《Bite Me [Creek Love Story]》{Sixteen}
Advertisement
Craig and I ended up just going to his place since his parents weren't home and his sister was at her friends' house. We were sitting on the couch, watching some weird TV show that seemed to be popular, though I wasn't at all very interested in it to tell the truth.
At some time during the show, I must have fallen asleep because the next time my eyes opened I was leaning against Craig who was speaking quietly on the phone.
"What happened?" he asked. There was silence, then he sighed and responded to whatever the person said, "I'll be there soon." He hung up and slid the phone back into his pocket. He didn't move for a good minute but when he actually did make an attempt to stand up and carefully lower me unto the bed, I slowly opened my eyes and sat up myself. "Oh, you're awake."
"Mhmm.." I responded, yawning, "Wh-where are you going?"
Craig walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed some keys, "I have to pick my sister up from her friends'."
"D-did something b-bad happen!?" I asked, now on my feet.
Craig shrugged, "She won't tell me." He grabbed a coat and headed toward the door. I followed and soon we were in his dad's car, making our way towards wherever it was that Ruby was at.
When we arrived, his sister had just stomped out of her friends' house and pulled open the car door with such force that I shrieked in fear. "Hurry up," said Ruby as she jumped inside, looking royally pissed off, "I wanna go home."
Craig said nothing and pulled out of the spot we had been parked in, making our way back to his place. It was silent the entire way there, something that made me more and more uncomfortable the longer we drove. It took far too long for us to arrive back at the Tucker household and when we did, Ruby was slamming doors like crazy and flipping everything off. At one point she stubbed her toe on the doorframe to her room and a string of profanities slipped out of her mouth. Words that she shouldn't really use at her age, yet I refrained from saying anything for two reasons. The first one was the fact that I was scared she would hit me or something. The other was simply because I knew such phrases even before I was her age, and used them frequently. I would have been a hypocrite had I said something.
Advertisement
"Make me dinner!" she called from her room before slamming the door shut and stomping about in there. Craig flipped off the closed entrance but walked into the kitchen anyway.
"Ngh - you can cook?" I asked, following close behind him, trying to stop myself from freaking out since Ruby's tantrum got me on edge.
Craig shrugged, "Not really.. But how can someone mess up on scrambled eggs?"
I nodded and hopped onto the kitchen counter, swinging my legs back and forth, twitching every so often. That was the night I watched in awe as Craig Tucker undercooked scrambled eggs, then over cooked them, then got too distracted from a call on his phone to scramble them.
■ ■ ■
The following weekend passed by uneventfully and come Monday we returned our borrowed clothes to Token, who thanked us for them and asked where we went later that night. We had just been about to respond when Clyde strolled up, wrapping his arms around the two of us and pulling us in close.
"There's a rumor you two slipped out of the party and got it on!" Clyde laughed, "Is it true? Please tell me it's true!"
"HOLY SHIT, DUDE! N-n-n-no way! Oh Jesus!!" I cried. I could feel my body vibrating out of anxiety and instinctively tugged at my hair, "This is all - ACK! - w-way too much - ngh- pressure!!"
"Yeah," agreed Craig, "That's ridiculous. Besides, Tweek and I are straight."
How can one person be so cruel without even meaning to? Straight. Straight, straight, straight. That word was like a gun to my heart, and Craig was the one who pulled the trigger.
Clyde snorted, "Come on, man, you don't have to lie. We're all buds here!"
Advertisement
Craig rolled his eyes but said nothing. Then Clyde turned to me expectantly and I freaked.
"ERK! Wh-what?!" I asked, wide-eyed.
Clyde smirked, "Well? You gay or what?"
Though I couldn't tell, I was almost one hundred percent positive that my face had turned a bright shade of red. I shook my head rapidly, "NGH- that's n-not your business!"
"HE IS!" exclaimed Clyde, jumping up in joy. He jogged ahead slightly and turned towards us with a giant grin, "You two would be awesome together!" He winked.
"Stop trying to play match maker," sighed Token.
"Make me!" Clyde pouted. Token rolled his eyes and I could just feel Craig's eyes staring into my temple. This was not good. I had to act fast!
"N-no! I'm straight!" I said in a hurry. Clyde's expression faltered only a second before it became smug again.
"Don't lie," he ran a hand through his brown hair, "I'll get you two together no matter what it takes."
"Shut up," Craig finally said, flipping Clyde off before walking to his next class. Oh great, now he was angry! He's gonna never want to talk to me again! I'm disgusting in his eyes! Horrid! Ugly! Annoying! Useless! St- "Tweek. Hurry up."
I blinked, confused as to why Craig had stopped and turned towards me when I realized that we had next period together. "O-oh! Right!" I scurried over to him and once we were next to each other, he started walking again. We walked in awkward silence the rest of the way. Maybe it wasn't awkward to him, but to me it was the worst silence imaginable. I was stuck with my thoughts, the thoughts that were killing me with every step I took.
Because I'm in love with Craig Tucker, and I'll never be with him.
Advertisement
- In Serial10 Chapters
Synchronizing Minds - A first contact story
So what are the intelligent aliens like? The humans didn't know for quite some time, since even though they had ventured out far, they had only found few animal species and those had been as far from sapience as common earthworms. But now they had finally stumbled upon someone and a first contact meeting is happening. Can ambassador Neil, the represantitive of humans, find friendship standing before a vastly different sapient creature that is six times her size and just learned about the concept of language? Or are the humans actually the weird ones?
5 64 - In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153 - In Serial15 Chapters
Deep Within
A vampire from a royal family, a close friend of the king, Derek Valtaheim seemingly had the world in the palm of his hand. But when the lies of his past and a murderous scheme came bubbling to the surface, Derek would be swept up in a revenge plot years in the making.
8 840 - In Serial104 Chapters
PERCEPTION (A New Begining)
After a serious head injury, Tom can't help but notice his perception of the world changing. He gains the ability to control his perception of time. What would happen to a normal human if they could see/think at superhuman speeds? What would they be capable of? Follow Tom as he finds out what he is capable of and realizes the consequences of his newfound power. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE OFFENSIVE AND DARK SUBJECTS. (This isn't a ploy to get more people to read. If you even think you might not be able to handle it just read something else.)
8 96 - In Serial16 Chapters
One Life
With everything in tatters, Jason jumps on the bandwagon of One Life: Virtual Vacations and Adventures. Giving up everything he knows, he logs in to the game, hoping to find a purpose beyond the rut he had found himself in, in the real world. Lucking out early, Jason discovers a questline no one had managed to find, the now Deran finds himself in a sticky situation, relying on his new friends to help him stay alive. Especially since in this game, you only get one life.
8 131 - In Serial20 Chapters
A Broken Promise
Sayhas was a killer. He was a mindless blade. A mercenary, a brigand, an outlaw Thief, Assassin. Murderer. He's done it all. Now, he's had a change of heart; he wants to go home and grow old by a fire with the ones he holds dear. But the past cannot be so easily forgotten, and grievances of long ago haunt him at every step. Instead, he travels the world, waiting for old friends to come and collect their dues, hoping that there will come a day when he can finally go home. Unfortunately, Sayhas' talents have caught the unwanted attention by the gods themselves. And when even the god's nasty plots are intertwined with Sayhas, he has two options: To run and pray it all blows over. Or to fight, and to pick a side.
8 96