《2/3》I knew it
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It’s been one depressing ass week since I came to Colorado with my mom. It’s like since I moved away from the place that caused it...the nightmares and flashbacks happen more often? I don’t know, I just know it sucks and I haven't slept in 3 days. When I accidentally doze off I wake up screaming or sweating.
This caught the attention of my mom and her guilty expression just deepened each and every time. Basically My mom applied me to some highschool called “wizards”, and I’m going...today.
I wore my gray joggers again and put on the black hoodie. I walked downstairs ate the breakfast Adalene kindly made and got in the car with my mom. One I hate school, two it’s the middle of the school year and I’m new, three the crowded halls...the guys. I would be surprised if I didn’t get touched today and had a panic attack in front of the whole school.
(I’m aware I do a lot of time skips)
Time skip////
I’m glad this school has a lot of people. I blended in with everyone else...it’ll be like that until I walk into my first classroom. People are already whispering about me...I almost got touched 3 times and jumped 5 feet in the air to avoid it. Which caught attention...and laughter.
I made my way to the office and asked the lady at the desk for my schedule.
“And what’s your name?”
“Lake Rivins”
“Oh okay here you go”
I walked out the office and the hallways were empty...well I guess the bell rang. I walked to my class and entered with my head to the floor.
“Hi, who are you and why are you late?”
“M-My name it Lake...and I’m new”
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“Oh yeah right the new kid, lake what?”
“Lake rivins”
“Okay lake why don’t you go take the seat behind karl klas, Kk raise your hand please”
I froze...Kk...as in the Kk my ex best friend that moved away 2 years ago? If he’s here doesn’t that mean Rehan is here to..
I lifted my head up toward the kid with his hand raised...definitely him. Black hair, dark blue eyes, tall slim, sharp jawline, that pretty bad boy vibe. I couldn’t read his expression, maybe he really did forget about me. I walked over to him but kept my head down.
Someone stuck their foot out which I kindly stepped over, but not without ‘accidentally’ kicking it. The class laughed and I’m sure the teacher already hates me. I sat behind him and kept my eyes on the desk
Class went by pretty quickly but that’s probably because I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the desk. I gathered my shit and made my way out of the class. Ain’t no way in hell I’m talking to him
But me trying to get away from him made me forget about dodging touches...A male bumped into me and I froze. My feet were glued to the ground just like that time at home…
Is he gonna touch me…
I started breathing heavily faintly hearing someone call my name, but a hand on my shoulder made me run and try to find the bathroom. I felt like I was running for hours before I finally found a door that said boys bathroom.
My vision was blurry, my skin was itching, my breathing was heavy, my body was numb. Flashbacks of him touching me were invading my head, flashbacks of him on top of me, flashbacks of me screaming crying for him to stop, flashbacks of me watching my dad walk up those stairs until he disappeared,
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I started scratching at my skin feeling the blood drip down my arms.
I need a shower
I need a shower
I need a shower
I couldn’t breathe….I felt so dizzy. I heard 2 pairs of feet walk in the bathroom, but I was too out of it to notice. Someone grabbed my waist from behind
“NO NO P-PLEASE DON’T TOUCH ME!!! I’M ONLY 15”
I repeated the same sentence I did to him years ago....
The person didn’t let go. I remember someone sitting me in between their legs then pushing my head to their chest telling me to copy their breathing pattern. I passed out after that...my skin was dirty
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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 153Knights, Nobles, and Cannibals
Empires wage all out warfare for control of powerful crystals. Twelve unique shards capable of becoming battery banks for different special powers designated by colors, with alchemy infusions adding even more. The faction that mines, barters, or conquers the most rocks will dominate the planet of Tenare!
8 189Eclipse Online
Its the year 2050 and gaming industry has reached the level of developing VR system that supports full dive. It brought a wave of new games, but none stood above the greatest of them all, Eclipse Online. A world where everything and anything is possible to gain one of the five kings titles, so how will you rise above all? This story will be a side project and will not be my primary focus, so updates will happen when I feel I have reached a mental block and need something else to clear it. I don't own cover art
8 126A Fate Set in Stone (On Hold)
After dying and making his way into the afterlife, our protagonist happens to have a stroke of good luck. With the help of the substitute god of death, he's given a second shot at life in a world run by gods who probably played too many video games as kids. Monsters, magic, dungeons, bandits, and all that good stuff is there, except it turns out to be much different than Jed initially expected.(I picked some generic tags since this is my first story and I am not 100% sure where it is going to go. Mature warning is only there for some less-than-polite language.)
8 108Wanting in Paradise
Mia was a somewhat weird child living in her remote beastmen village with her family. Until one day the human nation invaded on their way to defeat the Demon king. Her village pillaged and herself thrust into slavery she longs for the day she can return to her own little slice of paradise. How will she reclaim what was wrongfully taken from her? Is it even possible? With the odds stacked against her she will certainly try her best, but she might need a few second chances.
8 125IGCSE BIOLOGY
- Chapter by chapter of IGCSE Biology syllabus - Disclaimer: I AM A STUDENT. I cannot guarantee that everything written is accurate.
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