The space would make a closterphobic scratch their eyes out; make a high-calorie human struggle to move. But the space was a perfect place for the two young adults to whisper, with only a single, dim light as a witness.

The girls whispered and giggled, feeling safe in the tight space.

“Help. Someone help. Help.” There was a muffled croak from outside the room.

The two girls looked at each othe...

Trying to walk home quickly in the storm, you notice drops of blood in the snow in front of you, leading away into the woods.

Quickly you think to yourself: “Hell nah” and ignore the blood and walk straight home.

You don’t feel like being the main character that gets murdered in the woods.

Being a surviving side character will do....

As you get older you start to lose qualities that you wish would never leave. Some say the skinniness of their childhood bodies, some say the airless weight of responsibility. But others wish for something much deeper.

Will.

Motivation.

They grow older and older. More tired by the minute.

It’s sad, really, seeing many people fail to succeed because of a horrible hollowness that squeezes its way...

Stuck to stare, across the room.

He longed for her, forever a gloom.

She glanced at him, constantly too.

A sad story to tell, if staring is all they do.

A seahorse is said, to mate for life.

And here they are, stuck in strife.

For their love is infinite.

But distance sets the limit.

If someone could put them together.

They would swim, partnered, forever....

Repunzel.

The story always seemed as if Repunzel’s tower was lovely and full of things to do: paint, chores, read, make candles.

But me?

The walls are bare. My room is empty, all except for a tiny cot that I grew out of years ago. There was one tiny window and one tiny door that was always locked.

Ever since I’ve been here they have never so much as unlocked the door, just opened a latch and ...

Shane was beautiful. Her hair was long and black with perfectly tanned skin that flowed along with her perfectly shaped face.

Her body was leaned and muscular.

But she hid a terrible secret, a secret that forbade her from looking into any mirror.

She pulled on her jeans, jumping a few times to squeeze into them. The boards in the bedroom squeaked in response. She huffed and bent down to pick he...

“No,” she laughed, entirely dry and humorless, “not the blood that runs in your veins, but rather the amount of it you spill. Sometimes there is just no room for mercy.”

Sure the Queen was beautiful and honorably skinny, but everyone knew why: she trained and trained. Every morning and every night. Her nails were constantly lined with blood, and why shouldn’t they be?

In this world, one can only...

I practiced this dance a million times. I practiced my greetings and my words. Everything had to be right.

I had to act and speak just like them.

Thousands of miles separated me from my home town; a place no one on this strange continent knew existed. Nobody here knew what lay beyond the vast expanse of water surrounding this place.

The polish on the wooden boards shined as my foot took anothe...

You would think loneliness would be a great accomplishment when one is constantly surrounded by people.

The Prima Donna is surrounded by her cackle of minions.

A Queen Bee is followed by her entire honey hive.

The Devil has his daemons.

God has his angels.

Every “main character” has their committee of lowly side characters whose only part is to be an accessory for their oh-so-fabulous story....

The queen’s personal investigator let out an exasperated sigh.

He’d finally done it, but the results weren’t what he wanted. After months and months of searching for the rebel, of crossing many many names off a very long list, Raquel was 98% sure he had found the culprit.

His pen shook as he lowered it to the desk. The name he had circled was one of the most prestigious men Raquel had ever met...