He kept her in the basement now. She was becoming too “defiant” for him at the time, it seemed.

She was fed only once a day now, with two buckets of water; one for drinking and one for bathing. Not that he was nice enough to give her shampoo and conditioner, though. Just a brush with enough hair in it that it didn’t get the job done well enough. She couldn’t see her tangles coming undone, for the...

Elara’s hand trembled as she pushed open the heavy oak door. It groaned on ancient hinges, a sound she hadn’t heard in years, swallowed by the muffled silence of her sickroom. A sliver of blinding white light sliced into the gloom, making her wince, her eyes still accustomed to the perpetual twilight of drawn curtains. Each breath felt impossibly shallow.

Then, she stepped out.

The world hit her...

The sun was warm, maybe a little too warm. It was bright too, maybe a little too bright. The electricity in his cheeks and the sun beating down on him at the same time felt so foreign. Yet, despite being locked up in this horror house of a lab for the last couple of years, Akihiro wasn’t focused on the overwhelming senses he was feeling, but rather, the person next to him, and his worry for it.

H...

Stroking my cheek with uttermost softness that I have craved ever since I was an infant, gently outlining features that have grown more profound by bathing in the moonbeams.

Magnifying deep, silky brown freckles that hide under the sadness that my skin has grown tired of. Kissing the cemented frown lines that have been carved onto my face for some time now.

Carefully closing my battered eyelid...

I watch as the shadows fall from her face, the gentle touch of warm light basking on her skin. Her shadows cower away at her command, seemingly afraid of the ability she possesses. I watch as her head falls back and I trace her every feature down to the curl of her lips. Her daggers are gleam against her combat leathers and her her long hair falls in waves of gold. She stretches her arms out to he...

I can’t remember

The last time

I felt the sun on my face

I can’t remember the last time

I saw the light

Or anything bright

I lived shrouded in darkness

Blided by my own shadow

Haunted by my thoughts

That is

Until I met

Her

And suddenly

It wasn’t so dark anymore

It wasn’t so cloudy

She was the sun

To light up my world

To fix my broken bulb

Turns out All I needed

Was her...

Her pale face gleaned in the sunlight as she approached Dyersville. The meticulously strung together chain of fangs looked like a halo around her saddle. Not only was she unaccustomed to Dyersville, but to the sunlight in general.

“Thats very strange weather for around here…perhaps the ritual of the locals worked.”

She would soon find out it did not and much like most of her cases the brief glimp...

From a hatching, I was kept in the place filled with tiny people with sharp teeth. Soon I went blind in this place, able to feel but not see. I was locked in the lower levels, chains around my neck and body. They dug into my skin, the chains, day and night, they were there. There was a noise , like rattling. After a while, I expected pain when I heard it. Little did I know this was all about to c...

I'm grabbed.

My face disappears inside its hot grip. Tentacles squeeze, searing my skin, jabbing at my eyes.

Shrieks rain down from the sky. Ash and smoke explode on my tongue.

I step back—

And I'm in the factory again.

My factory.

Where I was born. Where I live. Where, until today, I had never left.

They call it the Sun.

The thing that grabbed me.

I touch my cheek, trying to ease the sting st...

It had been a while since Sol had seen the sun. Not in the "I'm grinding on Valorant can't spare my time" type of isolation, more like "I'm quite literally in captivity. In my own mind". If anything, it was ironic. But humour didn't allow him to see the sun again, it couldn't even mask the aching envy in his body. It was one of the only times he was partially glad he didn't own a wind...