#YayYA Entry #4

Name: Kiernan  Charles

Twitter handle: @writerkmc

Genre: Fantasy

Title: Enclosed

35-Word-Pitch: A curse sends 17-year-old Annika and her family to a futuristic Manhattan, where tyrannical laws keep her beloved brother trapped. She can’t return, so must work with an underground resistance to change her new world.

First 500: All things considered, I wish now I’d let my brother have the last cookie.

But I didn’t, snatching it out from under his hovering hand and stuffing it into my mouth before he could react.  Ezekiel looked sadly at the empty plate that had held our after-school snack and gave a long-suffering sigh. “Why are you always the worst?” he asked conversationally, opening our refrigerator and pulling out an apple.

My mouth was too full to answer him, so I just shrugged while brushing stray crumbs off my school uniform. One of them was a sliver of chocolate chip, and left a faint brown streak on my white shirt. Ezekiel snorted and shook his head, giving me a look that was half-affectionate, half-exasperated. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Annika: it is astonishing that you’re still single.”

Our mother entered the kitchen with her glasses on top of her head, pushing graying tendrils of hair out of her eyes as she peered at her phone. She needed bifocals desperately, but was convinced they were just a slippery slope to mom jeans and orthopedic shoes. “Your dad won’t be home for supper tonight, guys, so I’m not going to bother making dinner. You okay to just forage?”

“I’m having dinner at Tessa’s anyway,” I told her at the same time Ezekiel said, “I’m going to Lauren’s.” Our mother rolled her eyes at us. 

“Do either of you think to ask permission for anything anymore? Or are we officially past that point?”

“Come on, we knew there was only a fifty-fifty chance you were going to feed us anyway,” Ezekiel called over his shoulder as he headed for our room.

Yes, our room. Because Ezekiel and I, despite being almost sixteen and seventeen years old, respectively, still shared a room. We had to; our Manhattan apartment was too small to allow for personal space. Our father had put up a folding partition that was almost like a wall, but we usually kept it three-quarters of the way open, with just enough division to create privacy for changing. 

A few years ago my parents had been faced with a decision: move to a bigger place, or pay for private high school for each of us. Since they were both college professors who cared more about education than just about anything else, the four of us lived in a small two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment while Ezekiel and I attended one of the most prestigious prep schools on the Upper West Side. 

We could have just left Manhattan, I suppose, but both my parents had been raised there and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. And Ezekiel and I didn’t mind. We’d been close our whole lives, and chances are we’d have spent most of our time at home in the same room anyway.

REVISION:

35-word pitch: A curse sends 17yo Annika to a futuristic Manhattan, where her life is privileged and her brother’s endangered. When she learns there’s no return, she must change her new reality or lose him for good.

First 500: 

Why are my socks green?

That was the first thought that popped into my head. Not where am I or how did I get here, although both were valid questions.

I didn’t own a pair of forest green socks, yet I was wearing them. They matched the plaid of a school uniform skirt that didn’t look anything like the one I’d put on that morning. I was sitting on a polished marble floor, my head pounding and my throat painfully dry.

 “Miss? Are you all right?” I blinked as the face looming over me swam into focus. It belonged a man I didn’t know, middle-aged and dressed in all black.

“Could I have some water?” I rasped. “And can you tell me where I am?”

“The Museum of Natural History,” he said, and I felt a quick rush of relief. Of course. I was on a field trip with the rest of Trinity’s senior class. I’d been with my friends in an exhibit about the Salem witch trials when I’d felt dizzy and … well, I couldn’t remember what came next, but I must have fainted at some point.

Except that didn’t explain my uniform. Or how I’d ended up in this room, which contained weird architectural sculptures and very few people.

I needed my phone. “Did you notice a backpack anywhere?” I asked the man as he handed me a cup of water.

“Right here,” he said, picking up a slim blue bag I’d never seen before.

“That’s not mine,” I told him. “Mine’s bigger, and gray. It’s from L.L. Bean.”

His forehead creased in confusion. “You were wearing this when you fell.”

“I couldn’t have—” I began, stopping short as I caught sight of my hand on the water glass. The chipped nail polish left over from last weekend’s mother-daughter manicure was gone, replaced by a clear gloss.

Was I dreaming? I pinched my arm, digging my fingernails deep enough to draw blood. That certainly felt real. I must have hit my head, I decided. Hard enough to give myself a concussion.

“Can I borrow your phone?” I asked the man.

He looked at me blankly. “My what?”

I had to get out of there. He wasn’t helping me; I’d figure this out on my own. I glanced doubtfully at the blue bag and picked it up as I got to my feet. Maybe this was my backpack and I just didn’t recognize it because my brain was scrambled. “Thanks for the water,” I murmured, backing out of the room. 

But I didn’t know where to go next. I sat heavily on a bench and unzipped the bag’s front compartment. No phone; just a slim, wallet-sized silver card. I held it up and gasped as my picture appeared on the front, hologram-style, with words etched below:

Name: Annika Altschul

Address: 208 West 88^th Street, Apt. 20

Hair: Dark Brown

Eyes: Blue

Height: 5’6”

DOB: December 28, 2098

Status: NG Confirmed