Welcome to the Dream It, Write It Creative Writing Club web page! Here you can read the work of Bayside High students. All works belong to the students and cannot be copied or reproduced without their permission. Enjoy!

In These Walls of Ice

A maze is somewhere no one wants to be
And yet Lydia was here, right in the middle of it
Darkness overshadowed her previous glee
Why was she here, who saw she seemed fit?

There was a plethora of hallways
Lydia felt like it would never end
Until she heard a voice far away
A calm one, sounding like a friend

She followed the sound
Her footsteps echoing throughout
Until a bright light hit the ground
And everything went out

When Lydia’s vision came back
She was greeted with an ice design
A spacious room with icicles on the ceiling and track
Chills from the cold went through her spine

A guy who looked about her age was there
She assumed it was the voice she heard
“Lydia,” he said, starting to stare
How did he know her name? This was absurd

His eyes were as light as the ice surrounding the two
Lydia caught herself staring
“How do you know my name?” She wished she knew
The boy chuckled softly, which earned him glaring

“You’re the one they chose,” he said.
“You’re supposed to get us out of here.”
Lydia was confused, fog in her head
Who chose her? Why couldn’t she just disappear?

But she needed to get out, now
So she started walking again, puffing cold air
The boy followed, glad she was trying to find out how
To get out of here, in this maze found in who knows where

The Pain of Reality

Once admired by my very own eyes,
The bottomless waves begin to rise
Falling down on their given path,
Releasing all their built-up wrath.
Pinning me down with no air,
I recognize my ongoing nightmare:

I try to stand, but once again I fall,
Letting my heart consume it all.
While the sun cowers behind the rain,
I try to breathe, but my lungs fill with pain.
Longing to go back to before,
I realized I was too far from the shore.

I lied paralyzed that night,
Praying for the morning light.
As a trail of sun came to stare,
My thoughts drowned in despair:
I never knew, I never slept,
Until realization came to crept.
If only it was a dream, I could feel exempt.
Oh, how I wish, I had only dreamt.
-J.R

     Most people didn’t fear sleep over death. They had trials and hardships and tragedies, but in the end, they could always count on sleep to soothe their minds for the span of one single night. Kathleen Wickory was not part of this majority. Her trials and hardships and tragedies had all been manifested by her own mind and sleep only caused her more. Therefore, she did not fear death as much as she feared sleep because everything death could do, Kathleen could do, all in the span of one single night.

     Every night, Kathleen performed the same routine: sit cross legged on the mattress, close eyes, think about nothing and no one. This usually went on for about ten to fifteen minutes (twenty if there was a lot on her mind that day) and then she could fall asleep thinking about grass swaying or the ocean waves crashing the shore.

     The alternative was to forego her meditation and risk becoming the accidental offender of a crime she never intended to commit.

     Anything that happened to the people in Kathleen’s dreams happened to them in real life, whether it be good or whether it be unpredictably horrible. To stay on the safe side, she chose to dream about nobody.

      Kathleen realized she was also an inevitable danger to herself. She did not like to think about that.

     In a way, she knew she should be grateful. The only reason she was alive was because she had been given the blessing from the River to live in exchange for a small piece of her she could never get back. Every person alive had made this exchange.

     Kathleen had not been old enough to remember any of it. She also could never remember thinking of it as a blessing. She had always called it a curse, and everytime her voice had been near enough for her mother to hear, Kathleen would be gently but firmly corrected.

     “A curse is of the devil,” her mother would say, her words flavored with honey and vinegar. “A blessing is of our Lord.”

     Kathleen still never called it a blessing.

     Sometimes, when she wasn’t busy, Kathleen would slip on her roller blades and skate down to the River flowing right through the middle of the island, connecting the Indian River to the Banana River. It was more of a canal than a river really, and it had been called so in the past, but when the River had first come to be and spread a slim branch through Merritt Island, everybody had simply accepted it.

     So she had been told. It had happened more than seventeen years ago, and that was longer than she’d been alive.

     The sun was shining bright in a cloudless sky and Kathleen and her pair of white and purple rollerblades passed a variety of streets and estates on their way to the old boatyard, including the house Kathleen usually babysat for.

      It was a blue house with a blue roof and a blue car in the blue driveway. The mother of the children couldn’t own anything that wasn’t blue.

     She passed a neighbor she knew as Mr. John. He was busy mowing the grass in front of his house, but waved when he caught sight of her. His hand came up only to his ribs and he looked a bit awkward, but Kathleen just smiled and waved back. It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t raise his hands just as it wasn’t Kathleen’s fault that she woke up with a luminous yellow beanie on her head the week before. There was nothing one could do about their exchange.

     Kathleen skated through the park, wind whipping through her hair and sunshine bearing down on her from behind wisps of vapor, too high up in the atmosphere to be called clouds. The last remnants of spring still clung to the air, but only barely. It was May and all evidence that winter had existed had dissolved into humid air, saturated with summer.

     Her roller blades zipped down a few more streets and along a few more sidewalks before making it to the boatyard. All the buildings built on the River had been removed or abandoned due to constant surges of energy, so they were always empty.

     Kathleen could feel the energy flowing neatly through her. It followed pathways through her body and circled around her heart. The closer she got, the stronger it felt. Finally, she approached the abandoned boat ramp and removed her skates to navigate the field of rusting boat parts and tree roots sticking out of the once-smooth sand.

     She tilted her head up to gaze at the sky. It was blue. It was not always blue in her dreams. Sometimes it was yellow or green or purple or even red. Dreams with red skies were the worst. They almost always reeked of blood. It had been years since she had a dream with a red sky, but time doesn’t fade those kinds of memories.

     Kneeling by the River, Kathleen was overwhelmed by feelings of peace and external wisdom. The River held the knowledge of everything and the rest of the world only received what the River decided to share.

     Kathleen dipped her hand into the water. It was a blue so magical it shouldn’t exist. The indigo cerulean surface broke into an aquamarine depth mixed in with several other cobalts and azures.

     Her fingers tingled with energy as she lifted her hand out of the whimsical waterway. She knew this was forbidden – no one was allowed to swim in the River or have any real contact with it at all apart from bringing their newborn babies to be saved – but this was the only place to find tranquility in her world of chaos.

     Kathleen never asked why visiting the River was prohibited. She knew the answer already. Fear. The River didn’t feel like a body of water, it felt like a living being. Its waters had a heartbeat and they breathed their life-giving energy across all in proximity. Some people embraced the possibilities held within its depths, but most rejected the River, calling it dangerous. They say it gives us life, but for a price. If we risked going back too often, what else would it take? Most people just avoided the River entirely.

     Kathleen was not afraid of the River. She had very few fears, none of which she feared more than her own dreams. She could never choose what she dreamed or who would be affected by it. She could maybe help her family out by dreaming them good fortune and lasting success, but the risk of losing their lives in a gruesome, bloodied way, greatly outweighed the chance of reward.

      Kathleen clenched her teeth and withdrew herself from the River. She hated handing control over to her mind. Gazing down into the mystical waters, watching the swirl of blues cast deceptive shadows on the sliver of sand beside it, Kathleen had a hard time believing that this was the source of everyone’s suffering.

     But she knew that it was the reason that she dreaded the night. The reason that everyone she ever knew was always in danger. The reason she had to let go of control everytime she laid down to sleep.

     Beauty, it seemed, was the best mask for horror.

                      .            .            .

     That night, Kathleen dreamt she was out at sea. She drifted along on a square raft made of various types of leaves. The bottom was made of oak and mulberry leaves and the sail was a giant palm frond. The raft smelled wild and evergreen and mixed with the smell of the water. It was a salted woodland scent. She drifted in calm, lying on her back and feeling the raft rock beneath her with each pulse of a wave.

     It was a drowsy sort of calm, the kind one might get when they wake up at three A.M. to get a glass of water. Kathleen felt only half awake, half aware. Everything was fuzzy.

     Her eyes were open, staring up at the cloudless sky. There was something off about it, but she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again, hoping to see what she missed. She couldn’t.

     A single cloud had appeared in the sky. It was dense and rather large. A strong wind had accompanied it, blowing her tiny raft in some sort of direction. Based on the smell of fresh linens, Kathleen figured it was either Northsouth or Southwest. For some reason, she couldn’t tell.

     A single drop of rain fell from the cloud and onto her cheek. She wiped it with an absent finger. Another one fell just under her eye. It trickled down into her mouth. It tasted like copper.

     Feeling another gust of wind, Kathleen realized she had been wrong; she was drifting Westsouth. It seemed this equivocal environment had dulled her usually sharp sense of direction as well.

     She wanted to feel uneasy. All she felt was somnolent.

     Kathleen sat up slowly to take in the ocean around her. It smelled like blood. It was blood. It was not hers. Gazing at the sky, she could finally place what was off about it. It was red. She couldn’t tell if the sky was reflecting the sea or if the sea was reflecting the sky.

     It was raining harder now, the single cloud had sliced open like a wound, bleeding out onto her raft. Through the howling wind, Kathleen thought she could make out the strangled cry of a tortured child. Fighting feelings of lethargy, she whipped her head around, scraping her blood soaked hair from her face, in search of the source of the agonized scream. Her heart stopped. It was a child. He was drenched in blood.

     The cloud resembled his face. The sea resembled his torment. It was his blood they were drifting in.

    The little boy wailed. The sound came from the layer of impenetrable despair looming above them. Kathleen focused her eyes on his tiny, hunched form. He was covered in cuts and bruises and was on his hands and knees, digging his fingernails deep into the maple and oak leaves of the raft. He screamed again.

     For a moment, Kathleen felt sick, then the sensation dissolved into the consuming daze of this vile world. Her own emotions were warring to break free.

     She watched a new gash appear on his arm, his gushing wound insignificant compared to the crimson sea surrounding them. Kathleen wished she knew where the cuts were coming from or who was responsible. She should have known, she always knew these things.

     She watched in helpless horror as the boy continued to shriek. Finally, she broke free from her emotional prison. She felt the urge to reach for the boy and try to save his life, but found that she couldn’t move an inch. The blood had thickened by several degrees and had glued her to the raft. The world was fighting back.

     The wind blew billows of Kathleen’s hair into her face. She couldn’t see, she could only hear, smell, taste, feel. The little boy cried, the stench of salt and blood was overwhelming, she could taste it, feel it pouring down her back, soaking into her clothes and her skin.

     It was a raging storm of agony in a sea of endless torture.

     Kathleen woke gasping and sat straight up in her bed. She was trembling, but she wasn’t covered in blood. That would come later. She struggled to keep her breathing even as she pulled the covers tight around her. It wasn’t the dream itself that caused raw dread to bubble up inside of her – though this definitely had to have been her worst dream in years – it was the little boy who she had just made suffer on a raft in an ocean of his own blood.

     Kathleen was not the expert of her own mind in any way, but what she had somehow known since her dreaming began caused a nasty chill to spread down her spine.

     Every person who appeared in her dreams was a person in real life. That meant the little boy was alive, or at least, he used to be.

Like a Memory, by Ocean Swift

The sunlight is soft and the air is sweet.
The grass is green beneath our feet
with little flowers growing all around.

And the ruins of a statues lay here,
like graves,
like memories.

We pass through this land with a forgotten name.
And we’ll leave it to rest here.
To sleep for quiet centuries.

I would like to sleep here too.
Forget the dark closing in around us
and let the grass and flowers cover me.

But this soft place will not be my grave,
and I don’t have the liberty to sleep
and fade into a memory.

I have to march towards the darkness
and let it grow within.
No, we won’t become memories.

We will become stories.

Ocean’s Writing Sample

Magdalen Pearce’s Mirror

Mirrors had always worked strangely in Memory Hollow. They would show you your reflection, but sometimes it would make a face that you did not. Sometimes people would show up in the mirror that weren’t there in real life. Sometimes even, your reflection would be another you. Male, female, without eyes. Despite this, Magdalen Pearce was quite surprised at the knocking.
It happened one night when she had just settled into bed. Magdalen was an only child, so she didn’t have any brothers or sisters to share her room with. Not only that, but her parents had bought her a large oval mirror that went all the way to the floor for her birthday. She had invited all the other children into her room to come see it. They were all amazed and envious, and Magdalen had felt quite proud.
The knocking happened on a Sunday night. Magdalen was trying to fall asleep as quickly as she could so she wouldn’t be tired for school the next day. She squeezed her eyes as tight as she could and thought sleep, sleep, sleep over and over again in her head. That was when it started.
At first Magdalen thought it was Ephraim Collins. A few weeks ago, he had thought it was funny to throw pebbles at her window when she was trying to study after school. She had been mad then, but now she was livid. She stomped out of her bed and over to the window to tell him he was the worst neighbor in the history of the whole wide world, but no one was there.
The knocking came again. This time Magdalen realized it was coming from behind her. She turned to face the mirror hanging on her wall. She saw her own reflection, but beside her was a beautiful woman. The woman smiled. She had brown wavy hair, just like Magdalen’s own. And she had the same brown eyes.
It only took Magdalen a moment to realize that it was an older version of herself. She ran over in excitement. “Wow!”, she exclaimed. The woman laughed. Magdalen saw her turn to the side and speak to someone Magdalen couldn’t see. A moment later, a handsome man stepped into view. Naturally, Magdalen assumed that this was her future husband. Her smile grew even wider. He was tall, with the bluest eyes Magdalen had ever seen. He smiled at her too. Magdalen realized that she recognized that smile, but she couldn’t remember where. Then it hit her. She had seen that smile chase her around with a frog, and pull the ribbons from her hair, and steal her school books. The smile belonged to Ephraim Collins.
Magdalen’s face fell. The adults in the mirror watched this and began to laugh, speaking to each other in words Magdalen couldn’t hear.. This made her angry. She pulled a quilt from her bed and hung it over the mirror, covering their laughing faces. Then she got back in bed, squeezed her eyes shut and thought sleep, sleep, sleep over and over again until she drifted off.
The knocking didn’t come again, but the next day at school, she noticed for the first time Ephriam Collins’s blue, blue eyes.

Something in

“If you are not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you’ll end up in the Backrooms, where it’s nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby. Because it sure as hell has heard you.”

I was reading about some weird theories on the internet and I came across this one. The Backrooms is a very known urban legend and tale and in my opinion, it’s stupid. I always see the movies about people being in disbelief about some story and then being in a somewhat ironic situation, and as much as I don’t want to be that ignorant friend, this is just something some person made up on the internet one day, so I’m not too worried. Though this is only the beginning, you- you will understand what I’m talking about later. While I’m here, my name is Reilly. Not like this will mean anything. Today is June 16th, 2015.

You’re probably wondering why I am talking about something I’m not too fond of, probably because a friend of mine talks about it a lot, he is obsessed. He has always been planning to go there, but he—let me just say his name, his name is West—he wants to go with a group of people, but sadly his research has proved it is very difficult. How do I know this? Again, he talks about it a lot.

“Hey! Have you seen Misti?” West asked me, as he was looking at an odd piece of paper. I’m not sure what he was looking for but I didn’t worry about it too much.

“I saw her more near the east last period, but I didn’t pay too much attention.” I didn’t pay much attention to somebody I didn’t know I should be looking for. I tried peeking at the paper he was holding but I failed. As he continued walking towards where I told him, I suddenly felt a sharp pain rise through me, I felt something was going to happen. Probably because West doesn’t walk around asking where people are normally and not to mention he had a weird grin on his face that entire conversation.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Hello!” A girly voice behind me just scared the life out of me. Though it was just my friend Esther. I should’ve known because of her cute pink purse that she’s always clinking around.

“I wanted to ask you about something, West wanted me to go with him somewhere after hours today, and I’m a bit worried because he can be a bit… off! I was wondering if you could go with me, just for safety reasons?” She always pokes fun and makes jokes about issues and situations to lighten the mood, but her tone isn’t always this dark. Her cute voice dropped a bit deeper while she was talking to me, I think that’s how I knew she was being serious. I nodded and she smiled slightly before we parted from each other. My heart sunk thinking about what could happen to her because she never feels like this.

I spent the rest of the day finishing my classes. I couldn’t help but think about all the possibilities. Usually, I just overthink these things and that’s probably what I’m doing right now, though it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I decided to ask two other friends to come with me, because I was terrified as well. Both of them declined, which makes sense. I decided to take a public bus to a place near Esther’s neighborhood. I knocked on the door and I noticed her peeking out the window. Once she opened the door she gave me the signal to come in. I walked into her room and I suddenly saw her packing bags of things, she looked a bit panicked but also trying to keep the peace.

“I can’t tell you what’s going on and you might hate me later for it but I need you to do a huge favor for me.” She said with a shiver in her voice. I immediately noticed an opened letter she was packing and I just had to inquire about it.

“If you don’t mind, what’s that letter?” Once I asked the question she looked at me and replied very swiftly.

“I can’t tell you what’s going on,” She replied, which was kinda pointless.

While I was watching her pack, she went through her closet and looked at me.

“Hey you wouldn’t mind- wearing this, would you? I think you’d look pretty!” She said while holding up a primrose-colored crop top with Japanese writing on it and pink colored jeans with small chains hanging off it showing cute cartoon characters. She also got a white hairpin with a bunny on it to match. As a guy, my first reaction was… no way! Though I didn’t think she was doing this as a joke, or else she would’ve given me one of her many short skirts that probably would be too revealing for a guy like me.

“Is there a reason?” When I asked this she smiled.

“I just think you’d look cute in it, and we could have similar outfits!” Her voice was always so sparkly, I could tell she was covering something up but I was hoping that this slight embarrassment would comfort her.

So I went into her bathroom and put on the outfit she asked me to. Before walking out I looked in the mirror to see how it looked on me. It was not my sort of style but it somehow fit me lovely. I walked out to show her and she started to glow with delight.

“Here… let me add one more thing!” She’d come up to me and wrapped a locket necklace around my neck and of course, it was pink.
“You look so cute!” For a moment she smiled then went back to seriousness. She checked her rosey watch and then replied to me.
“Let’s go, the time he wants to meet is in 10 minutes.” She closed her backpack and signaled me to walk with her.

Esther and I continued walking to the place, and I had no idea what was going on. Suddenly she held my hand and clenched her grip on me, her ring wasn’t helping, but I didn’t let go. I could see she was worried.

At a certain point in our walk, she led me to a weird alleyway. I was hesitant to continue walking, I saw West and two other people with him, one of them being Misti, the girl he was looking for earlier in the day and who was sometimes a TA for a local elementary school part-time, and Hyun, who was an international student who came to America to improve his English. I can see West trying to hold back a slight laugh looking at my outfit.

“What’s with the girly appeal? Are you finally coming out?” He asked in a joking tone. While I was trying to not scream at him and keep my calm, West looked at Esther’s shaky hand holding mine.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting you here, but the more the merrier!” West said to fill the silence. I had no idea what everyone was doing here, but then I had a memory, a memory of the paper he was looking at right before walking off to look for Misti. Just as if Misti was reaching into my brain, she asked the questions that were on my mind.

“Hey so, about that paper… was that anything important?” West seemed hesitant to give a reply.
“It was just a list of people I wanted to invite, nothin’ much.” He shrugged it off, which seemed fair enough. I continued to think of notes, notes, notes, notes, notes, and notes. Her letter. What was that letter? Right before I was going to ask more questions West said, “I think we’re ready. I’m hoping that we can get famous for this!” This confused me, as I have no idea what the hell he could be talking about.

“Ready for what? You seem idiotic.” Hyun said while looking around.

“Just follow my lead.” Right after he said this, he started trying to ram into a door. We all stared in confusion for a few seconds, and then Misti and Hyun followed. Esther and I looked at each other wondering what was happening. We were very hesitant to follow West’s orders, but he soon caught onto us as we were standing there.

“What are you guys doing? HELP. US.” His voice rose in volume as he spoke . Esther whispered to me a statement.

“Please listen to him, I can tell you why another time.” She seemed scared, but she started to ram herself into the door with the rest of them. I joined her because I wanted to be by her side, it’s nothing romantic.

With the power of five random college students, we hit the door open. The last time we ran in the door was already open, so we entered with full force… I should’ve known this was going to happen.

Show Don’t Tell Practice

“Show don’t tell a character who is tall, really smart, good-hearted and has a big family.”

Ducking his head, Jackson passed through the doorway of the kitchen, heading straight for the stove that was still slightly warm.

“There wasn’t enough,” his sister called out from the other side of the table.

Although Jackson’s stomach was still yelling at him, he replied, “That’s ok. I’ll figure something else out.”

“Did anyone else not get enough?” he asked the table with 8 chairs, one on the far end that was left empty for him. He pulled all of the ingredients out from memory, getting every measurement perfect, even after having to convert them due to a sink full of dirty dishes.

– Carmela Burian

The warm, spring air felt nice on her face as she stepped out of her shared cabin. She stopped and waited for her lover, smiling as she took the brunette’s hand. They skipped down into the valley, letting the puddles and soft grass dance around their bare feet. The blonde, green eyed girl stopped for a breather as her soon-to-be wife giggled while huffing from the run. They stared wistfully at each other. the green eyes staring longingly into the eyes she would soon marry.

Oh how she loved those eyes, and how time flies, as she held her fiancées cold, lifeless hand in the valley they once played in.

Drxw