Ivory carefully placed a Patsy Cline vinyl on their record player and started its spinning. They danced in their mind, but their body refused to move. Exhausted. It had been a long day of rehearsals. There was nothing they would rather be doing, but it could easily make a couple hours feel like an eternal work out. 

They collapsed into bed, and curled up in the comfortable nest of blankets and pi...

The party started to blur around me. _It’s his birthday. _My heart sped faster. _I must stay._ My head was pounding. _For him. _My muscles were growing more tense by the second. _I can’t disappoint him… _

I felt someone push me towards the corner. It was only a light bump, and they certainly hadn’t meant it, but it was enough to send me spiraling into the next dimension. I pushed myself the rest o...

Maria pulled the cloak tightly around her body. Her hands were dry, her lips were chapped, and the skin of her face was peeling. It had been two weeks since she was forced to leave everything behind, and she would have asked for nothing more than the confines of a safe home. 

_Was I always plagued by this illness? _She wondered. There was nothing that had made her feel set apart as a young child,...

**“All in a golden afternoon, **

**under the skies of cloudless blue”**

I push forward to freedom

Where I can no longer see

The desolation I leave behind

Beyond the thick, fallen ash

Covering the cursed ground

That once thrived fertile

But now stripped to nothing

Is where I journey forth

Alone and unafraid of what

Lies ahead, what I seek

To hold in my shaking hands

As I refuse to look back

On t...

She touched the smooth stone that surrounded her on all sides. How long had she been here? What had her life looked like before? The more she thought about it, the more the images in her head became blurry and colorless. _What do I know? _

_ _She was alone. There had never been anyone to give her comfort. At least, not for a long time. Her life was molded from the ashen clay of isolation. Lonel...