The quick pace of our steps slowed.

Collapsing by a tree, I placed my hand on my shoulder, trying to slow the bleeding that seeped through my torn clothes in great amounts. Fatigue overcame me. My eyes blurred around the edges as I tried to focus my eyes on Kellen, who slowly sat beside me and helped me stop the blood. I exclaimed quietly in pain so he stopped, pulling his hand away. My blood no...

***Ella***

I run through the forest, run and the nightmare that has been this past week can’t catch up, run and maybe I’ll forget. Tears streak down my red cheeks, out of my puffy eyes.

My legs are pounding, I want to keep running but I can’t. I just can’t.

I sit down, leaning my back against the bark and let my heart spill open.

Ugly sobs shake me, they rack my chest.

I cry, for my mother, my mo...

Jack has always seen art in death. The splash of red that always leaves behind that familiar jolt. That euphoric sense of madness.

He was always looking for more work but something whispered on the wind. Something about a grand masterpiece.

_Leave your tools behind._

But his tools-knives, guns, swords-they were like his children. How could he possibly…

_It will never be yours, then._

__

__

Jac...

“Where are you taking me?” I ask Thomas. He just smiles and winks.

I hate it when he does that.

He leads me through the winding streets of New York, and I begin to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he’s taking me there again.

The first time we went there it was an accident. He tried to explain to me, but it was impossible, and possibly the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.

I barely remember half of ...

My first love was a child of scorpions—

Stuck his stinger in my heart

And poisoned me into submission.

I got on my hands and knees

And begged him not to leave.

But when the first frost crystallized us in our farewell embrace,

I took a mental picture

And stored it in my memory’s vault.

They keep me warm at night

When I become hyper-aware of how empty my bed is.

I pretend that October is a blank...

They shared exclaimated glances at the wood surrounding them. Jamie, the boy, had the power to create hallucinations. He couldn’t control when they came or went, or even what they looked like, just like he wasn’t able to choose who saw them when he did. They were always too real to be fake. You could reach out and touch the red leafs on the forest floor, feel their texture. If you wanted to, you c...

I wrap my arms around a work of fiction

Me, alone, in a sea of red decay

Rotting pumpkins

Seasonal depression

Still beautiful just the same...

There’s something romantic about Autum. The plants that blossomed in spring and thrived in the warm summer breeze, slowly decay. But in that decay is a canvas of warm auburn, burnt orange and red hues. It’s a warm glow, lighting up the trees and forest floor. It might be the end for the plants, but for love, it’s the start of something warm, cozy and epic. In this haze of autumnal glow, we find ou...

I take his hand and run through the trees.

"Woah! Melody! Wait, where are we going?"

I don't stop running and keep quiet. He will love this, I know he will. We've always had our best moments in the most amazing places. Our first kiss was at a beautiful park in our hometown, our best kiss was out on an arctic pier, and now here will be... who knows?

"Here," I pant and put my hands on my knees. I...

A morbid fascination with autumn

of death’s season; rotting leaves, hearts broken.

With her, with lovers I came here seldom

a place of Anubis. screamed bad omen.

Bodies, bodies, atop one another

Dancing red embers, once evergreen green

fall. Aided by death’s wind, greed. Shake, shudder.

Through barren branches… the apple of Eve

Gorging itself on decomposing life

Giving way to life, not death,...