This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

You hate the fact that you still have to set an alarm, even though you work from home. And it’s not a pleasant alarm like the one you saw in a novelty catalogue that asks you to wake up with a polite English accent. That would not be sufficient for your borderline-comatose sleeping habits. It’s full-on screechy beeping that starts your day at 7:15, because you need as much time as possibly to be even slightly productive.

Your boyfriend hates the alarm, but he stands it because he loves you and wants you to write another book. He’s the one who persuaded you to try and get the first one published. Every day when he leaves for work as you sit at your desk, he taps you on the shoulder as if he’s trying to gently unstick the ideas.

“Pulitzer?” he’ll say with his charming half-smile as he walks out the door. “Nobel Prize for literature? Another New York Times bestseller, at the very least.” Oh, that’s right, the first novel was a bestseller. You forget that sometimes because it seems impossible and undeserved. You still think of his job as “the real one,” for crying out loud, even though you’re the one who’s actually brought in money. But right now he’s wearing a suit and you haven’t even put pants on yet, so it’s a difficult concept to grasp.

This new book is not coming easily, and you have a feeling nothing you write ever will. You don’t even really remember writing the first one; it happened because you had just graduated college with all of these emotions but no way to channel them. You know that’s not an adequate explanation of your writing process, and it made for some terrifically boring and awkward interviews during the press tour (God, how weird is it that you had a press tour?).

All you know for sure is that sometimes it feels like someone else was dictating the manuscript, and you just typed it clumsily with your index fingers. And that when it was over everything felt right, like your world had been knocked back into orbit. Finishing the novel felt like walking inside after standing in the cold; all the feeling rushed back into your limbs and equilibrium was righted and you could breathe again.

That feeling’s the reason you’re doing this a second time. Well, that and the fact that you’re obligated to write something else, because everyone expects great things from you as a “gifted young writer” and “prodigious talent” (their words, obviously). Your book, for some reason, sold. People liked it; they liked the way you write and the things you said. And even though you’re afraid you used up all the things you had to say, you try to come up with more because it would be sad if that really was it.

You’re typing on the computer that’s connected to the Internet, though you know it’s a bad idea. The idea of writing this book is so daunting that you will undoubtedly end up online watching funny cat videos instead. And you don’t even like cats. Anything to avoid the terrifying white space and the word counter at the bottom of the screen that seems to say “That’s all you’re going to come up with today, huh?”

You don’t even know if you like writing. You need to do it, and you like having done it, but you question whether doing this to yourself is worth it. To try and succeed with your weird little hobby a second time, when the first was more successful than you could ever have imagined. Being the author of a popular book is amazing. It’s more than you feel you deserve. But you know, in the back of your anxiety-ridden brain, that creating one celebrated work can still seem insufficient.

Like how Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. But then she never did anything else. And now she’s an elderly recluse, and some people don’t think she even actually wrote her masterpiece. What is that happens to you? This is how your brain works. Success and good potential don’t compute; it’s all worst-case scenarios. Of course, comparing yourself to Harper Lee in any way is a little ridiculous. You’re pretty sure that ninth-grades across the country will not be assigned your beloved classic novel for decades. Or ever.

But you still don’t want to be seen a fluke or a one-hit wonder, the literary equivalent of a song that shows up on one of those “I Love the [insert decade here]” shows. You don’t want to give up on everything and then hear people say “Remember that girl who wrote the bestseller at 22 and then disappeared? She sure got lucky.” You can’t let that happen.

So you make yourself keep working. You disconnect the internet and type, because you can’t afford to let anything distract you. When your boyfriend comes home you’ve written a few thousand words. You’re not sure if they’re relevant to the plot, or even if they’re decent. Honestly, you’re still not entirely sure what the plot is going to be. But he reads that day’s work and says he likes it, though of course he always says that.

You stop to go eat dinner, and as he talks about his day you realize that you’re really happy not to have an office job like he does. The fact that you can spend your days playing with words while wearing mismatched pajamas is mind-blowingly enjoyable, especially when you consider how a lot of less fortunate people have to make a living. You realize you should stop complaining, because it’s a waste of the resources in your brain. You realize that you’ve got to keep trying.

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

You met her at a ball, the ball your older sister, the Queen, threw to celebrate her inauguration into the highest position in the country. At first, all you could do was throw her glances across the floor teeming with dancers, the ladies’ ball gowns swirling and briefly obscuring this thing of beauty. She wasn’t dancing. She rejected any man asking for a dance. And there were many men asking for a dance.

So you crossed the floor, knowing that she couldn’t deny you; you were the prince.

The curve of her ruby lips as she smiled at your question made you stutter, and your stomach plummet. But she nodded and allowed you to lead her onto the dance floor.

She danced like an angel; and she was twice as beautiful. She laughed easily, she let you lead her, and you found that, inexplicably, unquestionably, you had fallen in love with this woman in white.

Her black, curly hair smelled so wonderful as you kissed her. Her lips were cold. She let you for a moment, then stepped back, teasing.

She asked to see you again. Of course, her heart-shaped face stunned you into nodding, but you would have nodded anyway. You loved her.

In a twirl of sparkling white silk, the mysterious, beautiful woman was gone as the dancers swarmed over you.

For a while, you met her out in the snow-covered gardens; she never seemed bothered by the cold. Her skin was always chilly, but she basked in the icy breezes that left you breathless.

You didn’t care. She captivated you.

After nearly a fortnight, she invited you to come to where she lived. You agreed, you had been wanting to see her every day since the night you met her.

You didn’t even know her name.

But love is blind that way, isn’t it?

So at midnight on December sixth, you met her in the gardens that were being freshly coated in falling snow. Her arms and shoulders were bare, as she was wearing the ballgown you had first seen her in. Her curly black hair was loose around her shoulders, falling to the small of her back. You thought that she had never looked more beautiful.

She took your hand, her palm icy in yours. Her skin was always cold, even when she didn’t seem to be. She always seemed in the perfect climate. Winter was her season. Ice was her element. It just made her that much more appealing to you.

The door was grey wood, as if it had petrified hundreds of years ago, but you didn’t care. Nor did you care that the door seemed to be jutting out of the side of a cliff. She kissed you, and all you really cared about, all you really saw, was her perfection, her alluring smile, her sparkling turquoise eyes.

You shivered suddenly, and she smiled in pity. She explained that once you witnessed the warmth inside her dwelling, you would never be cold again.

It sounded appealing to you. You nodded eagerly, and she stepped ahead, pushing open the door in the cliff. You followed her inside, preparing to be washed over with warmth.

But it was not so.

Icy wind and cold snow fell upon you, and you tried to back up, back outside, you realized the door was gone.

Your beloved stood before you, a smile on her beautiful face. It was not the smile you loved, but the opposite. It was demonic, evil, and you suddenly realized that she had tricked you.

She beckoned you with a finger, and you felt your feet shuffle towards her on their own account, following her through silver-blue rooms with white couches, chairs, fireplaces blazing with blue fire. You followed her through a bedroom with a queen-size pale blue bed, a carpet made of snow on the floor and a desk with several quills and papers stained with blue ink. You followed her into a cavernous room filled with ice statues of men.

Her freezing hands were gentle and delicate on your shoulders as she kissed you again, even as you tried to pull away.

From her fingertips, ice spread over your body, slowly, painfully, like a thousand knives piercing your flesh.

But you couldn’t scream. You felt her ice creep up your throat like vines, over your nose, over your eyes.

It was so cold.

Too cold for you to breathe.

But you were unable to shiver.

She had you gripped fast, and firm.

It was then that she pulled back from the kiss, smiling wickedly at what she had done to you.

The last thing you saw then, as your eyes iced over for eternity, was her turn her back to you, still smiling before her eyes left yours, and walk out of the cavern where her victims, now including you, would remain frozen.

She doesn’t have a heart. She has, deep within her freezing body, a carved rose made of the purest ice.

It was the rose that fooled you, and so many others.

It was the Snow Witch that will keep you with her.

Always.

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

“You want me to what?!?” I stared in disbelief at my new friend.

“Just tell me if it smells okay.” Caught off guard, I warily leaned forward and breathed in. A disgusting aroma reached my nose, causing me to cough involuntarily. “So this one’s a no?” he asked uncertainly. I looked up at him and back at the Just For Men’s Glacier Fresh deodorant.

“Um, it kinda reminds me of old guys…. you know, that farty smell?” The old guy looking at the toothpaste gave me an annoyed look and moved on to the toothbrushes.

Sighing, Jake put the Glacier Fresh back on the shelf and stepped back to take in the ridiculously vast array of men’s deodorant. As he studied his choices, I looked at him again. Jake is the very essence of the photographer that he is. A skinny guy wearing square, wire-rimmed glasses with hair that stood straight up, he is just tall enough to reach the top shelf. It was from the top shelf that he pulled the next stick of deodorant to thrust at me. His eyes anxiously searched my face as I sniffed the rancid stuff.

I tried to break it to him gently, “Well, this one isn’t so hot either… but there’s definitely less of a grandpa smell.” The old guy at the toothpaste heaved a grumpy snort and pushed past us to the vitamins in the next aisle. Jake turned again to face the looming shelf of products with a determined expression.

Afraid of interrupting his intense concentration, I whispered, “So why am I smelling your deodorant anyway?” I certainly hadn’t planned on choosing deodorant for a guy I barely knew! We were here to get my senior pictures printed. Pictures that he had taken with his camera weeks ago. While in the photo department, he vaguely mentioned needing to pick up few things and the next thing I knew, we had landed in men’s-deodorent-ville. You can never truly understand how large Walmart’s deodorant section is until you are forced to smell each individual container. Now Jake explained why I was smelling his deodorant as if it was the most obvious reason in the world. “I’m driving up to see Lisa this weekend and she likes it when I smell all-you-know… and you’re a girl so you can tell me what smells good.” Confused, I tilted my head heavenward and squinted in the bright florescent lighting.

“But didn’t you just tell me that she dumped you last week?” Again he sighed and gazed at the endless sea of deodorant.

“Yeah, but I really think that she’s making a mistake. It would be our two year anniversary this Saturday and I’m taking her out to dinner.” It was my turn to sigh. This Lisa chick had no idea how lucky she was to have such a great guy. I mean not only was he driving four hours just to take her to dinner, but he was altering his preference of personal hygiene items just to make her happy. Jake held out another deodorant. I sniffed compliantly. I was greeted with a spicy, musky smell that reminded be of some boy I couldn’t quite remember.
“Bingo.” Jake’s whole face relaxed into a grin.

When we were walking towards the checkout, I noticed that Jake had fallen behind to look at -- you guessed it -- more deodorant. He looked at me with a question in his eyes.

“NOOO,” I stated firmly, “my nose is about to fall off and what you have is fine so lets get out of here before you buy all of them!”

“Okay, okay!” he laughed as he hurried to catch up. On our way out of the aisle, I glanced back to see the grumpy old guy sneaking a sniff of the Old Spice display.

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

Light was fading slowly from the smudged, pink sky. Hands thrown in the pockets of his gray hoodie, Kevin Gaebler stopped the skateboard with his foot. The bustling of people had calmed, now only several view-loving people stayed. He was a walk away from the ocean, in the park that he often came too since he had moved to California.

He missed her. Everything about her -- at least everything she would let him know.

A year ago, he could hold her hands, tell her how beautiful she was. A December ago, he couldn't take his eyes off her as they shared Christmas dinner with friends. That same December, before everything went horribly wrong, he didn't tell her. He was falling in love.

Two months later in a small cafe' he was looking at a face that didn't love him anymore. Couldn't love him anymore. Somehow, lies and missunderstanding had shattered their way into the already breaking relationship.

Something about the fading sunlight or the chilly air made these painful thoughts surface. He had pushed them deep into his heart, where only he could be hurt by them. The kind of chest-twisting pain these thoughts brought was so familiar, yet he never seemed to become numb to it. Every time he let the longing for what they were and could have been arouse, the pain was almost unbearable. A physical throb in his heart.

He shook his golden hair over his two sad eyes and breathed deeply. It had been two months since he had moved states, since that horrible day she said she didn't think she could ever love him. Two months of packing his emotions deep inside, coping with facts such as she would not be his wife, that she wouldn't be moving to California with him. Had he told her too late, waited a little too long? Should he have told her on that Christmas eve when he was sure she loved him? Why he didn't tell her that snowy night confused him. The fact that she would never have him was haunting and painful - it left him broken.

His phone buzzed, breaking him from his thoughts. He glanced at the setting sun then to the name shining on his Iphone.

It was her.

There was a glitch in his thinking, breathing. His world. The reality of their breakup and the reality of her calling clashed. As the phone buzzed, he hesitated, wondering whether or not to pick up.

He tapped the green button and moved the phone to his ear.

"Hello," he waited, heart pounding fiercly. Then the angelic voice came.

"Oh! hey, I'm so sorry Kev," She stuttered as the nickname she had so often used tumbled out. "Uh, Kevin. Sorry, I didn't mean to call you. I called the wrong number."

Kevin felt dissapointment, but quickly shrugged it off. What was he expecting?

"Oh," he laughed --something she never failed to make him do. "Okay," he paused, pushing his skatebord back and fourth under his white shoe "uh,"

"So, how are you?" Her attempt to remove the awkwardness of the accidental phone call was transparent, but her voice was just as sweet as ever.

"I'm g-" he stopped, raising his head to look at the dark sky. It was dishonesty that had broken their love, lies that made them never understand each other. Now he was going to comfortably lie to her again? He couldn't. The silence ended. "been better. What about you?"

"I'm doing really well." she sounded sincere and happy. There was a slight gap of quiet. "Well," when she began, he knew this might be it forever. "I've gotta go."

"Make that phone call?" he felt most himself when he talked to her. She laughed softly.

"something like that,"

"Right. Okay," All words left his tongue, leaving time between her voice and the end button.

"I know your life has many exciting things ahead Kevin, without me in the picture." the tone she used was so promising and tender. Something in that moment lit a spark inside him. The forgiveness in her voice released everything he was holding on to, giving it all back to her. How long was he going to spend his life pining for something he could never have? Speaking the truth, and hearing her response had somehow planted a new respect for her in his heart and a new determination to get his life back together, and to give hers fully back to her.

The answer to two months of pain and wandering in the dark was suddenly clear in her words. He would never be able to find that same happiness trying to get her back; it was time to let her go. Maybe there was someone better than him for her. And maybe, though the thought inconceivable at the present, just maybe there was someone better than her for him. It was time to forgive himself for all the mistakes, time to move on.

Nothing felt more right in that moment.

"You too, Ashlyn."

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

I felt a pair of strong, warm arms wrap around my shoulders. My mind registered the person’s familiar scent and the face of my captor instantaneously popped into my head. On instinct I leaned back, resting my head against his shoulder. Eyes closing, I sighed in content.

Things used to be perfect. We were best friends and it seemed as if our relationship escalated from there because the next thing I knew we were more than friends. He won’t even talk to me now and that’s the worst part. Every tear that I shed, was for him and nothing else. I wanted him back so badly it hurt.

“Vida finish your paper.” I blinked, jerking awake as Kayla waved a tan hand in front of my face. She raised an eyebrow at me, eyes traveling in the same direction I’d turned my own to. I could practically hear her thoughts now. Asking me why I couldn’t just get over him, leave him behind like he’d so easily left me?

But it wasn’t that simple. Love was never that simple.

“Girl you have got to get over that boy. He’s obviously gotten over you. And here you are writing your paper about him. You’re supposed to write about yourself.” Her words hurt even though she hadn’t meant them to. Kayla had always been the blunt one and she was always straight to the point, the exact opposite of me. She was telling the truth though, something else she was good at. He had obviously gotten over me. I could tell by the way he smiled, so carefree and happy.

Why couldn’t I be like that?

All I felt in my heart was longing and jealously as he openly flirted with the nameless blonde girl he was standing with. She was pretty and evidently just as interested in him as he was her. Not that she could help herself. He was gorgeous even though he tried to modest about it, something else I loved and admired about him. He’d never been arrogant, which was surprising considering most guys who looked like he did normally were.

But no…he wasn’t just your average boy. No he was more.

Kayla groaned, probably just tired of watching me stare. “Finish your paper before I have to drag your ass out of here.”

My eyes snapped to my dark haired friend as she stared down at me. She seemed pretty determined for me to finish my paper. I glanced down at the paper, sighing. “Fine.” I grumbled, taking a pencil in my hand before beginning to write in my loopy cursive. Our English teacher had us writing a paper about ourselves and Kayla was right. I wasn’t really writing about myself. I was basically writing about how much I missed him, and how I was heartbroken. And the truth was I didn’t know who I was without him.

I tore my eyes away from the paper to once more glance back at him. I watched as he ran a hand through his dark hair, a smile adorning his handsome face. I watched the way his green eyes sparkled as he laughed, how he looked at her. I swallowed, wishing he still looked at me like that. But that’s all it was. A wish.

I tore what I had written out of my notebook, crumpling it up and tossing it in the trashcan that sat nearby. I took my pencil in hand, ignoring the look of interest Kayla was giving me, and then I wrote the first sentence of a new beginning.

I am Vida and my name means dearly loved.

This is a regular column featuring original fiction and poetry by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

He isn’t sure how he got here. He thinks he should be angry, but with the warmth of the sun-heated car at his back, Kyle can't bring himself to mind. It is summer after all. He doesn’t have anything better to do, and Ashton’s unplanned road trip serves as a useful distraction from the uncertainty that consumes his life.

But there it is, that nagging doubt as he wonders if this road trip isn’t as unplanned as Ashton claims. Because Ashton doesn’t do random, never acts without a goal. Even now, as she flirts with the young man who has pumped their gas, Kyle knows she wants something.

He also knows she will get it.

Sighing, he turns his face up to the sun. He doesn’t want to watch the curling knife blade glint of Ashton’s smile or the precise way she lays her hand on the man’s arm, each slim finger a suggestion and a lie. It’s not that he’s jealous. Most people are nothing to Ashton, and a stranger is just a means to an end.

He looks again, watches the way the man smiles, the way Ashton steps closer. Her head tilts, inky hair slipping free from behind her ear, and the man pushes it back. Kyle can tell the man's fingers are gentle, reverent.

Lifting a hand to his face, he shields his eyes from the harsh glare of the sun on faded, cracked pavement, from the shine of it in Ashton’s dark hair, from the man's bright eyed wonder. He means nothing to her. Kyle knows it, but the man doesn’t, and Kyle thinks he hates him just a little.

He is, after all, just as taken with Ashton as this stranger is, just as sucked in by her slow curving smiles and dark eyes. She says she loves him, but he will always doubt her sincerity when he knows she lies so well. He wonders even now if he--like the random road trip that isn’t random at all, like the poor stranger--is simply a name on a meticulous list, waiting to be checked off.

“Hey.”

She is standing in front of him now, and when he looks at her he can’t tell by her expression if she got what she wanted or not. He also knows that she did regardless.

“Hey,” he says, because having her near has robbed him of anything more articulate.

She grins, and he wishes he could hate her for her smug certainty, but the wish is gone a moment later when she touches his wrist with a brief brush of fingertips. The gesture is familiar and secret, and in that second he is absolutely sure of everything, even Ashton. And then she is moving past him, getting into the car, and the feeling is lost.

He climbs into the passenger seat, and they head toward a destination Kyle doesn’t know, but one he is sure Ashton has mapped out in exact lines and distances.

“So. Free gas?” he asks.

She looks at him, raises an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

He thinks a lot of things but says nothing, and the gas station disappears behind them in silence.

- Amanda Elizabeth Cady

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

Ever since second grade, I would watch him and his friend Andrew shoot hoops from my bedroom window across the street. Because I did my homework at my desk, and my desk was at the window, I couldn’t help it at first. But then, I got used to and looked forward to them playing for hours and deep into the twilight.

I also knew him from school. Andrew and I had the same last name so we were always seated next to each other in class. I got to eavesdrop on his conversations about how he and his tall friend pushed themselves on their YMCA team. And before I moved away, I would bully my brothers to take me to those games. That’s how I learned about basketball. I loved how he would stick his tongue out when he soared in the air for a dunk.

Then I moved away for several years because of my dad’s new job. While we lived in Minnesota, I got involved in drama class. My best friend Bessie was also really into blogs like Feministing and Jezebel. We wore dark hoodies and black nail polish. When our classmates made fun of us, I would say something sarcastic like, “Did that insult take all night?” or “The rhetoricians of our time would disembowel you with an ice cream scooper.”

Once, Darryl Gantz asked me to winter formal, but I knew it was a joke. Bessie and I taunted him with text messages about how we should match his socks to my corsage. It terrified him, and he backed out of it. Bessie said I should save the texts.

“You can use it later in your art about how the modern devices of our time entrap stupidity like time capsules for later ape-human generations.”

Then my family and I moved back because of Dad’s job. It was the start of freshmen year, and he was there. Bessie wasn’t. I had this strange thump-thump in my chest. I blushed for the very first time when I realized he brushed right by me. Once again, I was alphabetized next to his friend Andrew in math class, and I could hear him talk about them practicing. I didn’t have sisters to talk to about my feelings. I didn’t want to tell my mom I had a crush on a boy. It would make her so happy to have proof that I wasn’t a lesbian.

So I called Bessie.

“What do I do? I think I really like him?”

“Are you sure it isn’t indigestion, Sarah? I read on TheFBomb about how attraction is really based on how females feel socially obligated to find the men of the species attractive. Did your Mom buy you a skirt again?”

I tried to explain to Bessie about our shared history.

“He gets this intense look when he plays basketball. I think about him looking at me like that.” Just thinking about it made me feel gooey. I felt like I had a virus I couldn’t expunge. “But he’s into basketball. I’ve said ‘Hi’ to him in the halls, and I don’t think he sees me.”

“Well maybe you need to take a page from the normal girl’s guide. If this were a romantic comedy, what would you do?”

I lived in a house full of men. I grew up on Transformers. The only romantic comedies I had seen involved girls in bikinis and guys with bongs. Bessie was equally clueless. So we downloaded some “rom-coms” from BitTorrent -- My Best Friend’s Wedding, When Harry Met Sally, and The Wedding Singer.

“Well, it looks like you need a gesture,” Bessie said from way over in Minnesota. “A big dumb stupid gesture. That’s all I really got from it.”

“What kind of gesture?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But think about the rules of economics. How much do you need this boy to notice you vs. you doing this big dumb gesture.”

It turned out I really needed him to notice me.

There were basketball tryouts, and I decided to show up. I wanted him to notice me, but I didn’t want to look like I was trying. Also, I didn’t want the other students to think I was serious about going out for the varsity team. So I showed up in my Ramones T-shirt and my tattered jeans. I lined up with all the guys.

“Are you here to make some sort of statement?” the Coach asked.

My natural instincts kicked in: “I read a book that said tryouts are a metaphor for life and I’m here for the experience.”

I heard someone laughed and I hoped to all the gods and goddesses and spirits and plants that it was him.

I later told Bessie all this over the phone -- how I puked all over the court. How I managed to get one more quip in to cover my tears. But then, the next day, Andrew turned in his chair and talked to me. He told me he thought I was cool for coming out to practice. From then on, Andrew and I talked a lot inside and out of class. He’s told me about his friend who was so intent on making the basketball. He told me a lot about the ups and downs in tryouts. He was impressed that I knew so much about basketball. He also said that he and his friend liked The Ramones. I told him that when tryouts were over, they should come over to my house and listen to my Dad’s records.

“He has all their records with a really neat audio setup in the basement,” I said.

“You’re really cool, Sarah. I’ll let Tyler know. He could use a break,” Andrew said, waving goodbye to me. I ran all the way to the parking lot so I could hide between the cars. My heart was pumping so fast that I wasn’t sure it would ever stop, and I was smiling like the sun.

- D.Z.

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

It was not until she was about to go to bed that Isabel realized that her diary was missing.

She had always known that it was a bad idea to take it to school, but there was a part of her that would never let it leave her side. In a way this was sensible –- her younger sister Lucy couldn’t get her hands on it – but if someone at school read any of what was in the diary, the consequences would be disastrous. It was full of every little detail of her life –- she was pretty sure that her opinion of every person that she knew was somewhere in that thick, tired-looking notebook. But she wasn’t certain, because she never looked back at previous entries. This was simply because the purpose of the notebook was to carry all the feelings that Isabel encountered on a daily basis so that her mind wouldn’t have to. If she read back, then everything would re-enter her crowded brain and render her incapable of doing anything remotely useful.

However, the panic over losing the diary was already bringing everything back. She had already tipped the contents of her schoolbag onto the carpet of her bedroom. It was immediately obvious that it was not there, but she was sifting through all the junk anyway. Mangled sweet wrappers were sent flying over her shoulder into the bin. Exercise books were battered as they were swept out the way of her flailing arms. Eventually she was forced to conclude that it wasn’t anywhere in her bag. She flung herself onto her bed, where she spent a sleepless night tormented by imagined scenarios of what would happen if certain unpleasant people that she knew found the diary and read what she had written about them.

Her alarm clock woke her up in the morning as normal and she mechanically got on with her morning routine as normal. But her mind kept returning to the diary. When the doorbell rang she temporarily stopped her mental search of the school to wonder who might be ringing the doorbell this early. It was only half past seven. She got up from her bowl of soggy cereal to go and answer the door.

She opened it to a boy about her age. He had floppy brown hair and his uniform identified him as coming from the school on the other side of town from hers. She wondered where she recognised him from –- people from the two schools did not often mix.

“Hello?” he said.

“Er, hi…” Isabel said slowly.

“You dropped this,” he said. He brought his hand out from behind his back. In it was her diary. She grabbed it out of his hand, too relieved to be polite.

“Thanks,” she said eventually. She realised now that he had been on the bus yesterday. She had noticed him because of his uniform. But how the diary had been dropped she had no idea. It generally resided somewhere in the depths of her bag where it was virtually untouchable. Another thought occurred to her.

“D-did you read it?” she asked, blushing slightly.

“No,” he said and looked as if he wanted to say more but stopped himself. “I should probably be getting to school now.”

“Yes,” Isabel said quickly. “What’s your name?” She wasn’t sure why she had asked that. Maybe just so that she could look him up on Facebook later.

“James Linden,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, bye.”

“Bye,” she said. He left very quickly, there one second and gone the next. Isabel went back inside.

It didn’t occur to her until she was on the bus to school half an hour later that James Linden had somehow found out where she lived in a day without knowing her name or anything about her. She was pretty sure her name was not in her diary. And he had said he hadn’t read it anyway. The whole event, she reflected to herself, had all been very strange.

Later she looked his name up on Facebook. She couldn’t find him. She even asked other people from his school about him. It appeared that James Linden had never existed. Eventually she gave up and forgot about him.

However, she never lost her diary again. He made sure of that.

- helloiwritebooks

You've read The Hunger Games nine times, wrote an essay on its major themes, discussed the book in excrutiating detail with your friends, decided which character most clearly captures your personality, and you're counting down the days until the movie comes out in March. So what now? It might be time to branch out and start experimenting with other dystopian YA novels which, like The Hunger Games, spell out a dark and epic alternate future for mankind. And there's certainly no shortage of them -- The Hunger Games is part of a dystopia craze that has led to a number of other great titles that will keep you up reading until 4 a.m. to find out what happens next.

Don't know where to start? Our friends over at Scholastic have hand-picked 10 books to tide you over until the HG movie comes out.

Which novels would you add to the list? Share your top picks in the comments below!

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

I always felt bad for those awkward new kids, sitting in the corner of the room and trying to keep to themselves. They usually never answered direct questions, or made eye contact, or attracted too much attention to their self. They would just sit, staring at the teacher and counting down till the end of the day.

But today, a new girl that seemed innocent enough brought forth a strange feeling of unease, awkwardness, and inexplicable fear.

I made it to class just before the bell rang. Our teacher told us to sit down and open our books. I slumped in my chair with my head in my hand, tapping my eraser against the pages of the textbook. Our teacher was off on another one of her lectures that didn’t relate to anything we were studying. I waited out her speech, half-asleep in my chair.

The door creaked open. A small girl with black hair hanging in her face edged into the room, handing a slip of paper to the teacher. “Aha!” she cried, looking at the paper as the girl stood facing the blackboard. “Yes, yes. Have a seat next to Marie.”

I groaned softly as the strange girl eased herself next to me. “Class, this is Isabella,” the teacher announced. “She’ll be here for the rest of the year.”

Isabella didn’t look up as the class chorused a half-hearted greeting. She sat staring at her knees. Our teacher turned back to her lecture. I looked over at her cautiously. She met my gaze with eyes black as coal, exactly matching her crow-black hair and standing out against her white pallor. Her lips were blood-red and pulled up to show off razor-sharp teeth, bared in a menacing snarl. Her eyes boiled with hatred, and I couldn’t look away if I wanted to. She held my gaze with a force I had never seen.

And then she looked back down, letting her long hair fall over her face again. I turned away, surprised by the girl’s hostility.

Isabella never said a word over the next month. She sat staring at her knees the whole class, not responding when the teacher asked her a question, sitting in silence until she turned away. Every now and then, she would look up and glare at me, a glare of hatred and anticipation and longing all mixed in one. I frowned at her whenever she did this, and she would look back at her knees.

I approached my teacher about this after a while. I talked for a long time, trying to explain the look in her eyes when she saw me. “Isabella seems to hate me, but I haven’t done anything to her,” I concluded.

“Who’s Isabella?” she replied in a bored monotone.

I felt my face go blank, sure she was kidding. “That weird girl next to me,” I answered slowly. “Short, dark hair, black eyes. The new girl, she came about a month ago.”

As I was watching, my teacher’s eyes started darkening. They were bright blue, then navy, then indigo, then flat black all together. “Mrs. Hayes?” I said cautiously. “Are you all right?”

“I know not of whom you speak,” she snarled evilly, her voice loud, yelling, screaming at me. Yet no one turned at her accusatory tone or her hostile attitude. It was only me, staring at the usually kind teacher of mine as she bore down on me. Her hands hooked into claws at her side. “Now leave, go, be gone!” She was screaming at me, her mouth wide and her eyes blank and staring. She raised her arms, preparing to hit me with her clawed fingers. I covered my face, peeking through the gaps in my hands.

And her arms dropped like they weighed a ton, she lost the evil look to her face, and her eyes turned clear blue again. “You were saying something, dear?” she asked, as pleasant as always.

“N-n-no,” I stammered, backing away. She frowned. “No, Mrs. Hayes.” I dashed out of the room.

I was scared enough to not go back to Mrs. Hayes’ class, but I had to. I boldly walked into the room first period. My bus had arrived early, and I sat in the empty classroom, finishing off the homework I neglected to complete.

One by one, the students started trickling in. I looked up as an instinct, then back down, then back up again, shocked.

Out of every face, boy and girl alike, stared flat black eyes, set into white skin and glaring at me through a curtain of black hair. They marched in a purposeful procession, all dressed in gray and staring at me as if nothing would be better if I burst into flame. I could identify who they were — I saw Lizzie and Ryan and Katherine and Patrick and the two twins, Adam and Addie. But they weren’t themselves.

Just then, Isabella swung into the room, and stared haughtily around, looking on at all the people who were just like her. She grinned and sat down in her seat next to me. She was quite scary when she was smiling — her teeth were blunt and stubby, but four of them were sharp, pointed and glistening. Her lips looked too red to be lipstick or her natural color. They were exactly the same shade as blood.

I turned quickly away, staring around the room. On the inside of everyone’s wrist were four puncture wounds, still bloody. Wide-eyed, I looked back at Isabella, my pulse quickening. The holes on my classmates’ wrists matched with the teeth in Isabella’s mouth.

“You’re next,” she announced in a gleeful whisper. I stared at her curiously, then saw venom flare into her eyes. Her sickly smile turned into a grimace of pain, though she still gave an evil cackle, one that chilled me to the bone.

As quick and lithe as a cobra, she struck.

- Madison Lewis

Last week, YA greats Lauren McLaughlin (Scored), Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan), David Levithan (Will Grayson, Will Grayson), and Robin Wasserman (Frozen) came together on Figment to discuss what they learned about writing when they were in high school -- and what, if any of it, was useful. Along the way they took questions from hundreds of teens, offered insight on killing off characters, learning from editing, and what Jesus Christ might have been like as a teenager. An archive of the full chat is available at Figment, the online community where teens and young adult writers can practice the advice they picked up from the panel and read extended excerpts of some of their books.

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

‘You can do it!’

A few pink hearts float on the neon yellow sticky note folded up in her jeans pocket. It’s this that she now squeezes tightly as she strides down the tiled, busy hallway to her locker. The note is itself a magic thing; she once read that if you focus on something hard enough, it has a better chance of happening.

Her russet hair bounces in its ringlets as she moves with a confidence she doesn’t completely feel. As she stops at her locker—number 2973—she makes a show of putting her books into it as slowly as she can, watching down the hall for her goal as she pushes an especially heavy history book onto the top shelf.

There.

‘You can do it!’

She squeezes the note for luck and walks up, careful to not run, skip, or cower. Her posture is perfect and she’s wearing the loose knitted cover-up that earned her the girl’s compliment.

“That’s gorgeous! I can’t believe you made that…it looks like it came from a store. I’d pay you for one.”

She had painstakingly worked on it over Thanksgiving break, and now it’s done. A gorgeous deep blue, matching ribbon trim on the pockets, with a cottonsilk sash to match…nicer than her own, and the ones she made her cousin and mother.

She’ll have it for free.

About ten feet away, the doubts plaguing her all week surfaced. What if you’re wrong? She could say no. Your teeth are a little crooked. You’re too tall. It won’t work. What if you’re wrong?

She gives the note another, final squeeze.

‘You can do it!’

“Hi, Kim, how was your Thanksgiving?” She’s standing next to her now. Her pug nose, bright smile, and blue eyes are all too apparent. Her body curves fantastically as she takes a moment to stretch, her backpack on the ground now.

“Oh, it was okay. My back still hurts from the ride back from my grandma’s, but otherwise, it was pretty good. How was yours?”

“Fine. I stayed home…we have it at our house. I knitted…..”

Now.

She pulls the garment from inside the plastic shopping bag. Kim’s eyes grow wide and she says, “Oh, my god, thank you so much!...I didn’t bring any money today though, I’ll pay you for it tomorrow….”

“It’s cool…you don’t have to. It’s a gift.” She shifts slightly, feeling her cheeks redden.

‘You can do it!’

"I kind of thought, maybe. Since we get along and all. That you’d maybe want to…go out…sometime?”

Kim’s trying it on now. Her orange hair goes wonderfully against the ultramarine, better than she imagined. She ties the sash, and looks up slowly.

Their eyes meet.

“Oh. Um.” She looks down at her feet. “I…don’t really like…I mean, you’re a good friend….”

"Oh. That’s okay. That’s….Yeah.”

She can feel the heat radiating from her face as if someone set it on fire. The bell rings for homeroom and she walks slowly off to her classroom, feeling instead like a woman condemned to hang.

A crumpled, sweaty yellow memo falls from her hand and gets trampled by so many sneakers.

- Anna Krouse

This is a regular column featuring original fiction by and for high school students, provided by Figment.com, an online community writing site for young people.

Sandals

Sandals. Black with silver trappings. Slightly elevated. Beige stitching around the edge. Slightly too big. No brand names. Rather unusual.

Alicia... Was that her name? I think someone said it in class today. To me she's just Weird Sandals. Where'd she get them? She must have weird parents, to let her shop wherever she bought those. They could be hand-me-downs, but they look too new. She's insecure about her height but doesn't want to wear heels. No -- she's not allowed to wear heels. Those sandals are too stand-out-ish to be worn by someone wanting to hide. It's probably her mom who wouldn't let her wear them -- so she copies her mom. Makes sense with the insecurity. So her mom shops there too. Cool. She could've picked a more appropriate shop to introduce to her daughter. The goth feel... bad childhood? No, bad adulthood. Combined with the sizing of the shoe, which means it's supposed to last a while, it could be a divorce. That's a big assumption to make though. But if that's true then she wouldn't have a way to school. The shoes don't look particularly worn, so I doubt she walks to school far. You can't get far on a bike in those. So she lives close, can't get a ride anywhere... Wait, isn't there -- ohhhhh! That store! The one down the street from school! Wow, didn't think she shops there...

"Hey, where'd you get those shoes?"

She turned her head in surprise. I guess I don't speak very often. "Ummm, actually just around the corner from here, at --"

"Thank you."

Stupid

Uggs. Light brown with no particularly large colors other than the main visible. Virtually unblemished suede. Creases over ball of foot, ankle, and lower leg. Unusually deep crease along the top of the ankle.

People like this make me sick. Uggs were never meant even to be worn in the United States at all. The company was based in Australia, where the thick fur provided insulation to the unpredictable climate. Anyone who wears them in the US doesn't know that, or at least doesn't care. Low common sense for the price of fitting in. Not what I would call smart. But the perfect suede - that's something to think about. They could be new except for the creases. Based on the toe crease I'd say a couple months, maybe? Not too long ago. But then again there's that deeper crease along the ankle. That crease says more like a year ago... No, wait! The line above it! About 2 inches apart with a slight bulge inbetween. The bulge trails off around the sides though... Phone. She has her phone in her boot. With those dimensions its smaller than an iPhone but bigger than a Kin. Droid is too expensive or she'd have real fur Uggs, not crappy suede ones, but she probably thinks herself too good to have any flip phone. Meh, the dimensions are too generic. Stupid people. Stupid people have stupid phones. Stupid generic people with stupid generic Uggs have stupid generic phones. And stupid me for not being able to guess them.

The girl bent down, reaching for her boot with her left hand. From its depths she pulled out a Samsung Intensity and hid it beneath the desk, composing a text on it. Stupid.

Clean Freak

Sneakers. Black with white shoelaces. Clean. More for show than sport. Crease between body of foot and toe. Crease on the tongue bending downwards. Unclear brand name.

Even from a distance of 10 feet and walking the most distinct thing about these is their cleanliness. The laces are blindingly white yet not even the tips of them are dirtied beyond a few smudges. Even the white band around the edge of the shoe is just as spotless. Whoever owns these certainly doesn't go outside in the rain and muck with them very often. Unathletic, or the shoes'd be more dirty, but repectable, or they'd be oversized converse. The laces are off-center, meaning they didn't come with the shoe. That means the owner (1) prefers and therefore buys flat laces over round, more athletic-looking ones and (2) has both time and motivation to rethread each lace carefully enough to look like the store did it. Coupled with the color combination, as black goes with everything, this person is obviously concerned with the way that they look to at least some extent above your average slacker in school. The laces on the left shoe are double-tied, but on the right they're only single-tied. This makes sense with the crease on the tongue in that the owner slips on the shoes most of the time and only re-ties them when they require it (as he seemed to have now, as the right is single-tied). He shoves his feet into the shoes repeatedly every day without pulling the tongue back to make room first. Hence, the crease. He's often in a rush and doesn't feel that he has time to fix it. But there's another prominent crease on the shoe. The separation of the toes and foot is very important here. It implies pressure applied to the ball of the foot without the heel. Not even when you run do you do that normally. Stairs. He climbs stairs often. Maybe goes to school in a multi-level school, or lives in a house with multiple floors. That is, if he's allowed to keep his shoes on indoors. Based on the general degree of cleanliness of them, my bet's on not, since whoever keeps them so clean cares about the house being equally nice. Now if only I could see the brand name.

As newly-dubbed Clean Freak and Weird Sandals passed, I could hear them over the rush of traffic:

"I hate these shoes; they're so hard to tie!"

If he had threaded them himself he would've corrected his mistake if it bothered him. Some weird store to sell shoes with uneven laces...

- Natari Chiba