Syl's Short Stories

XD Drawing guys are not my strong suit.

I really feel like doing an rp with you Syl in which Alan and Joey are going about.. Alan would drive Joey crazy.... God, I use that mad basted way to much in my writing....

Hey look! Something not about Joey!

This little scenario's been in my head for awhile and I finally got around to writing it. Not super special, but y'know.

It entertained me, at least.

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Devon became aware of the man's presence while she was skimming the soda selection. She had thought little of him when she entered the convenience store, intending to have absolutely no interaction with him during her brief trip. However, she could practically feel his gaze on her now, and she had to suppress a disgusted shiver.

As she opened the refrigerator door, she caught his reflection in the glass as he approached her. She wrinkled her nose; his scent had already wafted in her direction. Musky and dirty, as though he hadn't showered before leaving the house that morning. He looked the part, too--his dark hair was a bit disheveled and a trace of unshaven facial hair covered the lower part of his face. Devon hoped that he was only coming closer so he could peruse the bags of chips on the shelf behind her, but he bypassed the food and came to a stop obnoxiously close to her.

"Hey," he said lowly, a smile coming across his face. Devon glanced over at him from the corner of her eye.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a tone that made it blatantly clear she wanted to do nothing of the sort.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Just looking," he replied with that same crooked smile.

Devon shook her head a bit and retrieved her soda bottle from the fridge. In the brief second that she looked away, the man moved closer, leaving mere inches of space between himself and Devon.

"Back off," she growled, all attempts to be polite gone.

He held up his hands defensively and stepped back. "My bad," he said, although, as he continued to smile, he didn't look remorseful in the slightest. "Just couldn't help but be attracted to a pretty woman. You're like a magnet."

"Then consider us to be of the same polarity and screw off." Devon shook her head and left the area, searching for food to accompany her drink. The man didn't follow her, but his eyes were on her as she walked off.

He approached again when Devon was paying at the register. She paid him no mind, focused more on finding the appropriate bills in the folds of her wallet. She assumed he was just waiting his turn to make his purchases, though she hadn't seen him take anything earlier.

"C'mon, you sure you want to keep ignoring me?" he asked.

He moved close again; Devon could feel his breath against her ear. She pointedly ignored him, keeping her gaze straight ahead. The cashier glanced up once, looking concerned by the unseemly male, but she made no comment.

Devon's attention was caught when she felt a hand slide up the back of her leg.

She reacted instinctively, jabbing an elbow back and digging in under the man's ribs. She heard him gasp out as the wind was blown from his lungs. Before he could catch his breath, she whipped around, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and tossed him to the ground face-first.

He tried to stand, but she knelt down, pushing her knee into the small of his back to hold him still. The man tried to twist around, and Devon could briefly catch the terrified, shocked look on his face.

"Sir, I'd like to show you something," Devon said cordially, flipping open her leather wallet again. She perused its contents for a second, found what she wanted, and pulled out a laminated card, which she held in front of the man's face. "Know what this is?"

He looked at it and his eyes widened slowly. "A gun permit?" he replied hesitantly.

"Yeah."

The male's face paled. Devon calmly tucked her card back into her wallet and stood.

"So you wanna get out of here?" she asked lightly. "Don't worry about apologizing, it won't mean a whole hell of a lot since you look like you're about to piss yourself in fear."

He stood, looking obviously pained, and cast a frightened glance back at Devon. He opened his mouth as though to speak, shut it again, and started for the door with a quickened stride.

Devon shook her head and returned to the counter, where the cashier was also looking nervous. "You . . . aren't actually carrying a gun right now, are you?" she asked warily.

"I only came her to buy a soda and beef jerky. I don't need my pistol to accomplish that." Devon smiled politely and took the plastic bag with her purchases. "Have a nice day."

Hey look, I have been writing!

Haven't really thought to put it up, though, and since a lot of it's sorta inside work between me and my friend, it'd be hard to explain much of it. :I

Still, here's a little simple thing of Joey I wrote recently. See if I have anything else worth posting.

Older Joey. I actually haven't written anything about Joey as a teenager in forever. I miss it. ):

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Hey, wanna hang out later?

Sorry dude, I'm already going out with some friends.

Oh, that's fine then. As an afterthought, Joey added "have fun" to the text before sending it and tossing his phone on the floor. It didn't buzz again after several minutes, signaling the end of the conversation.

He sighed and stretched across the couch, then rolled on his back to stare at the ceiling. Joey tried to swallow down a feeling of disappointment welling in his chest. So Chris had other plans. That was fine; he should have expected that Chris might be doing something else at six o' clock in the evening. It was probably a little late to expect to make any real plans. Besides, it was probably best that he didn't do anything. He needed to study and he had work tomorrow.

Joey cast a glance at the stack of books sitting on the coffee table and frowned. That was a pathetic excuse. He didn't work until almost noon and he had never seriously studied in his life.

Joey rolled over onto his stomach and hid his face in a throw pillow, groaning in irritation. There was no reason this should bother him so much, but he couldn't get rid of that disappointed feeling.

So what if Chris had other friends?

Joey didn't like drinking and he had never liked talking about women as Chris had. He preferred to stay at home to read or draw or do something else that didn't involve the public. So Chris had friends who did like to do those other things. So what? It just meant that Chris could go do what he wanted without Joey hindering him.

Joey sighed again and closed his eyes. Chris was probably enjoying himself then--likely out at a bar with people Joey had never met, whose names he had never even heard, all drinking and laughing and trying to talk to whatever women caught their eye.

Joey didn't want to be there. He knew he would be the one in the group who sat facing the bar, drawing in his sketchbook, trying to pretend he didn't exist, making friends with the bartender because he didn't want to talk to the others or leer at women.

Yet he couldn't help feeling left out somehow.

Oh well.

Joey got to his feet and strode into the kitchen, but almost as soon as he'd taken a soda from the fridge, he didn't want it anymore. Growing angry, and simultaneously disgusted at himself for his behavior, he left the soda by the sink and leaned upon the counter. He glared at the sink tap for awhile as though it were the source of his distress.

"Stupid," he muttered. Chris could go out and have fun with other friends. It wasn't even worth thinking about.

It shouldn't be a big deal.

Hey look! Something not about Joey holy crap.

It's actually only half of a story, but I'm pretty happy with the writing in this part (while I can't seem to get the second half down), so I figured I'd put it up.

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"You really are a pain in the ass to get blood for, you know that?" Ronnie grumbled.

"It's not my fault," Vincent replied airily. "If I could drink any other blood, I would. It's not as if I enjoy hunting for the perfect girl each and every time I need to feed."

Ronnie rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Most would consider it odd, helping a vampire find his weekly meals, but after nearly two hundred years of this ritual, the red-haired boy was more than accustomed to it. Some days it took longer than others, but eventually they always found a decent blood supply. Vincent was grateful for his companion's help; it always made the hunt slightly more bearable.

The city that night was quiet, for which Vincent was also thankful. The streets were blissfully empty, aside from the odd piece of litter, and the sound of vehicles couldn't be heard even at a distance. A couple of lights flickered in tall apartment complexes from the rare individuals who chose to stay up until one in the morning, and street lights flooded the surrounding area in yellow light. Vincent looked up, but, though the sky was clear, he couldn't see any stars against the midnight blue of the late-night sky. He sighed; years ago, one could stand in the middle of an enormous town and still see stars. Now the artificial lights that made up the city made it impossible.

He started to look away, returning his gaze to the road, then hesitated. Hard scuffing noises came from somewhere to the side. Vincent glanced up again to see a shadowed form bound from the edge of one building to another. Ronnie looked too, just in time to see another figure perform the same leap, hitting the roof with a heavier thump and sprinting after the first being. As they passed, an acrid scent reached Vincent's nose, like that of something burning and metal, typical of most demons. Following that was a lighter scent, one that was harder to describe but one he recognized--that of a werewolf, but nearly overpowered by the musk of cologne.

"A hunter?" Ronnie wondered aloud.

"Possibly," Vincent replied, uncertain. He ran a hand back through his long black bangs as he thought. Neither Devon nor Drake had mentioned other hunters residing in this area aside from themselves. It was difficult to avoid them when they all hunted the same prey.

"We should investigate," he decided, already taking steps toward the conflict.

"What? Why? If it's some dude hunting, we don't need to be involved," Ronnie said. "Let's just get home. I'm tired."

"There could be trouble," Vincent said, taking off in the direction the figures had gone. As he finished speaking, two gunshots ran through the air in quick succession, effectively ending the argument.

The chase hadn't gone far before Vincent and Ronnie found the two. The demon was backed into the end of a short alley; it was a thing of shadow, holding the form of a slender man but having no features. Two bullet holes in its chest and shoulder, leaking a pale gray fluid, were the only things that broke the smooth surface of its body, but the other figure, the hunter, aimed his pistol and fired again. The third shot echoed in the cramped alleyway as the bullet sunk into the shadow's temple; the demon's scream faded into a hiss before ending entirely, its body dissipating into wisps of shadow.

The hunter sighed, flicked up the hammer on his pistol, and turned back to see Vincent and Ronnie standing at the alley's opening.

Vincent couldn't nag the feeling that something was painfully familiar about the young man. He couldn't be older than nineteen, with a slim face that was half-hidden by an ashen-gray bandanna. His clothing looked too loose for his frame, consisting of an open black jacket with a high, upturned collar, a loose gray t-shirt, and baggy, multi-pocketed cargo pants that slumped over a pair of dirty gray tennis shoes. His brown hair was combed to the side in the front, and his eyes were a matching shade.

The dark brown brows rose slightly, questioning the presence of the other two men.

"Sorry," Vincent said, the first thing that came to his mind. "We saw you pursuing the demon and wanted to investigate." At his side, Ronnie gave him a withering look; he hadn't wanted to go anywhere.

"Mm," the hunter said in return. He had a soft tenor voice, slightly raspy. "Most people tend to run away from gunfire, not toward it."

"Yes, well, one might say the circumstances are a little different for us."

"But vampires running toward a hunter?" he continued to inquire. "That's a little new." His eyes slid over to Ronnie. "And accompanied by a human boy . . ."

Vincent suddenly felt vulnerable; while some hunters discriminated between vampires, choosing to kill only the ones they knew killed humans, others weren't so forgiving. He thought of turning and leaving, but had a strange feeling that this hunter would do nothing. In fact, the more the young man spoke, the more Vincent was certain he knew who the hunter was.

The hunter laughed then. "Don't worry, I'm not after you," he said with a wave of his hand. He slid his pistol into a holster under his jacket. "I know you. Vincent, right?"

Vincent nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but the other man cut him off. "Names get around," he said nonchalantly. "You can't know every good-guy vampire out there, but you start to figure it out. Not to mention," he added, one brow cocked higher than the other, "that most people don't wear Victorian-era coats and shirts on a daily basis."

Vincent smiled, while Ronnie looked down at his dressy shirt, suddenly embarrassed by the attire Vincent forced him to continue wearing. "And I don't suppose we get your name?" Vincent asked.

The hunter smiled; the upward curve of his cheek was the only thing that gave it away. "I don't think so," he said. He took a step back and planted his heel against the edge of an old wooden crate. "No offense."

"None taken."

The hunter chuckled, turned, and jumped up from the crate, grabbing hold of the lip of a low building. He pulled himself up and over with ease and disappeared from view, leaving behind only a faint air of cologne.

"That was weird," Ronnie said. He stared after the hunter, his expression somewhere between contemplative and appreciative.

"A little," Vincent agreed, turning to leave the alley, his hands in his pockets. He smiled again. "You thought him attractive, didn't you?"

"What?!" Ronnie exclaimed. A faint blush rose to his cheeks, nearly invisible in the dimness. "What--no. No! What the hell gave you an idea like that?"

"Nothing," Vincent said cheerfully as he walked away. Ronnie scowled as he followed.

Another thing not about Joey. I need to give Tyro some not-Joey things to pick over.

I've been reading a sporking of a reeeeally bad Harry Potter fanfic the last day or two. It's really terrible. The main character is a Mary Sue beyond all belief, not to mention utterly arrogant and a complete psychopath. The story's written in first-person view as well, and Mary Sues narrating their own beauty and crap never ends all that well.

I've also been kicking around using Devon for a story, but I don't actually have any ideas for a plot. I just like the idea of Devon narrating a story because of her personality.

This basically all culminated into wanting to see if I could write a first-person story in which the character describes themselves and their history without sounding completely arrogant or annoying, and since I've wanted to do so with Devon for awhile, it worked nicely.

So this is kind of what it would look like if Devon introduced herself before a book, I guess.

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I am a werewolf.

Normally that would be one of those things that you would keep secret until your death, but I figure that it would be better to get it out of the way now—makes a lot more sense if I start talking about turning into a wolf when you already know that little fact. Besides, I doubt anyone will care much about this until I’m dead, anyway, so I don’t know how much I’m actually risking.

So. Werewolf.

I’m also a hunter. Not that kind that shoots deer for the fun of it (not that I’m very sure how that’s “fun,” considering a deer can’t fight back). I hunt demons.

I probably have a lot to explain here.

Most humans don’t realize that there’s an entire world aside from their own. Before anyone accuses me of being all high and mighty there, I don’t blame them—I didn’t find out until I was fourteen, and that was pretty disastrous. Then again, with how annoying demons are, it’s nothing short of a miracle that our cover hasn’t been blown to the world at large. In any case, demons are very real things, and they’re a hell of a lot more diverse than humans could ever hope to be. We have the classical vampires and werewolves running around, phantoms, reapers, other crap. We hunters have to deal with them all.

Hunters deal with them differently. The general consensus is that we keep them from killing humans or doing anything that would compromise us and the demon world as a whole. I prefer to only kill things that are killing other humans or causing trouble—others are less merciful and I don’t really like them, but I’m not allowed to do anything about it. Demons are still living, thinking things, after all, but nobody listens to me.

So there’s that, too. There’s probably no reason to be paranoid; there aren’t a lot of demons that enjoy romping around humans all that much. Vampires and werewolves—like me—are a little more common, since we pass easiest as humans and aren’t really adversely affected by being around them. There are accidents, though, which is another reason we hunters exist. I was an accident, for instance.

No, not like an accident baby—though I guess I could have been. Hell if I know.

I guess it’s story time. I might as well get it all out of the way now.

I don’t know my parents and I don’t really care to. I was a little kid when I was given up for adoption, and then I was adopted when I was ten years old. Most people would angst over this, but . . . screw it. I don’t consider my biological parents to be my parents. My adoptive ones are just fine, despite what happened. See, Dad was apparently a werewolf, and because of that, he didn’t want to have biological children. He and Mom figured if they adopted and were extremely careful, they could get away with raising a kid. They did a rather good job hiding it from me for the first four years or so—if they couldn’t get me to go to a friend’s house on nights of the full moon, they went on a “date,” which, considering it involved copious amounts of tranquilizers, probably wasn’t much of a date at all at any given time.

That said, I came home one night because the friend in question, Zeke, decided to get sick. I opened the door, saw a huge-ass gray-black wolf in my living room, didn’t run fast enough, and was bitten. Mom was used to this kind of thing—sadly—and got him off me before he killed me.

That was the only time I’ve seen my dad cry, come to think of it--when he came around the next morning and explained everything to me . . . Anyway. He explained it all. He and Mom wanted to find someone else to take care of me to prevent this kind of thing from happening again—they were convinced before that they could keep his lycanthropy from me, but obviously that didn’t work out all that well. However, they couldn’t really do that, in case I went off and killed something or bit someone, so I still stayed with them and learned to control myself.

“Control” pretty much means that I load up on tranquilizers at dinner time so that I pass out until morning, but whatever.

I think that should do it for history, really. The story’s about me, but I can’t imagine you even needed to know that much. Basically, I’m a hunter and a werewolf, it’s probably a lot more than any nineteen-year-old chick should have to deal with, and--

Zeke is hovering, insisting I give some detail about my appearance. I don’t see the point, but I doubt he’ll leave me alone until I say something.

I look like a guy. Almost six feet tall, medium brown hair that I keep short like a guy’s, brown eyes, oval glasses (which I exchange for contacts when I hunt). I have almost no feminine figure due to poor genetics and too much exercise to actually put fat anywhere. I like pants and t-shirts and loose jackets in dull colors. I have legitimately been mistaken for a boy since I was a teenager, and now I use that to my advantage sometimes to keep people from following me—makes it a little harder for people to track you when they’re not sure whether you’re a girl named Devon or a guy with no real name at all.

The end.

Now the actual story begins. It’s . . . interesting, to say the least.

My name is Devon Colter, I'm a hunter, and sometimes I really hate my job.

I like it! It's always interesting to see where people can go with first person narrative, and you do it well. She seems like the kind of character that would have interesting little tid-bits to add in during the story.

There were a couple small things I could nit-pick if you're looking for critique, such as the sentence fragment in the paragraph about her dad explaining the situation to her. You might make it more obvious that she's a girl, since, skipping some of the intro you did, I didn't realize that fact until the last paragraph. The only other thing is: did you ever mention her name during the narrative? If you did and I just missed it, then ignore that. XD

Loved it Syl.
Have to agree with Savvy though. Even though I knew it was Devon from the bit above it I was thinking she might actually be a he until the last bit.
Which in a way since that character is one who seems to try and be a bit gender neutral is kinda a good thing, and shows how good the writing is. It just needs a little something to get girl into you mind at the start of it, so midway through you start to question it and it is a pleasant shock to find you were right the first time.

Other then that, loved it and it made me want to keep reading!

Savvy, she did briefly mention her name at the end, but I suppose I could stand to make it more obvious. I'll go back and edit in a sentence where she says her full name or something.

As for the gender bit, a big part of her is the gender neutrality. She doesn't care much one way or the other if she's mistaken for a male at this point in her life, though she is happily cisgendered. But I guess I can agree with at least hinting at it a little more beforehand; I'll see what I can do with that, too.