app: kannagara {samples}
Action Writing Sample:
[ Sunlight filtered through leaves trickles into the Hitomi's camera. This must be a familiar sight to the network by now, the sign of yet another new arrival. The Hitomi is laying at a strange angle. The top of a mop of brown hair is just visible at the corner of the shot. It shifts slightly, then disappears.
A yawn is heard, followed by the voice of a young man in his late teens: ]
Wow, I don't remember taking a nap under... [ His voice trails off, presumably as he notices the tree. The sounds of steps and motion can be heard for a few moments; is he walking around the tree? ]
...What in the...?
[ His red sneakers walk into shot and stay there, one tapping in thought.
After a moment, the boy speaks again - as if to someone else and not himself, although there doesn't seem to be anyone else there. ]
Another dimension? ... Yeah, I thought so. [ It definitely sounds like the other half of a conversation. ] - What do you mean, you don't know? You've been to them all, haven't you?
[ A frustrated sigh.
And suddenly, an adorable little brown fluffball is poking its face at the screen. It backs up, and then flies up out of shot on two tiny little wings, chittering unintelligibly to the young man, who seems to understand it: ]
Kuriboh? ...You're solid? Then that means - Wait, what?
[ One knee comes down and a hand briefly covers the screen; it shifts to reveal the young man's face peering at the Hitomi with something between curiosity and faint suspicion. ]
Is this on? Oh - hi. [ A nod to the screen. ] Hey, uh, so, I guess I've sort of showed up in this dimension. Is there, um, anything going on? Like, something where people need help? Because if the world needs saving, I've got a little experience. You know, if that's why I'm here.
I... guess that's about it! [ Well, he seems to know his way around a videophone. With a somewhat cheerful smile, the boy nods again, and the feed cuts. ]
Third Person Writing Sample:
Waking up feels like ascending from the bottom of the ocean. Juudai's been down there, swum down to the dark parts of the bay on Academy Island's east beach and stayed as long as he could, held contests with Sho and Manjoume where you hold your breath as long as you can down there. The trick isn't holding it in, he learned, it's letting it out, lying on the sand and watching the bubbles trickle to the surface above you. Your body learns how to ration its oxygen, eventually, until you can lie down there for close to two minutes watching the sun dance on the surface up above, while you trust the ocean to hold your lips shut for you, down there on the sandy floor. But eventually you have to swim up for air - but slowly, slowly is best, do it slowly or you'll get head rushes, and that's what this is like, this waking up.
Except Juudai doesn't know how long he was down there, his lungs empty of air, his eyes blind in the dark down there, his ears deaf in the water down there, knowing that something was going on above, but too tired and cold to go up and look. Too weary to fight the water pressure, down in the dark. It was silent down there, silent and empty of things that hurt too much to hold.
He opens his eyes, and it is bright, brighter than anything his eyes have seen in - weeks? - no, months - no, longer than that, a long, ageless time - let's say weeks. Where is he? There's a sun, so there... where...
Juudai sits up, and his head spins. His mouth is dry, his throat aching with thirst. His thoughts waver with sick heat, mirage-like - he remembers things that slide over one another in his memory like hot oil and boiling water, hot, angry things that don't seem real, seem dream-like. Was that it? Had he dreamed most of that, the pain, the hurt, the dark that had reached up and around him and lovingly dragged him down into that nothing?
"You guys," he says, turning to see - Sho, Ryo, Edo, one-two-three, shouldn't there be more? - he says, his eyes almost begging for it to be true, something broken but hopeful masquerading as an almost-laugh - "I had, I had the craziest dream..."
Edo won't meet his eyes. Sho turns away. But Ryo never shies from pain, never turns his back on the world, never lies or pretends that the world is anything other than what it is. And the look in his eyes confirms the truth. The damning, damning truth.
The words flutter off Juudai's tongue like disturbed butterflies, wheeling in drunken circles. "...Oh no...no..." He can feel it, now, the fires, the fires that had burned under his feet. They're burning now, under his skin, hot, hot, smoking in his throat. It hurts to say it. "It... it wasn't a dream... was it."
Ryo shakes his head, his face betraying nothing, neither sympathy nor condemnation. Sho still won't look at him. Juudai is shaking, he realizes. He can't stop. His eyesight is wavering. He opens his mouth to speak - can't. Can't. If he speaks, he'll drown. (He's burning up, Edo's saying, is that a hand on his forehead?) He's shaking. He's drowning. He's going to drown.
He's...
[ Sunlight filtered through leaves trickles into the Hitomi's camera. This must be a familiar sight to the network by now, the sign of yet another new arrival. The Hitomi is laying at a strange angle. The top of a mop of brown hair is just visible at the corner of the shot. It shifts slightly, then disappears.
A yawn is heard, followed by the voice of a young man in his late teens: ]
Wow, I don't remember taking a nap under... [ His voice trails off, presumably as he notices the tree. The sounds of steps and motion can be heard for a few moments; is he walking around the tree? ]
...What in the...?
[ His red sneakers walk into shot and stay there, one tapping in thought.
After a moment, the boy speaks again - as if to someone else and not himself, although there doesn't seem to be anyone else there. ]
Another dimension? ... Yeah, I thought so. [ It definitely sounds like the other half of a conversation. ] - What do you mean, you don't know? You've been to them all, haven't you?
[ A frustrated sigh.
And suddenly, an adorable little brown fluffball is poking its face at the screen. It backs up, and then flies up out of shot on two tiny little wings, chittering unintelligibly to the young man, who seems to understand it: ]
Kuriboh? ...You're solid? Then that means - Wait, what?
[ One knee comes down and a hand briefly covers the screen; it shifts to reveal the young man's face peering at the Hitomi with something between curiosity and faint suspicion. ]
Is this on? Oh - hi. [ A nod to the screen. ] Hey, uh, so, I guess I've sort of showed up in this dimension. Is there, um, anything going on? Like, something where people need help? Because if the world needs saving, I've got a little experience. You know, if that's why I'm here.
I... guess that's about it! [ Well, he seems to know his way around a videophone. With a somewhat cheerful smile, the boy nods again, and the feed cuts. ]
Third Person Writing Sample:
Waking up feels like ascending from the bottom of the ocean. Juudai's been down there, swum down to the dark parts of the bay on Academy Island's east beach and stayed as long as he could, held contests with Sho and Manjoume where you hold your breath as long as you can down there. The trick isn't holding it in, he learned, it's letting it out, lying on the sand and watching the bubbles trickle to the surface above you. Your body learns how to ration its oxygen, eventually, until you can lie down there for close to two minutes watching the sun dance on the surface up above, while you trust the ocean to hold your lips shut for you, down there on the sandy floor. But eventually you have to swim up for air - but slowly, slowly is best, do it slowly or you'll get head rushes, and that's what this is like, this waking up.
Except Juudai doesn't know how long he was down there, his lungs empty of air, his eyes blind in the dark down there, his ears deaf in the water down there, knowing that something was going on above, but too tired and cold to go up and look. Too weary to fight the water pressure, down in the dark. It was silent down there, silent and empty of things that hurt too much to hold.
He opens his eyes, and it is bright, brighter than anything his eyes have seen in - weeks? - no, months - no, longer than that, a long, ageless time - let's say weeks. Where is he? There's a sun, so there... where...
Juudai sits up, and his head spins. His mouth is dry, his throat aching with thirst. His thoughts waver with sick heat, mirage-like - he remembers things that slide over one another in his memory like hot oil and boiling water, hot, angry things that don't seem real, seem dream-like. Was that it? Had he dreamed most of that, the pain, the hurt, the dark that had reached up and around him and lovingly dragged him down into that nothing?
"You guys," he says, turning to see - Sho, Ryo, Edo, one-two-three, shouldn't there be more? - he says, his eyes almost begging for it to be true, something broken but hopeful masquerading as an almost-laugh - "I had, I had the craziest dream..."
Edo won't meet his eyes. Sho turns away. But Ryo never shies from pain, never turns his back on the world, never lies or pretends that the world is anything other than what it is. And the look in his eyes confirms the truth. The damning, damning truth.
The words flutter off Juudai's tongue like disturbed butterflies, wheeling in drunken circles. "...Oh no...no..." He can feel it, now, the fires, the fires that had burned under his feet. They're burning now, under his skin, hot, hot, smoking in his throat. It hurts to say it. "It... it wasn't a dream... was it."
Ryo shakes his head, his face betraying nothing, neither sympathy nor condemnation. Sho still won't look at him. Juudai is shaking, he realizes. He can't stop. His eyesight is wavering. He opens his mouth to speak - can't. Can't. If he speaks, he'll drown. (He's burning up, Edo's saying, is that a hand on his forehead?) He's shaking. He's drowning. He's going to drown.
He's...