The spotlight found her and then stayed still. Beneath it she trembled. Curled inwards. And then, becoming aware of her audience, the room of eyes watching her, she stretched out her arms, opened her mouth, and started to perform.
At first it was a slow dance, with the words of the song low and soft, gentle as a whisper. And then, as her confidence grew, as she started to enjoy it and believe in her ability, believe that these people actually wanted to watch and hear her, she started to speed up and the song became almost wild, a celebration...
I crept silently through then corridor, the occasional creak of the floorboards abruptly halting me in my path.
The hallway was lit up by a dim nightlight, glowing a soft orange hue in the blackness. My shadow flared up the wall as I passed, and slowly shrunk back into the all-engulfing shadows.
A turn of a corner later, and I came face to face with a door. A door, which, when opened, would answer all my questions. I placed my ear to the keyhole, and made my bets attempt to silence my breath, and slow my pounding heart beat, trying...
The explosion knocked her off her feet and sent a ringing through her ears. She felt the world going black.
When she came to, she got up and looked around. the bathroom was in shambles. the spotted mirrors were shattered all around her on the floor. one of the stall doors had been blown off. She rose to her feet, brushed herself off, and started through the halls, looking for her friends. She walked through the ruins of her school for nearly an hour, finding nothing but the dead. She heard footsteps and ran for the source. She ran smack...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding and his clothes soaking wet. "How could you do this to me?" He screamed at Kelly who stood facing him with her arms crossed over her chest and wet red dress clinging to her body.
"Mark, you had a red carpet at your prom after party. DO you NOT think that thats getting a little out of hand?" Kelly responded.
"You don't know the pressure to stay in the public eye. You don't know what its been like for me for the past 6 months. I tried to stay like a normal...
The large shape of the medical building loomed on the horizon. Vic and I were survivors of a plague tring to get a vaccine. We had been traveling for so long and this was our last chance of hope.
" do you see it?!?" He yelled joyfully.
I smiled. We were so far off and he was so sick I didn't know if he would make it
"Well, Vic how about you take a rest" I said while sitting down on a broken city curb. He walked over from the ruins of the Rise Records building-which used to be one...
The gate closed behind them. Back to the land of the living, no walking into the light without a backward glance.
Angels watched the reluctant men, women and children hesitate, clutching hands with their loved ones, those that had passed on beforehand and had greeted them. Now comforting and advising it is the wrong time to stay. They were special, given a glimpse into heaven, a chance to alter their lives for good, inspire others that there is more to this life than most believe nowadays. They would return without the paralysing fear of death, they would welcome the last...
The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real.
I am blind yet everything I experience at night is always in varying shades, or what I think are shades. I question if what I see is the same whites, blacks, red, yellow, orange, green etc and all the tones in between that everyone else can see.
I am lucky in a way that I know what to wear, I can sense the differences between shades, they have their individual feelings, sometimes I can even hear them like musical notes.
The dream last night was different in that there...
I wonder. I really wonder. He always enjoyed pulling a fast one over me, he did. So I suppose this wasn't a surprise, even after all these years: he would have probably planned it all this time, ready to spring it over me, and watch my befuddlement. He did that all the time before, so why should he stop now?
Then again, that's probably me being paranoid. 'Ox bow lake'. What the hell does that mean? And why, on earth, did I have him- or her- there? It could be anyone of the many enemies I've made over the course...
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty.
Sure, there were lots of positive adjectives she would have included in a description of herself. Clever, athletic, determined, sensitive, ambitious, caring, discerning, admirable.
Ok, maybe "admirable" was stretching things a bit.
But pretty? That was a word for the popular girl in high school, with the childish voice and the two-expression face: desirous and desirable; I want THAT and you want ME!
Pretty was the compliment of an unimaginative father, the manipulative tool of a mother living vicariously.
It wasn't something she had ever felt the need to apply to...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It was not that she was frightened - no, fear was something she found rather useless - but because she knew with an unshakeable certainty that if she wandered onto the street, she would be eaten by a vampire.
The house beyond the doorway was no better, on account of there being a ghost lurking inside, the type that would drip ectoplasm on her most horribly before devouring her soul.
This girl, then, was at an impasse. She could neither proceed nor retreat. Go out, the...