Give Me Your Heart by Rachel Du

“Oh my gosh! I met this cute guy called Jett, in class 8C, and he totally stole my heart!” Luna gushed.

Luna Aurora Scarlet was an 8th-grade girl with pale blonde, almost white hair and piercing blue eyes. She was walking alongside her best friend Aria, a redhead, on her way home from school.

“What?” Aria was shocked. She didn’t understand.

Other kids gave her weird looks. A few looked surprised at the sudden outburst.

“Oh…” Luna said teasingly. “Are you jealous? Is that it?” 

“No!” Aria blushed furiously. “It’s just that, I wanted it.” 

“Hm? Wanted what?”

“No, it’s nothing.” 

The two girls continued walking as they discussed their new science task.

Luna and Aria parted ways when they arrived at the intersection that separated their homes.

“Bye, Aria! See ya tomorrow!” Luna waved and continued on her way.

Aria, however, did not do the same. After making sure her friend was out of sight, she dashed to find Jett’s house. After an hour of searching, she finally reached his house.

She rang the doorbell and Jett’s mom, a tall, pale and slender woman, came into sight.

“Hi! I’m one of Jett’s friends from school. Can I talk to him for a sec?”

“Sure! Come on in. Please make yourself at home.”

Aria excused herself and took off her shoes. Just then, Jett came flying down the stairs.

“Hey, Mom! Who’s at the-” he stopped himself when he saw Aria.

“Oh.”

“Hi, Jett! I’m Aria! Pleased to meet you!” They shook hands.

“Well, I’m sure you two will get along great. Why don’t you head up to Jett’s bedroom?” Jett’s mom smiled.

Aria and Jett mounted the stairs. They entered Jett’s bedroom, which looked and smelled like a dumpster, and shut the door behind them.

“So, Aria. What did you come here for?”

“I just wanted to ask you something. I heard you stole Luna’s heart?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, the two of us are dating now.” Jett blushed.    

“Oh.” Aria’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Hey, is something wrong?” Jett frowned, looking concerned.

“Oh nothing much,” Aria began, “it’s just that I want Luna’s heart. And since you have it, I’ll just have to kill you and tear open your body!” 

She lunged.

He Came Closer

He Came Closer

by Rachel Lysenko

On Sunday, the day before Halloween, Lily walked out of her house and saw a boy strolling down the street. Deciding to ignore him, she took out a rake and started to rake the leaves out of the driveway, as she did every morning in autumn after a windy night. The boy kept coming onwards in the direction of Lily’s house but only looked at her house when he turned and stopped in her driveway.

“What do you want?” asked Lily. The boy did not reply but started staring at her instead of at the house, with an expression as inanimate as a mask.

“Why are you here, what do you want?” she asked and again received no answer. Freaked out, Lily went inside and stayed there the whole day doing her homework.

The next day, Lily woke up thinking about school and candy. The moment she opened the door, she closed it back up and locked it. The boy was a few steps closer to the house then she remembered.

“Mom,” said Lily. “There is someone outside on our driveway.”

“Go to school Lily,” said her mother in a tired voice. “You’ll be late.”

Frightened but obedient, Lily walked out onto her lawn and locked the door from the outside. Something she had never done before. Inching her way as close to the wall as possible, Lily passed the boy and ran the rest of the way to school.

After school, Lily came home and shrieked when she saw the boy. She had forgotten he was there. Coming in the same way as she had left, she locked the door again and called her mother who did not answer.

“Hi Mom, the boy is still there. When are you coming home? I am freaked out. Call me back as fast as you can,” Lily said after the beep that allowed you to leave a voice mail.

Her mother did not come home that night or the next. For three days Lily waited and watched the boy come closer and closer to her door.

On the third day, Lily unlocked her door to look outside but thought better of it and looked out the window. The boy was really close and had his hand half raised as if reaching out for something. Lily walked out the back door and locked it as she did every day with the front one.

After school, Lily came home and saw her mother inside hugging the boy who was staring out her window. He went outside and Lily grabbed for him, but her hand went through him. She saw herself turning into mist as the boy smiled and said, “Good bye.”

Room Number Three by Julie Xiao

Writing Grade 7-8

The dream always ends with the nurse from the morgue saying, “Room for one more darling.”

Isabelle awakes, gasping for air. Tigger meows from the foot of her bed, staring at her.

“How are we doing today, Miss Holloway?” Doctor Scholl asks.

“I had the dream again. Only I don’t think it’s a dream anymore, it’s real!”

“Don’t be silly. This is a symptom of stress, nightmares and disturbing dreams,” he soothes. 

“Now, you have a visitor today.”

“Really? Who?”

“Your agent, Jimmy.”

A round man walks into the room with a smile like the Cheshire cat’s. Isabelle shrieks and the two quickly fall into a conversation. Near the end of visiting time, they come upon the topic of Isabelle's dream.

“It’s real Jimmy, it’s real!” Isabelle insists.

“Aww, Izzy. You heard the doctor, nightmares and disturbing dreams are symptoms of stress. 

You just relax and get better. Dance is a stressful job, so this was expected.”

“Not you too! I thought you of all people would believe me.”

Jimmy turns to Doctor Scholl and orders, “Tell Izzy that the dream isn’t real.”

“I can prove that your dream isn't real. Here is the nurse from the morgue. Does your nurse look anything like this?” He brought in a petite, blond haired women.

“No. The nurse is tall and has very dark hair.”

“See, your dream is just a dream,” Jimmy says.

 She shakes her head, but lets the subject drop.

As Isabelle falls asleep, her dream starts. 

Tigger looks at Isabelle from the foot of her bed. Suddenly, he leaps and takes her doll, which is lying next to her. Isabelle begs him to give it back, but he will not. He runs towards the door. She gets out of bed and follows him down the stairs. The stairs are hard and cold with little light. She reaches the basement and he drops the doll in front of room number three. As Isabelle picks her doll up, the door in front of her opens.

A nurse says, ‘Room for one more, darling,’ and smiles sadistically. Isabelle screams and runs away.

She wakes up gasping for air and tries to calm down.

“My dream is real!” Isabelle insists.

Doctor Scholl looks thoughtfully at her. ­­

“Your dream always starts with your cat stealing your doll, correct?”

“Correct.”

“So tonight, try not sleeping with your doll, and since your dream is real, there will be no doll for your cat to steal.”

“But-”

“Miss Holloway, I look forward to hearing about your dream tomorrow. Good night.”

Carefully, Isabelle places her doll on the shelf and falls asleep.

She wakes up, breathing hard. She reaches for her doll, but remembers that it is not there. Her cat is at the foot of her bed, staring at her. She remembers what the doctor said, reaches for her purse for a cigarette, and lights it. Her fingers are shaking and she tries to calm down but her shaking hands get worse. The cigarette falls on the bed, catching fire, burning her skin, and the last thing she sees is the number three.

Isabelle screams as she wakes up. Nurses come immediately, soothing her as she begins to cry. Strangely, after that, she no longer has her dream anymore, and is released from the hospital.

           

“Okay, Miss Holloway, you’re all set to go. Better head down, your flight to New York is taking off soon. Flight number three,” says the attendant at the flight desk.

“Flight number three?”

“Yes ma’am. You better get going.”

Dazed, Isabelle reaches out to the wall to steady herself. It is just a coincidence, she says to herself. She takes deep breaths as a couple passes by her.

“Are you  all right, ma’am?” a steward asks.

“Fine, just fine.”

Slowly she makes her way down the runway, clutching her doll. She goes up the stairs and faces towards the stewardess.

“Room for one more, darling,” says the stewardess. She is tall and has dark hair, wearing a pleasant smile.

Isabelle screams and stumbles back towards the waiting room. People come running to aid her and she whimpers, afraid. On board, the stewardess smiles cruelly and pushes a button.

Isabelle watches the plane rise into the air, scolding herself for overreacting, until, the plane explodes into flames. She screams without a sound and chaos ensues around her as she stands there and wonders.  

The Sleeping Shadow

By Daniel Xie 

Age 12

All we wanted was peace. Peace. We did not mean any harm, or any damage. It wasn’t our fault. I never believed in ghosts when I was a kid. In fact, I think I never believed in ghosts my whole life until this point. Ghosts are real. I can prove it.


I remember it was August the 5th when my new sister and I were going on a trip to Cuba to get “along.” You see, Mom and Dad divorced and I was left with Dad.  Then he was married to a lady named Beth. I don’t get why Mom left Dad. She said something about Dad caring more about our dog instead of her and that she was going to leave because no one cared about her. Yeah, I don’t really get it either.


So anyway, my stepmother has a daughter named Meg. I am one year older than Meg. I’m seventeen, she’s sixteen. She said that we should take a plane alone to Cuba to get to know each other. We didn’t talk much on the plane. “So…” Meg finally said, taking a sip of water, “What is your  mother like?”


“Oh, she’s active, fun, joyful, and nice,” I said, looking out the window. We usually talk more at home. We would laugh and play games and call each other names. But on the plane, we were exhausted waking up three in the morning to catch the plane. So we both kind of fell asleep an hour later.

We were both woken up by a boom.

I think Meg and I woke up at the same exact time, lifting our heads up looking for something that made the boom sound.

There was a big hole in the middle of the plane. A huge splash of cold air whipped in the plane like a bucket of cold water. People were being sucked out of the plane, grabbing an object so they won’t fly out.

“Jump!” I yelled.

“Why don’t you jump first, scaredy cat?” she screamed, trying to be louder than the wind.

“Haven’t you heard of ladies first?” I asked.

So she held her breath and jumped, but the wind carried her like a tornado, and I knew Meg was in trouble so I jumped down.  We didn’t know what to do. The wind was as strong as a tornado in midair.

I saw a lake while falling and thought that we would be having a soft landing. We hit the lake and it felt like taking a brick to the face.

“Meg? Meg!” I yelled, hoping she was okay and rubbing blood off my face.

She stood out of the water and coughed.

We were happy we were alive.

“Do you hear that?” Meg asked.

I listened.

It sounded like little kids crying and it was echoing in my head.

“Yeah” I replied.

Then a dark shadow appeared.

At first we thought it was a person’s shadow but we saw no person.

It was a ghost. A ghost.

We backed away as I try to sound brave, “Who are yo-”

“Be quiet!” Meg whispered.

“We don’t know who that is!”

“How dare you,” the shadow whispered.

We looked around. Trees were broken and more shadows were crying and on the ground.

“I think they are mad at us for intruding here,” I told Meg.

We both got scared and started to run.

Luckily a rescue chopper came in as I grabbed the ladder.

“Come on Meg!” but then I realized that the shadow had captured her.

With my very own eyes I watched as my stepsister turned all black. Like she was being burned to ashes.

Meg was now one of them, the shadows. She hissed and grabbed my leg, but I kicked her and opened the door to the chopper. I felt my leg burn a little as I saw my leg was black. I had no choice but to leave her. I looked out the window as she and the other shadows went back to the trees and disappear.

I close my eyes and hear Meg’s human voice saying over and over again louder each time: “How dare you.”

Look at me

By Linda Wang (age 12)

You had always liked to be alone, but now, as you walked through the restricted floor of the art gallery, you wonder if it would have been better with someone. You’re not scared, that’s for sure, you’re never scared, it’s just the paintings in here, how interesting they look. 

The floor was nothing like the others that you’ve seen, it’s not something that you like to admit, but you spend more time than the regular person in the art gallery. Sure, once in a blue moon you will find a piece that you don’t find flavourless, but most of what you are most attracted to is the gallery itself. It’s like a giant piece, with its windows that bend the light, and how it’s so easy to get lost in the places. It makes up for a lot of how boring the actual art is.

This floor though, is not much maze-like, without the signature forks and extra stairs that lead to nowhere, it’s more like the place is directing you where to go. But of course, that’s not what you do.

For once, you want to see the paintings.

Since you were small, your eccentric sister had drilled the whole ‘artsy’ image into you. Her creations were something that you would pause and look at, if anyone was ever enough of a sadist to show little kids the kind of things she did. Her paintings for one, told her idea of the apocalypse. She made sure that her canvas was cut into ribbons and always had people who had eyes that would follow you around. They weren’t even that dark, with bright warm colors and vibrant neon, yet that somehow made the whole deal worse.

These paintings would make your sister’s look like preschool finger-paintings.

Currently, the one you have your gaze on, is a girl. She’s pretty, in a plain way; she wouldn’t stand out much if you saw her in real life, so you decide to move on. But, something tugs at you, a feeling that says, ‘Look at me,’ something only great artists can accomplish. So you do take a closer analysis of her. Her expression has a look of urgency; her eyes show such deep anxiety and something that makes you want to know more about what she feels. Taking quiet steps towards the painting, you suddenly notice that you can’t seem to take your eyes off of her face. The eyes you think. Her eyes: plain, no special qualities, were staring straight at you, glazing and holding. You swear she wasn’t before.

Come to think of it, the eyes look similar, possibly the most familiar pair of eyes to you. And then the realization hits you, they should be similar to you. After all, they’re your eyes.

Your hear speeds up, Where did that thought come from, you think. But as your heart calms down, you can see that those eyes aren’t yours. They’re just a reflection of yours. With a sigh of relief, you sneak one last glance at those eyes. Her face is contorted in victory.

You turn back to the other paintings, and you gasp as they change. The strange scenes from before melt into kids, kids that have a look of triumph and twisted happiness, almost as if the paintings they share have melted into their eyes. The girl you turn back to look at - her eyes are no longer ones that mirror yours. They’re completely different, and just like all the other kids, her real eyes are stormy.

You freeze, not in surprise, or like how stupid people in movies stop even though they have to run, you literally cannot move. You can’t blink, yet the children in the pictures are moving, the walls closing on you. Their eyes focused on you, as yours on them.

You’ll never be alone, after all, we are one.

Nothing matters anymore, you’re empty and you’re hollow, and you know you want one sole thing.

A new kid wanders into the gallery, and their eyes just barely graze you.

Putting all of your might into a command, you think. Look at me. As their eyes connect with yours, you know you’ve won.

Going Down

Crazy old ladies babbling about haunted elevators sometimes aren't so crazy...

by: Kassie Rong (age 12)

Manny really should have listened to that old lady in Room 11-56 and just taken the stairs.

If she had, she probably wouldn’t be standing inside an old rickety elevator cart with a man that had just stepped in and looking like he had just escaped while on the way to a psychiatric hospital. The man’s face was horribly deformed, scars marring his hollow cheeks and dark eyes. His greasy hair was matted down on his pale face and his lips were a blood red. 

   

“Going down,” he rasps.

The light flickers above their heads and the elevator gives a loud moan. They start speeding up.

Manny is backed up against the door. She needed to get out of there. She looks up at the floor number—7. She scrambles to press the 6. She would just walk the rest of the way down. 

The elevator passes the 6^th floor and does not stop. 

“Going down,” the man says again. 

The lights are flashing on and off above them and the elevator speeds up. 5, 4, 3, 2, they pass the ground floor and do not stop. There is no floor below the basement and the cart was going too fast; they were going to crash. 

Manny huddles into the corner and squeezes her eyes shut. She really should have believed what the old lady had said about the elevator being cursed. The lights go out completely. They pass the basement. The man stands completely straight in the darkness, staring at the doors.  

“Going down.”

Deception

By: Rachel Wang (age 12)

Chapter 1

            

I awoke to the sound of a knock on the door and then a thump. I lay there for a split second and quickly descended the stairs. I looked around to see if the owner of the house was around, and when I made sure she wasn’t around, I opened the door.

           

Nothing. Nobody.

             

I walked out and realized that there was a real estate magazine on the ground. It was flipped to the middle of the magazine, right on the page that advertised a mansion.

            

I picked it up and quickly closed the front door, and went back to my bedroom of the house I had rented.

            

I settled down into my bed and skimmed over the page. The mansion was set in the middle of nowhere, on a twenty acre chunk of land. It was old with the paint peeling off, and a rusty old gate that I didn’t even need to see to know that it was old and probably creaked. A cracked road with a few trees along it led to the front door of the mansion. I could just identify a swamp in the backyard, and a couple of gargoyle sculptures.

            

I laid down the magazine and closed my eyes. Who had brought this magazine to me? And how come it was flipped to this page? Was I meant to receive it or was it for the house owner?

The Doll on the Shelf

What would happen if you bought a doll that was cursed and misread the "instructions" of how to take care of it?

By Albert Liu (age 13)

On the shelves in the toy store there lay many dolls, but there was on special doll that caught Emma's eye. It was Emma's tenth birthday, but she never knew it would be her last. She picked up the doll; she looked at its face. She loved the cute blue eyes and the pretty dress, but what she loved the most was the way the doll was holding up two fingers like it was making the "peace" sign. She asked her mom if she could buy it and her mother said yes.

When they went to pay for the doll, the cashier looked surprised and told them never to leave the doll outside, not under any circumstances. Even though the cashier spoke seriously, Emma and her mom didn't care. When they arrived home, it started to rain really hard so they rushed into the house, leaving the groceries and the doll in the trunk of the car. Since it was late, Emma brushed her teeth, took a shower and went to bed.

Later in the night, Emma was awoken when she heard three knocks and a small girl's voice: "Emma, I'm coming through the door."

Emma thought it was just in her head so she went back to bed and fell asleep, until she was awoken a couple hours later with three more knocks and the same voice of a little girl: "Emma, I'm on the stairs."

Emma was getting scared, though she still thought she was just imagining things so went back to sleep -- until she was awoken once more. Three knocks and the exact same voice said, "Emma, I'm halfway up the stairs."

Now she started thinking this wasn't in her head, but she stayed in bed and fell asleep until she was awoken again by three knocks and the creepy voice, "Emma, I'm at your door."

Emma was really scared now. She saw her bedroom door was opened just a crack.She pulled the covers over her head and shut her eyes. A couple minutes passed until she felt something pointy touching her neck. Suddenly she heard the creepy voice very close whisper, "Emma, open your eyes."

When Emma opened them and pulled back the covers, what she saw was the last thing she saw.

In the morning Emma's parents jumped into her room to surprise her and wish her a happy birthday only to find their precious daughter in bed, white as a sheet with blood all over her bed and face. Beside Emma was the doll, which had been left in the car trunk. Its dress was covered in blood. Emma's mother sensed, though she couldn't prove it, that the doll had done something horrible, that it was cursed. She returned it to the toy store.

The toy store changed the bloodied clothes and re-shelved it. It looked exactly the same as when Emma had first seen it, except that now the cursed doll was holding up three fingers.

The Sound of the Dead

Can a person really go insane from boredom and loneliness?

by Sophia Huang  (age 12)

So the night had somehow come down to this, with Molly pacing around the barren room waiting for him to return after his night’s work in the office. She had called him over and over again with no answer and had grown increasingly agitated. She knew that this was not good for her because when her temper went up, her sense of reality plummeted, and she couldn’t tell what was happening.

Instead the house was filled with only the sound of her feverish footsteps pacing on the worn out floors and of her calling her sister after he did not answer. She was once again met with silence “I guess silence really is the sound of the dead; one has already gone but the other will be joining them.” She said when she slammed down the phone.

She heard the clunk of footsteps and her heart suddenly stopped when she thought about who might be there, but it was only him. She called the man “him” because she found his name to be irrelevant and he would not be staying with her long anyways; not after what he had just done.

“Where have you been so late at night?” she said. She knew where he had just been and it was certainly not at work; she also knew what he had been doing.

“Just working in the forest; I buried something there that was bothering me.”

She knew he had killed her sister; she knew that he was not the person her mother thought he was when she told him to keep her ill daughter safe.

“You didn’t have to wait for me you know?” he said, but she knew he was just trying to make small talk. He normally never spoke to her and when he did, he only spoke formally, as if he was talking to a child.                         

“Of course I waited for you; in fact, I haven’t even made dinner yet,” she said as she slowly made her way to the kitchen.

This was met with an agitated reply, “Well, then what have you been doing at home if you haven’t been cooking?”

“I’ve been calling you and when I couldn’t reach you I called my sister…” She let the words hang in the air hoping to get some sort of reply that let her know for sure what had happened.

He stepped into the kitchen with a sunny smile, but she was too fast for him. In a swift motion she slit his arm and ran up the creaking stairs, trying to run away from the terror she felt. He swore loudly but did not pursue her, leaving her to lock herself in the moldy closet muttering into the silence.