Creative+Writing-Rough+Copy

Greed and jealousy. Two traits that can alternate original desires and turn any type of being against others, both humans and animals. Greed can transform any animal or human into a completely altered version of themselves and may be ensnared in their own greed for the object they desire so much for. Jealousy can change people’s original desires in its own way; it can also turn many close relationships that seem impenetrable, and change into deep contempt. Both of these traits can change any living being into someone completely different and alter their needs, goals, and dreams.

It was the evening of the 15th of July, 1955, in a small town in Florida, a 15 year old boy named Peter Martin was dawdling along the river holding his good luck charm given to him by his family after he lost it when it belonged to his father; it was his first moment where they were proud of him. Peter was just taking a stroll and thinking how much he wished that life was a dream, so carefree like the clouds. He then remembered he was at the river to collect a bucket of water to return back to his family. But while he bent down to attain the water, he found something peculiar, it was a small, damp, sheet of paper that had some barely legible writing. It said, "Fountain of Youth Elixir" as the title, Peter had heard of these ancient rumours of the elixir and that it had wondrous effects to the person or thing who consumes it. Peter read on, it seemed to say: Event: Competition for the Fountain of Youth Elixir! Contestants: Anyone! Location: Florida Time: July 29, 2:30 pm. Peter was dumbfounded, this was just what he needed, his parents have recently got a mysterious illness and none of the doctors could find a cure for them. Peter knew that he had to enter the competition. This could be the first time that he had a chance to help his parents to pay back the numerous times they have helped him. Ever since they caught this illness, they still helped Peter and his 16 year old brother, Jimmy, to the best of their abilities. Peter felt like the happiest person alive. So he decided to run home and tell his family of this miraculous news. But after he read it, he started to think about what could go wrong, he then thought that if he lost, his parents would be disappointed and think that he is a disgrace to the family. Peter was so perplexed that he sprinted home with the sheet of paper and left without the bucket. Once he got home, he immediately smelled the phenomenal scent of his parents cooking; he ran to the kitchen and held out the advertisement. "Look!" Peter exclaimed completely out of breath, he was out of shape since he had not started Physical Education in his school. They all gathered around to see what the big fuss was about, once they saw the paper, there were mixed reactions. Jimmy was excited to have something interesting in this boring town, and his parents simply said to him, "That's great, Peter." Peter was utterly shocked. He thought that they would be happy for once. What he didn't know was that they were deeply appreciative, but they did not know how to show it towards Peter. After dinner, Peter had a discussion with Jimmy about the competition for the Fountain of Youth Elixir. Peter started the discussion, he said, "First off, we need to prepare for this, I'll ask my friend to help out for setting up a course for us to practice on." "Okay, I'll ask my friends to snoop around to see if anyone knows any information about the rules and courses,” said Jimmy. They discussed for what felt like the whole night to Peter as he was exhausted since he came home from discovering the paper. Once they finally stopped they went to sleep, with Peter holding his good luck charm.

Once the weekend came, Peter and Jimmy had gathered some information and were ready to try Peter’s friend’s course, which was made after many gruelling days of hard work to get the right materials and design it correctly. Peter’s friend’s name was Steven, who was the same age as himself. Once they arrived at the field, their first impression was that everything was too simple and everything seemed a little...used. But at second glance, they noticed that it was very thoroughly thought out and that it must have taken time to make it that detailed and perfect. “Hey guys!” yelled Steven from across the field. “So, this is the course. I’ll walk you through it first, as you informed me, there are going to be 4 different courses; team activity, strength, speed, and endurance.” Peter and Jimmy were both impressed by his hard work ethic. Jimmy finally said, “Can you explain each course to us?” Steven agreed, he admitted it was hard to tell at first glance. “First, we’ll have a three-legged foot race, since it’s just you two practicing, but be prepared for something else. The second course is all about strength, we’ll have various drills, you’ll have to drag several items from behind to a certain point, and you’ll also have to do basic things like push-ups and sit-ups. The third drill is to practise your agility and stamina. You’ll have to run around the field, while I time you for each lap, you’ll also have to do some races with each other. The final course is to complete all of the things I have explained up until now twice, and I’ll add an obstacle course.” Peter and Jimmy were astonished and overwhelmed, but also excited. They couldn’t wait to start.

The next day Peter and Jimmy rushed home from school, ate a snack, and went to the field. Steven was already waiting like he was there for months. “Where were you guys?” questioned Steven. Steven appeared to be as excited as they were, maybe even more as they were nervous that the course would be too gruelling. After much commotion, they had finally begun. But before they began, Peter separated from group to kiss his good luck charm. The first course went dreadfully, they did not work together well at all, and they had finally decided to discuss the problem. “You’re too slow,” said Jimmy flatly. Peter started to blush, he knew that Jimmy was faster, but he couldn’t get himself to admit it.”Are you sure? How can you tell when all we’re doing is tumbling over each other?” responded Peter angrily. They had finally found a solution and tested it, it had worked wonders. After a couple more practice runs, they moved on to the next course. This one went pretty smoothly, although Jimmy was always boasting that he could do more of everything. Peter became angry once again and all he could think of in all that rage was to hit him. What started out to be a training ground became a battle ground, Peter and Jimmy were throwing punches at each other furiously and wrestling each other until they eventually had enough, they had finally came to a truce until Steven started to lecture them. “What are you guys thinking, fighting each other?!” All they could do was stare at the ground. “Well, let’s move on.” The next two courses went very well, Steven assessed their speed and he thought that they had no problem with it. By the end of it, they were flat out exhausted. “Now once more,” said Steven happily. All they could do was groan. “Just kidding, we’ll work on the endurance later.” Once Peter and Jimmy got home, they went straight to bed, although they did discuss their practice regarding their teamwork. “We need to work on our teamwork outside of practice too, if it’s this horrid.” “Yeah, but how?” “Why don’t we practice outside of the schedule, like now?” “Okay, let’s go.” Once they came back, they immediately flopped onto their beds and fell to sleep. Peter even forgot to take out his good luck charm to admire it. The next day, he woke up and noticed Jimmy was gone, so he took a look at the training grounds. He immediately saw Jimmy on the ground, obviously in pain. He ran to Jimmy and carried him home. Once they were at the hospital, it felt like years that they were waiting. Once the doctor and Jimmy came out, Peter saw that Jimmy was in tears, Peter quickly looked away. “We’ve got some good news, and some bad news. First off, he just overexerted himself but has sprained his ankle and his leg is fractured. Jimmy will be fine after a month or so, but he definitely won’t be able to recover in time for the competition he’s been telling me about. I’m sorry.” Peter was completely traumatized, he couldn’t think of how he could do the competition himself, and how he had just realized that there was a small chance that he would win, and if he didn’t his parents may get worse, and die. Peter could feel the warmth of the tears running down his cheeks and his eyes felt like broken faucets, he just couldn’t stop. He felt he was blinded by a sea of darkness and did not know which path to take and which way to go. Once they got home, there was not once conversation, Jimmy went right to his room and went to bed. There was one light in the sea of darkness he had been engulfed by. He had to win. He went straight to the training course and began to train. But after a while, he noticed that he had no way of training for the teamwork component of the competition. He decided to ignore this problem and figure out once his mind was clearer. After he had finished, he decided that he would just pair up with one of the stronger competitors and hope for the best.

After 2 weeks of gruelling training, the competition finally came; it was the morning of July 29th and he felt as clear as crystal and as calm as tranquil water. Once he got up, he knew that he was in perfect shape and fully rested, he had taken it easy the day before as he did not want to overexert himself like his brother, because he did not want to waste all that hard work just to end up not having a chance to win the elixir. He slowly made his way to the kitchen when he almost leaped out of his own skin by a huge shout that he made out as, “SURPRISE!” He was shocked by the decorations and all the food for breakfast. “We wanted to have a little pre-competition party just to congratulate you for working so hard, which we know is hard for you as we have known that since you were born that you wanted a carefree life,” said his father. There was quite a ruckus as everyone was grabbing food and talking. After the party, they decided to head over to the area where the competition was held. Once they got there, everyone was utterly overwhelmed by how many people were here to compete. “//Well,”// Peter thought, “//I guess there are a lot of people out there who want to have the fountain of Youth for themselves, since it even prevents people from aging, temporarily.// They started to slowly make their way to the registration section, on their way; they saw many people who were training for the presumed categories. “Name?” said the worker. “Peter Martin,” said Peter. “Age?” “15” “Here’s a wristband; you’ll need to wear it to show that you are one of the competitors. The competition will be starting soon, you’ll have to wait over there,” he pointed to where there was a station set up, there were many sets of ropes there. “Yes!” Peter thought, “The three-legged race, Jimmy’s friends were right! I hope that his friends were right about the other ones.” Peter jogged to the station and started to stretch. After stretching, he had almost forgot, he took his good luck charm out of his pocket and put it around his neck, he kissed it, and was ready for the competition. Before the competition began, everyone had to choose a partner to work with, immediately Peter started to search for someone that would make up for no teamwork. He decided to go with someone his size, but with a big build. But throughout the past few weeks, he had become a lot more muscular and had a bigger build from all the intense training he had overcome. He had finally paired up with someone named Joe, although this guy was quite rude to Peter. “You better not slow me down,” he said plainly. Peter could not think of a response. The race had started; it was simply a 3-legged, 400 meter-dash to the finish line, and the top 200 were to stay, the others were sent home. They were not doing so well at first, but started to gain ground at the last 100 meters and ended in the top 10, so they passed the preliminaries. Joe was still not impressed. “We could have one that stupid race! But you slowed me down, what did I tell you not to do?!” “Slow you down,” said Peter flatly. Peter’s first impression on Joe was not a pleasant one. The second one was what Jimmy’s friend’s thought it was although it was the third one he had explained, strength. All they had to do was lift and hold a variety of items for a certain amount of time. This one wasn’t much of a problem for Peter, at first. Once it came to the last items, he had to drag to recover some of his energy. “Hurry up,” said one of the judges. Then he picked up his final item, he was having some trouble, then he thought to himself, “Come on Peter, you can do this! You have to, for your parents!” It took every ounce of his strength to lift the weight, but he had to. He held it for 5 seconds, and let it drop. He was exhausted for a moment, but caught his breath after a couple minutes. He observed the area and saw many people having trouble, at least half the people left, so that means there would be less than 50 left. Then he saw Joe, he had no trouble lifting the weights and held it like it was nothing. There was no doubt; he was as strong as bear. He yelled, “No problem, you should have made these weights twice as heavy!” The next one was all about speed, which was the category that Jimmy’s friends researched too. All people had to do was race around the 400 metre track 4 times, which meant 1600 meters. The first 5 will be in the finals in practice, he and Jimmy would race 2000 metres, so for this track, he could pick up the pace a bit. Once they heard the gunshot, everyone sprinted away; the majority of people had no strategy and had no pace, so Peter passed everybody except for one, Joe. He was at the very front, but Peter was picking up speed and ran like the wind. Peter felt as fast as a cheetah and beat Joe at the last second. It was at long last the finals, Peter was getting extremely nervous and was shaking all over, he was sure he couldn’t beat Joe, and the other contestants seemed pretty formidable too. Now it was time for the final competition for the Fountain of Youth elixir, everyone seemed to be as nervous as he was. And the competition was then explained, the rules were simple, all they had to do was stand on a log, one-footed, and be the last one standing. Everyone was set and ready to go. Unfortunately, Peter’s log was right beside Joe, which mean it would be a competition that would be as long as a million years. The competition finally began. For the first half an hour, it seemed really easy to Peter, and then it started to worsen, his leg was cramping up, and his foot was in severe pain. He looked over to the others, one had already fallen off, two were struggling, and Joe seemed like it was second nature to him, he was standing like a statue and as strong as lion. After another hour, he almost couldn’t take it anymore, but then he saw that Joe was struggling to. “You know, I was wondering, did you practice like the others?” asked Joe. “Yeah. I have to; my parents have an unknown illness, so I have to win no matter what.” “Well, I haven’t practiced at all, so it goes to show I just have more talent than you,” he said confidently. After another half an hour he found that his foot’s skin had cut open, he was bleeding all over the log and it as if his foot was being engulfed by a layer of thick liquid. By now, he was in excruciating pain and was starting to grunt from all the pain, but he //had// to persevere. Another 15 minutes, he couldn’t take it anymore, his foot had lost feeling from all the blood loss, and his leg was giving away. But he ignored it for another 5 minutes before he finally fell. He lost. It was all over. The paramedics came in and tended to him, but he didn’t care at all for them, he had lost. At the award ceremony, he was given a small medal, while Joe was given the jug of Fountain of Youth Elixir. He held it in the air to show everyone, and gave it to Peter. There was instantly a large amount of chatter being heard about, Peter was completely shocked. “I-I- Thank you,” was all Peter could say, he was at a loss for words. “No problem, I don’t need it as bad as you do, so you can have it. I just entered this competition for some fun in this boring old town.” Peter thought Joe was exactly like Jimmy, personality-wise. All of a sudden, Peter collapsed. Once he woke up, there were many people surrounding him; his family, Steven, and even Joe. He then realized he was in the hospital. “Are you okay, Peter?” asked his mother. “Yeah, I feel fine, just a little tired.” The doctor entered and explained the situation. “Peter is just fine, he is just a little fatigued and he seems to have collapsed because his body had just reacted to all that stress done to his body.” Everyone gave a sigh of relief. “So,” said Peter, “Have you drunk the Fountain of Youth elixir yet?” “Yes, we are already making a steady recovery, thank you so much Peter, we cannot be more grateful.” Peter was overjoyed, he had finally made his parents happy, and he then noticed that he had felt streaks of tears that were as warm as the sun’s warmth against his face. “Now you can rest, for as long as you want,” said his father warmly. Peter immediately fell to sleep. The next morning, after Peter arrived home late last night, Peter went to the kitchen drowsily for some breakfast. Once he arrived, he was woken up by a loud, “CONGRATULATIONS!” Peter was stunned once again; he had never expected a surprise party as he was too sleepy to think about much. “Congratulations on winning the Fountain of Youth elixir!” said Jimmy. “Oh, I didn’t win the competition, the person who won the competition gave it to me,” said Peter gratefully. He had just noticed that Joe was here too. “Hey Joe, thanks again for giving me the elixir.” Peter said appreciatively. “No problem, I heard that your friend made a practice ground for you to train for the competition. Do you want to go there and compete again with me, for fun?” asked Joe. “Sure Joe, anytime.” While the party was still going on, Peter left the house and went back to the river, where he took another long stroll while looking into the sky thinking how his life could now be as carefree as a cloud. While he was walking, he was still grasping on to his family’s good luck charm like it was his life.