Never thought you needed form, To make words Tell or say, I myself am the rhyming sort, Twos and Fours all day,

Go about what you know, Make your words speak clear, Or write a little cryptic thought, And bury it with fear,

Dosnt matter how you say it, Dosnt matter how its read, As long as when you look back, Its something that you like you've said,

The soul. The last bastion of human mystery. The be all and end all of philosophy. Either it is everything we stand for, or it is nothing but a false idea. Black is too bold, White is too pure, instead I would like to think it shifts and bends into a plate of glass... A window of who we are.

As cold as it gets, As dark as the nights, As lonely we are, There's warmth in the ice,

As bad as you think, As it repeats twice, As hopeless this sounds, There's warmth in the ice,

As forgotten I am, As Ive payed the price, As little I'm owed, There's warmth in the ice,

So here they are now, They used to be nice, All they got left, Is a blanket of ice,

Let me try again, Let me make it right, Let me hold this thought, Let me screw it tight, Let me solve the case, Let me find a way, Let me make more sense, Let me decide to stay, Let me spill the blood, Let me light the flame, Let me swear to god, Let me take the blame, Let me inside your head, Let me have your soul, Let me give you mine, Let me end control,

It gets darker now in the days of snow, Hiding and huddled life ceases to grow, The streets are all empty and everyone gone, Yet fresh tracks appear on the sidewalks by dawn,

Wind sometimes howls through the branches of trees, They look so defeated without any leaves, The creatures have all fled back to their holes, To wait until warmth returns to their souls,

It gets darker now till the Solstice Sun, Frigid and stiff and Ice overrun, Just hoping that things might turn out okay, And spring will reappear someday,

Today was the day. Albert Mitchel had finally had enough. His stupid job and the stupid people who worked there had drove him up one too many walls in the last five years. He was sick of the same topical conversations, and pretending to be interested in the same bullshit. He was especially sick of his boss, Mr. Dresdin. The man was evil incarnate as far as Albert was concerned. The worst sort of callous and concieted traits any human being could posess. He somehow managed to turn "Knowing everything" into an artform and punishment for everyone around him. He was just simply insufferable... a lost cause. The sort of person Albert realized there was no reasoning with, because Mr. Dresdin did not want to be reasoned with. Simple as that. So today, Albert Mitchel was going to quit.

Albert had been psyching himself up all weekend now. Over the night he could not sleep a wink. He rehearsed exactly the sort of verbal beatdown he could not wait to bestow. He let his thoughts run through all the victorious conclusions in his mind. Of this he was sure... No matter how it went down, he would walk away a free and happy man.

By the time he had arrived at the offices, rain was coming down in a torrent. A wicked morning line of severe storms was pushing through the area. The electricity in the air matched the electricity in Albert's eyes. Appropriate... he thought to himself.

There came one last deep breath as Albert accepted what he had to do. Get wet and make a mad dash for the entrance. There was no way to avoid it... He knew that 3 seconds in the rain would have him soaking from head to toe. But he couldnt wait any longer. Now was the time.

Albert kicked the car door open with his foot and then hopped out into the storm. As he slammed the dripping door shut, a crack of thunder erupted from the sky. He made a mad dash towards the entrance, splashing through puddles, getting soaked. Then he saw a figure up ahead holding an umbrella. The figure was gesturing towards him... gesturing to take refuge under it.

By the time he had made it under the umbrella, he realized who the person was... much to his dismay. It was Mr. Dresdin, his boss.

"There ya go! Walk with me!" Mr. Dresdin ordered and the two of them walked side by side through the storm.

Albert felt more than uncomfortable having to brush shoulders with this vile man. He decided to say nothing.

"Its raining cats and dogs!" Mr. Dresdin exclaimed as they walked.

"Y-yeah." Albert tried to play along, but cringing to himself on that overused phrase.

_Cats and dogs? Really? What a moron... _ __

"Anyways Al, glad I caught up with you. Ive been meaning to talk to you." Mr. Dresdin said.

"Well, actually..." Albert tried to get his words out, but Mr. Dresdin cut him off.

"You see, we here at the company are a team. And as a team we need our best to step up, and our worst to step down or get better. Everyone has a role to play here, you understand?" Mr. Dresdin explained. Then he continued on before Albert could even answer. "Now I know things here havnt been as good as I hoped this year. I think we are going to take another loss this quarter. So what I am trying to say is..."

Then albert found his voice. He felt what was coming and he would be damned if he let this pompus man get ahead on him. Not today. Not ever.

"NO YOU LISTEN!" Albert exploded, pointing his finger directly into Mr. Dresdin's chest. "You are the most dispicable man I have ever met! You want to know WHY this company is failing!? Just look in a damn mirror! You bring absolutely NO motivation to the team, you sit there in your king sized office and play solitare all day long and the only time you stick your head out is to yell at someone for absolutely no reason! You THINK you know everything, but you dont know shit! You don't even know how to turn on your own damn computer!!! How you ever got to be manager, or even managed to get a degree, is totally beyond me. I wouldnt even let you walk my dog! And if you didnt have this job mister... if you were not the slave driver that you are, Id be stepping over you in an alleyway, wiping my shoes on your face!"

Albert then took in an exaggerated huge breath and yelled out with all his might, spitting into Mr. Dresdin's face. "I QUIT!"

Mr. Dresdin came to a complete stop and stared at Albert, dumbfounded. His eyes turned wide and his mouth dropped open. This was something he was clearly not expecting.

"What I was going to say was," Mr. Dresdin replied, now with a skeptic dissapproving glance. "Is that the company has not been recognizing your talents and that we wanted to give you a promotion and pay raise."

"Oh." was all Albert could say.

"Yes. Oh." Mr. Dresdin repeated. Then without warning, the boss stormed off with his umbrella towards the building... Leaving Albert in the rain.

She didnt look up from the cracks in the sidewalk, nor did she turn down her street to go home. Instead, she just kept walking. Rain thundered down from gray heavens above in the mid afternoon. She splashed her sneakers against the soaked concrete, trying not to concintrate on anyone else. Cars whizzed by, spewing water from the wheels. Everyone was in a hurry now. Even mother Earth.

In her head, The voices from earlyer began to claw back through her mind. . .

"What did you do!?"

"Now you'll regret it!"

"You should be expelled!"

"We are calling your parents! We will discuss it with them!"

"How could you!?"

"What kind of monster are you!?"

"Im sure they are going to press charges!"

Each phrase hit her like a bullet to the chest. She just wanted to sink deeper and deeper into the ground until no one could see her. The feeling of shame was unbearable. How could she go from genuinely liked to genuinely loathed in the mattwr of minutes!? She hadn't felt deceptive, or vindictive... she was just... just...

Defending herself. And if Holly, a scummy popular girl who loved to walk all over her peers, hadnt have punched her square in the face, then maybe she wouldnt have pushed Holly down the stairs. Maybe Holly wouldnt have been rushed to the hospital today. Maybe Holly shares some of this blame...

Of course, No one else saw it that way. No one at all, since there was no one else in the stairway to see it happen. What they saw was a girl with twisted broken limbs screaming her death scream while another girl stood at the top of the steps looking down in shock.

'It was instinctive.' She thought to herself as she walked further on away from her home. 'I didnt think, temporary insanity... It was just a reaction.'

The flicker of red abd blue lights against the sidewalk came into her view and she lifted her eyes up to see. A police car had a man pulled over, and the officer was leaning into the window of the offender's vehicle. She stopped dead in her tracks, frozen with sudden fear. Maybe the police were looking for her! The officer pulled back from the window and looked down the street directly at her.

For a moment both of them just stared at eachother. Then the officer turned back to the car and held up his index finger to indicate the universal sign of 'Hang on a minute'. At this She turned and started to run back down the street.

She heard the officer shout out "Hey! Hold Up!" But she was not going to stop. She broke into a full sprint now. She rounded the corner and started down that street when she heard the chirp of the siren behind her. Then came the megaphone: "STOP RIGHT NOW!"

Her feet could no longer move on command. She tried to escape, anyway she could, but another side of her crumbed to acceptance at the officer's command. After all, she was never a rule breaker. She turned, bursting into hysterics. "Im sorry! I didnt mean to! It was an accident!"

The officer stopped his car, and flew out of it qhickly approaching her. He had his gun drawn. "Hands on your head NOW!"

She obeyed, sobbing all the while. This was it... This was how her life would turn downhill forever.

Just a little bit left of the world we know, All of the greens that we planted to grow, Birds in the trees sing their chimes down below, Come winter there will be a blanket of snow, No footprints or tiretracks to disturb its glow, The oceans still tide and the rivers still flow, When we all died off the Earth stopped its row, Now its just a tranquil space of indigo,

That thing that lives under beds in the dark of night that nibbles at your toes if you leave them dangling off the bed? Its more vile, twisted and groutesque than anything you have possibly imagined. Many of us think that it just steals socks, But it also steals souls as well. The truth is, there really is a monster under your bed. We call it the Ettercap.

Rumor has it that it was once a man. He was a very spiteful evil vindictive man who went far out of his way to make people suffer. He was a powerful man who let the drink get ahold of him and ruin his life. And he hated everyone and everything. He lived in his apartment alone in the darkness, with the bugs and spiders. He felt safe there, and over time all of his hatred had overtaken him. He transformed, in his mind and physically... Into something less than human.

His skin was black and leathery, with bristlely strands of black hair pointing out of him like a thick broom in spots. He had hard spikes proteuding up and down his limbs. His eyes were a sick yellow glow, and twenty of them had grown into his forehead, mimicking the spiders. He drooled from his newly formed mandables, and his feet had turned insect. He could spin silk out of his mouth, and covered his apartment in thick webbing. He liked the dark, and hid in closets and beds, and other safe places around the apartment. And there he was happy, transforming more and more into a hideous humanoid-spider.

So how did he make his way under your bed tonight? When the apartments caught fire, the entire building burned. The Ettercap had lost his nest, and was forced to abandon the apartments for the sewers. Now he travels around at night, or underground, when no one can see him move... And he scuttles into houses, and into bedrooms, just like yours.

When you are watching television, or brushing your teeth getting ready for bed, the Ettercap is settling into your closet, behind your bookshelf. He waits with the stillness of a statue until you are asleep... and that is when he strikes. Feeding off of your dreams and thoughts, Sucking the happiness right out of you. Poisoning you with his cynacism. Killing your soul. . .

This life of mine likes to wonder, The journey never comes back around,

Twenty years I left my hometown, Never thought to return to it now,

Distant people warn me somehow, On the backs of memories,

How it could never be what it was, How I could never return to the scene,

Circumstances found me back in my old parent's house, Rummaging through what to toss or keep,

I swear after this then never again, I will go far away and roam,

The key they had given me still fit in the lock, but the house no longer felt like home,