I thought I'd start posting articles and stories that I wrote in college, starting with this story.
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Something That Someone Wouldn’t Think of as a Title

You sit on the stool in the kitchen of an unfamiliar house, with your little brother, Kevin, your elbows on the counter, and your chin in your hands.

“Let’s look around, Kevin,” you say.

“Why, Emily?” asks Kevin.

“Because it’s fun,” you say.

“Why, Emily?” asks Kevin.

“Come with me. Don’t ask questions,” you say. You wander into the living room. Kevin follows. You ascend the staircase.

Obediently following behind, Kevin asks tentatively, “Emily, are you sure we should be doing this?”

“Of course I am,” you say condescendingly. “Why would they leave eight and eleven-year-old children alone in a big, mysterious house if they didn’t want us to explore it? Didn’t I tell you not to ask questions?”

“Then why did you want me to come?”

“In case there’s a monster and he wants a sacrifice,” you say. Kevin freezes. “I’m just kidding, Kevin. It wouldn’t be wise for a girl to go exploring in a strange house by herself.”

You get to the top of the stairs and get to a long, winding corridor, with lots of doors. You proceed through the corridor.

“Why don’t we go into any of the doors, Emily?”

“That would be normal and expected,” you say. “How would we find anything interesting?”

“Then where are we going?”

“Just looking for strange things,” you say, examining the ceiling. “You know. Trap doors, paintings that open up.”

“I don’t think there are any,” says Kevin, grabbing the frame of a wall painting. He pulls on the frame and it opens like a door, and behind it is a passage big enough to crawl into. He stares with disbelief.

You attempt to hide your surprise. “See? That’s the kind of thing I’m looking for.” You climb in head first. “Kevin, follow closely,” you say. Kevin climbs in afterward and crawls behind. You stop. “Kevin?”

“Yeah?”

“It seems like we’ve been set up. Like they want us to go through this way.”

Kevin looks confused. “Who is ‘they’?” he asks.

“I don’t know, but we should turn back.” What are you talking about, Emily? Keep going. This is the exciting route. “Kevin,” you say, “turn around and crawl the other way. I’ll crawl out after you.” You’re making a mistake, Emily. Think of all the adventure you’re missing out on.

After you both get out, you speak. “I kept hearing this thing in my head that was telling me to keep going. That’s why I thought they expect us to do it, so we can’t.”

“Okay,” says Kevin.

“We have to search for an ordinary door.” You walk around and look.

“How about that one?” asks Kevin. He points to a plain, white door near the far end of the hall. No, that door is boring. Go for a different one.

“Something’s telling me not to,” you say, “therefore, it’s a good choice. Let’s go over and open it.”

You go to the door. Kevin opens it, and you walk in. It’s a big white room with nothing in it but a cart with a big metal thing that looks like an old radio.

“That looks interesting,” you say. Don’t bother, Emily. It’s just a radio that doesn’t work. You look carefully at it. “There must be something really significant about this.” In one section, labeled point of view, there are two dials. One is labeled Emily, and the other is labeled Kevin.

“Whoa!” says Kevin. “These have our names on them!”

“I know,” you say. “I think we should turn them and see what happens.” Yes, turn them! By all means, turn the dials.

“Well, I still think we should turn them,” you say. “They do have our names on them.” Darn. Reverse psychology backfired.

You look more closely at the dial that says Emily. It has three settings: first person, second person, and third person. It is currently set to second person. Kevin’s is the same, but it’s set to third person.

“Weird,” says Kevin, looking at the dials with our names on them. “If you’re the second person, and I’m the third person, then who’s the first person?”

“Kevin,” you say, ignoring his question, “don’t touch anything.” You tell him, Emily. “I’m going to make the first adjustment.” Don’t do it, Emily. You’ll seriously confuse the reader!

You switch the dial with your name on it from second person to third person.

“What does it do?” asks Kevin.

“I don’t know,” says Emily. “I don’t think it did anything. Maybe it’s broken.” She waits for a moment, trying to observe any change. “I would have thought it would do something drastic, because the voice in my head was saying—Oh! The voice in my head!” She listens carefully. “It’s not there anymore!”

“Maybe you killed it when you turned the dial,” says Kevin. “Can I turn mine?”

“Okay, but only if you turn it to the setting I tell you,” says Emily. “Turn it to second person and see if you hear voices.”

“But I’m scared to,” says Kevin. “I don’t want to hear voices.”

“Okay,” says Emily. “Then change it to first person, and tell me what it’s like.” Kevin changes his dial from third person to first person.

Is anything different? Nope. “I don’t feel anything different,” I say. Actually, I feel kind of strange. “Emily, it feels weird, but I can’t figure out how,” I say. “It’s almost the same.”

“Wow,” says Emily. “Let me try.” Emily switches her dial from third person to first person. The machine flickers a while, and nearly turns off completely, but then comes back on. Both dials vibrate, as if they’re resisting their current position.

“Weird!” we both say. We look at each other as if we did something wrong, but are curious to see what affect it has. This feels completely different. That last adjustment definitely did something. I try to express something in words, but I can’t speak. I don’t even know anymore whether I am Kevin or Emily. I can’t handle this anymore. I’m going crazy. We both change our dials to third person.

“What just happened?” asks Kevin.

“I don’t know!” says Emily. “It was so weird, it was scary. I didn’t know whether I was me or you!”

“Me, too,” says Kevin.

“But I figured something out,” says Emily.

“What?”

“It’s not very fun to be you. I kept hoping I was me, and not you.”

“Yeah, me too,” says Kevin. “It felt so much more powerful to be you.”

“Let’s see what the other dials do,” says Emily. One dial right below is labeled tense, and it has three settings: past, present, and future. It is currently set to present. “Kevin, want to time travel?”

“Yeah! Let’s go back in time!”

“Okay.” Emily sets the dial to past.

Kevin waited for something to change. “The past looks the same as the future,” he said.

“I think most of these dials are broken,” said Emily. “Let’s see if future does anything.” She changed the dial from past to future.

She will wait to see if anything is different. So will Kevin. “I think it’s the same,” he will say.

“I don’t know,” Emily will say. “It feels the same, except more awkward. Let’s change it back.”

Kevin will set the dial back to past.

“There,” he said.

“Look at this one,” said Emily, pointing to another dial, labeled form. It was set to narrative, and the other settings were play and rhyming verse.

“Do you think this one plays music?” asked Kevin.

“At this point,” said Emily, “I don’t think it does much of anything.” She turned to dial to play.

KEVIN: Feel anything different?
EMILY: Nope.

(Emily sets dial to rhyming verse)

“With this setting, does nothing seem to change?”

Kevin said, “It feels a little strange.
I think it makes us talk a different way.”
So Emily then turned it back to play.

(Kevin sets dial to narrative)

“What’s this screen thing?” asked Kevin, pointing to a screen labeled plot map. There was a white line that looked kind of like the squiggly outline of a mountain that was steeper on one side. There was another line, this one red, that followed the white line for the first part, strayed from it, and made a few weird squiggles on its own, and it wasn’t finished. It looked like it was being drawn very slowly. There was a message at the bottom of the screen that said, “Warning: plot not on map.”

“What does that mean?” asked Kevin.

“How should I know?” Emily replied.

There was only one more section on the machine. It was labeled title, and it was a screen with a keyboard below it. The screen said, “Adventure in the Attic.”

“Title of what?” asked Kevin.

“Who knows, but we have to fiddle with it. Erase it and write something else.”

“Write what?” asked Kevin, erasing the current title.

“Something that someone wouldn’t think of as a title.”

“Okay.” Kevin typed into the screen, “Something that someone wouldn’t think of as a title.” Emily approved.

Emily contemplated the machine. “What do you suppose it’s for?” she asked.

“People playing with it,” said Kevin.

“I think it doesn’t seem to do much, but it’s more powerful than we think it is. Kevin, do you ever get the feeling that you’re being controlled?”

“All the time,” said Kevin. “Whenever I’m doing something with you.”

“I mean, like, from an outside source. I don’t know. I feel like someone’s trying to control everything we do. Like that voice I had in my head earlier. And I think their means of controlling us is this machine.”

“Why?” asked Kevin.

“I don’t know. I just have this feeling,” said Emily. “I think maybe it would stop if we turned off the machine.”

Kevin searched all over the machine. “I don’t see a power switch,” he said. “But here’s a cord. We could unplug it.”

“I think we should,” said Emily.

A message appeared on the plot map. It said, “Please, for the love of God, DO NOT UNPLUG THIS MACHINE!”

“That seems like a good sign. Should I do it?”

“Go for it,” said Kevin.

Emily grabbed the cord and yanke