Tenth Grade 2017
First Place: Haig Kassarjian, Yerevan
You are watching TV one day and see that your face is on the news. The news anchor is saying your name, and that you are wanted by the police! You're getting very confused when, suddenly, an identical version of you appears in your doorway!
The first thing that crosses my mind is multiverse theory. How the hell are we identical?! Are there infinite universes where a choice creates a new universe? Do universes expire? I always thought there were multiple universes and this “twin” proved my point. Just wait till I tell my physics teacher! Man, is he going to be surprised.
As I ponder in my thoughts, I don’t notice my twin rushing towards me until it’s too late! He punches me with more strength than I would have imagined any version of me would have had. I land 5 meters away, miraculously, with minimal damage sustained. I quickly get up and run to my room, where I have 2 wooden swords stashed under my bed, and throw one of them to my “twin”. He catches it with lightning fast reflexes, eyes glowing red. Is that something that twins from other universes do? Have superhuman strength, their eyes glow red, they wear very fashionable clothes (what, those clothes looked good on me/him). “En guarde!”, I shout, and rush towards him. Being a fan of fencing I had picked up a few skills just by watching duels. (also “The Princess Bride”. Now THAT was some good sword play). We parry and I use the enormous force he is pushing towards me to redirect him and send him flying into the fireplace. He gets up, not even winded. So much for that idea. I decided, “Screw it”, and get some dishwasher powder, open the packets, light them on fire and throw them at him. He was looking at me so confused that of the packets actually hit him, and he falls down, coughing. I grab a swiss army knife and jump on top of him, to try to get him to confess “I don’t want to go to jail, duh, when suddenly a dark aura escapes his body and dissapates into thin air. I swear I heard a demonic voice say “Its not over”. I look at myself/twin, and see he’s waking up, eyes slowly turning golden instead of read. I cautiously get up and help him up. He thanks me and sits down on the sofa. I say, “so, that was a demon. In your body. Possessing you. Not you alone.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I hate those things. They always ruin nice trips.”
“So you know what they are?”.
“Of course. We even have a way of getting rid of them easily. Wait, how did you get rid of this one?”.
“Dishwasher powder packet on fire.”
“Huh. We use a laser on a specific frequency, but that works too.”
Ok, to be honest, I’m freaking out right now. I just battled myself, and now I’m talking to myself about soul-possessing demons. Huh.
We sit quiet for a minute, trying to catch our breath, and then I ask him the million-dollar question: “How did you get here?”. He looks at me and laughs. I stare at him, stone-faced.
He realizes I’m not joking and asks: “You don’t know how to travel through dimensions here?”.
“Before I answer that, please tell me there is a way to make people forget stuff, ‘cuz you and I are wanted by the police.”
“Damn it. I have a prototype, but it needs a really powerful batter supply.”
“No problem.”
I run to my room, dig up an old Nokia with 88% battery still remaining, and give it to him.
“How is –“.
“Trust me, just plug it in.”
He looks at me, confused, but plugs the Nokia into the hand-held machine, and immediately I feel a wave of energy go through the city. “Did it work?”
“It should have. I’m pretty sure it did.”
So I made some tee and we talked for about 3.5 hours, exchanging stories and inventions from our universes. Poor guy didn’t know what a burger was!
When we finished talking, I noticed he was very slowly phasing in and out of existence. Huh. I asked him: “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Oops, forgot to mention, ever since I came here, I’ve had super speed. Cool, huh? Watch this.”. He phases his hand through the table.
There is only one thing I think to ask: “Can I come to your world?”
He sighs, and says: “The police, my police, would have my head. No non-Theta universes allowed. Sorry.”
I feel sad, but there is not much time to pout because an explosion rocks the city, making us fall.
“What the f—“.
The door BLASTS open and in steps: Sam? (Btw, Sam is my closest friend here, so… year. Big surprise). His eyes glow red, and he is levitating a few feet of the ground. I concoct another batch of cleanliness exploders (dishwater powder packets on fire) and launch a volley at him. Coughing, waking up, same routine.
I say “Ok this is too much. Did you blow up something that caused an earthquake?”
“Sorry about that”.
“That’s it. Tell me where you guys entered this universe from, and please be on your way.”
What a surprise. The Fablab at Ayb. A massive pulsing vortex is just behind the Fablab, blue. How did we get there so fast, you ask? These guys can teleport. Also me #2 is super fast. Did I forget to mention that all the universes contain a copy of you, more or less the same? Choices affect personality, but most of the time we are alike. It’s a cool concept to think about. Hey, that could be a cool prompt to write about!
Anyways, back to the vortex ‘n stuff. We come near the vortex, Me #2 and Sam #2 not looking surprised. “This was fun,” I say, “But next time please bring that laser-thingy with you. I think I got whiplash from that first punch.”
“Again, sorry. I don’t think we’ll need it. Those things are very rare nowadays. They rarely possess any one anymore. I guess mutant powers equal a magnet to them. Too bad we lose these powers when we go back.”
We look at the vortex one more time, and I ask: “Can you at least give me a shred of evidence to prove multiverse theory?”
“That is a discovery that you will need to do by yourselves. I will, however five you a coin made from metallic hydrogen, which I believe you haven’t found how to make yet, and this orb is a new element that gives off 100% more energy than any other supply you can get energy from, and it does no harm to the environment.”
“Thank you. Really. I thought I was going to have to go too far to finish this, but you guys were awesome. Hold on, one more thing. Teleport to Cascade, will you?”. They have there first burger ever from Wine Republic, and I give them a basic recipe to make a burger. We shake hands in front of the vortex, and they step into it. It closes, and underneath where it was situated, a strange-looking machine is still whirring. I pick it up, and immediately a storm gathers around Ayb . I try to run for cover, but lightning strikes me, and the machine and I fuse together.
Then my heart stops.
And everything goes black.
“The End.”
Btw, be sure to pick up part two of this story, “Lightning never strikes twice.”
Spoiler: I live!
(Don’t actually. Just had to say that. I still live, wouldn’t be a cool story if I didn’t, ‘cuz I’m awesome.)
Second Place: Arpi Khachatryan, Yerevan
You are camping with your friends in the forest. You all have backpacks and two tents. When night falls, you light a fire and you get into a tent with three of your friends. As you are about to fall asleep, an enormous shadow passes your tent. You get very scared and wake your friends up. Suddenly, there is a loud scream.
We went out. At first, there was nothing strange. It was so quiet that we could hear the song of the stars. Littles pieces of fire were dancing with the darkness and soon became one with him. “There’s nothing here, maybe you heard something in your dream,” said one of my friends. “Yes, let’s go back into tent,” said another. And everyone went in, except me. I was sure I had heard something. And I wasn’t false.
A big blue thought was standing in front of me. I recognized him. The thought was alone and that scream was his disappointment. “Hello”, said I. “Hello”, answered he and disappeared, leaving me to guess everything.
I went into the tent, but couldn’t sleep, and decided to have a walk. A happy autumn breeze was blowing in the forest. Nude trees, like giants who protect the forest, were surrounding me. They made me remember something that was burried inside of me for a long time. It was four years ago, the year when I first met the Blue Thought. He was sitting on a giant tree like this one. But no. It wasn’t giant. That tree was weak and tired, and rising his hands to the sky, wanted to say something, but couldn’t. On him was a small lamp, the light of which had attracted the Thought. And under that tree, there was standing a red box for rubbish. People often threw there other blue thoughts. Some didn’t understand them, some were afraid of them and some, by growing up, couldn’t see them anymore.
As the tree used to say, that box was a funeral of blue thoughts. And this one was sitting on a branch and waiting, until someone found him. There went I with my two little cousins. I had taken them from kindergarden and promised my sister (their mother) to play with them until she come and take them. Blue Thought was interested and followed us. As we reached home, we took sandwiches and went to the living room. And the play began. We connected some chairs and made a pirate ship. I was the captain. We had to go to some new undiscovered worlds, fight against other nations and conquer some gold. I had made a map of an island and my toys were our slaves. The Blue Thought was playing with us and, as the waves of the sea rose against our ship, he was protecting us. He had become the soul of everything, though we didn’t see him. At the end of the day I cut the map and gave to my cousins, so that next time we can continue.
But, few days later, my sister called and asked something. She said that because of that game, her children couldn’t differ reality from imagination. “But it is the way it is aught to be. They are just kids and how they are newly meeting their imagination”, though I, but remained silent.
The next day, when taking my cousins from kindergarden, I suddenly stopped and said: “There are no undiscovered new world, there are no adventures. It all was just a game, just a tale. Nothing is here. Nothing is real.” I bight my lip and hardly didn’t teared. Like a piece of my soul died that moment. But not only something else died too. A blue thing was lying in the red box under the tree. It was like the Blue Thought. And now it was him too or not. Maybe he had survived, or maybe it was another thought who came to our tent. I don’t know. But that thing certainly reminded me of himself, of the sea of imagination inside me. After the walk I went back into the tent. My friends were sleeping. They knew nothing. It was quite. As quite, that I could see the dance of the little pieces of fire who became one with the darkness. And soon I fell asleep under the song of the stars and kept in mind the picture I was going to draw the next morning.
Third Place: Gohar Hovhannisyan, Nor Hachn
You are watching TV one day and see that your face is on the news. The news anchor is saying your name, and that you are wanted by the police! You're getting very confused when, suddenly, an identical version of you appears in your doorway!
I was at my house just faffing about. The TV was on but I wasn’t really paying attention until I heard my name. I looked up and I saw myself on the TV. I hated it but I was interested in why they were showing me. Soon I relised that it was a police report. And at that very second the doorbell went so I got up and opened the door to see “myself”.
I was shocked even more. I swiched off for a while then I heard a voice calling my name. I swiched back on and started asking a lot of questions, as you would in this situation. She started off saying that she is my “twin”. That indeed interested me. I welcomed her, we sat on the couch and started to talk. She was surprisingly nice. She told me that she didn’t remember a thing from the story that the police are telling. That interested me even more. She said that she would never hurt anyone, let alone kill them. We talked a bit but it was hard because she just didn’t remember doing any of these things. It was late so we said goodbye to each other but we were to meet the day after.
It was the next day. I went to the café in which we were supposed to meet. I waited there for half an hour but she didn’t show up. I decided to call her. She picked up but not only she forgot that she had plans but she didn’t even remember me. That was even more confusing. So I started to think about this. At first I thought it was a joke. But then I thought of a disease called DID. It’s a state of mind when there can be more than one person living in someone’s body. It’s a really horribly metall illness. I wasn’t sure though so I asked to take her to a therapist.
Weeks passed and her session were over. I talked to the therapist and she said that I was right. There were 2 people living in her. (By the way, her name was Sarah). One of them was a really nice firl that wouldn’t hurt any one. But, ooh, the other one was a homicidal sociopath. It was the 2nd one that killed so many people and that’s why she didn’t remember any of it. The therapist also told me that her way of killing people wasn’t what you’d call “normal”. She kills them by torturing them to death. But the worst part is that she enjoys every moment of it, every tear, every scream.
As you may see it was pretty dangerous for her to be out in the public. Unfortunately they had to take her to a mentall hospital. I visit her every week because I enjoy the nice and bubbly part of her. It’s really a pity that she has to be trapped inside that building but that better for everyone. I hope one day she will recover and we can be real twins.
You are watching TV one day and see that your face is on the news. The news anchor is saying your name, and that you are wanted by the police! You're getting very confused when, suddenly, an identical version of you appears in your doorway!
The first thing that crosses my mind is multiverse theory. How the hell are we identical?! Are there infinite universes where a choice creates a new universe? Do universes expire? I always thought there were multiple universes and this “twin” proved my point. Just wait till I tell my physics teacher! Man, is he going to be surprised.
As I ponder in my thoughts, I don’t notice my twin rushing towards me until it’s too late! He punches me with more strength than I would have imagined any version of me would have had. I land 5 meters away, miraculously, with minimal damage sustained. I quickly get up and run to my room, where I have 2 wooden swords stashed under my bed, and throw one of them to my “twin”. He catches it with lightning fast reflexes, eyes glowing red. Is that something that twins from other universes do? Have superhuman strength, their eyes glow red, they wear very fashionable clothes (what, those clothes looked good on me/him). “En guarde!”, I shout, and rush towards him. Being a fan of fencing I had picked up a few skills just by watching duels. (also “The Princess Bride”. Now THAT was some good sword play). We parry and I use the enormous force he is pushing towards me to redirect him and send him flying into the fireplace. He gets up, not even winded. So much for that idea. I decided, “Screw it”, and get some dishwasher powder, open the packets, light them on fire and throw them at him. He was looking at me so confused that of the packets actually hit him, and he falls down, coughing. I grab a swiss army knife and jump on top of him, to try to get him to confess “I don’t want to go to jail, duh, when suddenly a dark aura escapes his body and dissapates into thin air. I swear I heard a demonic voice say “Its not over”. I look at myself/twin, and see he’s waking up, eyes slowly turning golden instead of read. I cautiously get up and help him up. He thanks me and sits down on the sofa. I say, “so, that was a demon. In your body. Possessing you. Not you alone.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I hate those things. They always ruin nice trips.”
“So you know what they are?”.
“Of course. We even have a way of getting rid of them easily. Wait, how did you get rid of this one?”.
“Dishwasher powder packet on fire.”
“Huh. We use a laser on a specific frequency, but that works too.”
Ok, to be honest, I’m freaking out right now. I just battled myself, and now I’m talking to myself about soul-possessing demons. Huh.
We sit quiet for a minute, trying to catch our breath, and then I ask him the million-dollar question: “How did you get here?”. He looks at me and laughs. I stare at him, stone-faced.
He realizes I’m not joking and asks: “You don’t know how to travel through dimensions here?”.
“Before I answer that, please tell me there is a way to make people forget stuff, ‘cuz you and I are wanted by the police.”
“Damn it. I have a prototype, but it needs a really powerful batter supply.”
“No problem.”
I run to my room, dig up an old Nokia with 88% battery still remaining, and give it to him.
“How is –“.
“Trust me, just plug it in.”
He looks at me, confused, but plugs the Nokia into the hand-held machine, and immediately I feel a wave of energy go through the city. “Did it work?”
“It should have. I’m pretty sure it did.”
So I made some tee and we talked for about 3.5 hours, exchanging stories and inventions from our universes. Poor guy didn’t know what a burger was!
When we finished talking, I noticed he was very slowly phasing in and out of existence. Huh. I asked him: “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Oops, forgot to mention, ever since I came here, I’ve had super speed. Cool, huh? Watch this.”. He phases his hand through the table.
There is only one thing I think to ask: “Can I come to your world?”
He sighs, and says: “The police, my police, would have my head. No non-Theta universes allowed. Sorry.”
I feel sad, but there is not much time to pout because an explosion rocks the city, making us fall.
“What the f—“.
The door BLASTS open and in steps: Sam? (Btw, Sam is my closest friend here, so… year. Big surprise). His eyes glow red, and he is levitating a few feet of the ground. I concoct another batch of cleanliness exploders (dishwater powder packets on fire) and launch a volley at him. Coughing, waking up, same routine.
I say “Ok this is too much. Did you blow up something that caused an earthquake?”
“Sorry about that”.
“That’s it. Tell me where you guys entered this universe from, and please be on your way.”
What a surprise. The Fablab at Ayb. A massive pulsing vortex is just behind the Fablab, blue. How did we get there so fast, you ask? These guys can teleport. Also me #2 is super fast. Did I forget to mention that all the universes contain a copy of you, more or less the same? Choices affect personality, but most of the time we are alike. It’s a cool concept to think about. Hey, that could be a cool prompt to write about!
Anyways, back to the vortex ‘n stuff. We come near the vortex, Me #2 and Sam #2 not looking surprised. “This was fun,” I say, “But next time please bring that laser-thingy with you. I think I got whiplash from that first punch.”
“Again, sorry. I don’t think we’ll need it. Those things are very rare nowadays. They rarely possess any one anymore. I guess mutant powers equal a magnet to them. Too bad we lose these powers when we go back.”
We look at the vortex one more time, and I ask: “Can you at least give me a shred of evidence to prove multiverse theory?”
“That is a discovery that you will need to do by yourselves. I will, however five you a coin made from metallic hydrogen, which I believe you haven’t found how to make yet, and this orb is a new element that gives off 100% more energy than any other supply you can get energy from, and it does no harm to the environment.”
“Thank you. Really. I thought I was going to have to go too far to finish this, but you guys were awesome. Hold on, one more thing. Teleport to Cascade, will you?”. They have there first burger ever from Wine Republic, and I give them a basic recipe to make a burger. We shake hands in front of the vortex, and they step into it. It closes, and underneath where it was situated, a strange-looking machine is still whirring. I pick it up, and immediately a storm gathers around Ayb . I try to run for cover, but lightning strikes me, and the machine and I fuse together.
Then my heart stops.
And everything goes black.
“The End.”
Btw, be sure to pick up part two of this story, “Lightning never strikes twice.”
Spoiler: I live!
(Don’t actually. Just had to say that. I still live, wouldn’t be a cool story if I didn’t, ‘cuz I’m awesome.)
Second Place: Arpi Khachatryan, Yerevan
You are camping with your friends in the forest. You all have backpacks and two tents. When night falls, you light a fire and you get into a tent with three of your friends. As you are about to fall asleep, an enormous shadow passes your tent. You get very scared and wake your friends up. Suddenly, there is a loud scream.
We went out. At first, there was nothing strange. It was so quiet that we could hear the song of the stars. Littles pieces of fire were dancing with the darkness and soon became one with him. “There’s nothing here, maybe you heard something in your dream,” said one of my friends. “Yes, let’s go back into tent,” said another. And everyone went in, except me. I was sure I had heard something. And I wasn’t false.
A big blue thought was standing in front of me. I recognized him. The thought was alone and that scream was his disappointment. “Hello”, said I. “Hello”, answered he and disappeared, leaving me to guess everything.
I went into the tent, but couldn’t sleep, and decided to have a walk. A happy autumn breeze was blowing in the forest. Nude trees, like giants who protect the forest, were surrounding me. They made me remember something that was burried inside of me for a long time. It was four years ago, the year when I first met the Blue Thought. He was sitting on a giant tree like this one. But no. It wasn’t giant. That tree was weak and tired, and rising his hands to the sky, wanted to say something, but couldn’t. On him was a small lamp, the light of which had attracted the Thought. And under that tree, there was standing a red box for rubbish. People often threw there other blue thoughts. Some didn’t understand them, some were afraid of them and some, by growing up, couldn’t see them anymore.
As the tree used to say, that box was a funeral of blue thoughts. And this one was sitting on a branch and waiting, until someone found him. There went I with my two little cousins. I had taken them from kindergarden and promised my sister (their mother) to play with them until she come and take them. Blue Thought was interested and followed us. As we reached home, we took sandwiches and went to the living room. And the play began. We connected some chairs and made a pirate ship. I was the captain. We had to go to some new undiscovered worlds, fight against other nations and conquer some gold. I had made a map of an island and my toys were our slaves. The Blue Thought was playing with us and, as the waves of the sea rose against our ship, he was protecting us. He had become the soul of everything, though we didn’t see him. At the end of the day I cut the map and gave to my cousins, so that next time we can continue.
But, few days later, my sister called and asked something. She said that because of that game, her children couldn’t differ reality from imagination. “But it is the way it is aught to be. They are just kids and how they are newly meeting their imagination”, though I, but remained silent.
The next day, when taking my cousins from kindergarden, I suddenly stopped and said: “There are no undiscovered new world, there are no adventures. It all was just a game, just a tale. Nothing is here. Nothing is real.” I bight my lip and hardly didn’t teared. Like a piece of my soul died that moment. But not only something else died too. A blue thing was lying in the red box under the tree. It was like the Blue Thought. And now it was him too or not. Maybe he had survived, or maybe it was another thought who came to our tent. I don’t know. But that thing certainly reminded me of himself, of the sea of imagination inside me. After the walk I went back into the tent. My friends were sleeping. They knew nothing. It was quite. As quite, that I could see the dance of the little pieces of fire who became one with the darkness. And soon I fell asleep under the song of the stars and kept in mind the picture I was going to draw the next morning.
Third Place: Gohar Hovhannisyan, Nor Hachn
You are watching TV one day and see that your face is on the news. The news anchor is saying your name, and that you are wanted by the police! You're getting very confused when, suddenly, an identical version of you appears in your doorway!
I was at my house just faffing about. The TV was on but I wasn’t really paying attention until I heard my name. I looked up and I saw myself on the TV. I hated it but I was interested in why they were showing me. Soon I relised that it was a police report. And at that very second the doorbell went so I got up and opened the door to see “myself”.
I was shocked even more. I swiched off for a while then I heard a voice calling my name. I swiched back on and started asking a lot of questions, as you would in this situation. She started off saying that she is my “twin”. That indeed interested me. I welcomed her, we sat on the couch and started to talk. She was surprisingly nice. She told me that she didn’t remember a thing from the story that the police are telling. That interested me even more. She said that she would never hurt anyone, let alone kill them. We talked a bit but it was hard because she just didn’t remember doing any of these things. It was late so we said goodbye to each other but we were to meet the day after.
It was the next day. I went to the café in which we were supposed to meet. I waited there for half an hour but she didn’t show up. I decided to call her. She picked up but not only she forgot that she had plans but she didn’t even remember me. That was even more confusing. So I started to think about this. At first I thought it was a joke. But then I thought of a disease called DID. It’s a state of mind when there can be more than one person living in someone’s body. It’s a really horribly metall illness. I wasn’t sure though so I asked to take her to a therapist.
Weeks passed and her session were over. I talked to the therapist and she said that I was right. There were 2 people living in her. (By the way, her name was Sarah). One of them was a really nice firl that wouldn’t hurt any one. But, ooh, the other one was a homicidal sociopath. It was the 2nd one that killed so many people and that’s why she didn’t remember any of it. The therapist also told me that her way of killing people wasn’t what you’d call “normal”. She kills them by torturing them to death. But the worst part is that she enjoys every moment of it, every tear, every scream.
As you may see it was pretty dangerous for her to be out in the public. Unfortunately they had to take her to a mentall hospital. I visit her every week because I enjoy the nice and bubbly part of her. It’s really a pity that she has to be trapped inside that building but that better for everyone. I hope one day she will recover and we can be real twins.