the boys
Here I have something completely different than usual. I had to work all day today (8am-6pm) and had quite a bit of time in the afternoon to sit around and go over some writing I had done back in winter. What I'm posting now is something that I started in math class one day and then kind of forgot about. I didn't have much written, but I had just enough dialogue and plot to get this written today. It was actually very easy and quite fun to write. I love writing on my original stuff because these are my characters. I have a total of five original works with different characters that are mine. There's only one with a female main character, and that's the oldest one that I haven't touched in a few years. The others all have more than one main character and they're all boys. I'll give you the names in no particular order just in case you're interested- Matthew (Matti), Aiden, Bryn, Bren (yes there are two of them and it's actually quite ironic but I can't explain why), Ethan, Adam, Bret, Stefan (Stef), and Evan. Those are the boys!
Bren, Evan, and Ethan
“Bren! Evan!” a voice shouted.
Bren and Evan turned around to see who was calling them, quite startled to hear someone calling their names so urgently across the crowd. They hadn’t met with a single person who knew who they were since their release, so it was a surprise to be called so enthusiastically. Of course, the downside was that although the person was very enthusiastic, neither of them had any clue who he was.
Bren looked to Evan as the stranger approached, and could see that Evan apprehensive about this person who had so suddenly called out to them. He put a hand on Evan’s shoulder, partly to reassure Evan, and also to remind himself that he wasn’t alone in this. Evan was right beside him.
“You know us?” Bren asked him when he was close enough to talk without shouting. For being so enthusiastic and loud, the man was surprisingly short when he finally stood in front of them. Bren and Evan were of almost equal height, but this man was several inches shorter than the two of them. He was obviously a foreigner like them with his bright blue eyes and dark hair. Most people in the region they were in had light hair and light complexions, so the three of them stood out. That still didn’t give either Bren or Evan a clue as to who he was though.
For his part, the man did a good job of acting completely surprised to hear they didn’t know him. “Know you? You’re my best friends! Of course I know you! The question is why are you acting like you don’t know me?” Bren and Evan looked at each other, wondering if he really did know them like he said. If he did, he was the key to the past they’d been looking for. First they would have to figure out if he was serious though. It was best not to get their hopes up.
“We’re acting like we don’t know you because we don’t.” Evan told him. Bren thought the man might just keel over in the street due to the expression on his face when Evan told him this.
The man was adamant though that he did know them. “That’s not funny. You do know me. We may not have seen each other in two years, but you do know me. We’ve known each other since we were five.”
It was looking more like he really did know the two of them, and very well, but they still wanted to make sure. They couldn’t be too cautious in their situation. When you wake up in a room with one other person and no memory of any time before that, you tend to be distrustful of people saying they know you. Not that anyone had actually come up to the two of them before saying that. They were still very wary though, it could be some type of trick by whoever had put them in that room in the first place.
“Sorry, but we don’t remember you.” Evan changed his wording a little this time, trying to see if the man would catch it.
“You don’t remember me? This isn’t some sort of joke? You’re not joking?” the man asked, looking at the two of them disbelievingly. If he was an actor, he was a very good one.
Bren took over now, hoping to turn the conversation to where they could get some information out of the man. “No, we said already that we weren’t. We really don’t know who you are, even though you seem to think you know us.”
“I do know you.”
“Prove it.” Bren told him.
“Prove it? How do you want me to do that? Do I just start spouting off information to you? Like that you broke your arm when we were eight because Evan and I dared you to jump off the roof? Or that Evan loves sweet things and he always begged me for the sweets my grandmother sent? Or things like that Evan’s favorite color is blue and you never could choose a favorite so you always said you liked them all? What do you want to know; I’m at a loss here. I don’t know how you can’t remember me. Except for the last two years, when you two just disappeared, we’ve spent almost all our time together since we were five. How can you not remember that?” the man was getting louder now and more desperate sounding. He was attracting attention from others in the market, but he didn’t seem to care. Bren looked to Evan for a minute before grabbing hold of the man’s arm and steering him towards their inn. Evan immediately grabbed the other arm and they quickly moved him off the street and in the right direction. The man didn’t even protest to his being practically dragged to an unknown place.
When they arrived in their room, Bren made sure the man made it to a chair while Evan locked the door behind them. Bren didn’t know what to do next. They needed to get information from this man, but he was obviously in a state of shock. He didn’t remember either one of the events the man had referred to, and he hadn’t ever thought much about having a favorite color. Evan did prefer blue to any other color though, and the man had said that he didn’t have a favorite, which might be why he hadn’t thought about it. Bren still wasn’t sure if they could trust this man, but they were going to have to let him in for at least a little while.
“Okay, let’s start simple.” he told the man. “What’s your name?”
In a dull voice the man told them his name was Ethan. He also added that they’d always thought that was funny because it was one of their connections. Puzzled, Evan asked him what he meant by that.
“Well you two were always about the same height, and I was the shortest. Then my name and your name both start with an E, while Bren’s doesn’t. And Bren and I both have blue eyes while yours are brown. It was a silly thing we came up with when we were little. We said it that’s what connected all three of us together. I was upset because everyone always said that I looked out of place with the two of you, since I’ve always been shorter, and so you came up with that. That way there was something different about two of us from the other one, but we were all connected to each other.”
Bren and Evan couldn’t help but share a surprised glance over Ethan’s head. If this guy was making things up, he certainly did go through a lot of trouble with the little details.
“Next question then, how did the three of us meet?” Bren asked him.
“Like I said before, we met when we were all five. Actually, you two knew each other before then, and that’s when I first met the two of you. We had lessons together and the two of you were best friends. You’d grown up together and lived on the same street. I was new in town, my family had just moved a few months before and I didn’t really know anyone. About a week after lessons started you two came over to me before class one day and said that I looked lonely and you wanted to be my friends. I got kind of mad at you because I didn’t want anyone’s pity, but you told me we were going to be friends because you didn’t like anyone looking lonely. I tried to ignore you, but the two of you wouldn’t leave me alone and I eventually gave up. We became best friends after that and practically inseparable.”
Ethan looked up when he finished answering and they could see the glint of tears in his eyes. “Or, at least we were inseparable until the two of you disappeared two years ago and now you claim not to know me at all.”
“What happened then, when we disappeared?” Bren couldn’t help himself from asking.
Ethan sighed and looked down again. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. One day you were there and the next you weren’t. We were all three in the Academy and you two disappeared from your beds one night. When I went to sleep you were there; when I woke up you were gone. At first I thought maybe you’d gone out for some early practice, but it was strange that you hadn’t woken me up. I went to check the practice fields and you weren’t there. I checked the dining hall and you weren’t there. I was upset, but I figured you’d show up for classes. When you didn’t, I started to worry. I looked everywhere for you, asked everyone if they knew where you were. No one did. No one had seen you leave the Academy: no one knew anything about where you were.”
Evan thought the man might be holding something back about their disappearance, but he wasn’t going to stop him to ask. If it was anything, it was something that wouldn’t matter now. They’d find out later, but right now all he wanted was information about their past.
“We searched for you for weeks, but nothing turned up. It was like the two of you really had vanished into thin air. As the weeks went by, everyone started to give up hope. I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe that the two of you would just vanish without a trace, of your own will. We all wanted to go to the Academy too bad for you to give up on that by just taking off. So I finished out the year, and then I started to look for you on my own. I didn’t really have any clue as to where you were. I started in the city and then branched out. I found that there were others that had disappeared from the Academy as well. All of them weren’t very well known though and were easily missed. It was assumed that they had just left because they couldn’t take it. I started to think that maybe all the disappearances were connected and the reason no one had connected them before was because those students had been loners. They hadn’t had any friends and whenever I asked, no one really knew who they were.
I tried to figure out if all of the disappearances were connected. I heard a few rumors that led me to different towns, but no one ever knew anything definitive. I’ve been chasing rumors for the past two years. I almost didn’t listen to the one that led me here because it sounded even crazier than usual. Someone heard I was looking for some friends of mine who’d disappeared from the Academy and told me I should come here. He said that a few foreigners showed up here occasionally with no memory of who they were. It was always attributed to them getting lost in the desert and heatstroke, but he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t see how that could take away a person’s whole memory. I didn’t believe him on that count. I didn’t want to even think about the two of you with no memory, and it was a pretty wild story the way he told it. I decided to come anyways though. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt and it was freezing at home, while it would be warm here. I never really thought I would find you. I hadn’t given up hope that you were out there somewhere, but I was starting to think that if you hadn’t come back home by now, maybe you had left of your own free will. I was doubting myself and starting to think about giving up. Now I think maybe I should have. I wouldn’t be here with you now, but I would still have in my mind my two best friends who knew who I was. Not two strangers who act cautious around me and don’t even know my name.”
With that Ethan stood up, and for a moment Bren thought he was going to try to leave, but he only moved over to the window. He stood there silently, and Bren guessed that he was waiting for one of them to break the silence. Evan was looking at him, and he could tell that he was also at a loss for words. Neither of them knew what to say. They hadn’t trusted anyone since waking up and finding themselves with no memory of their lives. They had only trusted each other, and now here was this man who claimed to be their best friend. For months it had been just the two of them trying to manage in the world without a single clue as to what their past was. Now they had someone right in front of them who said he knew everything. Bren wanted to trust him, and he could see Evan wanted to just as badly. They both wanted answers and Ethan had those.
Finally breaking the oppressive silence that had settled on the three of them, Bren spoke. “We believe you.”
Ethan turned quickly, a look of puzzlement on his face.
“We believe that you know us.” Evan added for clarification. “We think you’re telling the truth.”
“Oh that’s nice. Now that I’ve told my story you believe me. Do you really not remember anything?” Ethan asked them. He still wasn’t convinced that the world wasn’t playing a horrible joke on him. Sure, that man had told him that people appeared in the town with no memory, but he hadn’t really believed him. His only goal was to find Evan and Bren, he hadn’t known what he would do once he found them.
“We really don’t. The only memories we have start a few months ago when we woke up and found ourselves in this room. We’ve been staying here ever since, hoping that we might be able to somehow find a clue as to who we were. We didn’t even know our names until the innkeeper handed us each an envelope with our names on them. It had enough money to pay for this room for a few months, but no explanation as to why we were receiving it, why we were here, or who we were. We weren’t even really sure those were our names. We learned to rely on each other then, though I guess from what you’ve said we already knew how do that. Maybe we were unconsciously depending on our friendship.” Bren shook his head in frustration. “We haven’t trusted anyone since then. It’s really hard to do that when you have no clue as to what’s going on. We didn’t know who was friend or foe. It was quite scary for us to be so clueless. We learned by watching everyone around us. We didn’t want to tell anyone what had happened because we thought they would believe we were crazy.”
Evan walked over to where Ethan stood at the window and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry that we didn’t, and still don’t really know who you are. We barely knew each other a few months ago. Sometimes we dream about the past, but we can never remember clearly enough in the morning to actually know what happened. Could you help us with that? Could you help us to remember the past?” he asked Ethan.
Ethan took a moment to control his emotions before answering. “Yeah I guess I can do that. And then once we figure out how to get your memories back we’re going to hunt down whoever took them and make them pay for every second of pain and frustration we’ve experienced.”
“That sounds like a plan I can go along with.” Bren agreed, trying but failing to keep the grin from his face. It was a serious moment, but it finally felt like they had some hope for the future. They had found, or been found, by someone who cared about them and wanted to help. They weren’t alone in this anymore. Ethan had managed to bring a bright spot to their confused world in just a matter of hours.
Note: This is the very first draft, so if everything doesn't make sense that's why. I haven't looked over it at all, I just wanted to see if I could get some sort of opinion on it. I'd just like to know if it's interesting to you in general. If you'd keep reading this, forgetting about any errors or weird phrasing for now. I'll be going back over this tomorrow and will probably have a completely different version up when I get home. I'm just asking about the basic plot here.
Edit: There's now a second version up and there will probably be a third, but I won't worry about that for a few days. I need a few days away and then I'll come back to it.
Bren, Evan, and Ethan
“Bren! Evan!” a voice shouted.
Bren and Evan turned around to see who was calling them, quite startled to hear someone calling their names so urgently across the crowd. They hadn’t met with a single person who knew who they were since their release, so it was a surprise to be called so enthusiastically. Of course, the downside was that although the person was very enthusiastic, neither of them had any clue who he was.
Bren looked to Evan as the stranger approached, and could see that Evan apprehensive about this person who had so suddenly called out to them. He put a hand on Evan’s shoulder, partly to reassure Evan, and also to remind himself that he wasn’t alone in this. Evan was right beside him.
“You know us?” Bren asked him when he was close enough to talk without shouting. For being so enthusiastic and loud, the man was surprisingly short when he finally stood in front of them. Bren and Evan were of almost equal height, but this man was several inches shorter than the two of them. He was obviously a foreigner like them with his bright blue eyes and dark hair. Most people in the region they were in had light hair and light complexions, so the three of them stood out. That still didn’t give either Bren or Evan a clue as to who he was though.
For his part, the man did a good job of acting completely surprised to hear they didn’t know him. “Know you? You’re my best friends! Of course I know you! The question is why are you acting like you don’t know me?” Bren and Evan looked at each other, wondering if he really did know them like he said. If he did, he was the key to the past they’d been looking for. First they would have to figure out if he was serious though. It was best not to get their hopes up.
“We’re acting like we don’t know you because we don’t.” Evan told him. Bren thought the man might just keel over in the street due to the expression on his face when Evan told him this.
The man was adamant though that he did know them. “That’s not funny. You do know me. We may not have seen each other in two years, but you do know me. We’ve known each other since we were five.”
It was looking more like he really did know the two of them, and very well, but they still wanted to make sure. They couldn’t be too cautious in their situation. When you wake up in a room with one other person and no memory of any time before that, you tend to be distrustful of people saying they know you. Not that anyone had actually come up to the two of them before saying that. They were still very wary though, it could be some type of trick by whoever had put them in that room in the first place.
“Sorry, but we don’t remember you.” Evan changed his wording a little this time, trying to see if the man would catch it.
“You don’t remember me? This isn’t some sort of joke? You’re not joking?” the man asked, looking at the two of them disbelievingly. If he was an actor, he was a very good one.
Bren took over now, hoping to turn the conversation to where they could get some information out of the man. “No, we said already that we weren’t. We really don’t know who you are, even though you seem to think you know us.”
“I do know you.”
“Prove it.” Bren told him.
“Prove it? How do you want me to do that? Do I just start spouting off information to you? Like that you broke your arm when we were eight because Evan and I dared you to jump off the roof? Or that Evan loves sweet things and he always begged me for the sweets my grandmother sent? Or things like that Evan’s favorite color is blue and you never could choose a favorite so you always said you liked them all? What do you want to know; I’m at a loss here. I don’t know how you can’t remember me. Except for the last two years, when you two just disappeared, we’ve spent almost all our time together since we were five. How can you not remember that?” the man was getting louder now and more desperate sounding. He was attracting attention from others in the market, but he didn’t seem to care. Bren looked to Evan for a minute before grabbing hold of the man’s arm and steering him towards their inn. Evan immediately grabbed the other arm and they quickly moved him off the street and in the right direction. The man didn’t even protest to his being practically dragged to an unknown place.
When they arrived in their room, Bren made sure the man made it to a chair while Evan locked the door behind them. Bren didn’t know what to do next. They needed to get information from this man, but he was obviously in a state of shock. He didn’t remember either one of the events the man had referred to, and he hadn’t ever thought much about having a favorite color. Evan did prefer blue to any other color though, and the man had said that he didn’t have a favorite, which might be why he hadn’t thought about it. Bren still wasn’t sure if they could trust this man, but they were going to have to let him in for at least a little while.
“Okay, let’s start simple.” he told the man. “What’s your name?”
In a dull voice the man told them his name was Ethan. He also added that they’d always thought that was funny because it was one of their connections. Puzzled, Evan asked him what he meant by that.
“Well you two were always about the same height, and I was the shortest. Then my name and your name both start with an E, while Bren’s doesn’t. And Bren and I both have blue eyes while yours are brown. It was a silly thing we came up with when we were little. We said it that’s what connected all three of us together. I was upset because everyone always said that I looked out of place with the two of you, since I’ve always been shorter, and so you came up with that. That way there was something different about two of us from the other one, but we were all connected to each other.”
Bren and Evan couldn’t help but share a surprised glance over Ethan’s head. If this guy was making things up, he certainly did go through a lot of trouble with the little details.
“Next question then, how did the three of us meet?” Bren asked him.
“Like I said before, we met when we were all five. Actually, you two knew each other before then, and that’s when I first met the two of you. We had lessons together and the two of you were best friends. You’d grown up together and lived on the same street. I was new in town, my family had just moved a few months before and I didn’t really know anyone. About a week after lessons started you two came over to me before class one day and said that I looked lonely and you wanted to be my friends. I got kind of mad at you because I didn’t want anyone’s pity, but you told me we were going to be friends because you didn’t like anyone looking lonely. I tried to ignore you, but the two of you wouldn’t leave me alone and I eventually gave up. We became best friends after that and practically inseparable.”
Ethan looked up when he finished answering and they could see the glint of tears in his eyes. “Or, at least we were inseparable until the two of you disappeared two years ago and now you claim not to know me at all.”
“What happened then, when we disappeared?” Bren couldn’t help himself from asking.
Ethan sighed and looked down again. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. One day you were there and the next you weren’t. We were all three in the Academy and you two disappeared from your beds one night. When I went to sleep you were there; when I woke up you were gone. At first I thought maybe you’d gone out for some early practice, but it was strange that you hadn’t woken me up. I went to check the practice fields and you weren’t there. I checked the dining hall and you weren’t there. I was upset, but I figured you’d show up for classes. When you didn’t, I started to worry. I looked everywhere for you, asked everyone if they knew where you were. No one did. No one had seen you leave the Academy: no one knew anything about where you were.”
Evan thought the man might be holding something back about their disappearance, but he wasn’t going to stop him to ask. If it was anything, it was something that wouldn’t matter now. They’d find out later, but right now all he wanted was information about their past.
“We searched for you for weeks, but nothing turned up. It was like the two of you really had vanished into thin air. As the weeks went by, everyone started to give up hope. I couldn’t. I couldn’t believe that the two of you would just vanish without a trace, of your own will. We all wanted to go to the Academy too bad for you to give up on that by just taking off. So I finished out the year, and then I started to look for you on my own. I didn’t really have any clue as to where you were. I started in the city and then branched out. I found that there were others that had disappeared from the Academy as well. All of them weren’t very well known though and were easily missed. It was assumed that they had just left because they couldn’t take it. I started to think that maybe all the disappearances were connected and the reason no one had connected them before was because those students had been loners. They hadn’t had any friends and whenever I asked, no one really knew who they were.
I tried to figure out if all of the disappearances were connected. I heard a few rumors that led me to different towns, but no one ever knew anything definitive. I’ve been chasing rumors for the past two years. I almost didn’t listen to the one that led me here because it sounded even crazier than usual. Someone heard I was looking for some friends of mine who’d disappeared from the Academy and told me I should come here. He said that a few foreigners showed up here occasionally with no memory of who they were. It was always attributed to them getting lost in the desert and heatstroke, but he wasn’t so sure. He didn’t see how that could take away a person’s whole memory. I didn’t believe him on that count. I didn’t want to even think about the two of you with no memory, and it was a pretty wild story the way he told it. I decided to come anyways though. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt and it was freezing at home, while it would be warm here. I never really thought I would find you. I hadn’t given up hope that you were out there somewhere, but I was starting to think that if you hadn’t come back home by now, maybe you had left of your own free will. I was doubting myself and starting to think about giving up. Now I think maybe I should have. I wouldn’t be here with you now, but I would still have in my mind my two best friends who knew who I was. Not two strangers who act cautious around me and don’t even know my name.”
With that Ethan stood up, and for a moment Bren thought he was going to try to leave, but he only moved over to the window. He stood there silently, and Bren guessed that he was waiting for one of them to break the silence. Evan was looking at him, and he could tell that he was also at a loss for words. Neither of them knew what to say. They hadn’t trusted anyone since waking up and finding themselves with no memory of their lives. They had only trusted each other, and now here was this man who claimed to be their best friend. For months it had been just the two of them trying to manage in the world without a single clue as to what their past was. Now they had someone right in front of them who said he knew everything. Bren wanted to trust him, and he could see Evan wanted to just as badly. They both wanted answers and Ethan had those.
Finally breaking the oppressive silence that had settled on the three of them, Bren spoke. “We believe you.”
Ethan turned quickly, a look of puzzlement on his face.
“We believe that you know us.” Evan added for clarification. “We think you’re telling the truth.”
“Oh that’s nice. Now that I’ve told my story you believe me. Do you really not remember anything?” Ethan asked them. He still wasn’t convinced that the world wasn’t playing a horrible joke on him. Sure, that man had told him that people appeared in the town with no memory, but he hadn’t really believed him. His only goal was to find Evan and Bren, he hadn’t known what he would do once he found them.
“We really don’t. The only memories we have start a few months ago when we woke up and found ourselves in this room. We’ve been staying here ever since, hoping that we might be able to somehow find a clue as to who we were. We didn’t even know our names until the innkeeper handed us each an envelope with our names on them. It had enough money to pay for this room for a few months, but no explanation as to why we were receiving it, why we were here, or who we were. We weren’t even really sure those were our names. We learned to rely on each other then, though I guess from what you’ve said we already knew how do that. Maybe we were unconsciously depending on our friendship.” Bren shook his head in frustration. “We haven’t trusted anyone since then. It’s really hard to do that when you have no clue as to what’s going on. We didn’t know who was friend or foe. It was quite scary for us to be so clueless. We learned by watching everyone around us. We didn’t want to tell anyone what had happened because we thought they would believe we were crazy.”
Evan walked over to where Ethan stood at the window and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry that we didn’t, and still don’t really know who you are. We barely knew each other a few months ago. Sometimes we dream about the past, but we can never remember clearly enough in the morning to actually know what happened. Could you help us with that? Could you help us to remember the past?” he asked Ethan.
Ethan took a moment to control his emotions before answering. “Yeah I guess I can do that. And then once we figure out how to get your memories back we’re going to hunt down whoever took them and make them pay for every second of pain and frustration we’ve experienced.”
“That sounds like a plan I can go along with.” Bren agreed, trying but failing to keep the grin from his face. It was a serious moment, but it finally felt like they had some hope for the future. They had found, or been found, by someone who cared about them and wanted to help. They weren’t alone in this anymore. Ethan had managed to bring a bright spot to their confused world in just a matter of hours.
Note: This is the very first draft, so if everything doesn't make sense that's why. I haven't looked over it at all, I just wanted to see if I could get some sort of opinion on it. I'd just like to know if it's interesting to you in general. If you'd keep reading this, forgetting about any errors or weird phrasing for now. I'll be going back over this tomorrow and will probably have a completely different version up when I get home. I'm just asking about the basic plot here.
Edit: There's now a second version up and there will probably be a third, but I won't worry about that for a few days. I need a few days away and then I'll come back to it.