April & May 2022
Midnight Writers
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Table of Contents
Ask Aphro & Dite • College Board • April Showers vs. May Showers Verily Vérité • The end of the school year!
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“Test Time”, a story by Halimede “System Reboot”, a story by Halimede “April Fools!”, a story by Apollo
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“April Fools!”, continued
“The Ninth Circle of Hell”, Illustration by Cupid
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“April Fools!”, continued “stages of a rainstorm, a poem by Vérité
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“KTxME: Tetanurae: Issue 1: The Giant Southern Lizard (Part 6)”, a comic by AgonysEmbrace
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“KTxME: Tetanurae: Issue 1: The Giant Southern Lizard (Part 6)”, continued
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traitorous little heart by Halimede
traitorous little heart I ought to carve you out of my chest raw and pin you above the bedboard, one pin in each corner grotesque and hideous though you may be, heaven only knows you’d be far more useful as a wall decoration because you aren’t doing any good where you are senseless, stupid, bleeding heart.
issuu.com/midnightwriters wchs.midnightwriters@gmail.com
Ask Aphro
Dear Aphro, I HATE COLLEGE BOARD WITH A BURNING PASSION. HOW DO I SCAM THEM INTO GIVING ME ALL 5S ON MY AP EXAMS BUT GET AWAY WITH NOT PAYING THEM ANYTHING? Angrily, Dinosauce Hater Dear Dinosauce Hater, You’ve come to the right person for advice. It’s time for another…. Evil Plan! Now, you’re going to need three silver spoons, two ducks, a long-range water gun, and approximately thirty 0.7mm mechanical pencils. Here’s what you need to do: [REDACTED BY COLLEGE BOARD OFFICIALS]
Ask Dite
Dear Dite, Everyone always complains about April Showers but hypes up May flowers and it makes me very sad :( Any advice on how to combat this? Thanks, Rain-Rover Dear Rain-Rover, Oh, dear, I’m sorry to hear that. I know how it feels when people heap unjustified hatred on the things you love. For the record, you are absolutely correct. May flowers are overdone; April showers are far superior. Do flowers flash lightning every three seconds? No. No, they don’t. How can they ever compete?
Best of luck! Let me know how it goes. With love, Aphro
With love, Dite
[REDACTED BY COLLEGE BOARD OFFICIALS]
Congratulations, one and all, for making it out of hell alive! Oops. I meant AP Exam season. But is calling it hell really all that inaccurate? Fun fact, for all you dear readers: This, as a matter of truth, was my very first “true” AP Exam season. Last year, most of my exams were virtual. And of course, freshman year’s “exams” were a joke, more than anything. Well, now that I’ve lived it, I can safely say that it is exhausting. But what no one mentioned: the worst part isn’t the exams themselves. The worst part is, once all of the exams are finished, all of the makeup work from classes. Because everyone’s taking different exams, on different days. And classes are filled with a mix of different grade levels, for the most part. Which means that while you’re off stressing and testing, the rest of the class is happily bumbling along the sparkling path of the curriculum. Which means that, despite finishing all my exams for the year, I still have a mountainload of work for the weekend after.
I do, as a matter of fact, have advice on how to combat this: cancel all April showers for the remainder of the month. “What?” you may say, “WhDelightful. yever would I do that?” Well, dear Rain-Rover, I have a sneaking suspicion that all these April-Shower-Antis aren’t quite as set in their way as they seem. As soon as they begin to notice the lack of showers, they’ll be changing their tune very quickly. After all, how will the May flowers bloom, if not from the rainfall?
[REDACTED BY COLLEGE BOARD OFFICIALS]
Verily Vérité
Well, you know what the prophets say. “I will survive,” “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” “May the Fourth be With You,” (I actually did have an exam on Star Wars Day. Indeed, the Force was with me.) et cetera, et cetera. We will survive. We have survived. And we will survive it again if we must. À la prochaîne, Vérité
Special thanks to Sra. Steele, Cupid, Vérité, viento de levante, and our graduating senior, AgonysEmbrace 3
Test Time by Halimede
It’s lunchtime when Josie realizes that she’s about to completely fail the science test. “Every species of animal on Earth,” she complains, flopping onto the concrete with a dramatic sigh. “They expect me to memorize every species on Earth.” “It’s not even that bad,” Ally says. “There are only, like, thirty of them. And half of them are bugs. Imagine if you had to do this test back when your parents were in school, you’d be memorizing hundreds.” Josie groans. “Don’t remind me.” It’s then that Elina joins their spot in the sun. “Are we talking about the species test again?” “Good grief,” Ally whispers, “here comes the know-it-all.” “I read,” Elina says, sticking her nose in the air, “that there used to be eight million different animal species on Earth.” Josie scoffs. “That’s so fake. The planet would probably explode trying to hold all of them at once.” “It’s not fake!” “Is too!” “Is not!” “Yeah?” Josie counters, crossing her arms. “Where’d you read it?”
Elina looks away. “Google.” “That old hunk of junk? You know literally anyone can write anything there, right? No one even checks if it’s true. I could say that humans used to have wings and it wouldn’t even get taken down.” “Just cause it’s on Google doesn’t mean it’s fake!” Elina fires back. “My ma told me that back in her days, Google was the only thing they used in school. Even the teachers used it to teach.” “Yeah, that’s cause they were stupid back then,” Ally says under her breath, though not quietly enough for Elina not to hear. “They weren’t stupid!” “Were too.” “Were not!” “Were too.” 4They’re saved by the bell.
System Reboot by Halimede clearly.
AS-77 remembers her first moments extraordinarily
“The very crux of humanity is the delicate balance between selflessness and survival.” Those had been the first words Doctor Icaria had said, when unveiling her at the Tricentennial Consortium. AS-77, miracle of technology. The first android to well and truly think and act human. “This is where previous designers met their failures,” he had continued, “focusing on brain chemistry, thought patterns, one thing over another. This is where we have succeeded.” And, indeed, it had been a success. She and the thirteen other androids of her kind had been packaged off and sent to a Garden Vessel, the most luxurious of long-range spaceships. They’d become respected crewmembers, admired for their inhuman strength, yet trusted for their very human instincts. The passengers even now knew them as friends. And then the shortages began. ~ “Our problem,” says head scientist Eli Khana, “is conserving energy. The original calculations for our projected energy reserves were off by thirteen percent; we’re burning through it faster than we can take. At this rate, the Vessel will be stranded three jumps before we reach our final destination.” The crew-members are scattered throughout the thin metal tables, fear permeating the room like a stench. AS-77 is seated next to another of her line, AT-08, shifting uneasily. “We’ve cut all of the extraneous energy usage that we possibly can,” the Junior Captain protests. “All that’s left is life support and food reserves. What else are we supposed to cut, oxygen?” Khana sighs deeply. His eyes flicker along the room, and land on AT-08. “Well…” he says, then thinks the better of it. “We’ll continue to run calculations, Captain.” A chill runs up AS-77’s spine. ~ “We can’t deactivate the androids.” “Captain, they use up ten percent of our total energy reserves. We don’t have any other choice!” “They’re human androids, Khana. Human androids.
They’re part of the crew! It’d be--it’d be sacrilegious. It’d be murder. Do you want to become a murderer, Khana? Do you? I know I don’t!” AS-77 keeps her steps light behind the corner of the hallway. A deep sigh. “Captain, they’re imitations. I know the crew’s attached to them--heavens, we’re all attached to them-but we must think of the living, breathing people on our ship first. And besides, the androids come with a sense of duty; they were built as crewmembers, weren’t they? They want to protect the passengers as much as we do. They’d be the first to agree to this course of action.” Abruptly, the footsteps stop. “Did you hear something?” AS-77 whisks herself back into the shadows. There’s a switch, deep inside her, that deactivates her mimicry of human breathing patterns. She flicks it off. The footsteps continue on. ~ AT-08 is the first to be deactivated. AS-77 had seen it coming, more or less. ‘08 had always had a gentle, trusting streak; it would have been easy for the rest of the crew to catch her unawares, or persuade her. The crux of humanity is the delicate balance between selflessness and survival. It would be selfless, to let them shut her down. To hope that someday she would be rebooted, and that her true self wouldn’t be lost in the electrical currents forever. But there is no life after a shutdown. Perhaps she would be brought back, turned back on, someday, but would it be her that returned? Shutdown is, for all means and purposes, the end of her life. The end of her world. In the end, it’s a simple decision. AT-08 fell on one side of the sliding scale of humanity. AS-77 falls on the other. She steals the necessities; what she can not sneak away in the shadows, she takes by force. They’re still four jumps away from Ceredeis-I, the final planetary destination, and an escape pod, she knows, can make five jumps before collapsing. She has a sizable percentage of the ship’s remaining energy reserve with her to keep her alive until she reaches the colony. Whether the rest of the ship makes it is no longer her concern. She is a survivor, above all.
APRIL FOOLS! by Apollo
It’s the weekend before April 1st. With April Fools fast approaching at lightning speed, the three friends (Martin, Daniel, and Nathaniel) decided it was the perfect opportunity to determine which one of them could come up with the greatest, most creative April Fools prank to pull on each other. “What would be our incentive?” Martin said. “I got an idea!” Daniel said. “How about the winner gets invited over to my house for dinner and the losers have to wear princess costumes to a televised baseball game?” “What’s so special about going to your house for dinner?” Martin asked. He did not think that the idea of being invited over to Daniel’s house was that exciting of a prize. Daniel paused for a moment and thought. Then he came up with an even better idea. “How about whoever wins will get a deluxe box seat at the televised professional baseball game - which, by the way, is the day after April Fools - paid for by one of the losers - who, by the way, does not get to go, - while the other one has to pay his own ticket and come in a princess costume and parade around the arena during the seventh inning stretch?” “Someone’s talkative today!” Martin jeered. Nathaniel was terrified about the idea of losing. He loved baseball, but was horrified at the thought of being humiliated in front of what might be millions of viewers as well as all the baseball players and the TV cameras and commentators. But he was willing to take the risk, as was Martin as well as Daniel. They were excited about the prospect of engaging in such a clever challenge. “Wait! There’s a catch, though!” Daniel explained. “The winner will be announced by April 1st, so all three of us will have to come up with the best April Fools pranks during that short period of time! And remember, the loser will dress up in a princess costume at a public place.” “My prank will be better than any of yours!” Nathaniel jeered. “Just sayin’, but I know what to do!” Daniel replied. “We’ll see about that!” Martin responded with a wide smile across his face. The three friends then parted ways, about to determine and execute their April Fools pranks on each other. Martin secretly hoped for Nathaniel and Daniel to lose. For one, he always loved baseball and wanted to view the game from the deluxe box seats. He also thought it would be hilarious to see either Daniel or Nathaniel dress up as a princess. 5
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After only five minutes, Martin came up with the first prank. He had a suspicious-looking sunflower attached to the lapel of his shirt and a mischievous grin on his face. “Yo Daniel and Nathaniel!” Martin shouted. “Come here! I wanna show you two this new sunflower I am wearing.” Daniel and Nathaniel rushed downstairs. “Didn’t you get that for Easter last month?” Daniel inquired. “Just come close so you can get a good look, you two!” Martin said. The two did so, and three seconds in, Martin squeezed the sunflower, releasing a ton of sulfur water right on Daniel and Nathaniel’s faces! Nathaniel tried to clean his tongue, while Daniel was furious. “Ha! Got’cha both!” Martin jeered. “This isn’t the last you’ll see of me!” Daniel yelled. Before long, he came up with another brilliant idea. Martin later went to watch TV. When it turned on, it was playing a kid show that he absolutely hated. So, he tried to change the channel by pressing the button, but it didn’t do anything. He continued to try, but the TV was still playing childrens’ shows. “Why won’t this TV work?” screamed Martin. With glee in their eyes, Daniel and Nathaniel rushed down the stairs as Martin was expecting them. “Because you didn’t look close enough in the remote!” Daniel jeered. At first Martin was confused, but then he discovered a piece of tape stuck underneath the remote button that allowed him to change channels. “What the…” Martin said as Daniel and Nathaniel were smirking. “Great idea, Nathaniel!” Daniel stated. Nathaniel felt very proud, but Martin, however, wanted to get back at them, especially after he heard Nathaniel was behind this. Martin knew that Nathaniel’s favorite thing besides baseball was keeping his kitchen strictly organized. He knew where all the spoons and the forks were, as well as everything else, so much so that, recently, he started grabbing materials blindfolded, since he knew exactly where all the kitchen materials were. So, Martin did his prank by switching up all the kitchen cookware, and then hid in the living room. After Nathaniel put on a blindfold and went to get what he thought were the materials needed to make lunch, he ended up making a cooking catastrophe. The shelf on which he expected the shatter-proof to be was replaced by crystal wine glasses, and as he scooped his arm around to grab the plates, he instead heard the sickening sound of smashing glass all over the floor. He didn’t realize what was going on until after he took off his blindfold, when he realized that he had grabbed all the wrong materials. Martin was right beside him while Nathaniel caused this disaster. “Next time, don’t cook with your eyes.” Martin told an enraged Nathaniel.
“And next time, don’t mix up my materials!” Nathaniel shouted as Martin laughed and walked out of the kitchen. Nathaniel walked out too, still mad about the switcheroo with Martin. Daniel, coming to see this after hearing the glass smash, thought up a new prank. He put a handful of sticky, metallic, gold glitter into a card, put it on an envelope, wrote “FINAL NOTICE - IF NOT PAID IMMEDIATELY, YOU AND YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE TURNED OVER TO A COLLECTION AGENCY!!” on it, and laid it on the counter. “Martin! Nathaniel!” He shouted. “An envelope came saying that the bills are past due and must be paid immediately.” “The bills?” Nathaniel cried as he rushed down the stairs. There, he found a large envelope of what he thought was going to be his tax payment notification, and started to sweat profusely with his eyes full of fear. Slowly but surely, he opened the envelope, expecting to find a paycheck from a company he recently bought items from. But as he feverishly ripped open the envelope, he found a yellow card neatly placed inside the envelope. As the drew the card out of the envelope and pulled the edges apart, he soon found himself covered in the sticky gold glitter bomb that covered his face and hair, as well as the carpet on which he was standing. “What the…” Nathaniel said as he found himself in this mess. He saw Daniel smirking all the while looking at him, which made him really suspicious, upset, and angry at the same time. Nathaniel decided he needed to take revenge on Daniel. So, after he went home, Nathaniel checked the kitchen cupboard to make sure they had a package of Oreos. “Aha!” Nathaniel proclaimed! “I know how I am going to get back at him and win this ridiculous contest!” So, he grabbed a plate from the shelf, placed it on the counter, took four oreos, and put them on the plate. He then carefully split off the oreos in half, gently scraped off the creme fillings with a small spatula, and went upstairs to the bathroom as fast as he could to get a tube of toothpaste. He then carefully squeezed a dollop of toothpaste onto the center of each wafer, before taking out a butter knife and carefully spreading the toothpaste across the wafers. He compared an untouched oreo to his toothpaste oreo to make sure that the size of the oreo is the same so it would not look suspicious. “Now I have to find a way to get these oreos into Daniel’s mouth!” Nathaniel proclaimed. “I’ll bet Daniel is probably watching the Panthers game at his home, and he gets so wrapped up around the game, that he won’t even notice these are fake oreos. So, all I need to do now is to get to the car and zip over to Daniel’s house.” In his haste, Nathaniel ran out to his car, started up his car, and sped to Daniel’s house, completely forgetting about the plate of oreos. As soon as he pulled up to Daniel’s house, he looked over on the rider’s seat and realized
Daniel smirked. “You’re a winner alright!” he said. Martin scratched first. He anxiously rubbed his coin “Aw, jeez! I can’t believe I forgot the oreos!” Na- against the ticket to reveal his prize - or so he thought. He thaniel groaned. “Now I have to go back home.” gasped as he read the words ‘has to wear a princess cosTurning the car around, he saw, to his horror, that tume as the baseball game stadium in front of the crowd’ he had forgotten to bring the oreos! He zoomed quickprinted on the ticket. ly back to his house, and left the engine running before Daniel immediately doubled over in laughter, as throwing open the door and running to the house. As soon Nathaniel scratched off his ticket. as he opened the door, he heard a spitting sound coming “Well at least I know I don’t have to wear a silly from Martin. costume in front of thousands of people!” he claimed, until “What kind of oreos are these?” Martin inquired he looked at his ticket to realize, to his horror, that he was like an interrogator. Nathaniel’s mouth dropped open and going to have to pay for the entire box seat and the coshis eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. tume! He completely forgot that Martin was still at his house, and “I can’t believe it!” Nathaniel cried. had a great love for oreos. At that moment, Daniel finished scratching off his “Oh no! Did you touch the oreos?” Nathaniel ticket that revealed that he won the box seat. asked. “Tough luck guys!” Daniel jeered, “Ya have to ad“You know me!” Martin replied angrily. “I can’t mit: this was the best April Fools trick ever!” And the other help myself when there are Oreos like 10 feet away from two had to agree. me, except that was NO oreo!” The next day, Daniel was seated at the box seat At first Nathaniel stayed silent and looked surat the game. He saw Martin in a princess costume wave prised. But then he started to burst out laughing. the magic wand around, which was televised live to what “I’m sorry, man!” Nathaniel laughed. “Those cook- would be millions of people watching, including those in ies were meant for Daniel, but since you took a bite out of the stadium. it, I guess you’ve found out my April Fools joke!” “Totally worth it!” Daniel said with a grin across Luckily Martin was a good sport and realized he his face. had been tricked. He had fallen for an awesome April Fools joke. THE END “That was the best trick I’ve fallen victim to.” he joked. “As far as I’m concerned, I guess you win this contest.” “Of course!” Nathaniel exclaimed. “I would have rather had Daniel take a bite out of those disgusting oreos, because I wanted to see the look on his face, but you gave me a really good look of horror on your face. I’ll settle for a second bet!” i. drizzle “And you know what I would settle for?” someone light droplets flutter, exclaimed. “For you to get some scratch-off tickets!” dotting patterns on the path, It was Daniel. He had returned home to take a quick a light melody. nap, but his dog alerted him to the sound of a car pulling into the driveway and then backing out. Daniel, awoken ii. downpour and suspicious that Nathaniel was up to something, was rain crashes with the already on guard and looking out for Nathaniel to return. force of a battering ram, But he didn’t, so now, Daniel was bewildered, but at the shattering the skies. same time, he thought up of one last good April Fools joke, which he brought to Nathaniel’s house, where the latter and iii. daylight Martin were. from behind the dark, “Look, I’m calling a truce to these tricks,” he said. sunlight drips down to the ground “And to show what a nice guy I am, I just bought you guys clouds clearing away. and myself lottery tickets.” He then pulled the tickets out of his pocket and handed two to his friends, and all the guys took coins out of the pockets to start scratching. “This is a great idea!” Martin proclaimed. “It indeed is! I can’t wait to see if I’m the winner.” Nathaniel agreed. oreos!
that, to his horror, that he had forgotten to bring the
stages of a rainstorm by Vérité
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“KTxME: Tetanurae: Issue 1: The Giant Southern Lizard (Part 6)” by AgonysEmbrace
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