GreatnessKakaako Graffiti Aritst

Photo Taken by Ms. Davis

Welcome to this Zine...

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Table of Contents

Greatness By: Anonymous...............1Run By: Kate Uesugi............................2

Monster on the Wall By: Fiona Rutgers...3Walk Alone By: Zakeyah Broadwater..4

Dead Girl By: Kelsi...........................5Blood By: Carly Button.......................7

Kidnapped By: Sarah Li..........................8Slender By: Carly Button......................9

Don’t Blink By: Raiana Ferrer.........10Don’t Be Afraid By: Kate Uesugi.......11

The Photographer By: Zoey Araki........12Let’s Play a Game By: Raiana Ferrer.14

Roach By: Ms. Davis.....................15Biography By: Fiona Rutgers....17

Capture By: Vivian Bentley.....17

Run Kate Uesugi

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Monster on the WallFiona Rutgers

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Walk AloneZakeyah Broadwater

It’s scary how many people you have pushed out of your life that losing yourself now seems like the death of you. It never started out this way though. It wasn’t you. It was the yelling and screaming of her parents.It was the little girl lied to by her father that everything was going to be okay. It was the short days and long nights filled with loneliness and not knowing.It is not nightfall that brings out all evil,It is the moment when we think that the light will stop anything. We are dumb to the fact that evil will stop at nothing. Fighting in your jeans, running away from the sun. Cause the only fear of night time that scares you,Is the moment when sun rises above the horizon.And the real monsters are releasedOne by oneExiting their big fancy homes, like its routine. Money isn’t everything.Didn’t they know that? Practice what you preach, cause what goes around comes around. For what you are put through, you do not deserve.You are merely in the middle of a battle field, you had not intended to be on. But it’s not your fault.You were not planned to be there. You walked away from the crowd to make your own path.In the events of not knowing where you were headed.You had found yourself surrounded by beauty. To create a new life.Not knowing you fell in the same footsteps as that little girl.The little girl we will never see again.It’s not your fault though.For her life was not long lived, but it goes on forever.It wasn’t you. You can not run from your fears.You can not hide nor act like they are not there.You can not act like you have no fears.You can not act like there is not a worst situation.You can not cry though.You must have control. Cause if you don’t. fear will take over your lifeand then we will lose you like we lost that little girl .

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Dead Girl By Kelsi

We find the dead girl about a half mile into the forest. It’s Ruth, her broken body ravaged almost beyond recognition with decay, but the star tattoo on her neck stands out brightly still against her pale, shredded skin. I sink to my knees in the dirt while Megan retches beside me. I can feel the earth through the rip in my jeans, and my arms hang lifelessly, fingers brushing the leaves. I can’t fathom how Ruth came to be here, in the middle of these woods, no longer the happy, shining girl you’d glimpse at in the hallways and think, that’s who I aspire to be, in another life. Ruth was the girl who was truly remarkable, and yet here she was, dead as the rest of us when the light finally decides to leave. “Hannah, please, let’s go,” Megan says. I don’t say anything. I’m still staring at the wrecked body of the girl I was sure was an entity that could never be brought so far back down to earth as to lie shattered here, deteriorating along with the fallen autumn leaves. “Hannah,” Megan pleads again, and it almost brings me back to my senses. Megan puts her hand on my shoulder; I’m disgusted for a moment, because I’m pretty sure she just wiped her mouth with that hand after throwing up in the bushes. “Hannah,” Megan says, but a serious edge has crept into her voice that makes me look up into her face, confused. She’s not looking at me. She’s staring out towards the direction we came from, where there are four flashlight beams bobbing around, searching the trees. The high pitched ringing in my ears dulls enough for me to register sirens and barking dogs coming from the distance. We both take opposite directions at once and start running. Fear keeps me going for a while. After a couple of miles I figure I’ve lost them. I slow down, panting, sweat beading on my forehead despite the chill in the air. I’m near the river now, and there’s no way they would have chased me this far. It takes me a while to catch my breath, and I walk towards the river. It’s quiet, so quiet here, and my ragged breathing sounds like an insult to the serene peace that should occupy this part of the woods. It’s a little less dark here, with the moonlight reflecting off the river, making the rushing water glow just slightly. I make it to the edge, looking into the rapids and wondering just how long I’ll have to wait in this forest before it’s safe to go out and how long it’s going to take me to get home anyway and

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my mom will kill me for being out this late and then suddenly someone grabs me from behind. I scream, but the sound is lost in the trees, no one is around to hear me anyway. My assailant leans in to whisper in my ear, “You little bitch, you shouldn’t go sticking your nose into places it doesn’t belong.” And then he pushes me. There’s the strange sensation of falling in slow motion as I twist around, flailing my arms, trying to do anything to regain my balance but of course it won’t work. I look up through the break in the trees, the glow of the moon and the stars dusted across the night sky, before I fall into the water and reflex makes me shut my eyes to the world. The water is ice cold and stings like needles. The current immediately whisks me away, fast as it can. I kick my legs, fighting to get above water. My head breaks the surface for just a moment, and I take in a breath that’s half air and half dirty river water, and I choke as I go under again. I fight for the surface again, kicking and flailing my arms, but pretty soon my hands aren’t slapping against the surface of the water, but waving around in the water in front of me, completely submerged. I know it’s futile when my head finds contact with the rocky bottom. There’s so much pain in death that people don’t even know about: the drowning, which is horrifying in it’s own, being beaten into submission by the current, the pressure of thousands of gallons of water holding me down, the feeling of fire in my lungs from a lack of oxygen that sharply contrasts from the cold surrounding me that’s penetrated into my bones and turned my blood to ice--no, that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is the terror. The panic. The feeling of I can’t hold on. I’m going to die. I don’t want to die, I’m only seventeen and I have my whole life ahead of me. But that’s been taken from me, washed away with the current of the river. My chest heaves, trying to take in something, anything, but my lips are pressed firmly together. My whole body convulses. My lungs are straining, dying. I’m fighting, fighting for anything, as fear wells up inside of me. Hot pricks of water leave the corners of my eyes, immediately washed away by the river. I want to scream, I want to do something. I’m scared, I’m so scared, and I’m going to die but I don’t want to please don’t let me die oh god please no-- And then it’s all too much, and I open my mouth. The dying doesn’t happen immediately. There’s searing pain, everywhere, as my lungs push water in and out of my body for a couple of breaths, and then I’m gone.

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BloodCarly Button

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KidnappedSarah Li

The prickly sensation starts at my feet then slowly moves upward toward my chest. I yell out in pain, but no sound comes out. My throat feels suspiciously dry and I’m dehydrated. No one can hear me. I’m trapped. Where am I? I thought to myself. As the throbbing lessens, I squirm around. My arms and limbs feel tight as I try to spread them out with all my strength. With my fingers, I search for some sort of opening. Lines dented in and a sort of roughness comes into sensation. I’m in a box, I deduce. Darkness surrounds my body and I begin to question whether my eyes are closed shut or open with the absence of light. I vow to remain calm. Recollecting my thoughts, I stay calm and try to trace back my actions just a few hours ago. Tears trickle down from my eyes as I try really hard to remember. My lids slowly droop to the point of closing and a bright light appears in my imagination. The start of the flashback in my head hits hard as if I’m reliving the past that happened moments ago. My eyes open up in the trance as rays of light from the sun hit my face. I am back at the front yard of my house at this moment and my little sister is whispering my name from inside the house. “Christopher, come look. There’s a man outside. He keeps staring at me.”I walk cautiously into the house and my sister is standing suspiciously under the win-dowsill in the kitchen. She bobs her small naive body up and down to peek outside at the supposed man. “Back away from there, Kyra. Strangers are dangerous,” I warn her. “But he keeps looking inside our house. I saw him yesterday too!” Her face scrunches with frustration. “Let me see,” I say as I push her away from the window. I stare right out the window, searching for the mysterious man. He’s not there. Turning around, I comfort Kyra, pointing out to the empty street. “But he’s always looking—never mind—you don’t believe me,” She shakes her head and trudges to her room. Why does she care? There’s no one out there, I think to myself. Or that’s what I make myself believe. I walk towards the living room in efforts to brush the problem off. I glance back at the window in reassurance. This time, there’s a person actually there. The man turns his head suddenly to-wards the window and stares hard back at me. The eeriness of his appearance makes the hairs of the back of my neck stand. It’s as if a sixth sense was telling me that something awful was going to happen. In terror, I turn away; I cautiously walk to-wards the living room. Every time I look back, it’s as if he gets closer and closer to the window. Immediately, I run towards my sister’s room. The most horrible feeling is running through my blood: terror. The image of his face stays permanently running through my mind.

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The SlenderCarly Button

Slender man comes closer to me, his long arms trailing behind him on the floor. He had to bend over to fit his gargantuan body into my small room. I wait for the pain of death to come. As he looms over me, I shiver with regret as I see my life flash before my eyes. He picks up his long, grotesque arm and I wait for it to end. As I wake up, I don’t know what to think. Why is the slender now haunting me in my dreams? I brush it off as just a silly dream, and walk into my bathroom. What I saw made my entire body shiver. I was so beautiful, my long brown hair was curled to perfection; with every single curl looking like it took hours. My face was literally flawless. My blue eyes shone in the faint light. I had no acne, nothing. Lips, thick and luscious, they complement-ed my face in the most perfect way. In one word, I was completely and utterly beautiful. My thoughts were broken by the voice of my mother screaming “BREAKFAST!!!!” I watched, in utter horror, as my features changed. My striking hair shriveled up and fell on the floor, in clumps. My beautiful eyes changed color to a blind grey. The lips that I had fallen in love with, shrunk and desiccated into a thin, disgusting pair of frightening look-ing lips. I just watched as my beautiful figure and face that I had loved in such a short time turned into this horrifying monster. Shaking, I walked outside of my room, prepared to show my mother this disgusting creature I had become. “Pancakes! Hurry up sweetie!” I heard mother yell again. As I timidly walked out of the room, I screamed. My scream wasn’t that of a beautiful girl, but of an old ugly maid, for that’s what I was. Slender man, there he was, staring at me. I could feel the smile dancing across his non-existent lips. “Breakfast!” Were the last words I ever heard before I was swallowed into the blackness.

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Don’t BlinkRaiana

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Don’t Be AfraidKate Uesugi

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The Photographer

Zoey Araki

One hand full, I carefully grab my wallet from my back pocket with the other, balancing the rolls of film now laying in the crevice of my elbow. Oh, the burdens of being a photographer. As I draw out wrinkled bills, I’m suddenly caught up in a memory. I recollect the day I met her. Both of us weren’t at all aware of the blind date we were being set up on that night, and to be com-pletely honest, I wasn’t looking forward to it the moment I was informed it was happening. A new relation-ship wasn’t necessarily at the top of my priorities list at the time. I didn’t pull out her chair for her or offer to pay for the meal. Classy? No. Did I care? Definitely not. Conversation also went about as awful as I’d expected. “So uh, what was your name again?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but in an attempt to break the miserable silence. “I’m Jessica,” she replied. And boom. Right at that moment, I knew she was someone that I would never learn to love in my entire life. The date ended in more bland small talk and an exchange of phone numbers, confident that I would never see Jessica ever again and sure that she felt the same about me. About a week later, I received a phone call. “Now take me out on a real date.” To my surprise, I did, and we actually had a decent time in each other’s company. She even compli-mented my shirt, even though I knew my minimal fashion sense was clearly verified in the checkerboard pat-tern and collar. Another date followed and I began to contemplate my feelings for Jessica. All I really knew for sure was that it felt nice to be wanted. Amazingly, we continued to keep in contact and I guess you could say that we grew to love each other. It’s been two years of a solid marriage. I put up with her and she puts up with me, and then there’s the occasional joke about the Yankees that gets us both to laugh. But there is a feeling that I can’t seem to shake any longer. It’s become overwhelming; I can’t think straight.

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My mind drifts to the day that changed my life forever: the day I met Sally. Jessica actually intro-duced us to each other, and in that very instant, I knew she was special. She poised herself in a way that I hadn’t seen any other woman carry herself before. Her emerald green eyes, full of wonder and curiosity, struck me in my path. And her voice, gentle and serene, sung sweet melodies of eternal passion to my ears. Time and time again, I’ve tried to stop myself from thinking about her like that, but I’m done being afraid. it’s terribly selfish of me, I know. What if Sally is the one person I’m destined to be with for the rest of my life? There isn’t a fiber of my being that doubts she is. Jessica will always reserve a special place in my heart, but Sally makes me feel like I’m on fire. Her presence alone casts cyclones of bliss in my mind. I’ve never felt this way about anyone ever before. I crave her; I need to have her. I’m never able to spend any real time alone with Sally, but I don’t let that stop me. Only a snapshot away, I capture her life, often pondering what it would look like with me in it. I pay the cashier and hurry home. I dash into the black room and restock my supply. As I rummage through fresh photographs in a drawer, I relish over the memory that makes each passing day a little more bearable--quite possibly the greatest moment of my life. Her soft, angelic whisper in my ear,

“You’re the best step dad in the world.”

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Let’s Play a Game Raiana Ferrer

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Roach

Ms. Davis

She put her mouth guard in the glass of water beside her bed, next to the ear plugs and a bunch of sardines which attracted a lot of roaches. Last night a roach had crawled into her right ear during the night, seeking shelter, or food, or a place to rub his furry little legs on something warm, thereby distributing hundreds of little roach eggs along the inner hair lining. Tanya had called her mother in California, pressed the cell phone to her left ear, and described the sensation. “I can hear it moving around. It’s almost squeaking.” “Pour some hydrogen peroxide in your ear,” suggested her mother who was raised on a sheep farm in Idaho and was enthusiastic about any remedies that avoid-ed an expensive trip to the doctor. “Maybe it will crawl right out.” Tanya envisioned two antennas, as long as staple removers, scampering out of the cavity of her ear, running towards the light, bursting into the warm Hawaiian room and out of her for-ever. “I don’t know, that might burn my inner ear…its sensitive.” After hanging up the phone, Tanya listened to the squeaking and considered her options. Although the tickling sensation was unpleasant, after working for a de-cade as an oceanographer Tanya knew how well parasites can befriend their hosts. The relationship can often be profitable for both parties. For example the Remora suckerfish which sticks to Blue whales with its suction-like mouth, cleans barnacles off its host while catching a free ride around the ocean. The tape worm too, that land-locked dweller that survives in feces and intestines, has journeyed with humans through history. To repay the host for the food and lodging, the tape worm’s pres-ence distracts the increasingly hyper-active human immune system so that it doesn’t attack its self and cause allergies. Tape worms preventing allergies! How awesome is that! “Maybe there is a benefit to having a roach in your ear,” Tanya mused to herself. She decided to wait a week and find out. Would he survive in there? Would she reap unseen advantages? By catching other roaches living around her garbage can, Tanya was able to run a few scientific tests. A roach, placed in a microwave, will not die, even after

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being microwave on “high” for 5 minutes. A roach placed in soapy water for a day while she went to work at the docks, confirming the numbers of Ahi in the holds of incoming fisherman, will not drown. Roaches can swim for as long as needed, as long as they have something to eat, and they can survive on dust mites, floating on the surface of the water. As the phrase goes, a roach will survive a nuclear holo-caust. Tanya realized that if she did nothing the roach would probably continue to live in her ear for the rest of her life. It had already become difficult to hear some of the boat captains over the long wave radios at work. She began to imagine how the soft whispering would accompany her as she walked down the aisle to marry her future husband. By this time they would have developed a relationship, her and her roach, and he might be doling out life advice like a trusty friend. “One foot in front of the other, easy does it…don’t trip on this long dress. Are you sure you want to marry a guy who plays World of War craft?” Or it could help her while lecturing at the oceanography department, suggesting additions to her notes. “Don’t forget to mention the PH level-- that is a good piece of evidence.” Even having these thoughts caused Tanya to realize that she had spent every night that week at home, reading Oceanography Magazine and eating potato chips right out of the bag. She needed to spend less time listening to her roach and more time interacting with people. She needed to call a friend and leave the house. With newfound resolve Tanya walked into the bathroom of her small apart-ment in Manoa valley and found the bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Unscrewing the cap, she tipped her head left to her shoulder and poured the cold liquid into her right ear. The roach, stirred to move by the cold bath, left the safety of the ear cavity, pattered lightly down her right cheek and walked straight into her mouth.

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About the Author

Vivian Bentley is a swirling vortex of creativity and excitement, brimming at the seams with master plots for world domination. She is a master swordswoman and dedicated delivery girl for the yellow pages. Her family connections as a Mafioso have given her a sharpened taste for delicious Italian foods. While she waits for the perfect time to strike against her enemies, she crochets and hides her secret life as an 80 year old time traveler. She hates little children, drinks orphan tears (most of which she orphaned herself) and grinds up puppy bones to keep herself young. Vivian is considered a fun-loving human being, and the writer of this biography found it hard not to laugh when she was being given answers to the various details of Vivian’s life. Long live Vivian Bentley, the ultimate master of the cosmos!

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