I'm going to try something radical here - this is a 'take, write, and see what you come up with' kind of post. It works like this: You read this short chapter, and you decide how you think the rest of the story should go. Then you write the next chapter, and the next, and the next and however many you want, and you post them under your own pen name. You can do whatever you like with the story, as long as you use this chapter as the first one, and continue from there. I would like to encourage EVERYONE WHO READS THIS to take part cos we could end up with loads of different stories! Come on, you know you want to...

Nibli was a girl. A girl with blue hair, black eyes and legs up to her ears… ok, so she was an alien, but a girl none the less. Her blue hair would have been the hair every earth-girl was after, if it hadn’t been blue. It fell about her face with the look of imperfect perfection - that is, it was perfect, but looked as natural as a potato. Not that a potato has any significance to her hair whatsoever, I’m just using the fact that a potato is natural for my simile. Nibli’s eyes had no irises, no whites, they were just completely black. Pupils that covered the whole eyeball. Now you might be thinking, how is that possible, with pupils that large she would be blind! Well she wasn’t. The exact reason for this goes into such deep scientific and mathematical depths that if I tried to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand so I won’t bother. Currently, however, she was wearing expensive contact lenses that made her eyes relatively human-looking. As for her legs… Well they aren’t really up to her ears; otherwise she would be unable to function. It was just a metaphor to exaggerate the point that she has long legs. Please tell me you know what a metaphor is, or I might have to hit my head against something very hard.

Anyway, back to my tale. Nibli was sitting on a small planet called Earth, in a small country called England, in a small town and an even smaller café. How she came to be there is a story for another day, concerning a fight, a fiancé and millions of deaths. Upon reflection, it would seem like a dark, heartbreaking tale, but in all truthfulness, it really wasn’t.

Nibli was waiting for someone. The someone had no idea she was waiting for them, and it was highly improbable that the someone would ever come near this small café in a small town, since he lived for most of the year in Mexico City, but fate – and improbability – decided to step in and create the largest co-incidence that is likely ever to occur. But then, fate and improbability might team up once again to contradict that likelihood as well.

The someone’s name was Ken DeMeer, and he was a high ranking American working from Mexico. What he worked with, I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know. In fact, I doubt Ken himself even knew what his job was. If someone at a party one day turned to him and said, “What do you do for a living?” he’d probably have to think for a while before giving a cleverly evasive yet satisfying answer to the question.

One day, while trying to do some mysterious paperwork, the phone rang on his desk.

“Good afternoon, Ken DeMeer speaking,” he answered in the professional tone he had been taught to use by anonymous bosses.

A piercing female London accent wailed on the other end. “Ken! Finally! I’ve been trying to get through for hours! Honestly, you wouldn’t believe the amount of people I’ve had to speak to! Listen darling, I need you to come to England, your mother’s come over here for a face lift – God knows why, I mean surely it’s cheaper over in New York but – the doctors say she’s dying, Ken, dying! Listen, I’ve checked the flights, and the next one to England leaves in three hours from Mexico – unfortunately it goes to Birmingham not London, but there’ll be trains I’m sure, you must get here as soon as possible.”

“Lilly –” Ken tried to get in.

“Ok? See you soon Ken – SOON AS POSSIBLE!”

“Lilly –”

CLICK

“Lil?”

BLEEEEEEEEEP.

“Oh screw it,” Ken said, slamming the phone down. Typical of his cousin to escalate a small problem into a dramatic life-or-death affair. And as for the accent… Ken was entirely convinced that she put it on. After all, she’d only been living in England for a year – she wouldn’t have picked it up that quickly.

After this befalls a rather tedious description of how Ken got to England, but due to the immense uninterestingness of the description, I’ll give you the abridged version. It contains a cancelled flight, a useless driver and an “Oh crap I missed my stop”.

So. Ken is currently in a small town in Northern England, Yorkshire. By the strange combination of improbability and fate, he happens to walk past the café where Nibli is sitting. However… he doesn’t stop.

Until he gets halfway down the road and realises his mobile is out of battery, and so has to use the pay phone in the café.

As Ken entered the café (whose name I wish I could remember), Nibli got up and waited until he’d phoned Lilly and told her about his predicament.

“Ken.”

He nearly walked into her as he turned round and raised his eyebrows. “Do I know you?”

“No. My name is Nibli. Have a coffee; I need to discuss something with you.”

Ken began to protest, but Nibli ushered him into a seat and ordered him a cappuccino.

Right. What happens next? You decide, and write it! Then post it! Only condition: let me know when you've posted your version so that I can read it! Please have a go it doesn't matter about your writing ability or anything like that. Even if you write it and don't have a pen name/want a pen name, email your chapter(s) to me and I'll post them here!

ETA: I know it's incredibly random - it's something I wrote once when I was high on sugar and never got round to continuing it so I thought I'd let you lot try it. Don't let me down guys!