Creative Writing.

Since I was asked so sweetly, I'll post one of my creative writing excerpts. Just a note, it's not fantastic. It was written in about an hour and a half or so, so it's not anything award-winning. :)

Title: Playing by the Rules
By: Lauren R.

The day Rachel disappeared, truth be told, I thought she was hiding from us. She was the youngest out of us six, and I couldn't see why there wouldn't be a great possibility that she'd gone to play hide and seek, and was waiting for one of us to find her.
Yep. I was that naive.
It's been a full month and a half, if I remember right, since that happened. But I'll never forget, even though she's standing beside me constantly, about the night I woke up to find out I was living a lie, and not the good kind, either. I was living a dream of prevarications and woke up to a nightmare of reality.
The island I lived on will forever be my home, even if existance is an issue. It's where I met my family, where I learned vital life skills, and even people who love you can lie to you.
I will never forget the night I woke up in New York.

---

Chapter One: Playing the Game
I woke up to sun, sand, saltwater, and an English boy who looked quite unhappy glaring down at me, arms crossed.
"Samantha," he said irritably, his accent shockingly strong. "Get up and help fish. You may not want to eat it, but I'm not sending a five-year-old out there to do it. You're wasting time."
I groaned. Every morning for the past year, I'd gotten up, gotten yelled at, and fished. It was a tradition that I couldn't break, apparently, because on this island, even if I was the eldest, Evan had to make sure that I couldn't sleep in.
"Look, can't you catch enough fish with Haden and Bradley?" I moaned.
"They can't catch enough for all of us. Come help."
"I don't see why you won't throw Rachel in and make her do it, too, then."
His frown became more pronounced. "Because she's eight."
"So is Haden." I retorted.
He sighed, exasperated. "Get up, Sam."
I rolled over and frowned at him. "Sexist."
He sighed and rolled his eyes, content I was finally getting up. I yawned dramatically.
Five months ago, I'd showed up on this island alone and scared. I had no clue how or why I was here, or even what my name was, but Evan, there by himself, had showed me his home and how to do things, dragging me into a new lifestyle that included fishing and sleeping on the sand. It was sparse and uncomfortable, but it was the only one avalible and I took it as a dehydrated man would take water.
Sometimes, Evan and I didn't talk at all, and others, we talked about all that we knew. The only things we could remember were waking up on this forsaken beach, and several other things that equaled up to no importance at all, like the way he remembered a blue and green umbrella that his parents, or parent, or whoever watched over him had, or the way I could recall exactly what color eyes someone, I couldn't ever remember who, posessed. They were always somewhere in my mind, staring coldly at me, unmoving, but their color was a soft blue gray, and brought back warm feelings that I didn't recognize. My mother? My father? We didn't even know our real names or ages, but had guessed at what we were called and how old we were, and it stuck.
Ah, yes. The poor, desolate children of The Island.
"Sam!" Evan, who had just walked down to check on Haden and Bradley, was back, coming to make sure I was obeying commands.
I snapped out of my trance and scowled. "Okay, sorry!"
He shook his head and waited for me as I got up and brushed myself off.
"You know you can lay leaves down to sleep on, right? It would keep you from wasting your time cleaning yourself off like this."
I grinned. "I know, but the way you keep me working is exhausting. I have no energy left at night to make a bed."
He rolled his eyes and cuffed me on the ear. "Come on. Bradley's trying to talk Rachel and Alice into holding a fish, and you know they'll go to you to cry if that thing touches them."
I grimaced and picked up the pace. "Hurry, then!"
He broke into a smile and matched my stride.
About a week after I had first come to The Island, Alice showed up. She, like us, couldn't remember much but a few non-important details about her life, so we named her and estimated she was about thirteen, making her the third oldest on the island. She was delicate and frail with crystal green eyes and long, dark hair, and hated anything to do with slimey, slippery things that could move. Fish, of course, qualified.
The first time we had tried to teach her to fish, she threw up, fainted, and almost drowned. We learned then and there that Alice just wasn't a fisher, and that we could do it ourselves if it saved us from reliving that spectacle.
"BraaaDLEY!" I yelled. He glanced over at me, then dropped the fish in the sand, close to the tide. Too late to say anything about it, the fish disappeared with the next wave. I heard Evan sigh as we picked our way down the hill to the beach and the five foot dock that he had made.
Alice looked up in relief as we got closer, and ran up to me, paler than usual.
"That... Thing," She spat. "was too close to me. If it would've been a few inches closer... Well, I think I might've drowned myself. It was TOO disgusting. UGH!"
Alice had this thing for drama. She liked thinking of what could've, should've, or could have possibly happened to her, and making a deal out of it. By now, all of us were used to it. Rachel, holding onto her skirt, had a frozen look of horror on her face, scared of the fish.
After Alice had showed up on the island, Bradley and Haden had come in just two weeks later. Rachel had been the very last child, getting to the island a month after the boys, and hadn't spoken a single word in her three months being here. We didn't know if she was born mute or if she remembered things horrible and chilling to keep her from talking, but she seemed content just the way she was. She was always following someone around, holding on to an article of clothing or just trailing behind.
"Oh, Rach, sweetheart. Come here." I held out my arms and she climbed eagerly into them. At five years old, or so we guessed, she was the smallest, weakest child on the island, and we all treated her like a baby sister with delicacy and care.
...At least when the boys weren't fishing.
The boys were very much alike in age, but since Haden had showed up a day later than Bradley, he was a year younger. They, like most boys, were rambunxious and playful, but would usually listen to Evan or I.
In a way, we all were family. All six of us, caught up in a web of selective amnesia, stuck on a beautiful island with slimey fish. It was our home, and we had all made somewhat of a silent, mutual agreement that we'd do our best to make it feel like it.
I was still holding Rachel when dinner came around that night, the smell of saltwater and fish on a spit soaking into my clothes. I was in charge of boiling water for the radishes to cook in.
It was strange, really, being on this island. But it had gottne to the point where no one questioned it. I mean, hello? Radishes on an island? You're kidding! But no. We didn't say a thing about it, even when we were first on the island. There's too much shock and memory loss for that.

---Fin.---

That's all I have for now, but more to come. Maybe. Hopefully.
Hah.

Lauren