I’m almost proud of how quickly I’ve become accustomed to cursing. In my first step into the portal, the phosphorescent light eliminates all heat within my body. Its icy tendrils seem to probe me in an experimental search for my worthiness while I pepper it with four letter words.

I stand otherwise statue still, too cold to even shiver, praying the place between realms, that I’ll undoubtedly be r...

Breaching the copse of trees blinds me as the lights combine. My lantern takes my split second of blinking away spots to explode like a small cannon in my fist molded around its handle, perfectly punctuated by a scream I can’t contain.

_And everything had all been going so well until now! _

My grip instinctively releases the demon light. I trip and stumble away from the small flame remaining, c...

The jolting torchlight illuminates the dead grasses beneath the pounding of my bare feet until the marshy forest floor resembles the hellfire I feel on my heels.

Every frantic pounding step away from where the heat and I had previously resided rips my heart and nightdress into tatters.

“This is just _so_ typical,” I scoff into the endless obsidian of night.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve neve...

(edited)

The suffocatingly dense thunder clouds disoriented my vision. towering walls loomed over me dripping the raindrops onto my already wet hair. The surrounding greenery took on a dark hue creating an atmosphere that the crumbling castle I was in could not shield me from. There was this fog that didn’t seem to be affected by the pouring rain that the clouds spat out, in contrast, I felt as i...

Tiffany Hardstrom was racing through the dark.

Her brown locks whipped about her face. One hand pulled at the silk folds of her yellow muslin dress, uncovering an ivory stocking. The other gripped tightly at the black hinge of an oustretched lantern. The grass beneath her feet had a sickly yellow tinge, a result of the lantern’s rays. Tiffany was running-running in desperation.

“Lill...

“I need to leave.” I wrote in my diary, hands shaking. “I could not bare this abuse from my husband. From a man that seemed to be as dear as a lamb, to a horrible man, dare I even say a man, a monster, a manipulator, a maniac..”

My parents had arranged this marrige with this prince. I thought he was perfect, he was the one. Soon enough he turned into a monster like all the other men in the commu...

As the princess escaped the tower she has been forced to stay in, she found herself in a yellow grass field, the dark engulfed her, nothing can be seen as she were in a void. The only light source she has was a little lantern glowing fragile lights that seems to could extinguish at any time. Her ornate dress drag through the grasses, making the once pure dress to be defiled. Despite all these, she...

I can’t let him kill me.

The lantern lights my path as the darkness closes in on me.

My dress betrays me as I trip on the fabric. My lantern is thrown in the air. I can’t let it’s light stop glowing. The lantern’s fire puffs out. My vision darkens. I’m alone with this monster. The cicadas drown my eardrums. My eyelids are pushed down against my will.

I wake up in darkness. I can m...

Running with my hair blowing in my face and my slippers in the slick mud, I could feel a hot breath chasing after me.

My lateen shook, the fire blinking on the edge of extinguishing.

_The king requires your blood, Mythical Girl._

The beast’s deep words shook my core as I focused on running from his clawed hands.

With a silent whoosh, my lantern blew out and only my weak human eyes could guid...

The sleek shadow raced after her, singing haunting tunes with the wind’s help.

The fire in the lateen fluttered, as if it was near death of burning out.

Mud soaked the bottom of Stela’s white nightgown.

She had to get away.

_“Come sweet Stela, come sweet home;_

__

_We await your return _

_To the empty bone throne…”_

The shadows whispered sweet words, attempting to steer Stela away from escapi...