---
**Elias Hawthorne’s Voice**
I watched her first with gentle eyes,
A governess with quiet ties.
Her life, so simple, neat, and small,
Yet in her heart, I felt a call.
Her grace, her smile, they beckoned me,
A mystery I longed to see.
At first, I hid, I followed near,
A shadow lost in quiet fear.
But soon, that fear gave way to need,
A hunger planted like a seed.
Throug...
Perspective one: Elias Hawthorne
perspective two: Arabella Sinclair
-------------------
Arabella Sinclair, a gentle grace,
Lives in order, in a quiet place.
At twenty-two, her world is small,
A governess, she minds the call.
With lessons, chores, and market’s plea,
She yearns for life beyond what she sees.
A restless longing, a silent door,
She dreams of something, something more. ...
The rain begins, a sudden pour,
Two strangers meet, and nothing more—
But fate, it seems, has drawn them near,
Beneath an umbrella, hearts unclear.
Their hands brush close, a silent spark,
As raindrops dance in shadows dark.
The world is blurred in sheets of gray,
But in this space, they’re swept away.
No words are spoken, yet they know
That time has slowed, the moments flow, ...
Are we truly unique, or mere echoes,
Carrying fragments of those we’ve met,
Lives entangled like threads in a woven glow,
Patterns stitched from moments we can’t forget.
Are we each a flame, a single spark alight,
Or shadows cast from those who came before,
Reflections in a window, flickering bright,
Pieces of the past we can’t ignore.
In the eyes of a friend, do we see our o...
She stepped over the cracked pavement, her sneakers barely making a sound as she walked, eyes fixed on the ground. The houses around her were all the same: faded, peeling, and suffocating in their sameness. She didn’t glance at them anymore, didn’t let herself see the worn-out fences or the dirty yards. She had stopped caring a long time ago. The noise in her head was louder than any argument she ...
The fire crackled softly, its warm glow casting flickering shadows across the forest clearing. Ethel sat close to Beau, her knees drawn up as she traced patterns in the dirt with a small stick. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, watching how the firelight caught in his silver-threaded hair and softened the lines of his face.
“You know,” Beau said after a moment, his voice low and st...
---
Ethel stood at the edge of the village, her heart pounding in her chest as the horizon stretched before her—vast and unknown. She had spent her entire life within the walls of the Matriarchal Society, a community founded on tradition, faith, and the strict, unwavering rules set by her mother. Her mother, Selene, was the embodiment of those rules—fierce, pious, and unyielding.
"Remember, Et...
