Pen and Paper - A Writers Clan

The king looks down on his troops. They march to meet the endless steel rain. Some will go further down the tunnel. He frowns. His people huddle like rats, a cat by the door. His children have never known but Damascus’ blade. The king looks down on his troops.

The fog came a couple weeks ago. At first, no one paid it mind; it’s normal for it to fog up every once in a while. But this fog lingered. It persisted day in and day out for two weeks straight. After a few days of fog, people started to question it, started to wonder why it wasn’t clearing up. Once a week had passed without the fog clearing up, the questions faded out. People became accustomed to the fog, not really noticing it anymore. That was not the case for Aspen Bale. She saw the fog. She saw it for what is was, and she would not forget about it. Aspen reclined in the wooden chair by her desk. She held a pen in hand, hovering it over the documents detailing her assignment to Ashwood. She tossed one leg over the other as she gazed out the window of her small apartment to the road just beyond. The fog hung over the cars, each vehicle with its headlights on to fight the ever-thickening fog of this Sunday afternoon. With every passing car, she could sense how the people’s concern for the fog has slackened even in the short time since she arrived. Her arrival yesterday was discreet, as her arrivals always were. Everything had been planned out beforehand, and she studied her assignment details just enough to make it through that far. She still had much studying to do before morning, however. It was imperative that she knew her assignment inside and out, forwards and backwards, before she stepped foot into Ashwood High School tomorrow. Her parents’ names, her address, her reason for transferring halfway into the semester—everything needed to be rehearsed until she knew it like the back of her hand. Normalcy was the goal, and normalcy she would deliver.