i just found this old book i began writing, and it was a mini book with a spin off about the character i wrote into TDCT ophelia !! i began writing it because it saw a tiktok saying "lol i shifted and made snape do the wap" and it made me laugh so hard i wanted to write it. i never published it because i knew it was a bit too silly, but i'll post the scraps here because i found writing it so fun lol, sorry for the second hand embarrassment ur gonna get...
OPHELIA WAS EXHAUSTED. It begun this morning when she had refused to get out of bed for approximately seven minutes before surrendering to the repetitive chime of her rusty, barely-working alarm clock. It continued throughout the day when she had caught her chin slipping out of her palm ever so often during her maths class when she began to doze off, thus forming a cycle of falling in and out of consciousness.
She had slept, all night in fact; she found herself tired more in the mental sense, and it seemed to cause physical exhaustion as a side-effect. Ophelia spent all of her time lately studying, working, doing anything to fill the empty void she had found in her life due to the gaping misfortune of living on earth.
In her defence, everyone lives on earth, however those of which she wishes to be with live in another reality, one which she is unable to access with a flight or a bus from across town. Perhaps then she'd be able to stay awake during the day.
At least in a world like that, things may be different for Ophelia, and she had always thought about it. In first period, homeroom, she thought about how far she would make it in the Hunger Games, though she ultimately decided she'd likely die of something silly, like starvation or an animal attack. She was definitely no Katniss.
In second period, Ophelia's mind was occupied with what Divergent faction she'd be in, and she almost convinced herself that she was a Dauntless until the Buzzfeed quiz had told her she was likely to be factionless. Her ego definitely took a blow from that one.
It went on all day, including what job she thought she might get in the Maze Runner, and what daughter she may be the heir of in Percy Jackson. She almost wished she would close her eyes and wake up in another reality, one where she had to be brave, or one where she would have a wand and go to school with various British kids.
It never seemed to happen, though, and Ophelia found herself far more interested in counting every individual piece of dust and lint which was littered across the desk in which she sat, occasionally letting a sharp gust of air blow through her hardly-pursed lips in order to send it floating away from her. The day dragged on in a similar manner after her first few classes, and Ophelia seemed to feel as though she were a background character in her own life.
If I were in Harry Potter, I'd definitely be...Seamus, or something. Someone mildly entertaining, but nothing past surface-level, just sort of there.
Not that she was in Harry Potter, of course, though she had relentlessly tried to shift there every night solely for Draco and Neville, however much she'd deny it if Lacey asked her. She'd definitely say it was for Harry or Cedric.
"...You know, maybe the Harry Potter universe just isn't made for you?" Lacey adjusted her books as she walked alongside Ophelia towards the lunch hall after the bell had rung for half-time, or lunch as they'd refer to it as.
"Or maybe shifting is just a big joke, and everyone is making it up. It seems way more logical that everyone is just lying to me an-" Ophelia's wild ranting contained nothing but traces of doubt and insecurity, and seemed to be interrupted by her best friend laughing.
"It's real, I swear-.." Lacey paused briefly, a quiet giggle escaping past her lips which were coated with a faded, nude, matte lipstick which complimented her dark skin perfectly, highlighting her features in a way that made her lips look more plump than Ophelia's could be.
"I went to Paris with the twins, I wouldn't lie about that."
"You could've just said you attended potions, that would've sufficed." Ophelia made a disgusted face at the twincest mentioning.
"You're no fun!" Lacey pouted towards Ophelia as they queued up for their lunch, some kind of veggie and carbohydrate mix which never really changed daily, usually microwaved and yet still cold. "Have you even tried shifting anywhere else?"
"No? Where else would I go?" Ophelia's new novel was resting between her fingertips, The Death Cure, and she was holding it with her left hand whilst her right hand gently clasped her tray, balancing the weight in an even distribution without managing to spill anything yet.
"The Maze Runner?" Lacey gazed up from her book back to her friend as some kind of mushy peas mix was thrown onto her plate lazily by a lunch lady.
"Do I look like I want to go to therapy?"
Lacey gazed her up and down, grimacing slightly. "Next question."
Ophelia let out a short-lived laugh as they found their way to their usual table, walking side-by-side with one another. "You think you're so funny, don't you?"
"Perhaps." Ophelia sat down in her seat, the same as everyday, and took a sip of her coffee as soon as it was cooled down enough to consume in a pathetic attempt to stay awake. Lacey wore a lazy smirk on her face, the kind that could charm an entire stadium of people before she was even able to speak, and Ophelia found herself to be one of those people as she hopelessly listened to her best friend.
"Seriously, though! I'll even help you write your script." Food was being scuffed against the plate with the uncomfortable sounds of china scraping against metal, almost like nails against a chalkboard. It seemed to drown out the silence, however, and Ophelia was grateful for that.
"If it means you'll shut up." Lacey nodded her head intently, taking Ophelia's copy of The Death Cure from across the table to flip to a random page. "I'll do it." Lacey flipped through the pages until she found one worth reading in an attempt to poke fun at Ophelia.
"If you've ever been my friend, kill m-" Mushed up peas were flung at Lacey's head before she could finish her sentence, a string of curse words following shortly.
"We do not speak of page 250, okay..?" Ophelia glared over at her after going back to her food, hungry enough that she'd probably eat the peas she flung at Lacey.
"Okay, jheez.. no need to be so-.." Ophelia sent Lacey a warning glare as she spoke. "..Cranky."
"Get it? Do you get the joke?"
The day seemed to move faster after the energy boost, Ophelia having managed to get through a history presentation without stumbling over her words too much and having a study period which she spent reading the works of James Dashner, avoiding the parts of the book she didn't want to read, which was most of it if she was honest.
The entire book itself was shattered to pieces, the spine must've been cracked at least a hundred times, the book ripped and covered in stains, though Ophelia would protest that it was simply well-loved and accompanied by her useless annotations in the margins of every page. This had happened after just a few days.
When the day did finally come to an end, Ophelia and Lacey had walked a whole eight minutes, give or take, to Ophelia's apartment with her older sister whom she lived in for reasons she often didn't care to explain.
The two girls didn't bother arguing over snacks, deciding to grab a bottle of Diet Pepsi between the two of them, and one straw, before retreating towards Ophelia's room, where they perched onto her bed.
It was Lacey who took out journals and sparkled Sharpie marker pens, highlighters, everything that Ophelia could possibly imagine. "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right."
"There's nothing wrong with my shifting journal.." Ophelia held up the plain, black notebook which was covered in barely eligible scribbles of handwriting. "No wonder it never worked.." Lacey shook her head, tucking some hair behind her ear before she spoke once more.
"Okay, you have to start with the background information..just, like..I don't know." Lacey trailed off as Ophelia twirled her grey gel pen which she had taken from Lacey's extensive collection between her calloused index finger and thumb.
"Um, the solar flares, the virus, the glade and all?"
Lacey nodded her head, occasionally writing small things into the 'extra' section with sentences such as:
'NEWT DOES NOT DIE. LIKE EVER. HE'S IMMUNE, HE JUST DOESN'T DIE.'
Ophelia let out a short, angelic laugh before filling in her script, with small things under different sections, allowing Lacey to add amendments where she felt necessary, though ignoring her protests to play the ROBLOX adaptation of The Maze Runner for 'visualisation reasons'.
Ophelia wrote in small things, such as her safe word being Stiles, literally everyone was attracted to her...even Teresa, and that the glade had things like actual beds, showers, a radio, bonfire nights every friday, board games, etc.
Whenever Ophelia would take a bathroom break, Lacey would proceed to taint her script violently with things such as:
- I have a WAP.
- Every single guy in the glade wants me.
- I have a threesome with Newt and Thomas.
- I can have any job I want.
- We have a glade cat called fluffy. Gally named it.
- I have a love triangle with Gally, Minho, Thomas, Sonya, Newt, Jeff, Winston, Aris, Fry-...(contd.)
- Alby does the WAP dance and Frypan hypes him up and plays the song when I arrive in the box.
Whenever Ophelia returned, she wouldn't notice and would just turn the page to script small things such as she never sweats, or doesn't need to shower everyday. The script was taking a few hours, but she was finished by the time Lacey told her that she was going to head home.
"If you don't shift tonight, maybe try bring ferret boy into the maze runner."
"You mean Draco?"
"Yeah, he'd make a good griever." Ophelia let out a loud laugh and threw a pillow in her general direction, telling her to shut up and that Draco was hot, though Lacey just scrunched her eyebrows. "About as hot as Noah scente-" Another pillow was shortly thrown in her general direction.
"Seriously though, good luck. I'm gonna try shift to Divergent again tonight." Lacey let out a grin.
"In God we thrust." Ophelia saluted Lacey now, and she soon scattered out of the room after that, ignoring the protests behind her as Ophelia told her she was joking and to not run away.
It took several hours after Lacey had gone home of stress-eating, praying, meditating, listening to subliminals and waking up at 4am after laying like a starfish and counting until she fell asleep for Ophelia to finally feel ready to try to shift properly.
Of course she'd been trying for months, with different realities, but she felt as though she was losing motivation with every failed attempt, and she wondered if she'd be able to make at least any progress this time.
The closest she had gotten to shifting was when she tried the In Your Arms method, but she had been rudely awaken by her cat crawling into her arms. It was rather ironic however, and Ophelia could never keep herself frustrated with her furry accomplice.
As Ophelia stared out at her ceiling, her eyes began to flutter shut. 37, 38, 39, 40..Every second felt like one thousand as she counted. 47, 48, 49, 50, 51...
Her fingers twitched and ached for some kind of movement, stuck spread out in a starfish position as she hummed affirmations to herself quietly, feeling herself detach from her current reality. 71, 72, 73, 74...
Ophelia focused only on the sound of her own voice repeating soft affirmations, such as how she trusted in the universe, and how the gladers were waiting for her, as she felt herself dozing off to sleep once again.
88, 89, 90...Ophelia felt a cool breeze take over her body, a feeling as though she was falling. 91, 92, 93, 94, 95...The sensation overpowered her body, and her eyelids begged for Ophelia to open her eyes, even if just for a moment, but her exhaustion spoke far too loud and refused to give in.
96, 97, 98, 99...Ophelia felt her eyes finally flutter open when she had counted to one hundred, no longer feeling tired as she stared up at the cold ceiling of her room which was once popcorn-textured and bland, now replaced with chains and metal barring.
What? Ophelia blinked a few times, sitting up from her supposed bed as she rubbed her eyes, coming to a stand.
Ophelia stood now in a metal box which began to lurch and squeal, coming to life as it threw her to the side of the box, a ringing in her ears which burnt like acid as she began her ascend upwards.
"This can't be happening.." Ophelia breathed out now, feeling the real terror of the situation come over her, even if it was what she wanted in the first place.
Panicked, Ophelia yelled out her safe-word in an attempt to go back home. "Stiles!" Having squeezed her eyes shut, she felt no change in her surroundings when she opened them once more. "Stiles..?" Nothing.
"All Tommy, no Stiles." Ophelia sighed out, sitting down in the box with a slightly horrified expression as she realised that she actually couldn't go back to her current reality. Surely that meant she was stuck in this universe?
Ophelia struggled to find a solution to her problem, constantly repeating her safe-word, trying to fall asleep again in the box, pinching her arm, then pinching the other arm. Nothing seemed to work.
Ophelia found herself panicking once she came to the conclusion that she had no idea what to do, her breath coming in sharp, jagged inhales and exhales that were far from normal breathing.
She began repeating things in her head, five things she could see, the metal, her shoes, anything around her. She went down the list, her breathing slowing down to normal as she counted two things she could smell.
Ophelia tried some other grounding methods, breathing and trying to get a feel for her surroundings in an attempt to calm herself down, which worked for the most part. After all, she wondered if it was really that bad to get stuck in a universe where she's able to see Ki Hong Lee every day.
Finally inhaling fresh air, Ophelia found her head slightly cleared as she came down from her anxiety attack threat as the box came to a hesitant stop.
Shit. Ophelia had realised that this meant that she was finally here.
Nevertheless, she found herself excited when the box opened up and she was greeted with the blinding, flashing light of mid-day 'sun' from the glade which streamed into the box like fresh water down a summer lake.
The box rattled and shook when someone jumped in, and Ophelia furrowed her eyebrows to see who was standing above her as she was kneeling on the floor still. It was Gally, she has realised, who was staring directly at her, looking furious.
"It's a girl?"
"Does that make her a shebean? Shreenie?"
"Get the shank out!" Ophelia then focused back on Gally, zoning into his hand which was outstretched to her face.
Holy crap, Ophelia had realised that she was actually able to touch his hand? Seriously, the fact that I'm even in the presence of Will Poulter is enough to make me faint at the moment.
Ophelia stared at Gally's hand for a little too long before he barked another order out to her to get up, obviously showing no remorse for her scared expression and demeanour.
After gripping his hand, she was pulled out of the box by Gally and thrown onto the grass, enough to make her stumble, but not enough to make her fall over. "Day one greenie." Gally smirked at her now, folding his arms as his muscles bulged from his slightly too-tight shirt.
Ophelia's mouth was agape, still at a loss for words as she made a full rotation to see all of the gladers staring at her, noticing that she had arrived after Thomas and Teresa who looked at her with confused expressions.
"New greenie." Alby made his way over as Frypan moved over with him, the two of them grinning at Ophelia whilst Fry took out his portable radio, the glade one which Ophelia had remembered scripting.
"You look scared, I understand if-.." Alby was interrupted by the sudden blasting of near deafening music playing.
And it was the music of Cardi B singing WAP.