with that.

Words: 521
Notes: A short story written based off of Robert Frost's Poem "The Wood Pile"