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NOVEL-A-LONG #1: The Prologue
Hey Prosers! Let’s write a novel! I’ve decided it would be fun to host a series of challenges, each focused on a different step for writing a brand new story. Over the next few months, your story will grow as you process new ideas and be inspired by your fellow writers. We’re in this together! Every two weeks, I will release the next challenge, so try to keep up! Save all your entries and watch them pile up into a fully-fledged novel—written entirely by you! ———— This first challenge is simple: set the stage. Give us a short scene to serve as a prologue to your story. If you have no ideas, start with something you’ve seen today and then watch it transform over the next few months. PLEASE no graphic sex, nudity, or profanity.

Those Sepia Photographs of Childhood

Rei Mikami.

Angelic.

Princely.

Girls and boys in a sea of white button downs and red skirts and pants were almost drones.

Almost frightening it was.

But Rei didn't mind.

Not one bit.

He grinned, raising his arms and his voice.

Small and shrill, but turning to honey.

Either the cool, detached voice of a tsundere, the lilt of a Mother, whatever the massive horde wanted to hear.

And no one could quite agree; what did Rei Mikami look like? Which class was his homeroom?

Pushing through the throng, was someone who actually looked him in the eyes rather than past.

Who saw him and was not heated and glazed.

Mikami laughed of the sorry state the boy'd found himself.

Because in his curiosity the boy in his year(the only thing he knew) had his shirt more brown than white, stamps of the shoes running in successive harmony across his back, hair well over his eyes, and still, elbows mashing into already swollen cheeks.

And yet still, eyes so filled with intent, looked at him, to Mikami to do something or another.

He wasn't sure.

So he'd given him a dandelion. One he had found and quite liked, still yellow with healthy leaf, and completely solid so as not to blow away. And the nubs were fluffy to the touch!

Girls shrieked in jealousy, moaning broken fictions of their scatter-brained, cootie dreams. Was Rei Mikami gay? Who was the interloper who would dare--?

.

.

.

.

.

Rei Mikami was dark haired, had big round eyes, and an angular face that always made him look sort of cold, sort of annoyed at everything and everyone. His smile was sarcastic.

Rei Mikami tried to hide it but he was well aware he was adored.

Worshipped.

It turned Seo's stomach.

The legs on his desk screeched, the noise sending chills up his spine at rocket pace-- shoot.

He could not be seen as the weird kid and much, much less as the weird kid next to Mikami-san.

He was so in the wrong seat.

Seo, caught the smile and two-fingered salute and fought not to completely cringe.

How delightful.

Mikami kept his eyes just a little longer.

Seo knew it was a wholly new experience for Mikami.

He also knew in reality, slathering ten-year-olds turning vicious for just a chance to breathe his same air wasn't his fault either. What Sei knew that Mikami didn't is that he smelled.

He smelled of whatever scent was in flowers. So appropriate that he liked to give flowers as tokens.

Seo had appreciated the sprig of dandelion. Still yellow with healthy leaf, solid petals that wouldn't blow all away with the caress of a finger. With a touch still fluffy!

Air rushed in his ears, class chatter faded away, eyes slowly closing while resting his face on the desk.

Giant, giant paper tearing.

He briefly thought of manga.

A belligerent, sparkly and doe eyes schoolgirl.

CRACK.

CRACK.

Crack and cracks. Cracks everywhere.

Until the classroom was a barren, grey soil void. And still the cracks ebbed across, piecing the land...

And Seo was falling.

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