Stars sewn into the near sky, only feet above us, twinkling in the dark midnight glow. We sat for hours, talking about our lives and our pasts until we got to talk about our future.

“I love fairy lights” she said with a smile as wide as the deep sky itself.

“They've made the night more magical haven't they?” I uttered in a desperate response just to speak.

————————

Something small for my...

The cloud I see is me,

Death swayed around it,

Lingering freely,

A throne which would forever sit,

Its arms stretch and bend,

Shadows curl and twist,

A crown without end,

A fleeting shape I cannot resist,

It drifts through the sky,

Silent, vast, and deep,

I reach with a sigh,

For secrets the wind will keep,

A mirror of thought,

A weightless, drifting trace,

Lessons quietly taught,

Reflected in ...

They danced in his head, the tantalising thoughts of guilt

A lone chair sat in the middle of a ballroom, black sleek leather. The smell of wood rose to his senses as the lonely man walked toward the chair. Long black hair curled up and tucked behind his ears. A smooth shave exposing the neat scar reaching across his nose.

How could life be so complicated? The man thought of reaching his hand to...

The darkness floated around me like an ethereal shadow. Complete and unwavering, it comforted me and gave me the time to think. The room was void of household necessities and that made me feel safe. Nothing could creep up on me here. If the door opened, perhaps only a shred of light might intrude and bounce across the walls.

I never wanted that.

The dark was the only place I could breathe withou...

“I may look like a demon and talk like one. But if I truly were, would you still try to understand me?”

That was the first thing it said to me. A demon, or so it claimed. I couldn’t be sure, and even now the memory unsettles me more for what I don’t know than for what I do.

I began writing this only so I wouldn’t forget. The more I reread these words, the less certain I become. Was it real? A dr...

“We’ve been hearing complaints at 1408 Ocean View. Gonna need you there as soon as possible.”

The shadow across the detective’s face lifted for a moment as he tipped his head up. The wire of the communicator dangled loose, snagged on the gear stick. He leaned closer to the speaker, his words delivered with perfect pace and sharp clarity.

“We’re on it,” he said, the weight of his thick British ac...

It stopped. Just once, at first. A single hollow pause where the sound should have been.

I held my breath, waiting for it to return. And it did, clumsy, like it had tripped over something invisible inside me.

But then it stopped again. Longer this time. The seconds stretched out, thin and fragile, like glass about to crack. I wasn’t faint, I wasn’t dizzy. I was just waiting. Waiting for the thud...

The scream crawled out sideways,

not through my mouth,

but through the cracks in the walls,

It peeled the paint as it left,

shaking dust loose from the ceiling,

The silence pretended nothing happened,

But every object in the room,

remembered…...

The rift opened not in the sky, but in her eyes. A hairline crack, invisible to everyone else, but I saw it. The moment it split, every unsaid word I had swallowed, shuddered.

I fell, not into darkness, but into the weight of silence we’d been building together. All the times I said “it’s fine,” all the nods instead of questions, all the goodbyes spoken without looking back; they crowded me now, ...

The bird flew toward the setting sun just in time. It settled on a now cool branch that bent like a chair. It pecked once at the bark, casual, like it belonged there.

Its blue feathers were turning purple now, the light wrapping around its body until its head was buried in a deep, throbbing violet. The glow from the sun caught the shimmer in its wings, and I couldn’t help but just stand there, wa...