Pink and Black

A cheerleader and a goth become exaggerated versions of each other through a weird Facebook quiz. Mature.

'Find out what your Friends think about You! Stephanie Madison took this Quiz!'

Amber didn't use Facebook much, but she had an account because everyone did. Her phone had pinged when she got the email notification, which had taken her to Facebook, where she saw the ad for some quiz app. Stephanie, huh?

Amber wiggled her black-nailed thumb over the link, thinking about whether to do it. It couldn't hurt, and to be honest, she was interested in finding out what Stephanie thought of her these days. Back in middle school, they had been tighter friends, but it seemed so much easier to be friends when they were young. They had hung out, played in the yard, done sleepovers; typical little kid friend stuff.

Once they'd gotten to high school, Amber had followed her interests into alternative music, cheesy vampire novels, and finding the darkest clothes her mom would buy her. Stephanie had gone off and gotten all athletic, and by now, in her senior year, she was on the cheerleading team. So it made sense that they didn't hang out a whole lot, but they had been good friends before, so...

Ah, what the hell. Might as well give it a shot.

---

'Find out what your Friends think about You! Amber Lee Knowles took this Quiz!'

Stephanie had assumed the ring from her phone was another update from one of her group chats, but instead it was a message from Amber. Amber? Wow, she had barely even talked to her in years. Maybe she wanted to reconnect during their last year of school together?

The mirror on Stephanie's closet door caught her reflection as she glanced up and fixed her hair, then leaned on her elbows and took a look at Amber's profile. Stephanie herself was pretty close to your standard-issue, small-town cheerleader, with a figure she kept slim through daily gymnastics and cardio, and naturally wheat-blonde hair. There on the screen was Amber's profile photo, trying to look dark and mysterious, with heavy eyeliner, and her straight black hair draped over one eye. Amber's hair was natural, too—she was half-Korean on her mother's side.

Sure, they did look different, but Stephanie did her best to not let looks influence who she was friends with. She and Amber hadn't talked much, but she wasn't going to shun an old friend just cause she was a bit goth now.

Stephanie hit the button and started answering the questions the quiz asked about Amber.

Stacked

The library patrons seem a bit bubbly today, but then so does the librarian on staff. Mature.

Alice's strangest day as a library clerk started when Tiffany walked in. Alice knew her from school, but they had never really met. Tiffany was popular and pretty and blonde—most of the things that Alice wasn't. Seeing Tiffany brought back all of Alice's high-school inadequacies. Alice was mousey and wore glasses and couldn't get her dark brown hair to do anything other than frizz, no matter how much she spent on shampoo.

Alice stowed the fantasy novel she'd been reading behind the desk. She looked up at Tiffany and found herself staring at Tiffany's hair. She had dyed it black, like The-Raven-is-my-favorite-poem black. Alice wasn't one to judge, but Tiffany was the last girl she'd expect to dye her hair. There was a little furrow in Tiffany's brow and she glanced around uncertainly.

"Hi, welcome to the library," Alice said. She seized the opportunity to be the confident one for once. "Anything I can help you find?"

"Um, yeah," Tiffany said. Her voice hid in the back of her mouth. "Do you have books about…ghosts and stuff?"

B-Day

Your sorceress girlfriend has turned you into a girl and left you your choice of gifts. A short text adventure CYOA. Mature.

Click here to play the game. (Runs in-browser.)

The Amazing Talia

A batty hyena magician kidnaps a feline superhero and turns him into her stage assistant. Mature.

As he walked through the lobby of the abandoned Verite Theater, Celsius was stopped by an usher.

"Can I see your ticket?" she asked.

Celsius was caught off guard, but the hyena girl in a red cap and jacket didn’t bat an eye at the ruined posters, or the splintered boards piled up near the concession stand, or the fact that chunks of the theater doors were missing. She didn't even notice that he didn't have a ticket.

"Right this way," she said.

With an arm behind Celsius's back, she swept him forward through the doors and into the ruined theater hall.

Celsius had been combing through unsolved, odd crimes for something to investigate. He had to put work into making a name for himself as a vigilante. 'Little brown cat with ice powers' was not a marketable superhero identity, so it came down to research and legwork. What he'd found was a number of thefts—cellophane, light bulbs, fabrics, a Halloween costume store, video equipment—that all had similar MOs. They'd all involved drivers who'd fallen asleep and had no memory of what happened afterwards.

The thefts were spread out over months; if you weren't looking for connections, you might not have pieced together that someone was stealing supplies for a stage show. And in Empire City, that meant it was time to go digging around in old theaters to figure out who was taking all this stuff, and what their plans were.

"Hey, I've got some questions for…you?" Celsius said. He whirled around, looking behind him, but the usher was gone.

Someone threw the breaker for the lights, and the theater lit up, pouring light down onto the right side of the stage. The whole stage had been repaired and re-finished. It stood out, almost unreal and pristine against the rest of the abandoned theater. The red velvet curtains on the right side ruffled.

"And now, for the very first time," boomed a woman's voice over the speaker system, "the amazing, the mysterious, the lovely, Talia Tsannarova!"

The Curse Deepens

Captured by the Lion Clan, a cursed adventurer struggles to keep his independence. Mature.

The misty forest hung heavy on Circ's whiskers. The droplets of dew weighed each whisker down. The weight of the drops became an unseen hand pushing his head down, telling him to stop, to turn back, or at the very least, to rest. If Circ knew anything about this land, that feeling meant this was the worst possible place to rest.

The young cat pushed on through the mist, clinging to his spear like it would draw him through the woods. His armor creaked softly as he moved, stretching around his slim form. Armor was little help if he was ambushed, though, and he was so slight that only light leather could give him enough mobility to defend himself. His best defense was the small shield buckled to his forearm, followed by the tip of his spear. If anything came at him, the best he could do was put it down quickly before it could get its claws into him.

Minutes crept by and trees emerged from and disappeared into the haze. He had no idea where he was going, but at the very least, he couldn't see any tracks ahead of him, so he wasn't circling around. Every sound of shifting leaves made him turn and squint into the mist. He was almost sure he saw a figure moving or a bit of fleeting motion behind a tree. When he looked again, there was nothing, just the mist playing with his eyes.

The Snowy Gnoll [Illustrated]

Each time a gnoll comes back to Riska's shop, she's been more and more changed by her adventures. Mature.

Riska stood high on her stool, looking over the small pile of treasure dumped onto her counter.

"And none of this is stolen?" she asked. The gnoll girl across the counter from Riska folded her arms across her chest. Riska felt it was a perfectly valid question to ask. When a gnoll in dark leather with more knives than she's got hands to hold them in walks into your pawn shop, you start thinking that maybe this girl is a bandit. It didn't help that she was skinnier than most gnolls, with a wiry frame that her tight armor accentuated.

"No, it's not," the gnoll said. There was a little huff in her voice. She was probably used to being accused of thievery. People didn't have high opinions of gnolls to begin with. Still, Riska thought, she did look like a thief.