2024 Story Collection

How a Bad Girl, Nerd, Goth, & Quinceañera Princess Saved The World II

Sheryl entered the subway alone, her applications to her dream colleges she'd printed out in hand. She looked around for a seat but frowned when she realized she'd most likely have to stand.

Sheryl's legs ached after the long day she'd had. She just gotten off from her part-time job at the coffee shop near campus and wanted, no needed desperately to sit down before her full-time job started in just under two hours.

God, if you can hear me, please give me a break. All I ask is for one seat-

A soft voice interrupted her prayer, the voice of an angel, or what she'd imagine an angel might sound like. It called out to her.

"You can sit by me if you'd like. I'll make room," the angel said from somewhere behind her.

"Okay, thanks..." she trails off once she turns and looks at the owner of the voice and her friends. It might just be the strangest thing she's seen on a subway, and that's saying a lot.

The girl looked like a modern day Morticia Addams, but that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that on her shoulder sat the largest raven she'd ever seen, but even that wasn't as weird as the literal murder of crows that sat all around her on any surface available, including the hand holds above the seats.

"Are you going to sit down?" the girl asks kindly. She shoos away a few crows and wipes down the seat for her.

Now, Sheryl should've probably hesitated a little longer, or at all, but she doesn't. She practically jumps for the seat and sighs the second her butt hits the chair and her aching feet no longer hold up her tired body. She leans back, melting into the seat itself.

"Bad day?" the girl asks from beside her. The girl exudes calmness, patience, and class. She was completely odd in a very mature and elegant sort of way. The opposite of Sheryl.

"Just tiring," she replies. "Worked the night-shift at a grocery store, went to school this morning and just got off my part-time job at a coffeeshop," she explains.

The girl nods sympathetically.

"Why do I do this to myself?" she says under her breath.

She groaned as she forced herself to look at the papers in her hands.

"Are you in highschool?" the girl asks. "You look about my age."

"I'm in community college," she explains, "tested out of highschool in 8th grade," she says matter-of-factly as she skims over the applications again.

"So you're a genius," the girl says.

"Far from it," Sheryl argues. "Just know how to take tests."

The doors open and a girl stumbles in, looking like a princess from a far off land, so much so that Sheryl looks around for her prince. The girl's eyes are tearful. She looks around but falls to the ground, crying suddenly as if not being able to find a seat was her final breaking point. Before Sheryl realizes it, she's helping the girl over to sit in her spot.

Damn it why do I have to be so nice?

The raven-crow girl pulls the crying princess into her arms and comforts her, and like magic as she speaks, the crows make more room for Sheryl to sit down on the other side of the raven girl.

She sits and wonders if somehow she got transported to a fairytale world or they got transported here.

Just before the doors close, a girl jumps through. She's cool. Sheryl thinks. It's not just her clothes, tattoos or leather jacket, it's the way she stands there, like the whole world is hers for the taking. Confidence, the girl oozed it.

The girl looks around for a minute before the train suddenly moves and causes said cool girl to come flying directly at Sheryl.

She tries to move away but instead just gets smacked in the face by the girl's face.

She looks up and expects to be greeted by the girl's face. What she didn't expect was to be face to face with a king cobra. Sheryl screams.

The girl, in one movement, pulls Sheryl upright so that she is sandwiched between the raven girl and the cobra girl. Great, just great.

She doesn't even realize the snake girl's hand is over her mouth until a few minutes later. By that time, Sheryl has calmed down a bit.

"Don't scream," the snake girl says. "It's just Arthur, he's nice."

Sheryl nods, and the girl lets her go. She was already drained from the long day and wasn't about to waste the small bit of energy she had left on being scared of a weird girl's snake or any more energy being scared of a weird girl's snake.

"Is that a king cobra?" the raven girl asks in disbelief.

"Says the girl surrounded by crows and whatever the hell that thing is," she points not to the raven but to the princess, whose eyes are wide in her arms.

"My name is Irene and I am not a thing!" she says, clearly offended.

"Naomi," the snake girl says, offering her hand for the princess to shake. "Nice to make you acquaintance."

"I'm Joann," the raven girl says, not offering a hand.

"I guess I should introduce myself as well. I'm Sheryl."

"She's a genius," the raven girl-Joann says.

"I'm really not-"

"You're an odd group, you know that?" a guy says judgmentally more than asks as he walks over to them.

Naomi gives him the finger, which makes Joann and Irene laugh.

"Your weirder, bud," Naomi replies. "Has no one ever taught you to keep your mouth shut?" Arthur pops out of the collar of her jacket and hisses at the man. "Or what happens if you don't?"

The mans eyes widen before he scrambles away, tripping and falling as he runs off to the other side of the car, as far away as he can from them.

"He is right, though," Sheryl says. "I mean, look at us."

At that moment, all four of them do just that and laugh.

They were quite the group, all opposites in their own ways.

Sheryl will never forget that laugh. It was just before everything changed forever.

To be continued...

March 21, 2024