Excerpt of the prologue for a long story

This is a project I have been developing for the past year or so, taking some advice from my English teacher to begin writing what I know with vivid imagery and then expanding my writing skills into more inventive, imaginary, and fantastical places. This narrative gets strange so I am not sure if I will share it in full here, but I am searching for the right audience for it (if there is one c; ). It combines my interest in mystery, fantasy, and true crime with my own experience. The town is based on my town, and the characters are based on myself and people I know from school. Even if I don't find an audience for this I will still use the writing of it to expand my skill. I'll be logging information on my writing progress and development in my DA journal posts https://www.deviantart.com/boybaggins/posts

I am working on a map of the town and full character profiles for the 15 or so individuals the story will focus on. I am hoping to fully build out the world that I'm writing, and I'll share excerpts here that show the vivid imagery I am hoping to convey. Following the advice of my teachers, I'll regularly read and edit my writings using a thesaurus and rethinking the visual world I'm creating. In the future I'll take on more fantastical narratives, incorporating more large-scale fantasy elements and world building. If you come across this, just feel free to take a moment and enjoy c:



Prologue

Middle Meadows was a classic American midwestern suburb. It had white picket fences, a river-side town square full of restaurants and shops, and a mix of elementary, middle, and high schools where sporting rivalries thrived. It was a great place to watch the seasons change. Summers were warm but not too muggy. The smell of barbecues and fresh cut grass filled the air, and July 4th celebrations started early, leading to a massive annual fireworks display. Falls were gorgeous, with trees turning bright red, orange, and yellow, and endless city-wide Halloween celebrations. Winters brought large amounts of snow to create beautiful scenery and give kids hours of entertainment having snow ball fights, building snow people, and other recreational activities. A large city was one hour east, but to the north, west, and south, it was surrounded by forests, parks, and nature preserves that gave its residents plenty of outdoor space to enjoy, and plenty of spooky areas for local lore and stories. It should have been a perfect place for anyone to live, and it had been for decades, but it recently was developing a worsening problem with a specific portion of its citizens.

It had very little crime, but like all American towns it had increasing problems. The majority of these issues had one main culprit: local youth with nothing better to do than run wild and annoy adults. Things had grown increasingly bad in recent years. The influence of the internet and social media apps had brought the worst out in the local kids, tweens, and teens. Children stopped doing what their parents asked. They talked back, broke curfew, swore, and were generally rude. Students disrespected their teachers, interrupting lessons and turning schools places of pure chaos. Houses would be vandalized, toilet papered, egged, or have items stolen or smashed.

The police struggled to deal with the issue. For the most part, the assailants were all minors, and the crimes weren’t serious enough to actually arrest any of them and send them to juvenile detention. There was never violence, but there was regularly property damage.

The chaos of unruly children lead to adults resenting them, but also each other. Parents began to dislike their kid’s teachers and fellow parents. What used to be friendly rivalries between schools became actual arguments, occasionally leading to fights between parents. What had been a peaceful suburban oasis where families respected and supported each other was becoming an adversarial space. School board meetings became contentious, as did city hall meetings.

The mayor made it a big part of his job to occupy the local kids with after school and summer programs, but he couldn’t solve the issue. It was like the kids were addicted to being horrible to their fellow Middle Meadows citizens, driven by viral social media trends that encouraged sharing videos

This summer, though, something unusual was happening. There was still the smell of fresh cut grass and charcoal-cooked hotdogs and hamburgers on days where the weather allowed. The town pool was still packed with locals on sunny days. Kids and teens were still acting like hooligans for social media views, but this summer there was a new ruckus capturing everyone’s attention. It was an unusually intense storm season, with massive downpours happening more often than usual, sometimes including intense wind, hail, and the occasional tornado threat. But, more than that, something was changing the way people in Middle Meadows behaved. Something that was preying on its citizens. But this time it wasn’t the kids targeting residents…it was something targeting the obnoxious kids!

First it was one kid, then another. Then a third, a fourth, and fifth. The targeted kid was always involved in the pandemonium that annoyed the town, and they were specifically targeted for a specific reason...