The soaring sky darkens at my presence as it always had. Science would never be able to explain it, because it wasn't. In the appearance of human life, the floating island seems to dim, as though the very protection of it depended on the dusking sky.

The thought of it bewildered me at first, but the sight of it over time made me despise it. It was hiding it. I just know it. This island was hiding ...

He had found in the wood, a vast cathedral with openings in the ebony walls and ceiling that allowed rain and sunlight into ponds surrounding the pews; and, at certain times of the day, onto the wooden carved crucifix at the head of the church, where sharp vines slithered up The thigh of Christ, and formed over his anguished face a crown of thorns and climbing, scarlet roses.

Each pond, a koi...

Beyond the mountains, the cliffs, on the beach side stands a man. A man with hair like snow, a beard reaching his toes, ragged, tangled. He stood still staring out into the sea. Not looking, not even observing.

A man stands still staring out into the sunset but stuck inside his head, searching for an answer only he can discover. An answer made for him, an answer to a question he need only ask hi...

A lone, aged man wanders across the wild land, searching. Always searching. Before he lost everything and after he lost everything and during losing everything - he searched. The inkling sat with him since he was a child, looking into his mother’s boudoir mirror.

Now, the sand drags against his near-numb feet, the wind whips his unkempt hair, and his tongue flicks over his dry, cracking lips. Th...

I am in a wild land

So, so far away

From where I was

On some search to find something important

Something greater than fame

Greater than money

Greater than having any treasure

Greater than any of that

That something being company

Company that makes you feel whole

That makes you feel satisfied

That makes you feel true joy

I don’t care how long it takes

How much I have to go through

Regardless ...

He began hiding under the thicket, just as his creature would have if it knew it was being stalked. The creature, an invention known only by the creator himself, of whom waited in the thicket, moved in a zigzag pattern to confuse predators. The man had taught its creature well, as the print in the sand that appeared half parts tentacle and giant caterpillar flowed through the ground with indisting...

It had been years since he'd seen her. After the two Stetrin siblings had had their quarrel, they'd gone their separate ways, vowing never to meet again. But now Adam was ready to find his sister.

Kallie had been furious, and had vanished into thin air. Adam knew this was not going to be easy, her magic had always been stronger than his. If she didn't want him to find her, it was going to be ne...

I saught out the phantom touch of love that was once there

To reach and to beg

Love was my old self, the young version of me , the one I took for granted, now I have lost everything, including myself.

I have lost my youth, my worth, my place on this earth. I’m nothing but a root in the ground. I’m searching for someone I could’ve been if not for the fear of being outcast.

I reach out to life.

I ...

Nearly fifteen years ago, Greg lost his wife and daughter due to a house fire. Pamela and Susie perished on the eve of Greg’s 29th birthday. Pamela and Greg had been married for two years at that point. Their love language was puzzles. Any puzzle, they'd work it. Solving a problem right beside each other was their thing. Pamela traveled to Nebraska with her church choir a week before Greg's birthd...

“AAAAGGGHHHH!!!”

Screaming hurt my throat. But so did breathing, now. In fact, the list of parts of me that _didn’t_ hurt would be a much shorter list than those that do.

The small, orange creatures made in the image of a rat on an acid trip hissed and scattered. Bastards, all of them. Chewing up my bloodied clothes and pulling whatever scrap they could from my constantly dwindling rations.

It ...