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Guy

There was once a guy. He was a nice guy–kind-hearted, giving, and easy to get along with. But for some reason, no one liked him at all. Whenever I was paired up with him in class, we would get ugly looks like we committed some dirty crime. But they weren’t staring at me, they were staring at him. I didn’t understand, since he was such a nice person when I talked to him. So I decided to dig deeper to learn more about him.

One day, I followed him all the way home. It was a long walk, but he seemed to live in a really old area. Deserted wagons, buildings, and parks were scattered everywhere around the area. I would have said it was most likely that he’s really poor, but he lived in the nicest house there was in the area. His being poor was out of the idea, so I had to do some more investigating. After gathering some information about his parents, I learned their family wasn’t normal. His father was affiliated with multiple gangs as well as his mother being killed by a gang member. I realized this must have been devastating for him since he grew up without much of any higher figure. But for no one to even try talking to him at school was very weird since he was such a nice guy with the experience I had with him.

I went up to some of the students in school to confirm my suspicions. Someone had known his dad was a gang member and rumors got spread that his son had killed several people. This made it so the students were very wary of him and stayed away from him. Me, being doubtful, I went up to him and asked him about it, and he told me that he hadn’t ever killed anyone at all, since his dad was in jail now and he was just living alone. With this information, I was determined to clear his name since he was such an amazing person, so at the next dance I did something I would have never done if I didn’t know about him. I went up to the mic and told the truth about him. It took a lot of explaining, but once it was confirmed that all the information was true, students started talking to him and he was one of the most popular people in school. In the end, he thanked me for everything I had done and we became best friends forever. 

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Unknowing, Unforgiving

There are some things that we might not ever know. The thought of ever knowing is always so distant, that it isn’t even worth trying for. But even so, such bad things are brought up about it even though they know nothing about it. I once encountered this situation. During the early times of my life, things weren’t very easy. With little money and only a dad, it would be a huge mountain to climb if we wanted to survive. But we weren’t giving up. Every day, my dad would work hard at his two jobs and I knew I had to as well in school. With how hard he is working, how could I not? Slowly but surely, we weren’t set and sail, but we had a foundation with an apartment that could somewhat be paid per month by rationalizing meals.

Throughout this time I met some good people. People I might not have met if we weren’t struggling this much. Because we all had this one thing in common–we weren’t rich at all. People might see us as a downfall, but we were getting along together like normal friends would. Going out might have been out of the question, but sightseeing and doing things together that didn’t cost any money wasn’t. That time was probably the best memory of my youth.

But those good things can’t just go unnoticed. Of course, the “more wealthy” looked down on us as being the “superiority”. What do they know? This is what made me the most annoyed, them not seeing what we do or how we are and just assuming we are the lowest of the low. People like them should stay out of our lives and go somewhere far away if they don’t want to listen to what we have to say. I will never forgive them.

Best Friend

I thought he would be my best friend forever. The day Joseph and I saw each other at the park, we locked eyes with each other and knew we were going to be friends. I went up to him and asked, “Would you like to be my friend?” and from there on, we would do everything together. Joseph was even my next-door neighbor. Every day we would go out and play for hours until we had to eat. 

He never seemed like he wanted to leave me. At every school, we had the same classes and always hung out together during school and after school. But as time went on, he looked as if he was still having fun, but I could start to see that he was starting to lose interest. I didn’t understand why he was being like this. Why couldn’t he just be my friend forever? But now in 5th grade, almost reaching middle school, we’ve hung out less and less. Occasionally, when I took him to his favorite places, he would show some light, but it seemed to turn to darkness right after.

When middle school started, things changed for the worse. There were so many people, so many for Joseph to talk to. I have never been the type of person to try and make new friends, but Joseph was. He would never spend more time with them than with me though. But things were different during middle school. He would now reject my invitations to go out and he would never play outside anymore saying he had “too much homework.” But after seeing for myself, I just accepted that he didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. He had already moved on, living his middle school life and leaving me behind. I’ve never felt so down in my life. To this day, I would still reflect on losing my best friend as a learning experience. If this hadn’t happened, I might have not realized that people do change for the better or worse and things can’t always stay the same to your liking.

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Exploitation

Sometimes things can seem fine. Sometimes things can seem a little off. And sometimes, things can seem like you are being taken advantage of. Being taken advantage of can come in different forms—money, friendships, and even sexually. This can make a person feel degraded and lose their sense of humanity.

Emilia was always a nice person, friendly to everybody, and never missed the chance to make a new friend. Her family was also very wealthy and always bought her friends new things. Every day she would go home and see text messages on her phone of her new friends saying how nice she was and how it was great becoming her friend. This made Emilia very happy and she wanted to strive to make even more friends. 

But as she kept making more and more new friends, they kept asking for more gifts. They said this is how she would “show” her appreciation to them and have a stronger relationship with each other. So Emilia would go out every day and buy gifts for her new friends, spending her own allowance for them. Emilia would always see that they were so thankful for the gifts, but she sensed not as much compassion coming back as she gave them. Even though she sensed this a lot while giving them gifts, she would just shrug it off since she had a terrible fear of losing all her friends and being made fun of. But this fear caught up to her.

One day, Emilia got blackmailed into losing all of her friends if she didn’t give ten thousand dollars to the blackmailer in an instant. This confirmed that Emilia was getting taken advantage of for her money only and most of her “friends” weren’t doing it just because they liked her. This put Emilia in a terrible situation, she did have a lot of money, but she decided it was not worth it to keep these fake friends, so her social status fell down the drain. This caused her to be made fun of and bullied throughout the rest of the year.

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Boss fight

We were trapped inside this dungeon. With no way back, all we had to do was fight. The boss room was humongous, with a big dinosaur-looking monster. Go soldiers! The commander said to their squadron. They pulled out their magic swords and used magic abilities to take the boss down, but it didn’t work. They all got thrown back and one of them unfortunately disappeared into thin air.

I didn’t know what to do. Our squad was only three but we were strong. Should I use my special ability? No. I should only use it if things get bad since I don’t want people to know that I have this exclusive ability. Before I could even complete my thought, my teammate Shayla jumped straight in to try to help the other soldiers. But before she could even touch the strong boss, it blew fire and swept her away. Things are getting bad now, I thought. We could all die if things keep going like this. I decided it was time to engage in it. As I went up, it swung and I blocked it with my sword. Its swings were so strong it was taxing me to block each and every hit. But once I got to his body, I slashed it but it wouldn’t cut. His body was hard as steel. Look out! Shayla said, and I had to back off. Right then and there, I decided to use my special ability.

Dual-wielding swords! I said as another sword appeared by my side. This brought my magic ability power up drastically and I charged towards the wicked beast. The next few seconds were a blur. I moved as fast as lightning and dashed towards the neck of the boss and slashed it with both of my swords. With that, the boss disappeared into thin air and we got loot from it. Seconds later, I passed out due to taking a lot of damage all while Shalya was coming over and asking me if I was ok. When I woke up, people were crowding around me and asking, What kind of ability is that!? I’ve never seen it in the ability book! I responded by telling them it just popped up in my book one day and it made me able to dual-wield swords. And with that, we celebrated by going up to the next floor to see what new things were awaiting us.