The Writers' Block 2019

The 2018 – 2019

Writers’ Block

Art by Sophie McMahon

Literary Magazine from Anderson High School Austin, TX

An eclectic collection of original, thoughtful, and creative writings from the students of Anderson High School

The Writers’ Block

2018-2019

Dear Readers, We are thrilled to share with you the wonderful writing that Anderson’s creative writers produce. This year, we have over 40 students who contributed pieces to make this farraginous magazine, and you’re sure to find at least a few that make you feel something deeply as you read their words.

The ideas contained within these pages come straight out of some extraordinarily interesting minds. One thing to note, though: while our creative writing classes are places of wisdom, wonder, and wordplay, they are not places of censorship. Therefore, some of the word choices, themes, and imagery may not be suitable for younger audiences. In other words, this is a high school publication intended for adolescents, young adults, and adults, so you have been warned—or perhaps excited. In any case, we hope you enjoy the efforts of our students this year!

A huge debt of gratitude goes out this year to Marissa Volshteyn, a generous member of the English department who gave hours of her time in editing the students’ work. We’d also like to extend heartfelt thanks for the support and direction of Principal Sammi Harrison, the fantastic English Department, and the rest of Anderson High School. This community continues to provide us with an open and supportive environment in which to write and share. And, of course, thank you to all the students who have contributed and given their time and energy to improving their writing this year.

Literally Yours, Jason Farr and Rebecca McMahon Creative Writing Teachers

Anderson High School 8403 Mesa Dr. Austin, TX 78759 jason.farr@austinisd.org rebecca.mcmahon@austinisd.org

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Table of Contents Author

Title

Page

Sarah Hartley

Lover of Thy Enemy

4

Ava Melvin

The Hello Kitty Gun

8

Grace Dodson

Take On Me

10

Nicholas Tesmer

Goatman’s Bridge

11

Maddie Bass

It’s Not Unusual

17

Zac McCain

Quercus Muscipula

18

Vivian Perutka

Tragedy of Love

22

Cenna Noble

Lucky

23

Liam McGrath,

Fan Mail/Hate Mail

24

Cindy Song

A Terrible Bus Ride

26

Shelby Sturgis

Fall From Grace

28

Sara Valentine

Peach Pit

32

Sadaan Khan

The Road of Mist

33

Vincent Pham

The Unknown Abstract

33

Mirari Saenz

Oh, Honey

35

Jenna Lloyd

Canvassed

36

Isabella Rincon

Pringles

38

Jacob Ouzillou

An Idiot Letter

39

Kennidy McAllister

The Rose Garden

40

Lily Collier, Elly Whitehill, Ruby Jones

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Marian Hayes

Two Poems

41

Madison Mitchell

Mechanical

42

Maddie Walker

Look for Me in the Stars

43

Jacob Singer

Dissociation (poetry collection)

50

Haden Knobloch

The Jagged Branches

54

Kate Perry

The Abuse of the Non-Dedicated Right Turn

56

Lane Ruth Garcia

Art-Inspired

57

Mark Foster

The Doctor Called

59

Elly Whitehill

Footprints

62

Ethan Brown

Party

64

Faith Borchers

Every Breath You Take

67

Dakota Garza

Ode to Friends

68

Amaya Leon

7 Deadly Sins (poetry collection)

68

Asher Ford

Mined Craft (poetry collection)

69

Bitia Sanchez Cruz

Holiday Poetry Collection

71

Ally Soltero

You

72

Emma Nix

Air

74

Piper Duffee

Grow the Hell Up (poetry collection)

74

Elijah Kleinman

Two Poems

77

Jadin Leon

Imagined Autobiography

79

Althea Lloren

Pan Poetry

80

Liam McGrath

Inhale, Exhale

81

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Lover of Thy Enemy Sarah Hartley In Ume’s youth, her father, the famed Abe Horoshimi, had always told her the hardest part of sword fighting was thinking of the weapon as an extension of yourself.

He had said that the katana was never just a sword, but rather a part your body. She had thought it humorous when he first whispered that to her. How preposterous!

Thinking such a barbarian tool could ever be another ligament. But now, she saw that her father was an even bigger liar than he was a jokester, as lifting the sword was most certainly the hardest part of wielding a blade. The weight had to be more than her entire being. Her arms shook with the exertion and perspiration was blooming on her brow. If only her mother could see her now, sweating like a pig under the hot sun, how scandalized she would be. With her dark hair tied up, Ume willed all her strength into her arms and prayed to her ancestors to not have anyone witness her current predicament. Surely, she would be shamed, thrown from the house and forced to live amongst the rats. Drifting from her pristine image would cause outrage, maybe even cause a war, her mind supplied, or a plag— “Imouto?” A voice rang out, breaking her from her stupor and sending her whipping around to face the intruder.

“Ani?” She was surprised to see her brother out walking so soon after his accident. “You shouldn't be out of bed.”

“Ah,” he replied sheepishly, pushing his black hair out of the way of his soft brown eyes, “I was too restless up there alone and thought I heard someone in here. It appears I was correct in that assumption.”

Her brother had been confined to bed rest for the remainder of the moon cycle due to his recklessness in training. He had let his opponent get the upper hand and suffered the consequences of becoming distracted whilst in battle. His leg had been treated right away but the hiragana said he had been lucky not to have lost his limb.

“But that is not important,” he went on, “why—exactly—are you pointing a wakizashi at his owner in such a manner?”

Looking down, she realized that indeed, this sword was a wakizashi, distinguishable by the short length of the blade when compared to her father's fearsome katana. She also realized that she had successfully lifted the blade past her waist and was now pointing it, with trembling arms, at her crippled brother.

“Oh!” Surprised, she dropped the sword and it clattered to the ground with a noise so loud, no doubt the whole estate must have awoken.

Her brother only cringed at the abuse of his blade, and raised his eyes expectantly to hers, still awaiting an answer.

Instead of replying, she simply bent down to grasp the blade in both hands and lugged it

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back onto the wall where it was once safely kept. She refused to turn around to meet the scrutinizing gaze of the elder and instead went to polishing the blade. It had no doubt collected filth from its short time spent on the ground.

“Ume,” he spoke softly, “were you... trying to teach yourself how to hold a blade?”

“No,” she snapped. “I was...simply admiring it at a close distance.” Nodding her head in confirmation, she stubbornly peered at him over her shoulder.

“Ume,” he spoke again patiently, “you could have hurt yourself. If you wanted to play Samurai, all you had to do was as—” “Play?” She whirled around, suddenly furious at the instigation. “Is all this a game to you? The battles, the duels, wielding a deadly weapon? Is all that simply fun for you? I am confined to this house everyday awaiting your return and all I can do is cook and clean and worry about you! And now, you've gone and gotten yourself hurt. You're injured and you have that duel with Naokiyo Ikejiri in the upcoming days—have you forgotten about that? Your rival heir finally has the chance to kill you off because of your foolish games,” she yelled breathlessly.

“Ikejiri-san….” her brother breathed back, confused. “No, I have not forgotten but I don't unders—” “And those men still expect you to—to duel against him, even though you can barely walk, and you think I can just sit idly while you go out and fight perhaps your last battle? No, I am playing Samurai to take your place, Uchimiji. I am going to fight in your place and—” “Absolutely not!” he yelled back. “I cannot allow you to do that for me Ume, I am perfectly capable of—” “Capable of nothing!” She stood her ground, jaw clenched and fists balled into the fabric of her blue kimono. “I am going to fight in your place and I am going to win against Ikejiri-san, and you are going to allow me to do this or I will never speak to you again.”

Stillness lingered in the air after she spoke and the two siblings—one older, one younger, cut from the same cloth—could do nothing but stare at each other, willing one another to stand down. “...I cannot stop you… can I?” Uchimiji spoke up in a resigned tone “Your mind is made up, Imouto?”

“Yes,” she replied, strong willed as ever. “I am doing this not only for you, to protect you, but also for myself. To prove that I am more than what society wants me to be. All I am to these men is a mere woman, someone to please them, but I know I am more. And now I’m going to prove that I am worth just as much, if not more, as any man.”

“Alright.” “...A-alright?” she replied confused. She had been sure he would need more convincing.

Nodding, he stepped closer. “Alright, you're doing this. But not without my help.”

Her mind blanked.

“I am going to teach you the ways of the Samurai. More importantly, I am going to teach you how to stay safe during a duel. I would never forgive myself if something were to happen to you.”

Limping around her and grabbing the sword off the wall, he turned back to her and spoke clearly.

“First, you need to learn how to hold a sword.”

-------------------------------“Remember,” her brother had told her before the duel, jittery with nerves, “don’t worry about winning, worry about staying alive.”

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As if, she had thought in reply, but now, with the blood rushing in her ears and her newly cut hair clinging to her neck, she would love nothing more than to get out of this alive. The clang of metal on metal was the only thing she could hear over her harsh panting, arms shaking with strain. Even after countless nights of training, she still hadn’t built up the endurance a Samurai her age would have. Years of hard practice were evident in the way her opponent was moving.

Even though he was almost twice her size, he moved with fluidity and grace, no doubt having learnt from his father. Despite this, he seemed to be...going easy on her? Shaking her head, she pushed on. She didn't know how her brother, small by samurai standards, had ever stood against this man—boy—she reminded herself. Ikejiri-san and her brother had started training at the same age, and though they were bred to be rivals, they were both just boys.

Focus! She chided herself, remember your training. Parry, block, jab, an endless cycle of just looking for an opening, an opportunity to get the upper hand. So far, all she had done was block against her opponent’s attacks, she was—wait—there! A fumble on his part, a misstep that would be indescribable to the normal eye, to a normal woman. Perhaps she wouldn't have caught it in the past, but now, under the harsh sun, hidden behind a mask of metal and a torso of gold she was finally able to breath. So, she brought her katana up, the shrrrrrnnkkk sound of the blades colliding and sliding almost like bells in her ears, flung his sword aside and plunged the blade into his shoulder, a weak point in the armor, and down Ikejiri went. In a cloud of haze and a blur of red, she had never felt so free.

-------------------------------“It is tradition to thank an opponent after a duel,” she remembered her brother saying. “It may seem foolish now, but it is a polite way of saying ‘thank you for not killing me.’”

Looking back, Ume wished she could remember what he said about starting the conversation.

Now that the duel was over and the tears of victory, of winning, of proving that she was something, even if only to herself, had washed away, all she felt was weariness in her bones and the heaviness of her eyelids. The last thing she wanted was to gloat.

Thankfully, Ikejiri-san seemed to know what to say. Stepping forward in the small tea room, he held out his bare hand. He had stripped himself of his armor, leaving him in his casual clothes. Tan skin on display and short, cropped hair a mess on his head, his eyes shone with light and the apples of his were cheeks rosy with exertion. His shoulder was firmly wrapped but speckles of red seeped through the cotton.

“Well done,” he spoke softly, as if afraid someone would hear. “Well done, my love. My lovely Uchimiji.” And suddenly, it all made sense. The hidden glances, the lingering touches after training, the stares masked as glares, him going easy on her in the battle, everything was falling into place.

-------------------------------“Ikejiri-san I don’t—” “I am so proud of you my love, you were incredible out there—did you just call me Ikejiri-san? Uchi, are you alright? You haven’t called me that in yea—” “Ikejiri-san!” She said firmly, voice muffled behind the steel helmet still seated upon her face. “Please, listen to what I’m trying to tell you.”

He nodded his head, screwing his mouth into a tight line. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and his eyes shone with concern.

“I am not... I don’t…Okay, this might be easier.”

With her mind made up, Ume slowly removed the heavy helmet she wore and lifted her

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eyes to make contact with Naokiyo’s.

The silence that stretched out between them was almost palpable. Just as she opened her mouth to speak once again, the bamboo door slid open and none other than Uchimiji sauntered in, limp and all.

“Ume! I can't believe you did it! You were incredible! The crowd was convinced it was m—Kiyo? What are you…”

“Uchi… she knows.” “...What?!” Her brother’s incredulous tone rang out.

“She—I thought she was you so, I just—” cutting himself off, Naokiyo advanced to her brother’s side, reaching for his hand all the while. He looked like a kicked puppy with such sadness in his eyes.

Allowing his hand to be taken, Uchimiji turned his full attention to her “Ume,” he said carefully, “this isn't what it looks like.”

“Isn't what it—Uchi this looks like you are having relations with Ikejiri-san whom, might I remind you” she said venomously “is the enemy.” Relations such as theirs were not so unheard of, in fact, she had seen the unity of two men just weeks prior. But this, relations with the son of a rival clan, this was most definitely unheard of. “You could be shamed for this, disowned, this is scandalous. Having ties with the enemy is absolutely—” “I know! I know, it's just, he's not the enemy or at least, not my enemy he’s—we’re...”

“Lovers?”

“No!” Naokiyo exclaimed loudly, face glowing red, “It’s more complicated than that.” “...You called him ‘love.’”

“No, well yes, but—” “Kiyo," her brother spoke loudly, drawing the attention back to him. Squeezing his hand tighter, they seemed to be communicating through their eyes. With a nod, Naokiyo turned and left the room, but not before shooting one last longing look at Uchiimiji.

“Ume-chan,” he spoke to her softly, as if coaxing a crying cat out of a corner, “I'll explain everything, just...allow me to speak without interruption.”

Nodding her head, he went on.

“Kiyo—Ikejiri-san and I, we’ve been together a long time. As boys, we would pass each other on the street, we would see one another at school, and eventually, we trained together. As Samurai; rival heirs. And that’s all we were for a long time—rivals—who would glare at each other in public and shyly confide in one another in private. Sometime along the way, I started to—” he stopped himself, averting his eyes. “I started to—develop feelings...for him, for Naokiyo. I don't remember exactly when, years ago, when boyhood had just passed. He had smiled at me after training and my heart leapt as if giving chase and my palms grew dewy, as if I had dipped them into water. I realized that he made me feel…” not finding the right words, he trailed off hesitantly.

“Special?” she offered, quietly. She had never seen her brother like this. “...Alive.” Her brother spoke in new-found confidence. “I felt alive when I was with him.

I felt safe and cared for and respected and alive. So, the next time we saw each other, I told him.

I told him how I felt, and it was like releasing all the air in my body and when he whispered that he felt the same, it was like breathing for the first time. It was as if time had stopped, like the sun was frozen in the sky and children playing outside were never there. It was like, before him, I was never really there. I was a mark on a page or...a footprint in the dirt. Meeting him was... it was going to sleep after a long day of labor, like allowing yourself to relax. But, being with

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him—allowing myself to be with him—it’s unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Being with him is waking up after a long nap and realizing the day has passed you by. It’s like standing by a fire on a cold night or swimming in the stream on a hot day. It’s like being lost in your own mind, looking up, seeing stars, and realizing that there’s no place you’d rather be but beside him.”

The shock she felt was like being struck by lightning. There were so many questions in her mind: How had she not noticed? Was it hard to keep this hidden? Was it painful? but all that came out was, “Does he—does he make you happy?”

“Yes.” The weight of that one word was enough to make his voice tremble. “Yes, very much so.”

The look in her brother’s eyes was unlike anything she had ever seen. They had never been so clear.

“I…” he went on, “I love him. I love him so much it aches.”

“Love...” she repeated, dumbstruck.

“Love,” he affirmed, nodding his head.

Nodding back, she stepped up to her brother, looked him in the eye, and pulled him into a hug. Trembling, he returned it, tension finally leaving his body. Feeling her shoulder grow damp with tears, she hugged him tighter.

“Is all this worth it?” she whispered to the now quiet room, the only sound being the harsh breaths coming from her ani.

“For him?” he whispered back. “For him, anything is worth it.”

They emerged from the room when the sun had just started to set. Unsurprisingly, Naokiyo was seated across the hall from them, obviously anxious after waiting for so long. What was surprising however, was that he paid her no mind and instead went straight into the arms of the elder. Cupping his face, Naokiyo whispered softly to her brother and while the words were murmured, she was able to catch the tail end of the conversation: “—you know that right? I would never let anything separate us.”

Her brother nodded, eyes full of tears, but also of love.

“Okay,” Naokiyo continued, breathlessly. “Okay.” He leaned forward, carefully pressing his lips to each of Uchimiji’s eyelids, and then drew him into a hug. They folded together like the fabric of a gown, and sank to the floor, as if discarded.

It was as if the setting sun had stopped just for them; their long shadows grew on the floor and their crying eyes shone like water on a pond. Ume watched them for a time, basking in the calm that had arisen after the storm. It was a moment of peace that she only hoped would last forever, because she came to realize that was what they deserved, forever. And Ume was gonna get them that forever one way or another. After all, she knew how to lift a sword now.

The Hello Kitty Gun Ava Melvin Friday- December 8, 2009 Being a detective has been hard lately. I have gotten less and less customers. I don’t know

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what I’m going to do. Technology has upped its game and people don’t need detectives anymore.

I am going to go out of business soon. If I— There was a knock on Vanessa Campos’ door. She put down her journal and walked downstairs.

She opened the heavy, wooden door. There stood the most handsome man she had ever seen. His eyes were bluer than the Indian Ocean and his brown hair waved like the rolling mountains, and when he spoke, Vanessa could barely breathe.

“Um Hi, are you Vanessa Campos?” He asked. Vanessa could barely move. She was so breath-taken with him.

“I’m Beckett Jones. Um...Are you okay?” He looked at her with a crinkle in his brow. Beckett, what a nice name. “Vanessa Jones, or Beckett Campos?” Vanessa thought to herself as she stared into his bright blue eyes.

“Um...hello?” “...Yes...Hi sorry, I am…Vanessa, I mean...Campos,” Vanessa stuttered.

“Well, I have a problem. May I come in?”

Vanessa let him in. As they sat by the fire, he told her about his problem.

“Today is my Dad’s birthday, we were having a party for him. We had just cut a slice of the cake when the lights went out. We heard a gunshot. When the lights turned back on, Dad had been shot and there was a gun on the table.”

“Oh, my gosh. Well before we start, I want you to know that everyone at that party is a suspect. Can you tell me the names of everyone at the party?”

Beckett handed her a guest list.

“Okay, well, I need to see where the crime happened,” said Vanessa, trying not to smile at the handsome man sitting before her.

“Okay well it’s not that far, why don’t I take you now?” Offered Beckett.

Vanessa nodded, and they made their way to Beckett’s house. As they arrived, a glimmering mansion stood before them. It was huge and majestic.

“Oh, my gosh, is this your house...um, mansion...house?” Vanessa asked.

“It’s my parents’ house. Here, let’s go through the back, I don’t want the maids to gossip.”

Vanessa and Beckett walked in. He took her through the dining room where she saw his father with a gunshot through his throat. There was a plate of cake on the floor which seemed as if he had dropped it.

“We asked that the maids not touch anything,” shrugged Beckett.

Vanessa nodded. How considerate, she thought to herself.

“And this is the gun.” Beckett pointed to a pistol on the coffee table. The pistol looked like it had a pattern. As Vanessa got closer to it, she noticed it was a Hello Kitty pistol. It made her sick to think of a child’s play toy being used as a weapon.

“Could you show me where everyone was sitting?” Vanessa asked.

“My aunt Marilyn was sitting there with my uncle Stephen.” Beckett pointed to a couch near the victim’s chair. “And my sister Deanna was sitting here by the light switch.” Beckett moved down the list, but each space he showed revealed that the person would not have been able to get a clear, straight shot at the victim’s throat and put the gun on the coffee table. Unless there was a lot of time.

“How long were the lights out?” asked Vanessa.

“About 30 seconds.”

Now that wouldn’t have been enough time for anyone except for “Your sister Deanna!”

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exclaimed Vanessa.

Beckett’s mouth dropped, but he quickly closed it. “That was fast, you really think so?”

“Yes, and the light switch was right by her chair!... But she needed motivation, money?”

“She was always talking about how broke she was!” exclaimed Beckett. “My parents never gave her money after she spent all her trust fund on a year-round Kwanzaa store. It went out of business 3 months later.”

Vanessa quickly grabbed the gun with a napkin on the coffee table and we took it to her friend Cassy who runs fingerprints. It was a match. Deanna had shot her father.

Friday, December 8, 2010 Well, I’m back in business. Beckett’s sister was arrested after we used her fingerprints to prove her guilty. I haven’t written in a year. I have been SWAMPED with new customers because Beckett used his money to get me better advertising. Yes, Beckett and I are now dating. I can’t wait to see what mystery I solve next!

Love, Nessa

Take On Me Grace Dodson The campy Madonna posters were highlighted by the neon lights beaming around the room. The old basketball court shined under the scuffing heels of midlife crises. Our eighties themed high school reunion was in full swing and my MC hammer pants were just as wild. It had been decades since I’d seen anyone from high school, let alone been standing in the gym where I’d had countless embarrassing memories. High school was not the teenage dream dressed in neon spandex that this reunion was trying to imply it was.

I was wandering around the outskirts of the hellscape where I spent four years while holding a punch drink that tasted just as cruel as the situation I was in. Everyone was dressed in fishnet gloves and stank of hairspray just like they had when we were sixteen. As I caught glimpses of Randy and Janice, who are now accountants, all I could think about was how they had gossiped about my clothes. As the songs from our youth pumped out nostalgia, all I could think of was Jason. Jason was the quintessential quarterback, prom king stereotype. His brain was not nearly as bright as his smile. All he was, was a nightmare to me. Bullying me every chance he had while simultaneously charming all the girls. He ruined my teenage years, so why shouldn’t I ruin his night?

The more I drank, the braver I got. So, I started searching for him, glancing around for a Anderson High School

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nice suit and trophy wife. He had to be here, it was just a matter of seeing which campy celebrity he was dressed as.

Right when I was giving up hope, I heard a group of women squealing in a way they only would for Jason, like a king in his kingdom. He was dressed in a blue blazer and neon pink shirt with his hair quaffed like George Michael. He looked the same as he had when he’d made up a rumor about me and Marty Fuller. The same as he had looked when he’d lied to our teacher by saying I had cheated on the final. The exact same as teenage him. I doubt anything else had changed.

As the resentment and jealousy built up, I made my way towards him. I pushed through groups of people who I’d seen high at parties, who now had kids. I made my way through those who lived in the present and made my way to him. Jason was the same. He was not current. He was my past. And today, I was gonna let him know how his torments had ruined my confidence.

The closer I got to him, the louder the techno got, and the angrier I got. It was all boiling up and my blood was pumping faster. I was three feet away, closing in, when the music shifted to Aha. I threw my hand out, grabbing onto his shoulder, and pushed him. That's when I knew my plan had changed. And as though it were slow motion, I saw him turn towards me and my fist flying right towards his, making contact.

“Take me on, b*tch,” was all I could muddle out as I waited for him to hit me back. I sat there, staring at him, wondering if he remembered me, until I was pulled out of my high school, out of the eighties, and out of the past.

Goatman’s Bridge Nicholas Tesmer I never liked parties, but Harvey was going, so I thought what the hell, why not? When I got there, I saw a sea of parked cars on the side of the road next to the forest. As I was parking I saw Harvey waiting, looking annoyed as hell, holding his phone up to his head. Obviously, on a call, I thought to myself.

I walked over to him, trying to convince myself that I didn’t care about this party all the way there. “Hey, can’t hang up for one second to talk to me?”

“Dude I was calling, you! Ava is, here!” he replied.

“Well my phone’s dead,” I said holding it up. “Also, judging by how many cars there are, it looks like the entire school is here.”

“Whatever. We should get to Old Alton’s bridge before they run out of beer,” he replied.

“You know that place is haunted as f***, right?” I said growing more wary about this party. “That whole thing that happened in the 70’s where they found those bodies? Nothing rings a bell?

“I don’t care if a werewolf literally bites my head off if I can drink for free,” he said, shrugging off my suggestion. “Now let’s go,” he said, beckoning over his shoulder to the little Anderson High School

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dirt trail into the forest where everyone was going.

As we walked the whole way all I could think about was Ava, the most popular girl in the whole school. But I stood no chance against all those jocks who went after her.

We slowly left the shadows of the trees and came up to a clearing where a massive bridge stood. It was out of use because Alton wasn’t an active town anymore. And since this was North Texas the river was dry, so there was no use for this bridge in the first place, except for the high schoolers who got restless enough to throw a party once in a while.

As we wandered onto the bridge, it was almost as if a spell washed over us and we were suddenly engulfed into this party you would only see in the movies. I turned to my right to see the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. There she was, Ava, surrounded by what had to be the entire football team.

“Dude, look, it’s Bev! Let’s go talk to her,” said Harvey pointing at a rather short girl towards the edge of the bridge. She was looking out towards where the last of the sun’s warm glow showed. We walked over to Bev, bypassing countless students who already appeared to be drunk.

Bev turned around right before we got there. “Hey, guys!” she said, trying to force a smile.

“Having fun Bev?” Harvey asked, already knowing the answer.

“Oh yeah, this is my dream situation right now,” she retorted with a sarcastic tone.

“We all know you hate parties, but you’re the valedictorian, so you have to make an appearance to at least some of these,” I said.

She turned to me as if she hadn’t recognized me before and stared me down. “Then why are you here, exactly?” she asked.

“Um… well—” “It’s Ava, isn’t it!”

“Hell yeah, it’s Ava,” Harvey said. “He says that he came because of me, but I think we all know that it’s Ava.” “Why would it be Ava? I didn’t even know that she was coming until I was already here,” I said, getting more nervous by the second.

“So you say…” said Harvey, rubbing his chin.

I looked over my shoulder to find that now it was just Ava and Brandon, the captain of the football team, talking to each other.

“Good fit,” said Bev, noticing I was gawking at them.

“I guess… I just don’t know why I fell for her.”

“Well look at it this way—maybe now you’ll notice other girls… you know the ones that are good for you. The ones that deserve to be not—” “I’mma get a drink,” said Harvey not caring about Bev’s monologue.

“Hey, get me one too!” I yelled as he was walking towards the coolers in middle of the bridge.

“You don’t drink!” exclaimed Bev. “Have to start sometime,” I replied, turning to look out across the bridge. Bev turned around and joined me in my endeavor to be the least noticed person at this party. The sun was finally set, and the party was in full swing. Half of the senior class was drunk at this point, and I was keen to join, but Harvey wasn’t back with those beers yet.

“How long does it take to—” as I was talking to myself I saw a pair of bright green eyes moving throughout the woods. It was almost as if they were dancing to some kind of weird

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music. I rubbed my eyes, thinking that I was just tired. When I opened them up again, they were gone.

“You okay?” asked Bev. “Yeah… yeah,” I said. “Hey, Bev did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Nothing… I must just be tired.” I cranked out a yawn. “You know those final papers can be killer.”

“Yeah, but it’s almost over.”

“Did someone request a beer, sir?” asked a haughty voice from behind me.

I turned around and saw Harvey, holding the beer out to me.

“Is there anymore left for me, or did you get a head start on your second?” “’Twould be the latter, sir,” he said, like he was quoting some bad play. “I’m just looking out for you. You know, the same way you said you were looking out for me when you lied about your reason for coming,” he said, laughing at his own joke.

“Whatever,” I said, grabbing my beer.

Harvey was drunk. Well, that left only Bev to rely on. The lights cast a warm orange glow across the bridge. No one would even know it was night, or that they were in a creepy forest, or that there were a pair of eyes dancing in the woods.

I shuddered, trying to get that idea out of my mind. I was just tired, that was all. But that image was burned into my mind. I couldn’t forget those eyes—they were so unusual, so cryptic, so mysterious.

A loud bang came from over by the coolers. We all turned to see Trevor standing on one of them, rocking back and forth, trying to make an announcement.

“Attention! I would just like to thank everyone for coming,” he said, slurring his words a little. “And congratulations to the new couple.” He gestured to Ava and Brandon, followed by a couple of cheers and applause.

“They say that if you knock three times on this bridge an apparition will appear,” he said as if telling a ghost story, “And I for one think this party can get a little crazier. So why not?”

He jumped down off the cooler and walked over to a stability beam and began his ritual.

No one spoke. One, the party was dead. Two, even Trevor was looking scared at this point.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Trevor said, but no one laughed.

Ava buried herself inside Brandon’s arm. And maybe it was the jealousy, or the rage, or seeing those eyes, that put me in that hypnotic state.

I pounded my fist into the wood as hard as I could. Everyone looked over towards us. Time stopped as all of their fearful gazes fell on me. “See look nothing happened,” I said trying to sound reassuring.

Everyone started to look a little more comfortable until suddenly Whoosh.

In the middle of the bridge, next to Trevor, that same pair of glowing green eyes appeared.

Trevor started to let out a laugh.

“All right guys real funny joke, but I think you need to learn what a demon looks like,” he scoffed.

“Boop,” he said while poking one of those green eyes and laughing a bit more.

Nothing happened, but the party still held their silence. Suddenly, Trevor was thrown across the bridge, almost falling off, but he grabbed onto the side at the last minute.

A body slowly materialized around the pair of eyes. Horns sprouted from the head, and fur grew all around it. Hooves came to be seen at the feet surround by more dark brown fur. He was

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crouched, but he slowly stood up, reaching the height of the bridge. He stood still for what must have been a moment, but it felt like hours had gone by. He slowly walked over to where Trevor was hanging. Kids ran away trying not to get in the way of this thing.

“Get… off… my… bridge,” the beast said, in a gruff voice. He reached out an arm slowly towards Trevor. Trevor was crying, trying to make sense of what was happening.

“Please don’t, please don’t kill me! I thought it was all a joke! Please have mercy!”

He quickly flicked his raised arm away from himself, and Trevor went flying off. There was no river to comfort him as he hit his back against the hard rocks and fell, lifeless, not moving.

Half of the party was awestruck, and the other was running around wildly, and screaming, trying to understand what happened: if it was the alcohol, their imaginations, or if this was real.

What just happened? Did I summon that thing… did I kill Trevor? No! No, it wasn’t real—it couldn't be. The thing slowly turned towards the party, and said in that same voice, “Get… off… my… bridge.”

I needed no further invitation to run the hell off that bridge. “Follow me,” I said to Bev and Harvey. We ran off the opposite side of the bridge that we came in on, and soon the whole party was off.

The demon slowly looked left and then right, and he dashed towards the side that we weren’t on and started his massacre. The party was once again screaming as we all dashed away from the bridge into the woods.

The trees were so thick we could barely see where we were running, and with Bev and Harvey behind me, I felt as if I was leading them down the pathway less traveled. I sprinted through a thicket and into a small clearing totally surrounded by trees. I was soon followed by Bev and Harvey.

“What in the f*** was that!” yelled Harvey.

“Shut the f*** up!” I said in a tense whisper while putting one finger up to my lips. “We need to be quiet!”

In the background, we could hear the terrifying tremor of screams followed by a “Please spare me,” or “Have mercy.” And after their begging ran out, we heard a bone-chilling crunch as bone broke on the hard, dry earth. We all huddled so close just wishing for this moment to be over.

The screams started to die down as more and more people got away… we hoped. But the footsteps of that thing could still be heard from miles away. It was all we had to listen to—to warn us if it was coming for us next. Pound, pound, pound. They were getting heavier… no, they were getting faster. Louder. Closer!

I backed up with my back to the other side of the clearing, soon followed by Bev and Harvey, as they soon realized what was going on. I turned around trying to claw my way through the thicket, but as soon as I made it an inch in my hand hit a hard rock.

“F***!” I whispered harshly, and my hand was sent into throbbing pain. The footsteps stopped. Everyone looked at me. I heard a rustle as they started up again, but this time much faster. We could hear tree limbs breaking as it ran towards us. Leaves rustled and flew wildly as we scrambled to find a way out of the box we had trapped ourselves in.

Ava and Brandon ran through the entrance of the thicket, rustling the branches and leaves wildly.

“I told you I heard people.” Brandon wheezed through his deep breaths with his hands on his knees.

“Is anyone else out there?” asked Harvey.

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“Not anyone from what we could see,” Ava said defeated, soon realizing she cast despair among the group. But she realized her mistake and corrected herself. “Of course, I’m sure there are more out there, hiding like you guys.”

“Those noises… those sounds,” I said darkly, looking down.

Brandon, realizing who spoke, turned towards me and grabbed me by the shirt, pinning me up against the rock. “It’s your f***ing fault! Your fault that Trevor died… and everyone f***ing else that was on that bridge!”

“Calm down, Brandon!” Ava exclaimed.

“Yeah, dude, chill the f*** out!” said Harvey joining in.

Brandon took his hand away, and walked back out of the clearing, followed by Ava trying to calm him down.

“You all right?” asked Bev. “Yeah… yeah,” I said looking off through the small hole in the thicket.

“We need a plan,” said Harvey. “Something to get us out of here alive.”

I looked off, warily wondering what Brandon and Ava were talking about. Harvey and Bev’s voices seemed fuzzy as all I could focus on was Brandon and Ava. Bev’s voice slowly came back into recognition as she said, “Do you have any ideas?”

“I used to read about this forest. There was this cult in the ’60s that supposedly summoned a demon on this bridge. That thing… a demon or whatever it was, is what I think they summoned,” I said.

“Okay. Well, what the hell are we supposed to do with that information?” Harvey asked.

“Let me finish.” I was trying to stay calm. “The only way to get rid of this thing is to destroy the bridge... I have a gallon of gas in my car and a lighter. The problem is that we are on the wrong side of the bridge.” Then, an idea struck me. “I’ll give you my keys, and you make a run for it,” I said slowly, not believing the words coming out of my mouth. “I’ll be a distraction… don’t take the bridge. Go through the riverbed.”

It was silent as we were all comprehending what I’d just said. I was going to die to save them. We heard rustling and once again drew close to each other as we hoped for the best.

“They took Brandon!” Ava yelled, as she ran through the bushes.

“Who took him?”

“These guys wearing all white!” she said. “Follow me.”

We walked through the forest, not saying a word. Ava stopped quickly, turning around and motioning for us to look behind the tree in front of us. I turned the tree to see a line of men dressed in white, carrying torches and chanting. They walked onto the bridge. In the middle, tied up, was Brandon.

I turned around and said to the group, “Go with the plan,” in a hushed voice. I then turned back towards the bridge and walked onto it, standing right in the middle.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Come and get me!” I turned around to run away, but that same demon from before stood right behind me. Fear set in. It felt as though time had stopped as I faced my inevitable death. I was frozen as he silently blew air down at me. Every gust of air he blew felt like I was trapped in a windstorm with no escape. It felt like I was fighting for my life, and he was just playing with me like a cat with a mouse. I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t turn around. I was trapped. This was it… death. I looked around, trying my hardest, but eyes kept wandering back to his. He roared, showing me razor sharp teeth and a tongue that looked darker than the forest. He snarled some more and started reaching his hand towards me. Those hands… those shaking hands… gnarled and bony… with fingernails longer than the trees, sharper than a dozen

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knives, and he was reaching them towards me.

“Now, now… there is no need to hurt him just yet,” said a raspy voice from behind me. I turned around to see a man come forward in a hood. In a single motion he removed the hood, revealing himself to be Trevor! I couldn’t take it. I started panting, not knowing what was going on. I tried to run away, but a force grabbed me, bringing me closer to the beast. I stood there and looked into his green eyes. My eyes couldn’t leave them as they were enhanced by his bloodreddened dark fur. Each second I felt fainter and weaker until the light of the torches wasn’t visible, and all I could see was darkness as I tumbled over and fell to the ground.

I woke up with my arms tied behind my back with rope, my legs tied together, and a gag in my mouth. I was surrounded by these men, with a big pentagram in the middle of the bridge. It was dark red, too dark. Was that… blood? I was moments away from death, and it came together. Why everyone from school was here, why Trevor wanted to summon the demon, and why those bodies in 70’s appeared with no whereabouts. I repeated my less-than inspiring mantra in my head as I became more conscious. I looked around to see that there were more of these goat-things wearing clothes ripped to pieces, while others looked like the first one in darker-than night brown fur, two menacing horns, and the height that could demotivate even a professional basketball player. I was going to die.

Brandon was in the middle of the pentagram looking terrified. The main leader walked up to him and he said something in a language I’d never heard before as he touched Brandon. He then threw blood on Brandon, and that’s when I realized what was happening. I looked around for a torch or something to burn the ropes off. There was a candle next to me, but as I maneuvered in order to burn the rope Brandon let out a terrifying scream.

He started to transform—hooves came from his feet, antlers from his head, and fur all around his body. He got up panting and fell in line with the rest of them. I continued to burn the rope, but just as I could feel them giving in I was hoisted to my feet and thrown onto the pentagram.

As I was squirming for my life I saw people running through the riverbed. It was Bev and Harvey! They had the gas. This was it! I had to buy them time, I had to be the distraction once more.

“Hey, Trevor!” I yelled from the ground.

“What, you swine!” he condescended.

“How did you do it?” I said, starting to laugh. “Killing all those people in the 70’s and now more?”

“You’re smart,” he said with pride, “but you get caught up in your emotions. That’s why I knew if I introduced Ava to Brandon, you would take the bait. Now we really must begin.”

They weren’t across yet. They needed more time. “Hey!” I said, trying to take his attention away once more.

“What is it now!”

“How old are you? I mean you’re no high school student,” I said.

“The dark master helps those who help him. Now we really must be gett—” “Hey!” came a voice from the side of the bridge. I turned to see Ava. The demons quickly moved to put her in that same spell that had me, but Bev and Harvey came up from the other side of the bridge and started dousing it in gas. I squirmed over to a candle, holding the rope over it, breaking my bonds. I got to my feet, grabbed a torch that was illuminating the bridge, threw it down into the gas and ran off with Bev and Harvey. I watched as

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the flames chased the bridge from end to end. We stood at the edge watching as the fire erased the night.

The demons, seeing what was happening, raced back to the bridge in the blink of an eye and tried to put out the flames with their hooves. Their dark fur caught on fire, and one by one, they burned into nothing as more and more of the bridge burned down.

As we were running back to the car I turned around, seeing those inhuman things wailing, trying to understand their new fate. I was enraged, and yelled back towards the bridge, “F*** you, Goatman! This is our bridge now!” As we ran back to the car, we heard the splintering of wood as the bridge came down into a smoldering mound.

We climbed in, and I put her into drive faster than ever before. I floored it down the road and all the way home. I was never going into that god-forsaken forest again.

It’s Not Unusual Maddie Bass It was the day they had been waiting for. Matthew and Diana were finally getting married. Months of preparation, money, and planning were about to pay off and be over with.

Their families and friends blended really well together, so it was destined to be a fun filled night.

Diana’s family gathered a lot. Every Christmas through New Year, they would get together and celebrate as a big group. Matthew had recently been included in these celebrations.

His family was a lot bigger, so they didn’t have the same type of connection as Diana’s did. He was really happy to be able to be a part of a family like hers. One tradition Diana’s family had was having a big party on one night of their time gathered together. The whole family went, and whoever's house they were having it at would invite their friends as well. At the end of the night, the last song played would always be “It’s Not Unusual.” Everyone would belt out the words and just go crazy dancing with all the people they loved the most. It was their most prized family memory.

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wanted to make it as special as possible for her because, after all, it was their night to celebrate.

Months and months in advance, he had talked with the DJ. At the end of the night, he wanted him to announce that it had come to the last song, and then to play “It’s Not Unusual.” He knew how much it meant to Diana and her family, so this is how he wanted to end their special night.

About a week before their wedding and reception, a car full of some of Diana’s family members got into a car accident, causing them to not be able to attend the wedding.

Since family was so important to her, Diana was devastated. She wanted everyone there that she cared about, and hearing the news about the accident broke her heart. The wedding and reception went on as planned, but Matthew added a little twist.

It had gotten to the end of the night and the dancing had slowly died down. Matthew told Diana he would be right back, and when he was, he was wheeling in a TV. He connected his phone to it and facetimed Diana’s family members who weren’t able to make the wedding or the reception. She was so happy, and it was really special. Then the DJ announced the last song and started to play “It’s Not Unusual.”

Everyone, including Matthew’s family, knew exactly what to do. Diana started tearing up, but then they all just lost control. They were dancing and singing and swinging around. The family members on facetime were doing the same. It was exactly what Diana had wanted and she was so grateful. It made her really happy to see her family and Matthew’s bonding in this way. She was so excited for the new family they had created, and for the future.

Quercus Muscipula Zac McCain “How did it get there?” Gus wasn’t so sure, and there were very few things in the pocket-sized town of Drewsdale that Gus wasn’t so sure of, or rather there were very few things he applied significant effort in being sure of. He prided himself with his status as indifferent and impartial to trivial or superficial matters. His life, for the most part, was simple, and that’s how he preferred it to stay. Much like the others in Drewsdale, Gus had little to worry about.

Gus preferred to avoid worrying simply by brushing off questionable occurrences with a rational explanation. “Suspicious” or “paranoid” would be ill-fitting words to describe the old man, yet at times those feelings are the most appropriate feelings for one to have. At times there is no easy, simple, rational explanation. At times it seems there may be no explanation at all. As Gus and the boys stood over the inexplicable sight that damp, foggy morning, the group came to silent agreement that this was one of those times.

Every morning Gus arose at the insistence of his digital alarm clock at six forty-five. The old man adorned himself in the same black bandana around his wispy head of hair, along with a beaten leather jacket and dirty tan work boots. He sipped his mug of black coffee on his front porch, as he read the newly delivered paper, which arrived without fail at eight o’clock. He

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drove his sputtering pickup truck to open the local hardware store at nine.

Every afternoon at three-thirty the school bell rang, releasing students of all ages.

Drewsdale was far too small to have its own primary, junior and high school facilities. The majority of the population were elderly; no one new moved into Drewsdale. Their graduating class the year previous was only fourteen students, and none remained in the sleepy town.

Talk spread about how the town was dying, how it’d been dying ever since the Tench buyout. Gus remembered that time, he was nine on that summer day in ‘20, when a man named Travis Tench appeared seemingly out of the blue and offered a ludicrous price for the entire lumbering company of Drewsdale. The lumbering operations were promptly closed down and the investors turned tail, with them left the money, and the jobs. Gus had heard the stories in the schoolyard of missing children in the forest and hidden intentions behind the sale of the Drewsdale grove, but like most, assumed they were just that: stories.

Gus had no interest in wild rumors. Whether or not the tales being spread were true (which in many cases were likely not), one worries much less if they keep their nose out of other’s business. So when the need to worry was thrust into his face, violating his nostrils like the putrid odor of leaking gas in a kitchen, and assaulting his eardrums like the sound of a bang in the night when home alone, the old man had almost forgotten how to process it.

Gus began that particular morning with his weekly drive to the dump. It was foggy, dew settled on the overgrown fields and the air was thick and warm. Gus creeped slowly over the uneven terrain, gravel and dirt from unpaved backroads crunching under his tires. Once he reached the landfill, he stepped out of his truck and unloaded the back. When he finished he paused, wiping the condensation from his brow and taking a breath of the humid air. He seemed to be alone here, and it was peaceful compared to the bustling small town. Movement in the distance broke his tranquility.

Across from the dump was the Tench property, now owned by Mr. Tench, Junior. It was surrounded by a chain link fence from which hung a sign, too rusted to make out any words besides “private property.” He squinted, approaching the fence, hoping to maybe get a glimpse of the enigmatic Mr. Tench, Jr, whom was seldom seen by the townspeople. Instead, he saw two smaller figures, young boys, standing at the edge of the field, which separated the treeline from the chain link fence.

Maybe it was the stories churning in his subconscious, or maybe it was the thought of the boys getting hurt, but the old man decided he’d say something. Using his cane for support, he stepped through the same peeled open section of fence the boys had used to enter, and moved closer to them, seeing them more and more clearly through the fog. They were leaning over something, palms resting on their knees. One of them was probing it with a large stick.

“Hey” Gus called out to them, his voice was thunder to the still air. The boys whipped their heads around, startled. “What are you boys doin’ out here so early?”

“Just looking,” one boy said. “Lookin’?” Gus repeated. He moved closer, his old ears straining even in the silent surroundings. “Yeah, just lookin,’” the other boy confirmed. “Well, there ain’t much out here to look at,” Gus said, gesturing to the empty countryside. “Shouldn’t you boys be in school?”

“I mean, yeah. But look at what we found.” One boy pointed to the base of the massive oak. Gus stepped forward, passing the two boys and standing over the sight. They were all silent for a moment before the boy looked at Gus and posed a question. “How did it get there?”

Gus drove back to town with the boys. The ride home was quiet; none of them knew

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what to say. They were all thinking the same thing. The scene was burned into the old man’s memory, but he almost couldn’t believe it himself.

At the base of the tree was a freshly dead opossum. Around the creature’s corpse were roots, grown over and around it as if it were a rock in their path, locked stiffly in place around the animal’s neck and limbs, like they’d been there for years. The situation was wrong to Gus, and although he didn’t like thinking about it, his curiosity grew with every impossible theory that crossed his mind.

Gus closed up his shop early that night, and made his way down the old dirt roads, past the dump to the hole in the fence. It was growing darker, which the old man had anticipated, and the humid spring fog was growing thicker. He stopped, leaning against his cane, its handle unceremoniously wedged in his armpit, and fumbled through his coat pockets for his flashlight.

His old, frail hands grasped the crank and shakily spun the yellowing bulb to light. He squinted around in the fog and made his way along the edge of the treeline.

The forest was lacking. Not just foliage along the forest floor, as he’d noticed before, but the silence. No hooting of owls, rustling of branches or even the chirps of frogs, which usually became a symphony in the darker hours. The only sounds were his boots against the damp leaves, and the clicking crank of the flashlight, which seemed to echo in the absolute silence.

When the dim beam of light swept over a gray patch of fur at the base of a tree, Gus knew he’d found what he’d been looking for. He made his way over to the creature and his eyes widened when he could make out the state it was in. It was sunken into the soil, roots looking as if they’d tightened around the creature’s body, ripping it into separate parts and pulling it beneath the soil. The old man crouched down next to the display in disbelief.

He stared at the sorry creature, the cogs in his mind spinning up incredible stories, when suddenly a groan broke his concentration. He stopped turning the crank on the flashlight and sat still a moment, his eyes glancing back and forth, listening intently. The sound resumed, quietly at first, but in seconds it became the loud creak of bending and popping wood. The old man gasped and fell backwards on his haunches; the roots before him were twisting to life. He shuffled backward in a panic, as he watched them swallow the carcass into the ground. They started unearthing themselves from the soil, reaching and clawing like desperate fingers and slithering over each other like angry snakes. On of them coiled around his cane, and another grasped at his boot. He kicked back, keeping a tight hold on his crutch as he backed further away from the tendrils. Roots had encircled his flashlight and pulled it back into the darkness, forcing it below the dirt. Gus stood, stumbling backward and turned tail, sprinting—well, hobbling—back towards the opening in the fence, back to his truck.

The following day Gus did not open his shop. He did not wait for the paperboy, and he did not sip his coffee on the porch. Gus was up before sunrise. He armed himself, with a shovel and a hatchet, before driving back out to the forest.

He returned to the spot, which was marked by his flashlight, snapped in half and covered in mud. Unlike the opossum, it had been rejected. Gus stared at the tree for a long minute, as if staring down a foe. The tree’s branches swayed gently in the light breeze. Its roots were still.

With a grunt, he began to dig. Soon the ground became tougher and the roots became thicker. This worried Gus—not because of the manual labor, but because when the blade of his shovel severed a smaller root, it slowly retracted into the soil around it, like a snail into its shell.

He made a mental note not to disturb the larger roots.

Both excitement and fear shook the old man when he found a small bit of white showing

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through the earth. He crouched down and dug it out with his fingers. It was a bone, a vertebra, it seemed, belonging to a small mammal. He got on his hands and knees and picked through more soil. Soon he’d exhumed the bare, clean skeleton of an opossum. He knew better than to lie to himself, this was without a doubt the same animal from the other day. He grabbed his shovel and began digging at an angle, towards the center of the tree.

It wasn’t long before bones began to appear in the soil around him. Most were small, looking as if they’d belonged to mice or birds, but some were much larger: raccoons, foxes...he’d even found the femur of a deer. Dread loomed over him, this tree alone was seeping with death.

This forest was rooted in bones.

As he neared the taproot the concentration of bones became thicker. He was digging less and pulling more loose bones from the dirt. He stepped around the thicker roots, leaving them to hang across the opening of the hole. He preferred those to remain immobile.

The old man jabbed his shovel into the dirt before him. He was close, almost right below the trunk. When he pulled back on the shovel it held fast. He cursed to himself and placed a boot on the soil wall, pulling back with all his might. The shovel broke free, and with it came a wall of dirt and bone. Gus fell backwards. Dirt and dust settled around him.

“Christ” He whispered when enough dust had settled for visibility in the dank, dark hole. Before him was the taproot. It was bloody red and reeked of decay. Thick roots protruded from it, twisting themselves around hundreds of bones. Dead center was a human skull, still predominantly submerged in the soil.

It was small, like a child’s, and looked quite old. Gus thought about leaving, running and pretending he’d never seen a thing, but something inside him refused to allow him to leave this child behind, lost and forgotten. He had to dig deeper. Once he reached the child’s sternum, he made a halting realization: the taproot was growing down through the child’s rib cage and clinging to his spine. He would have to cut it.

Gus unhooked his hatchet from his belt and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and swung. He felt the blade connect with wood, and it produced a gentle groaning. He froze, holding his breath and listening. The sound subsided, and he relaxed. He tugged free the blade and took another swing. He grimaced when he freed his axe to find it sticky with brownish orange sap. It smelled like death. The sound, this time louder, startled him. Specks of dirt fell from the ceiling onto his face. He had to move fast. The beast was waking up. He reeled back and landed the axe as hard as he could onto the taproot. With a snap it split, and the child was free.

Gus reached out for the small form, but was toppled to the ground as the ground below him began to writhe. Dirt was raining from the ceiling and the rushing of roots around him caused the walls to shake. Roots shot out of the floor, scattering the bones, eager to find the intruder. Gus pulled back, reaching for any bones he could, but it was no use. The tentacle-like grasp of the tree was inching up his ankles and tightening around his calves. He clawed towards the exit fruitlessly as the vines crawled up his body.

Roots he’d left crisscrossing the entrance began to tighten, loosening dirt and avalanching onto the old man. He grabbed hold of a thicker one and heaved himself skyward, gasping for air. He pulled himself higher and reached a hand through the small, shrinking dot of sunlight until he could feel the air, but it was too late. His cries were muffled by mouthfuls of dirt and his body was rendered useless, held tight under pounds of dirt and immobilized like a mouse by a python. His once grasping hand soon went limp and sunk beneath the surface. The movement became still, and the cries and creaks became quiet. The forest was still again,

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without a sign that a man had ever tried to disturb it, save for his mug of coffee sitting in the grass by his jacket, now lukewarm.

Mr. Tench, Travis Jay Tench, Junior, stood back and admired his handiwork. The opening in the fence was now sealed up, good as new. This was the type of repair he preferred, and it was welcome in comparison to the police visit and warrant to search his property earlier that day. Of course, they found no old man, no weapon, not even a clue, so he was left to his evening.

The sun was getting low, and he of all people knew better than to dally too long on the property, but before he made his way back to the secluded confines of his home, he made one last repair.

“Damned kids better leave this place alone if they know what’s good for them,” he muttered, stepping back for a last time before turning and walking to his van. He disappeared back into the mist, down the dirt paths, as if he’d never even come.

As night fell, dew collected on the metal links of the fence. Droplets of water formed on the brand-new mounted sign: “DANGER: NO TRESPASSING” Mouse Trap Oak Tragedy of Love Vivian Perutka The darkness was always there. It coils like a serpent around your chest, squeezing any hope out of you, just to leave you alone in this dark, dark world. But then, you see them.

Standing there. Maybe in that quiet coffee shop across the street. Or in that one class in school.

You would look at them, and your heart skips a beat. Time seems to slow down as you stare at them. You seem to like them. They stand out from everyone else from that place. You seem to see them more often from now on. There they are, ordering coffee. Or maybe they are presenting that one project assigned in class. You maybe feel shy to talk to them. Then that day finally comes. You go up to them and say hello. You two get to slowly understand each other more and more. You become good friends. You tell each other secrets, help each other out when one of you is down. You still have these feelings inside of you. You suddenly know what those feelings are now. Love. You feel shy to confess these feelings to them. Maybe not. Then, that day finally comes. You go up to them and confess. If you are fortunate, your feelings will be accepted, and returned. Time goes by. You do practically everything together. Go get coffee together, partner up on every school project together.

Maybe even meet up in the hallways when you're supposed to be in class, talking to each other about life. If you are one of the lucky few, life continues on. But, it happens. You see them with someone else. And not just with another friend.

Someone who loves them in the same way. And they show the same or more love than they gave you. Or maybe someone tells you about it. So, you leave them, or they leave you. You feel down, you feel like nothing can save you.

Until you fall into the cycle again.

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Lucky Cenna Noble Words fall from my mouth Regurgitated An imitation of a real person I get by just by mimicking what I see in others Lucky, some would say That I am able to pass for what I am not A competent illusion Scraping on past by the skin of my teeth It’s no wonder I hate poems, I think Metaphors make no sense and Between-the-lines goes over my head and Just this once, I think The words fail me again and again Poems, they shatter my skull A brain that cannot compute A brain that cannot understand why Why must the true meaning always be so obscured?

Why can’t you just be straightforward with me?

If you’re going to give me a gift Why must you seal it with pretty words and fleeting metaphors?

In all these verses, rhymes, and lyrics I only hear that which I cannot understand And I am left with an unfinished work of art I have to wonder how other people see it Do the most potent words ignite fireworks in your mind And firecrackers in your heart?

Does it paint the most exquisite picture?

Does it seem like art to you?

Not to me Not to me, do the words inspire passion or excitement Or revelation of a hidden meaning My teachers said poems were for everyone I never thought that was true Title, Paraphrase, Connotation, Attitude, Shifts, Title, Theme Must a poem be all that?

But even in the inaccessible English class analogies I can write even poems in my own way And that is what I’m lucky to see.

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Fan Mail / Hate Mail (various students) Liam McGrath Dear Liam, I know it might seem a little strange to receive a letter from your bed, but we futons really care. As the one who is responsible for making sure you get enough energy at night for the upcoming day, I really need you to get more sleep.

I know that you are really busy with school and life, but if you have to keep getting up at 6:00 for band, get to bed earlier! Sleep deprivation is a real thing! Watching Community and recording music on your phone before bed isn’t helping that either. I just had a conversation with your phone, and it thinks so too.

But the main thing that is going to help you sleep faster is if you stop thinking about everything while you’re trying to sleep. I hear all of your worries (your thoughts are loud) and most of them aren’t things you should be concerned about. I hear you thinking about who is a better drum set player and I know you get way too worked up over it since I feel your heart rate increase.

Sometimes you think about things you should have said to people you talked to, or you chew yourself out for being so dumb or weird around people and it really makes me worry. You have a great personality, and I don’t want people to miss out on that because you think people feel uncomfortable around you. Most people think you are a nice person to be with and they love your music and your photography.

I’ve been talking with your phone, your drawing notebook, and your drum set and they all agree with me. So please try to settle what’s going on in your head, and get some sleep. I’m only trying to protect you—and keep my job.

Sincerely, Your Loving Futon P.S. Can you remember to keep the bedroom door shut? The cat keeps coming in here to sleep, and his claws are really sharp.

Lily Collier Dear Lily Collier, Here I am writing a letter to you again. But this time it’s not about my love for you or how amazing you are. You dumped me! For the second time!! I knew I should have never gotten back with you. You have no idea the pain you caused me. Constantly asking me to “hang out with your friends”? Do you know how annoying that is? I want to hang with the boys, not your posse. You care about your friends way too much. I think you cared about them more than me!

And I thought your friends were bad, but you wanted to go do stuff with your family all the time and had the audacity to ask me to come along? It’s creepy enough how much you love Anderson High School

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your parents and brothers, but expecting me to want to make an impression on them is honestly ridiculous. Don’t even get me started on your family dinners, or game nights, or movie nights… most kids hate their family, and you not hating them makes you a freak.

Finally, I hate how you always outshone me with your optimistic personality. You made me look like some depressed loser nerd with the hugest negative outlook on life. Maybe I am pessimistic...but you are way too happy and hopeful! Life isn’t beautiful and good and that philosophy is going to hurt you later on.

Goodbye Forever, Your Ex

Elly Whitehill Dear (I hate to even look at your name) Elly, (Sighs) I have been dreading writing this letter to you. I have one favor to ask you, well not really ask you, tell you. When people ask who broke up with you, say it was mutual. Did you know that actually before you broke up with me, I was going to break up with you first? I have been planning it for so long. I just knew that you would be so hurt from it and I didn’t want to look like the bad guy. You know who looks like the bad guy now? You! Ha! You are the bad guy.

Maybe it’s for the best that we broke up. I mean, if you ever want to get back together, just let me know. You know what? No! We are not getting back together. You were such a bad girlfriend. You even thought that I was annoying when I would just follow you around everywhere you went. Remember that one time when you and your friends were having a “girl day” or whatever it was called, and you got mad at me for showing up? Yeah, so rude!

Remember that one time when your best friend Sarah was having a party and I was busy and couldn’t go but you still went? Wow, terrible girlfriend. All the times that you were loyal, honest, and nice to me, mean nothing! I can’t believe you even broke up with me the summer before high school because you were going to a different school. Who even are you? I cannot believe you. All those texts I sent you and calls I left you were just a joke. I didn’t mean any of those. Hope you have a good school year.

Steven P.S. write me back if you want to talk.

Ruby Jones Hi Rubyyyy, It’s your dog! Mulligan! So, I figured out how the computer works and just thought it would be nice to write you a letter because we can’t actually “talk” you know. You’re like, my favorite person in the whole world. Even when you forget to walk me or when you hang out with the cat instead of me. I love looking at that big Anderson Debate sign when we come home from the park—the one in front of our house with your name in all caps. I’ve definitely seen those

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arguing skills at work with your brother and parents.

But I miss sitting on your bed when you do all that homework you get. I can’t believe how many notes you have for WHAP! I could never! I mean, even if I did have opposable thumbs, I couldn’t bear it.

And you even tutor other kids? Crazy!

I also love when we dance around your bedroom listening to old records that your dad gave you, or to the Broadway soundtracks off your phone. Or when you have your friends over to dance with you. I love it when you all get home really late and stay up petting me and watching Kitchen Nightmares till the morning hours.

But you know what my favorite thing is?? When you cook. When you bake cookies or make tacos or popcorn. It’s all delicious and you always give me the little scraps or let me lick your plate when you’re done. You even made me like vegetarian food!

Anyways I just wanted to thank you for being the best, most nicest person in the whole entire world! I’ll be waiting by the front door to jump all over you the second you get home from school today!

Your faithful guard dog, Mulligan <3

A Terrible Bus Ride Cindy Song A little less than five years ago, I visited my home country, South Korea. Since my family didn’t have a house in Korea, I had to move around from one place to another. That particular day, I hung out with my friend and ate pizza. That's when the disaster started. Korea is known to be very hot during the summer, easily exceeding 100 degrees on good days. Not thinking that the pizza had gone bad, I ate it with no doubt. Afterward, I realized that my stomach didn’t like what I had done. But I thought that after a good sleep, everything would be fine. Surprisingly, I was not wrong. When I woke up in the morning, I felt fresher than ever.

That day, my dad drove me to my grandparents’ house, where I planned to stay for about two days. The nightmare happened on the first night in the house. Around 2 AM, I woke up from sleep, feeling more terrible than ever. I ran to the restroom and ended up throwing up everything I had ever eaten in my life. That was my longest time in a restroom. After that business, I brushed my teeth, drank a cup of water, and went back to sleep. No, that's a lie. I had to wake up again to throw up the water I drank. I knew that something was wrong, but I also thought that sleep would fix all these issues. I was proven wrong when I woke up in the morning. I told my grandparents about what was going on, but my grandparents, who do not believe in the need for doctors and hospitals, suggested that I stay home until I felt better. Another day went by, with continuous throwing up and regretting life.

Then, my dad called me, announcing that he could drive me back to his house. I, stupidly underestimating my condition, decided to ride the bus. Just in case you think this wasn’t a bad Anderson High School

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idea, let me tell you about the trip I had to go through. My grandparents lived in the most rural part of the city, and my dad lived in the most urban part. In a car, it took about 30-40 minutes to go to his house. But going by bus and subway was a different story. The first problem was that only two buses came to my grandparents’ house in a day. After taking that bus for about 40 minutes, I had to take the subway for another 20 minutes. But that wasn't the end. There was another 30-minute bus ride waiting for me. So in total, I had to be on buses and subways for an hour and thirty minutes. For people who are good at road trips, this might not sound bad. But ever since I was little, I’ve been known to have miserable car sickness.

The problematic day arrived, and I was at my first bus stop, waiting for the bus that comes twice a day. Actually, it was not a bad start because I hadn’t eaten anything for a day and a half, so I had nothing to throw up. The first bus ride was nerve-wracking, but it wasn't the worst. On the subway there were a lot of people, but it wasn't bad enough to destroy me. The misery happened on the second bus ride. After getting out of the subway station, I felt dead. My head was hurting horribly, and my stomach was just screaming at me like a 5-year-old kid. I should have stopped there and asked for help. But no, I did not do that. In fact, I got on the bus.

After ten minutes on the bus, I knew that the most unforgettable moment of my life would occur at this very spot. I wanted to throw up. My body was giving me all the signs. Every 15 seconds, I hesitated to run out of the bus. The only thing that stopped me from doing so was the bus money, which was a little more than 50 cents. I never knew that those 50 cents would cause so much misery.

After another 10 minutes of hesitating to run out of the bus, a speed bump approached.

You might say, what’s wrong with a speed bump? In that situation, speed bumps were killers.

Even one movement that I made changed my body condition. What would a speed bump do? It shook the entire bus. And there I went—I threw up, on a bus full of people. The good part, or the most terrible part, was that right after I threw up, the bus stopped at a station. Not knowing what to do, I sprinted out. My backpack, which I was holding in front of me, was covered in vomit. I never want to think about this moment again. I was so occupied with embarrassment that I couldn't even feel bad about the bus passengers that had to suffer on the bus. When I sprinted out of the bus, a calm neighborhood and cold air welcomed me, telling me that I would never forget about this day.

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Fall From Grace Shelby Sturgis The pines surrounded him, swallowing his body like a ravenous beast. He continued his hike, his peppered hair flipping in the wind. He’d barely climbed the hill ahead of him when his dress pants shredded at the seams. In one fell swoop, Piccard’s gray dress slacks, out of place on such a disheveled wearer, finally ripped at every union of thread. His gorging belly, round and lumpy like a slightly deflated bean-bag, popped out into the fresh air of late January. Piccard laughed, one of those deep laughs that made the gullet beneath his grizzly chin jiggle with enthusiasm. He cursed at the empty sky, but all that answered him was a desperate echo. His knees almost collapsed under all of the exertion, and his bad ankle, the one that had been broken twice in the same spot when he was studying business at university, was beginning to throb. One could state Mr. Piccard Donovan looked a bit mad.

Donovan had no respect for this life, and this life had no respect for him. Neither took too kindly to the other, and although Donovan viewed his deathbed with unimaginable lust, he held onto the idea of leaving a legacy with brute stubbornness. Truthfully, Donovan’s persona paled in comparison to that of his fellow man’s, and he spent his time on Earth pursuing an imitation of purpose. He could be characterized by his extravagant trips, grand education, and a gluttonous bank account. If you were to see him, a stranger walking parallel to you on the street, you’d think him someone who had it all, his spotless black dress shoes and gold crowned tooth glimmering in the sunlight.

Why was this billionaire bachelor now wandering the woods of upstate Wales? Mr. Piccard has, in the simplest of terms, hit rock bottom. His fiancée of approximately a year and a half, Miss Stella Gibbons, left him for another man, one who didn’t even speak English, whom she had been having a passionate affair with for twelve of their eighteen months of engagement. 〰 Stella was everything a true American sweetheart should be: honest and fair, kind and charming, educated and humorous, and above all: beautiful. Miss Gibbons had been the spectacle of many eligible young men’s affections since she’d turned 18 and gone off to university in London, and she’d been proposed to on a number of occasions. But the poor girl never agreed to marriage until she stumbled upon Piccard, an entrepreneurial spirit with the wealth to match. She was captivated by his ability to take ordinary problems and come up with a mesmerizingly spontaneous solution. She was head over heels in love with him, and other men could not see why.

Piccard, however, liked the idea of having the most sought-after woman in Harpenn on his stubby, apish arm, right next to his diamond slathered Rolex. After courting Stella for nearly two months, she agreed to a date at the old mill, which had since been converted into an elegantly rustic café of sorts. They had been twenty-five and twenty-seven then, him the older of the two.

When Piccard arrived the night of their date in a luxuriously furnished limousine, ornamented with every liquid vice known to mankind, he was dressed sharply in his finest suit and a silk tie, a flashy royal blue, with tiny swans delicately sewn into graceful poses. Piccard knocked on the Gibbons’ door expecting Stella to be wearing a simple evening gown like every other date he’d ever had, but when the gigantic oak door swung open, there she stood, a strappy red piece clinging to her slender frame, and modest jewels placed strategically about her limbs.

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Her hair, usually kept in a shapely, stick-straight bob, was now in tousled waves that fell slightly above her sharp chin. Her thin, sultry lips wore a scarlet mask, and her eyes were hooded with glittery smoke. She picked up her beaded coin purse and mischievously smiled at Piccard. What stood before him was no longer a silly schoolgirl, but a woman of every man’s fantasy. He swallowed hard, a lump forming in his throat.

Three years later they were engaged. Piccard was preoccupied with his invention agency downtown during the day, and in the evenings, the couple dressed in their best furs and jewels and waltzed out of the house giddily and didn’t return till the early hours of the morning. They’d visit the opera or an art show, or perhaps entertain hundreds of guests in their newly built mansion in the snowy hills.

Stella was always the object of interest at every event they attended. Her job was simple: stay around Mr. Donovan, smile and laugh at his jokes, and look pretty. She gladly took the opportunity to swim in money she’d only dreamt of, and she knew she was young and gorgeous, and could get away with spending as much as she wanted as long as she kept Piccard satisfied.

Even with the simplicity of her role, she practically demanded the spotlight. She created an atmosphere of bubbliness; she was perfectly magnetic. She danced without her heels on, and anyone who knew her knew she was probably so intoxicated she’d lost them in a rosebush somewhere on the lawn. She acted like a drunk child and had the looks of a brothel maid, and everyone wanted a piece.

One evening in late December of 1925, just a month before he’d ventured into the woods, Piccard fancied a drink at the pub down the street. His coworker, Mr. Matthias Cadbury, a spunky and ambitious young man Mr. Donovan had taken under his wing, was easily persuaded to join. After gulping down three pints of beer and two shots of tequila, Donovan began to shout stories at anyone who would listen, and Cadbury, the poor bloke, was forced into listening, as his newfound employment depended on such. Donovan launched into the story of his move from a grimy rural village in France to an upscale city loft in Wales, where a self-made businessman had taken interest in his writing and handmade machines. The businessman, with money to spare, offered to help have Piccard’s works published: nonsense theories on the human imagination. Thinking nothing of it, he allowed his mentor and host to copy down his works for extensive dissection before sending them off to a man in a corner office, somewhere Piccard had never been.

“The rotten bastard!” the very drunk Piccard barked, “he stole my theories and thought it satisfactory enough to pay me a mere 5 pounds! F*ck him!”

Matthias gulped, not knowing how to respond to such a pathetic story.

“Did you ever sue?” he offered weakly in his thick French.

This was partly what had captured Piccard’s attention when Matthias had applied to Donovan & Baker: Scholars of the Entrepreneurial Sciences. He was a young French man with an imagination larger than his wallet— it was like Father Time had swallowed Piccard and spit him out back into his younger days.

“Of course not! I was a young man, and I had no clue how business, or this country for that matter, worked… it’s really quite sad how daft I used to be…”

Mr. Donovan began to trail off, his words becoming sloppy strings of syllables, and he toppled out of his stool and onto the floor of the bar.

He woke up at home, sweaty and parched, and the hallowed dent in the bed next to him did not contain his fiancée. He hoisted himself up, and his head spun, sending objects around the room flying through his vision. His temples slammed against his skull, protesting the sound of

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screaming down the hall. Was it screaming? It sounded like someone was screaming… or singing…singing… were they having a good time? The voice was so familiar he could practically replicate it through his own vocal cords, but he couldn’t quite place who it belonged to.

He stumbled out of his bedroom, balancing himself on the banister before he pitched forward. The sound was definitely female… could it be Stella? He shuffled, foot by foot, down the North wing of the house, nearly spewing the contents of his stomach onto the oil paintings of disgusted looking ancestors.

“My f**king good-for-nothing wommannnn! Where is that bitch?! I need my supper, you useless whore! Get me my coat!”

When he got to the door at the end of the hallway, he kicked it in, letting his foot fall to the floor like a cannonball. There lay his fiancée, or rather there she sat, on top of Mr. Cadbury, wearing as much as a skinny-dipping newborn. The bed creaked, and Mr. Cadbury shouted something in French that Piccard Donovan could not make out because everything was spinning, but he thought it was something like He’s woken up! Off with you! His eyes rolled back in his head and his body collapsed to the floor in a heap with a gigantic thump. The last thing he heard was a woman laughing like she’d just heard a clever joke. 〰 Piccard dragged his feet beneath him, protests shooting up his legs with every step. Left right left right left. God this is such a burden he thought to himself. After all, it had cost him his best pair of dress pants to see that the body made it up the hill. Piccard laughed one of his grizzly laughs again and smiled, thinking the situation was all very silly. He never thought himself a ridiculous man, but this was a little absurd, and a lot satisfactory. Thinking back on the morning after that night, his mind reeled and drifted into how he’d reached such a degrading state. 〰 Stella sat with her back to the wall of the dining room, the one with the painting of Eve taking the first bite of forbidden fruit. Stella had always hated that painting. She said it was gaudy, and the artist clearly didn’t capture the true essence of Eve’s innocence. She wore her sleeping robes, and her hair was pinned elegantly behind her head with a comb adorned with pearls. Piccard did not remember ever buying the comb for her, nor did he remember her ever wearing it before. Mr. Cadbury sat opposite her, pouring tea from a silver kettle, while servings of homemade biscuits, jam, ripe tomatoes from the garden, ham, eggs, and sausage lay spread out over the table. He wore a classic navy suit, and his hair was trimmed shorter and slicked back. He’d shaved since Piccard had seen him at the pub, and he looked much younger than twenty-three. Linus, the butler, scurried around nervously, avoiding eye contact with Mr. Donovan as he entered the room. Piccard let his eyes dart toward the food when his stomach growled, then he remembered his adulterous fiancé and stared at her, his face turning beet red.

“You slut!”

“Excuse me?” Stella griped, practically inhaling her tea in shock.

“Last night! You and that monstrosity that calls himself a man were entangled together like two serpents! How dare you tarnish our marriage in my own household!”

“Pardon, but aren’t you forgetting that this is my home as well? And what on earth are you speaking of, dear? Have you gone mad?”

“I implore you to drop this act at once!”

Stella rose, her silk robes falling at her feet.

“Now just who do you think you are, mister? I have been in bed with you all night, after Anderson High School

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Mr. Cadbury here generously brought your drunk arse home. You’ve clearly had a silly dream which summoned great emotion and fear.”

Matthias, who sat solid as stone, held a face that was impossible to read, but he looked slightly pained. Piccard brought his fist down on the table, rattling every dish intricately spread on placemats. A few biscuits tumbled onto the tablecloth and down onto the floor, landing limply, like corpses.

Stella’s expression fell into a furious mask. Piccard noticed features of his wife he never noticed before in this moment, like the silver finally sprouting from the roots of her hair, and the wrinkles beginning to form on her forehead, like she’d been furrowing her eyebrows often. Stella suddenly looked less like the child he’d married, and more like an old woman, one who had been beaten down by life. She’d lost her youthful glow, and she’d become tired and irritable, cynical and cold.

When she crossed the room and placed her hand on Piccard’s shoulder, he instinctively launched back, her hand grazing cold air. He no longer knew this stranger, so defiant and manipulative. What had she done with the real Stella? As he stumbled out of the dining room, tears streamed down his face and pressure built up inside his pounding head, a sledgehammer against glass. He couldn’t take any more of this ridiculousness he thought, it was all pointless.

He’d forever be known as the man who couldn’t keep a woman, and not only that, but he’d lost her to the prodigy he’d chosen in the first place.

When his heel hit the frame of the fireplace, the fire iron fell with a clang next to him. He looked down at the gritty black rod and wept. Could Piccard Donovan, master businessman, wealthy fiancé, the legend who’d been born from nothing, really kill someone? He slouched down to the ground and picked up the lifeless form, feeling the weight behind it in his palms. It took ten seconds for Mr. Donovan to make up his mind: five contemplating the pros and cons, three thinking about the difficulty of cleanup, and two bathing in the pure fury that left him with no choice but to act on his emotions.

In one fast, steady swing iron met flesh and bone, blood spraying everything. A human head rolled around the linoleum floor, his eyes rolling back and forth until he stopped twitching and head and body alike went limp. Eve now wore a dress of scarlet, and hung in her gold frame, the forbidden fruit dripping off of her lips.

Linus stood in his service blouse and tie, a poking iron in his hands. He was composed and not at all shaken, his muscular arms solid under the thin white button-up. Underneath him lay the body of Piccard Donovan, dead as a doorknob. Stella stood five feet away, her hands raised against her lips.

“Do not look, Stella… it will make worse,” Matthias pleaded in his choppy English. 〰 They reached the top of the peak, Piccard trailing a few feet behind them. She wore a scarlet cape; Matthias, a gray blazer and dress slacks, his royal blue tie hosting a flock of swans that seemed to dance through the threads. Linus held the body bag slung over his shoulder, his service uniform replaced with athletic shorts and shirt, a new Rolex wrapped around his wrist.

They placed heavy cinder blocks from the late construction of the west wing of the mansion in the bag, and zipped it tight, sealing in the last of his gorging stomach, balding head, and memory.

Piccard Donovan was tossed into frigid waters below, drowning under his own weight. The three shadows stood against a fiery sky, nonchalantly trotting back along the cliffs to the estate.

Mr. Donovan, now a pale figure walking aimlessly after a body he once called home, stared down into the icy water and smiled. It wasn’t a smile born from joy, but rather one born Anderson High School

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from acceptance. He stripped himself of his blazer and polished dress shoes, placed the tie and pocket square on top of the stack, and unbuttoned his torn pants. The pines surrounded him, swallowing his body like a ravenous beast. He continued his hike, his peppered hair flipping in the wind. His gorging belly, round and lumpy like a slightly deflated bean-bag, popped out into the fresh air of late January.

Piccard laughed, one of those deep laughs that made the gullet beneath his grizzly chin jiggle with enthusiasm. He whispered at the empty sky, and it answered back, softly unraveling a long-kept secret.

Piccard placed one foot out into the empty air and dove headfirst.

Peach Pit Sara Valentine The hardest lesson to learn was that no matter how sweet I am, there will always be someone who craves salt instead.

I pried open your mouth and fed you the peach slices I had cut from my sides.

Their golden nectar spilled from your mouth as you gagged on their sickly sweet taste.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s it sweetheart, swallow me whole.

Let my syrup coat your tongue before you choke on my pit.

Shove me down your throat, let me wrap around your chest, sliding down into your lungschoking off any breath that is not wholly consumed by me.

Open up darling, and let me live inside you.

Let me carve out a new home for myself amongst your inner organs.

Let me curl in your stomach, churning and mixing with acid and the forgotten remnants of your past.

Peaches rot.

Corpses rot.

Let the pit in your stomach grow, let it burst from your skin, let me flourish.

Long after you are gone, my tree will still be nourished by your rotted body, buried somewhere deep in the forest floor.

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The Road of Mist Sadaan Khan Humans only know what is before them The rest is clouded by a mist A mist that no one can run through What has happened in the past is clear but slowly clouds up once again Some have gone as far as they can go then they choose to stop only for them to be clouded as well The road of mist is a journey that can't be found anywhere else People hate the mist at times and become curious about what's up ahead The mist can't be moved unless you try to progress The mist will always be a mystery but the only thing we can do is try to get through it.

The Unknown Abstract Vincent Pham One rainy day at the Jester Museum of Art, an elderly man by the name of Theo meanders around in his beige trench coat. He is waiting for more people to come and join his small tour group of four. They need at least ten people to begin. Luckily for Theo, a group of students from the nearby high school—walking distance away from the museum—willingly hand over money to pay for the tour. They are probably here by their free will, because they are wearing shirts that say “Art Club” in bold blue letters. Acting as the guide, a former university professor starts the tour. He introduces himself as Dexter with an “x,” but Theo cannot think of another way to spell his name. They begin with the right half of the museum.

Almost immediately, Theo’s subjective mind becomes brimmed with his artistic opinions. I paid $20 to see this? These pieces created from paint and graphite are so repetitive

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and realistic that it just looks like photographs, he thinks to himself. It was probably the whole point of the art being so intricate and complex, but he doesn’t think it should be that way. He isn’t here to see art that is an exact replica of other real-life structures. Theo loves traveling, so he doesn’t want to see things that could be seen in different parts of the world. I want something different, something unique. All these incompetent artists. Where are the iconic ones? The authentic ones? Bach...No wait. Leonardo da Vinci? Vincent van Gogh? However, Theo did pay money for this tour, so he’s definitely not going to waste all of his blood, sweat, and tears for naught. Dexter points to a very realistic painting of The Alamo, created by someone with the alias of Hot Head. It is almost as though the architect randomly decided that people needed a window in the middle of the museum. Theo thinks to himself, This is a freaking window! There is no way a human is capable of doing that. He didn’t deny that it was a masterpiece, but it felt useless and impractical. Seeing nature with one’s own eyes is what heaven looks like, except for one small thing—it’s slowly getting destroyed by mankind. A person could just search up landmarks on Google and millions of digital images would appear.

As Theo begins to delve deeper into his thoughts, the time between the click clacks of his dress shoes increases. Eventually, he falls behind and gets lost in another crowd of tourists. He walks away and finds an unusual group of elementary school kids, probably from 1st grade by the looks of their height, vocabulary, and ability to form sentences. When I was in elementary school, the one field trip I went on was to the Alamo and to the nearby nature trail, he thinks.

How did I see the objects in the past? Struck by curiosity, Theo decides to straight up ask the students about their perspective of the world. Of course, he uses simpler words for the sake of their extremely limited vocabulary.

“How do you see me? What do I look like? Do I look perfect?” Theo asks the girl in the floral dress.

“Eh?” She murmurs. One can clearly tell the nervousness coming from her timid voice and terror-stricken eyes.

“Okay, calm down.” Maybe I shouldn’t bombard her with all these questions. Tourists are already starting to look him up and down as though he’s a pedophile. Theo even hears someone ask in the distance what he’s doing to this poor girl. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.

It’s alright,” he adds, for good measure.

“Okay,” she replies, all signs of distress and fright gone immediately.

“Come with me, I want to show you something.” Kids are so much more gullible nowadays, he thinks. Holding each other’s hands, they walk towards a wooden bench in the adjacent corner room. They both kneel down. Theo takes out a sheet of printer paper and a pack of colorful markers from his black backpack. “Draw what you see right now,” he politely instructs her.

The girl starts to outline weird structures, which Theo interprets to be humans. He desperately needs to know how children view people and objects. By the end of the session, he can make out about seven people, but she still isn’t done drawing! The girl picks up the black marker for outlining and draws extremely bizarre-looking clouds, but somewhat normal stars, for a child at least. Do all children think every drawing needs a sky full of stars? Or is that how they see the roof? Theo had no idea. All he knew was that this drawing was the true masterpiece.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispers, clearly in awe. “This is it. This will change the direction of art and history itself!” Theo leaves the girl to fend for herself and hastily skips toward the museum director, showing him the masterpiece.

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“Wow, this is amazing! Your art will have the honor of being placed in the abstract section of the museum,” gushes the director, not knowing it’s a little girl’s work—not that it diminishes the prestige of the piece.

“Wait, what is the abstract section?”

“Follow me.”

“What! I didn’t know this type of artwork existed!” exclaims Theo, flabbergasted at the untold truth.

He looks up at the wall, the pieces of art that resemble the work of children staring down at him.

Oh, Honey Mirari Saenz People ask me with shock “Honey, you’re not scared, terrified?”

“No,” I reply.

The people tell me, “I could never do that! And if I ever did, I think I would faint, have a heart attack, and die all at the same time!”

After their mini-rant they softly say, “How could you ever risk your life like that?”

“What made you like this?”

“Honey, why?”

I say “Oh, honey, I've been through worse.

The pain runs deep in my veins, But that never stopped me from, as you say ‘risking your life’.

I was not turned in to this. I was born like this.

Born with the desire for adventure, Born with the need to feel, Born with the addiction to adrenaline.

Oh, honey, how much I adore adrenaline— The rush, The tingle, The taste.

Oh, honey, it’s quite sad how you haven’t realized that life is too short.

Too short for the ‘maybe next time,’

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Too short for the ‘dare,’ Too short for ‘I’ll save the pie for later.’

Oh, honey how much you are missing in life— Missing the endless possibilities, Missing the countless number of screams, Missing the one and only memories.

Oh, honey how you just don’t understand— Understand that life should be about more than just surviving, Understand the agony I've had to go through to get where I am today, Understand the joy that comes with all of it.”

So next time you ask me if I’m “terrified,” And “honey, why?”

I will say “ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Because oh, honey, How much I will do in life not being terrified.

Canvassed Jenna Lloyd Nothing. There was absolutely nothing running through my head as I stared at the blank canvas that stood tall and daunting in front of me. I had been staring at the same blank canvas for days, weeks even. Still, I could not bring myself to paint a single thing on it. My therapist told me to do the painting, so I had to do it. Dr. Gordon told me that I had a distinct lack of expression in my life and that I was in desperate need of some alone time. Some time to think over my life and correct my mistakes. At least that’s what Dr. Gordon told me to do. Two therapy sessions had come and gone, and I was still unable to produce a single piece.

“Lucy, I gave you this assignment two weeks ago.”

I sighed, “I know. I’m just worried that you won’t like what I come up with. I’m no artist, you know.”

“Trust me, Lucy, I am not here to judge your artistic abilities. I am only here to help you open yourself up and be vulnerable to the people you truly trust. When we started these sessions, you wouldn’t even talk to me about how you were feeling, but now you are not afraid to show me your true colors. I just want everyone else to be able to see these colors, too.”

“Wow, Dr. Gordon, don’t get all teary-eyed with me now.” I laughed, the good kind Anderson High School

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of laugh that warms your heart and just makes you smile.

Dr. Gordon smiled. “Just paint whatever you can possibly think of and don’t even let the thought of ridicule cross your mind.”

“You’re right. Now, let’s talk about what we’re really here for.”

That night, I sat in front of the canvas and let my arms hang limply at my sides. I closed my eyes and let my thoughts flow free. Then it came to me. Dr. Gordon was always nagging me about how I let my demons control my life. I hadn’t really been listening to be totally honest, but one thing she said really stuck with me.

She had quoted The Lorax, of course, but she said, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

She had said it facetiously, but for some crazy reason, it was the only thing I could remember from that session. It might be because out of all the quotes she had plastered around her room, that one caught my eye every time I walked into a session.

Whatever the reason, it made me realize that the hamartia of my existence was the fact that no matter how bad things would get, I would never acknowledge its existence. There could be a literal monster under my bed and I would just turn my head as if me ignoring it would make it go away. Some may say this is not a problem, but once you start denying that problems exist, those problems will stay with you till the end of time.

Before I could open my eyes, I felt my arm reach across the tables I had laid out next to me. I grabbed all different colors, mostly warm colors, with the exception of a bottle of royal blue paint. I squeezed some color onto a pallet and began swirling the color to intertwine each quality of the colors. I left the blue out. I had a special place for that, later. I proceeded to paint myself in the center of the canvas. I wore a bright yellow blouse, something I would never actually wear, and had my hair tied back in a low ponytail. Once again, something I would never do. I found myself adding creases on my face that I would have otherwise been too selfconscious to add. At this moment in time, however, I felt that nothing could possibly bring me down.

I continued working diligently and was able to finish myself and the background within a matter of hours. I leaned back and surveyed my work, critically looking for a place to add the finishing touch. I found that the place with directly behind me and began to draw out a sketch of the monster that had plagued my dreams for so many years. As his picture became clearer, I found it harder and harder to breathe. My throat was burning from holding back the tears. I knew that I had to finish before the first tear fell because once the floodgates opened, there was no holding back.

I poured some royal blue and black onto my palette and began to work them together to form the right shades. I painted the dark man, remembering the only color I had seen during that dark night. He wore a royal blue headband when he had attacked

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me that fateful night. I’d never told anyone that, but once I was able to paint it out, I felt unstoppable. I no longer felt like a sinking rock in the middle of the ocean. I felt confident, and for the first time that night, I smiled.

Pringles (from the shopping cart’s perspective) Isabella Rincon Hey bro, did you just see that?

This wack ass chick just took me from my chill spot and did fu***n’ donuts in the parking lot for 3 whole hours. It was crazy. She seemed lowkey pretty sad, she kept whining about how her boyfriend, Cam, cheated on her and then dumped her. She also was drinking some kinda wine out of a pringles can. Like, who does that?

Anyways, she was sobbing all over me, I probably have some fu***n’ tear stains on me now, and I prolly smell like a fu***n’ bar. She finished the whole can WHILE DOING DONUTS—that b**ch wack, bro.

She called her friend Rachel, sobbing and drunk, and made plans for lunch, so she ended up dumping me in a ditch and leaving me to rust. I was there for her when there was no one else, we’re basically drinking buddies, and I listened to her problems, just for her to abandon me?

What a b**ch, ya know?

I heard that she got caught up, tho, since she was, like, driving drunk or whatever. Like, by the popo. Damn, I hope she’s good tho—we had a pretty chill time, got closer and all that. I heard about her problems, which made me feel better about mine, like not really knowing where I’m from, or who made me, what my purpose in life is. Her being there made me feel like I actually had a purpose, but the way she left… it hurt, man, not gonna lie.

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An Idiot Letter Jacob Ouzillou 11/30/16 Henry VanCaughbough Henry@VanCaughbough.net 8372 Ravenwood Drv. 408-888-8994 General Mills 103 Westmont Ln, Campbell CA 1-800-248-7310 Dear Lucky Charms cereal: I have been a loyal fan of your cereal for the past sixteen and a half years. I am ashamed to admit that that half year, seven years ago, I abandoned Lucky and his band of charms, not feeling like I could eat anything after my three kids and wife all… left us in a tragic plane accident days before. I hadn’t eaten your cereal for half a year after, until one day I was shopping for my H-E-B brand honey oats, and saw you across the aisle. I have eaten nothing but your cereal since then. I have never been luckier in my life, and am now a firm believer in your product.

Since converting to a diet of Lucky Charms, I have not broken a bone. I have won two raffles and a five-hundred-dollar lottery ticket. I, personally, am not a lucky person. That's what I love about your product. All I have to do is sacrifice three meals a day, and replace them with a luck-smoothie made of milk, vitamin supplements, Lucky Charms, and 7g of pure caffeine. I haven't eaten solid food or slept for the past seven years, and I have loved every second of it. At least the seconds in which I can see. My tattoos of the charms remind me of my luck—my heart star and horseshoe, my clover and blue moon, my hourglass and rainbow, and my tasty red balloon! (all tattooed on my face). Three years ago, I had a huge stroke of luck, and two normal strokes. My doctors had been screaming at me to, “stop killing yourself,” and, “in the name of god please stop,” but they didn’t understand, I was LUCKY. My kidneys had shut down, but I was LUCKY enough to find a donor immediately! My mother had the same kidneys I did.

She didn’t survive the surgery.

Guess she wasn’t lucky enough.

Lucky as ever,

Henry VanCaughbough Henry VanCaughbough

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The Rose Garden Kennidy McAllister The beautiful thorny vines of the rose garden wrapped around the house like it was protecting it from the world. It was such a sight to admire. Imagine living all the way out in the countryside and approaching a lonely house with roses all around it. I fell in love instantly when I first drew near it. I knew right there and then that this was the place I wanted to spend the rest of my life, with you in it.

Remember the first time we met? It was in PE class and we were not very compatible, or so I thought. I was so oblivious to the fact that we were flirting the whole time. You gave me one look and I felt like I’d known you my whole life. You and I connected instantly and became something like friends. I’d seen you before on my bus, but we never spoke to one another, so I finally got the chance to get to know you more. Little did I know that I would fall head over heels for you, and I’m glad I did. Or I did at the time.

We both created a huge situation for ourselves. I was in a relationship with your best friend when we developed feelings for each other, and it was extremely hard for us both. I ended up breaking up with him, not just to be with you, but for myself as well. We had to keep our relationship secret for a while, which we hated because we wanted to be open and show each other off, but things were just too complicated. I feared being called awful names for “messing around with my ex’s best friend,” and you were scared of losing your friendship with him. We both knew nobody would understand. We knew nobody would even try.

You reminded me of the house with the rose garden wrapped around it. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. The beautiful thorny vines of the rose garden represented your personality in so many ways. You were a mysterious and adventures human being. You brought light and beauty to anything you surrounded yourself with, but sometimes you could be harsh and inconsiderate.

There were days when you would be so cruel to me. I always wondered if it was my fault or questioned if there was something wrong with me.

Everything was fine in the beginning for us. We fell in love with each other...well at least I did. You didn’t realize how you were portrayed in my eyes. You kept putting all of these negative thoughts and accusations in your head about us and about me, but why?

I continued to ask myself that question throughout our entire relationship, even when I already knew the answer. You’re insecure. I never judged you for that. I supported you and tried my hardest to not make you feel as self-conscious as you did. I cut off all my guy friends and even kept my location activated on snapchat so you could keep an eye on me. I didn’t feel comfortable with doing any of those things, but if they made you feel better about us and yourself then of course I would go through with them.

You started becoming very controlling towards me, to the point where it was getting obvious to the people we surround ourselves with. I ignored it, obviously, because I valued our relationship so much. I didn’t want to say or do anything that would trigger you to end things with me, even though that ended up happening anyway.

We ended on such a bad note. You started talking a lot of mess about me to my own friends, which got them to question their friendship with me. This is what you wanted, right? To turn everybody against me? Well, you got what you wanted. I still love you though, which is crazy to me. I don’t regret anything. Even though you hate me now, I still look after you. Just not up close anymore.

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The beautiful thorny rose garden is starting to wilt every time I look back it. It’s not going to be wrapped around the lonely home for much longer. It hurts knowing that there isn’t anything I can do about it anymore. You were a life lesson to me and that life lesson was that even though you take care of something and hand over as much attention as you possibly can towards it, it doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever. The lonely home isn’t as precious without the beautiful thorny vines of the rose garden.

Two Poems Marian Hayes Half-Cloudy Sky The clouds follow the wind Like babies and their mothers.

They do what the wind says And are never perfect.

They fly together in cold air To one half of the sky and Leave the other half clear and blue Like one would see in another’s eyes.

Just like the clouds, You are not perfect.

While one side of you is Loved like blue sky, There is another side of You that is dark like the clouds.

Don’t follow the wind or anything else But trust your instincts instead.

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The Quota How nice could a Life with no limits be?

The freedom would live Within every human being.

Nothing would stop us; We would be who we are.

But what are the footsteps Coming right for us?

It’s the Quota!

It’s the monster that Only eats your unlimited Access to everything!

Your social life, your money, Anything you’ve got, it won’t Stop the Quota from getting to you.

Don’t let him win, Just test your limits!

Fight for your freedom.

Don’t let him win, For once the Quota’s defeated, You’ll have peace once again.

Mechanical Madison Mitchell I’m back out on the feeder road, approaching the turn that takes me into my neighborhood. Humming along to the radio, I drive through the neighborhood, excited that I’m almost home. I glance in my rearview mirror and realize that someone is right behind me. I’m going 35, why are they tailgating me? is my first thought, but as I continue to glance in the mirror, something about the lights seems eerie to me. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s the glowing yellow-orange color, dissimilar from the stark white lights most of the cars seem to have nowadays. Looming through the complete darkness surrounding us, the lights are all I can see. I guess that’s why they’re so creepy. Something about two glowing orbs at night reminds me of a bad horror story I would have written in high school.

As I drive on, I get increasingly concerned about the person behind me. I speed up as much as I’m willing to on the wet neighborhood roads, but the lights never seem to be very far behind me. I take several turns, and through every single one of those, the headlights continue to follow me. I’m almost to my house at this point and debating whether or not I should lead this

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person on a wild goose chase, just to truly see if they’re actually following me. I decide against it, chalking up all this irrational fear to me just being paranoid. Pulling into the driveway, I freeze, watching that very same car pull up to the sidewalk in front of the house.

A man jumps out, jogging towards my car. What do I do what do I do what do I DO! My heart begins to jerk against my ribs, and I feel my throat constricting with fear. A rush of blood starts to pulse through my ears. The fuzzy, static-like noise drowns out whatever this guy is trying to shout at me. Reaching my window, he motions for me to roll it down. I shake my head, scared, and trying not to become the dumb girl in a slasher flick.

“Hey, hey!” he yells, waving his arms, his words muffled by the glass and his figure blurred by the pounding rain. I give in and lower my window just a few inches.

“What?” I ask, pretty abruptly. Now is no time to begin false pleasantries.

“Your right tail light is out; thought I’d let you know.” That’s all? I think to myself. Damn, guess paranoid is an understatement.

“Thanks, I’ll get that checked out.” I smile, praying he’ll leave now that he’s said his two cents. No such luck. He pauses for a second, but carries on. He leans against my car, getting as close to me as the window allows.

“You got a boyfriend or something that could look into it for you?” Flashing a smarmy, toothy grin at me, he begins to dig for something in his pocket. God dammit. There it is. God he’s smirking, freaking smirking! He’s so proud of himself, helping a poor “damsel in distress.”

Oh, go to hell, buddy. Before I can form a snappy response, he shoves a card through the window.

“I’m a mechanic at the place on 37th. Come by and I’ll give you a discount. We like to take care of the pretty girls.” With one last grin and a wink, he jogs back to his car and finally leaves. I sit in my car, motionless, trying to come to terms with what happened and calm my pounding heart.

Look for Me in the Stars Maddie Walker Levi February 1984 I saw him from across the bar. He was wearin’ a beat-up t-shirt and sneakers. Not from around here, I could tell. Stood out like a sore thumb in a sea of cowboy boots and silver belt buckles. Probably passin’ through on his way to El Paso.

God, I wanted him. I came all the way up to Alpine from the ranch to get a break from the world and now I was lookin’ at this man sitting all alone and I thought about how God was

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givin’ me that break I wanted. The neon sign on the wall shone on his face and made him look like an angel, made me wanna get his name. So I stood up, grabbed my whiskey, heard the floorboards creak under my boots as I made my way over to stand next to him.

“Levi,” I said with my hand fixed on the edge of the bar.

He looked up at me. “Huh?” “The name’s Levi.”

“Oh.” He didn’t say anything for a second. Then he understood what I was gettin’ at.

“Oh. I’m David. Here, sit.”

I looked over at his empty glass as I sat down and ordered him another. He looked grateful. Smiled at the bartender when he handed him the new drink.

“So,” I said. “What brings you to Alpine?”

“I’m just stopping here for the night. I’m moving to El Paso from Dallas.”

“Sad you won’t be stayin’ a while longer. We don’t get many pretty faces like yours ‘round here all that often.”

David blushed the color of those pink flowers that bloom on cacti when it gets hot.

Wasn’t much of a talker, though.

“Alright,” I continued, “You’re movin’. What for?”

“New job. And things just weren’t working out for me in Dallas.” He looked down at his shoes. “My parents found out about me.”

I nodded. Didn’t need him to tell me what his parents found out. He was here because he was hurt. I was, too.

“What’s your new job?” I asked.

“Working at the Botanical Gardens, taking care of the plants. I think I’ll be able to teach some summer camps, too. I’m excited about that.”

I smiled. Didn’t mean to smile so big, but I’d never met someone like David. He was sweet. Sweeter than I thought any city boy could be.

“What about you, Levi? What do you do?”

“I’m a little ways down the highway. I’m a ranch hand at the Lone Mesa ranch. Look after the animals, herd ‘em around. Ride a lot of horses.”

David laughed at that. Put his hand on my knee and laughed like we’d known each other for years. “You’re like a real-life Wild West cowboy.”

“Kinda. Not as glamorous as they make it seem, though.” I couldn’t help smiling then.

Really was a shame David would be leavin’ in the morning. I looked down at his hand, still fixed on my leg, and just barely touched my fingers to his. A chair shifted behind us, and I looked over and saw a man glance over at us. My hand shot back up to my drink. David’s did, too.

David took a deep breath in, shook his head a little. “How is that?”

I squinted my eyes at him. “How’s what?”

“Living out here, being…who you are.”

I looked around. No one was sittin’ near us. Bartender was talkin’ to some woman at the other end of the bar. I looked back at David, spoke quietly. “‘Round here, people like to pretend us gay folks don’t exist. Most people here ain’t gay anyways, so it’s easy to act like homosexuality just ain’t a thing that happens. But it’s lonely. No one knows about me, and I sure as Hell don’t know about anyone else.”

David looked at me for a second. Right into my eyes, like he was lookin’ through into my soul. “Let’s get out of here, yeah? I’m in the motel just down the road.”

I grinned at that, threw some money down on the bar. Followed David outside.

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And then I was in his car, driving down the desert road. I was in the motel parking lot. At the door to his room. Inside the room.

I looked at David for a second, and he looked at me back. We were quiet. I could hear the cars passin’ by outside. Then, I grabbed David’s waist and pushed him against the door. I kissed him like he was the last person I’d ever kiss, and he kissed me like he was dyin’.

We stayed up for hours that night. In the morning, David’s hair was all messed up and there were bags under his eyes, but he still looked like an angel.

Andrew May 1984 “No, Amy. You’re just paranoid. Yes. Yes, I will. Okay. Bye.” I glanced over at Matthew from the couch. “What did Amy want?” I asked.

“She wanted to know if Nick was talking shit about her today,” Matthew said as he walked over to sit next to me.

“Oh my God,” I groaned as Matthew slung his arm over my shoulders. “It wasn’t even that bad of a breakup. She just loves drama.”

“I mean, I’d hope a theater student would love drama.”

I lightly punched Matthew’s leg. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

Matthew sighed. “Have you talked to John lately?”

I felt a pang in my chest, a shift in the air, a reminder of what I was keeping secret. I looked out the window to our apartment’s balcony. I could almost see Central Park through the buildings.

“Yeah, I called him yesterday.”

“How is he?”

“Not good. He’s just getting worse and worse.”

Matthew didn’t say anything. The silence felt heavy. But there was nothing either of us could’ve said that would’ve changed the fact that my best friend was dying. That was the thing about being a theater student in New York in the 80’s. Most of your friends were gay. And if they weren’t already dead, they were probably dying.

“How are you?” Matthew asked. He tried to smile, but the concern on his face took over.

“Well,” I said, “It doesn’t get any easier.”

“No, how are you? Something’s up. Something that has nothing to do with John.”

My breath became shaky. I was never good at keeping secrets. “Yeah. I, um….” My chest sunk. “I went into the doctor this morning to have them look at my throat. You know it’s been sore even since after I got over the flu.”

Matthew nodded. He reached for my hand on my knee and laced his fingers through mine.

“So, um, they did some tests. And… and….” I couldn’t take it anymore. I started sobbing, and when Matthew pulled my face into the crook of his neck, my tears soaked the collar of his shirt.

“Andrew, what is it?” Matthew said even though I was sure he knew exactly what was wrong with me. I didn’t blame him for not wanting to say it out loud. I didn’t either.

I sat back up and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “I’m sick. I have AIDS, Matthew.” I let out another sob. “You should… you should probably get tested.”

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Matthew took my face in his hands and kissed me even though I was sick and crying and devastated. “I’ll go in the morning,” he said softly, resting his forehead on mine. “Right now, I’m here for you.”

I loved him for that. I loved that boy more than anything I’d ever loved before.

Margaret August 1984 My son was supposed to change the world. He could have done it, too. He could have been anything he wanted. Eric was my pride and joy. He was always perfect. I did everything I could to raise him to be your classic all-American boy. But everything just wasn’t enough. He still ended up a homosexual.

I remember the day he told me. It was the beginning of the summer of 1980, a little over four years ago. He had just graduated. Hilton Head High School valedictorian, of course. I watched from the seats as my little boy stood in his cap and gown and gave a speech about the future. If only I knew what mine held.

Eric’s graduation party was beautiful. I bought him a cake from the nicest little bakery on the island and had them write “Good luck at Princeton, Eric!” along the top in blue icing. He specifically asked for no gifts, but I went to the local jewelers and bought him a ring. It was just a simple band, pure gold, stunning. I gave it to him after all of the party guests left. He beamed at me and let me slip it onto his right hand. Then, he told me to sit with him.

We sat next to each other on the sofa and I asked if everything was alright. He told me it was. I asked if his father needed to hear this. He said he’d tell him later. And so, I gave Eric my full attention. He didn’t say anything at first, so I lifted my hand to his forehead and asked if he felt well. And then he told me he was a homosexual.

“I’m gay, mother,” Is what he said. I was silent. A million thoughts raced through my head. He was my only child—would he not give me any grandchildren? Was he confused? What made him this way? Above all those thoughts, one prevailed: I’d failed at raising my son.

I stood up without saying anything. I couldn’t look at Eric. As I left the room, I heard him calling out to me. “Mother.” He said. “Mother, please.” But I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t bear looking at the son I’d failed.

Levi November 1984 Somethin’ was wrong.

I first realized back in March. I was herdin’ the cattle back into their pen for the evenin’, and I was tired. More tired than I usually was at that point in the day. Figured I just hadn’t slept well the night before. I locked the cows up in their pen, fiddled with the old lock to get it to close all the way. And then I was on the ground.

I don’t remember fallin’, but there I was, in the dirt with dust in my eyes. I called out for Wayne. He ran the whole ranch, and I was workin’ for him, but he was almost like a dad to me. I saw him run out from the house and make his way over to me. He held out his hand to me and I took it, letting him pull me up like I was a little kid.

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“Woah there, Texas,” Wayne said as he clapped his hand over my shoulder, “You doin’ alright?”

“I— I think so. I don’t know what happened. I think I’m tired is all.”

“You been feelin’ alright? Think you’re sick or somethin’?” Wayne didn’t wait for me to answer to put the back of his hand on my forehead. “You feel hot, son.”

“To be honest, I haven’t been feelin’ too good lately.”

“Well, let’s get you layin’ down and we can figure this out.”

Wayne walked me over to the guest house, a one-room building separate from the main house. That’s where I stayed. I didn’t have a place of my own. He had me sit on my bed while he ran to fetch a thermometer. He got back and checked my temperature for me. 101 degrees.

“You got yourself a fever, Levi,” Wayne told me, “I’ve been sayin’ you work yourself too hard. Take a break until you’re better, alright?”

But I never got better. It was November now, and I never got any better. I’d been gettin’ worse, in fact. After that first week I told Wayne I was good to get back to work. He tried to take my temperature again just to make sure, but I wouldn’t let him, insisted I was fine.

So, I worked through how tired I was. I worked through the pain in my throat and in my stomach. Some nights I woke up covered in sweat or with a headache or a rash and I worked through it all.

I never went to the doctor. Never had to. I went up to the bar in Alpine one night ‘cause I needed a drink. While I was walkin’ in I saw a newspaper layin’ on the ground and somethin’ told me to pick it up and bring it inside with me. I sat at the bar and looked through it, readin’ headlines about big city sports and the aftermath of some California earthquake. And then an article jumped out at me. The title read “Gay Epidemic Spreads Through US,” and I knew that whatever this article was talkin’ about was what I had.

I decided not to get treated. There was one doctor within a 20-mile radius of the ranch and word would get out about me if I was diagnosed with what the newspaper called a “gay disease.” The ranch was all I had. No parents, mama died givin’ birth to me and papa was a drunk a hundred miles up the highway. And Wayne would fire me if he knew I was gay. So, I decided not to get treated.

I prayed every night for my recovery, hopin’ God would hear me. I don’t think he did.

Andrew December 1984 John’s funeral was too cold. He hated the cold, and I felt some sort of obligation as his best friend to make sure it wasn’t cold at his funeral, but I couldn’t help that he died in December.

I clung onto Matthew for the whole service. All our friends were there but I couldn’t bear to talk to them; it would have been like walking on eggshells if I did. No one had to say it, but we all knew I was next.

Matthew never got sick. I was relieved when he told me, but it was lonely. He didn’t know what it felt like to know you’d be lucky to make it to graduation. We fought about it once.

He said I was being too pessimistic, and I said I was just being realistic. I heard him crying from our bedroom afterwards, so I sat next to him on the bed and he cried into my chest and I ran my fingers through his hair because I couldn’t be mad at him for worrying about me.

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When we got back to our apartment after the funeral, Matthew shrugged off his coat and put a record on the record player. He held his hands out to me. “Come here,” he said. “Dance with me.”

I draped my arms over Matthew’s shoulders and he took my waist. As we swayed along to the music, he giggled and sang along to the lyrics, like he was singing to me. It was almost like when we’d just started school, before any of this had happened. Before John and I had gotten sick.

Matthew tried to dip me, but neither of us knew how to dance so he ended up having to catch me to make sure I didn’t fall. He started laughing so hard he had to sit down, and just looking at him made me laugh too, so we ended up sitting on the couch instead of dancing any more. I was almost glad, because my back was starting to hurt.

“You know,” Matthew said, “I’d marry you. If it were legal.”

“And if I weren’t dying.”

Matthew sighed and took my hands in his. “We don’t have to talk about that, okay?

We’re here, together, right now.”

I smiled. I never told Matthew, but I’d die for him if I had to. Maybe I would.

Margaret March 1985 I received a letter from Eric in March. I hadn’t heard from him in four years; the last time we spoke was the day he left for Princeton. But that March, he decided to contact me.

“Dear Mother,” The letter read, “I’m writing to give you some news. I know it’s been quite a while since we last spoke, but I thought it was important that you should know this. You may have heard of the AIDS disease. Well, I’m sick. I’ve known for a few months but now that it’s clear that I’m not getting any better, I thought this was the time to tell you. I don’t need you to come up and see me, and you don’t have to tell father if you don’t want to. And I know I could’ve called, but I think hearing your voice would take me back to before any of this had happened and that would be too much for me. I hope this letter finds you well.”

My Eric. My only son was sick and most likely dying. And we hadn’t spoken in four years. I felt awful. And after reading that letter I realized I’d failed more as a mother by not speaking to him for so long than raising him to end up being a homosexual. Maybe that was something I never even had a part in to begin with. Maybe there was nothing I could have ever done to make him any different. People never got sick like that because their parents raised them badly. Eric may not have been who I’d always wanted him to be, but he was my son. I could never change that.

Levi June 1985 One thing the desert always had that other places didn’t was the stars. There were millions of ‘em up there in that night sky. I never really noticed how many you could see out in the middle of nowhere until the night I met David. We laid in bed and he told me about how he could never see that many stars in Dallas. He said he’d stay in the desert forever just to look at

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the stars at night. I hadn’t heard from him in over a year, but I’d always remember what he said.

I don’t have many days left. I quit workin’ at the ranch a couple months back. It was gettin’ too hard to work anymore, and I didn’t want Wayne to figure anything out. So I used what I had saved up to get myself a little house in town. I didn’t go out much, but I did do a lot of thinkin’ while I was there.

I thought about how people have always said that gays go to hell, but that ain’t true. I don’t think there’s a hell. Or a heaven, or angels, or the devil. And I sure as hell don’t think there’s a god, because no god could ever be so cruel.

Matthew September 1985 Andrew spent his last days in the hospital, clutching onto my hand. He slept a lot, but I made sure I was always sitting in the chair next to his bed when he woke up. The nurses did everything they could to make him better, but nothing worked. Andrew told me he loved me every hour he was awake. Probably because he knew each time could very well have been his last. I made sure to tell him I loved him back.

Neither of us cried while Andrew was there. I think we were both trying to be strong for each other. I was standing by the window when he woke up for the last time, looking out at the city.

He told me he loved me, and I turned and smiled at him. I said I loved him too.

And then he was gone.

Margaret October 1985 I visited Eric in the hospital even though he told me I didn’t have to. I told my husband, Roger, that I was on a work trip. He would never have forgiven me if he knew I was reconnecting with our son. Eric let him know he was a homosexual just before he left for college.

Roger was furious.

I told Eric everything. I told him about how I still loved him and how I regretted not speaking to him and how I was scared. So scared. We talked for hours after that, and I came back again the next day, and the day after that. But on the last day, as we were talking, my son closed his eyes and never opened them again.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop crying.

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Levi David.

I want you to know that I don’t blame you for what happened to me, and that I was always glad I met you. I wish I could’ve seen you again. The last few months were so lonely.

I don’t know if you're still out there. But if you are, I want you to do something for me, okay? When your time comes, look up at the stars; I know how much you loved them. I don’t think I’ll be goin’ to any heaven or hell, so I think I’ll become a star instead. I’ll become a star and watch over you until we can see each other again.

Look for me in the stars, David. I’ll wait for you.

Dissociation (a poetry collection) Jacob Singer

Masks People all wear masks, Masks that cover who they really are, Everyday altered Logic Challenges are a source of many joys, You can abuse them to your pleasure, Learning from these little toys, Each and every is a treasure.

Understanding can be hard, Many things won't make sense, We develop tricks to not be barred, For knowing nothing is an offence.

When we can we lead, Grabbing hold of the situation, Taking what we need, No matter the motivation.

Logic is the essence of life, Those without should embrace a knife.

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Hate The world is full of stupid, ignorant, useless, and all around terrible people In fact, most everyone in this world are nothing more than a pain They are needy They are selfish They are cruel And worst of all They expect others to do all of their work for them.

Now I know this doesn’t describe everyone, and that I’m being unfair Most people are worse.

I can’t even begin to describe the idiocy of humanity.

It’s ludicrous Everyone is always told that they need to help others And they need to Trust others Well you know what I need I need all of them to just shut up for a second I need all of them to take a look at themselves and decide Why is it that they act the way they do Why is it that they treat me the way they do Why is it wrong to kill someone, when making a person’s life a living hell and driving them to suicide is okay.

I hate it I hate them I hate you Hate is the only thing keeping everyone in this god-forsaken world even the slightest bit sane And Yet They Reject Me.

Joy People often call me childish, And, I don’t really understand what’s so wrong about that, I mean, does choosing to have fun make me any less... mature?

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Why would anyone willingly choose to not enjoy themselves.

Why would people go so far as to say living a life you hate is very adult of you “You love to torture yourself, OH MY GOD, ME TOO! I’ve never seen anyone be as adult as you before. WE should TOTALLY be enemies and FIGHT about EVERYTHING!” What No Why Life is about having fun There are so many different places So many different people So many different games So many different shows So many different challenges And so much more Life is full of diversity I want to experience And enjoy Every Last Bit of It And if that makes me childish GREAT

Sorrow The world doesn’t revolve around me, and I doubt it ever will. There is something about me that doesn’t sit right with the people I meet. Something that makes them grimace slightly, maybe take a step back and shudder, sometimes ignore me all together. Everyone knows why they hate me, but they aren’t brave enough to come out and say anything. I am ugly, they are not.

That is the only difference between us, but because of it, I don’t exist. I’m untouchable.

They call it Nihilism, when someone acknowledges, and Depression, when they care.

But somehow, I still have friends. People who try to care for me, and people I try to care about in return.

I take on a few of their burdens, they take on a few of mine.

Collective What does it mean to be a human?

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A human is any mammal classified as Homo Sapiens, They are tailless bipedal primates, Capable of both thought and speech, They have dominated the biological landscape by making use of their inherent traits, Opposable thumbs, Ability to sweat, Use of Tools, And, Compassion.

That makes sense, But, What does it mean to be a human?

A human is a creature with a strong attachment to reason and emotions, A creature that feels.

So, What does it mean to be a human?

It means that you are constantly fighting to know more, Logic is the root of our history, What allows us to exist in the way that we want, And what allows for an endless amount of possibilities.

It means that you are able to hate, You are able to fight for who you are and who you’ll be, It’s what allows you to be strong, It’s the backbone of who we are.

It means that you can find joy, You can find the life you want to live, The base of all desire, The reason for being.

And, It means that you can feel sorrow, Sorrow is what allows us to remember ourselves, Know what is dear to us, And not take things for granted.

What does it mean to be a human?

It means a lot.

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The Jagged Branches Haden Knobloch Under the jagged branches of a tilted tree, the old fisherman stood in front of his thatchroofed house and sipped his tea. It was a cool afternoon and the wind was blowing just enough for him to feel the breeze glide through his grey whiskers. The sensation let him know that he was alive for another day and he was guaranteed a view of the pale blue sky one more time, and he smiled at the thought before taking a deep breath full of the wind.

He held the breath for a little and he was able to sense the environment around him. He could smell the green leaves and the tree bark of the tree that loomed over him and he could taste the salt from the water out in front of him, and he felt at home. He had no wish to leave this place and felt that he would never have to, but he wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too sure of the matter, having never stayed in one place for too long.

Long ago he had been nothing more than a wanderer with no purpose in the world, aimlessly traveling down roads and through towns. It was a time he would have loved to forget but had somehow not been able to part with in the years from then to now. The thought of it made him sick as he despised every part of himself and the life he lived when looking back upon it. Now he could no longer sense the environment, he could only picture himself, a young man with a bloodied sword grasped firmly at his side, standing over another man who lay slain in the street. He saw the faces in the crowd surrounding him, all filled with fright or disgust at the loss of life.

The man tried hard to forget the image but when he finally did another would come back to his memory. He felt something splash on his hand and saw that his tea had spilled from its cup that was held by his profusely shaking hands. He poured out the rest of the tea and placed the cup back inside his house before taking his boat out into the water.

After getting halfway between his house and the land across the way, the fisherman stopped his boat and rested on the dark swaying waves. He sat out there with a bamboo rod that guided a fishing line through the stygian water. He wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t out there to fish but to try and seek clarity, but after finding none he gathered his things and returned to his rocky shore.

The wind had grown from a cool breeze to angry gusts that brought along clouds that blocked out the blue sky with a grey sheet. The tilted tree which stood over the fisherman began to lose its leaves, as the angry wind swept them off their twisted branches. The man followed the path of a leaf as it spun through the air and into the water where it glided. The fisherman kept his eyes on the water until his attention

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was called away from the water by someone shouting. He turned to the direction of the cries and saw a stout young man, who looked much like the fisherman himself in his wandering years, standing in his yard in front of his house. The man wore robes that matched the color of the dark water and had a sheathed sword at each hip. His face also took on a dark expression, making the man seem like nothing but an illusion of the fisherman. The only thing that made the fisherman believe the stranger wasn’t a figment of his imagination was when the man spoke.

“Rōnin,” the stranger shouted towards the fisherman, looking for attention that had already been caught.

The word made the fisherman’s gut tighten into a knot, and he felt as if a sword had been thrust into his stomach. His tongue soured at the sound of it; it was a word he’d hoped he would never have to hear again. He wished to smack this boy in the face who clearly knew nothing of which he spoke, but she showed no emotion on his face, only wearing an innocent and confused look.

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you must be confused about me. There are no rōnin here.”

“Don’t pretend old man, I know who you are.” The boy said persistently.

“What do you want from me boy? I’m only a fisherman.” The man said, being baited by the boy’s attempt to aggravate him. “I don’t mean to disappoint you but—” “Fourteen years ago… You saw me as a child, staring at you with teary eyes after you killed my father in front of our village. Do not deny what you did!” The enraged boy screamed.

The man looked back at him, and his mask had been wiped away. He was sure he had killed his father, and he killed many men before and after this one man. The truth was he remembered nothing about this boy, he only remembered the feeling of killing, and he wished to avoid it.

“I do not deny it. I’m sure I did kill your father along with many others, and I’ve lived a long enough time to regret my past actions. Now I only ask for your forgiveness, although I don’t expect it.”

“You can’t have it. I do not wish for an apology, I wish for vengeance.” The boy said determined, as he unfastened one of the swords from his side and tossed to the ground in front of the fisherman.

“I do not wish to duel you. Those days have ended for me. I won’t kill another person.”

The boy looked at him in disgust. “Then I shall slay you where you stand.” He unsheathed a shining blade that reflected the color of the clouds.

The fisherman thought and knew he didn’t want to die so he reluctantly picked the sword and got into a defensive position.

The boy charged towards him and began a flurry of attempted strikes, all of which the man either blocked or dodged. It quickly became clear who would win the fight, but the boy still fought on stubbornly, fruitlessly swinging at his deceptively quick opponent. Seeing an opportunity to end the pointless battle, the fisherman struck the handle of the boy’s sword, cutting off two of his fingers. He immediately dropped his sword and cried out in pain as he stumbled back. There was no longer a vengeful swordsman, but only a scared boy and the fisherman was only then able to recognize his face from fourteen years ago. He still didn’t remember who the boy’s father was or why they were fighting, but he knew enough to extend a hand to help the boy up.

“Leave this place, boy.” He said with a stern face.

The boy did as he said, leaving both swords seeing as he would never be able to wield them again. The old man watched him until he disappeared into the horizon, then he threw both

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swords into the water where they sank. He imagined the life that the boy would go on to live and smiled at the thought.

He had gained absolution in his and entered his house a redeemed man. He went to his bed to lay to rest and for the first time in years wasn’t concerned about whether he would wake up the next morning.

The Abuse of the Non-Dedicated Right Turn Lane Kate Perry When I drive, all I want is to get to my destination without any interruptions, but this can’t happen when there are oblivious drivers around me. They can be found anywhere and everywhere on the road, endangering everyone with the careless way they drive. In the end though, it’s the smaller things, or the ones that do not seem problematic on a surface level, that get my blood boiling. What bothers me most are the drivers who use the non-dedicated right turn lane at a red light, when they are planning to go straight.

The rules of the road say that you are allowed to turn right on a red light once you see that there is no incoming traffic. When someone decides to get into the right lane but doesn’t turn right, the rule becomes irrelevant. Those who do need to turn right have to wait until the light turns to green again before being allowed to turn. There is no reason for you to be in that lane when there’s a perfectly good straight only lane to use next to you. It slows the flow of traffic and if the person behind you is in a hurry, they’re going to end up being late, which has happened to me many times. On one occasion, I was running late for soccer practice, and I needed to make a right turn. Unfortunately, someone stopped in that lane and they needed to go straight. Precious minutes went down the drain as I waited for the light to turn blue. When I finally arrived at practice, I was three minutes late and my team had to suffer: we spent the first thirty minutes of practice running sprints.

What makes the whole situation worse is the fact that both of my parents do this, and I get stuck in the car with them while everyone behind us is cursing us under their breaths. On many occasions I’ve told them to just use the straight only lane, but they just get mad at me. I’m telling this to them to try and help them and keep them from being the most hated people on the road, but they just see me as a nagging flea who won’t leave them alone.

My theory on why this happens is that when drivers see two lanes, one with a long line of cars and one with no cars, where both allow you to go straight, they will choose to go to the lane with no cars, because it’s the easiest way to get through a green light before it switches to red. The problem with this, though, is the fact that their lane will need to merge into the other lane, since both lanes are coming together to form one. Trying to merge with someone who just stopped the flow of traffic in that one lane because they were too impatient to wait will be a recipe for disaster. Expecting them to be patient enough to let you in front of them is a joke. They will most likely cut you off,

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provoking you into a fit of road rage. This in turn will lead to a domino effect that turns the neighborhood into a bumper cars arena, as everyone tries to get past one another in the most unsafe manner.

Picture yourself in the situation above. Would you rather wait out a second red light, or run the risk of injuring those around you, even if there’s only a fraction of chance of this actually happening? Next put yourself in the driver’s seat of the car behind someone needing to go straight, but who had just used this lane on a red light. You need to be at work in five minutes and the only way to get there on time is by turning right. Now you are stuck in this light for two to three minutes while your boss wonders if you’re going to be late. The number of things that go unnoticed by oblivious drivers are bountiful. These problems should be uncovered because they can be drastic for anyone on the road.

In the end, it may seem like I’m blowing the whole thing out of proportion, but there is truly a problem with how some people choose to use this lane. It both stresses other drivers, either by making them late or endangering them, and defeats the purpose the right on red rule altogether. To fix this, there needs to be some sort of change involved for the rules of the road.

Either by removing the option of going straight altogether, by making them dedicated right lanes, or by creating an unwritten rule that you are never allowed to go straight in this lane unless it’s a green light and it doesn’t disrupt the flow of traffic. The former would most likely make many drivers angry, which is not the best solution, but the latter would definitely fix some of the problems I have with oblivious drivers and make driving just a tad more fun for everyone.

Art-Inspired Ruth Garcia NAME: Michelle “Max” Mandala HERO NAME: Maggot AGE: 16 GENDER: Female POWER(S): Able to emit slugs from the body that in turn digest solid objects and transfer the energy to their host/Capable of relocating the major organs within the body/Able to eat animal remains/human flesh/garbage for energy MISSION: defeat villain Doctor Nuclear/rescue hero Storm Meet your partner at the Hero mission office.

Max stared at the small piece of paper that had been slapped on the front of her dorm’s door. This was her first big mission. Until now the academy had only been giving her small ones like helping old ladies cross the street and aiding whenever there were giant superhero fights. She made her way to the mission section of the academy where they would give her a partner to go with.

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attacked. She stood in front of the Hero mission door and nervously knocked on the door.

“Come in,” a bored-sounding voice said.

Max entered the small room. In the middle of the room was a small wooden desk surrounded by mountains and mountains of paperwork.

“Oh, sorry, let me just uh,” the voice said again. The mountain of paperwork began to rumble and it was shifted aside. Sitting behind it was an old man who looked like he hadn't slept in days. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was dressed in wrinkled clothing. The man squinted as he placed his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

“So, The Maggot, you'll be working with Dark Wing,” he said while motioning to another hero sitting near the desk who Max hadn't noticed until now.

Oh crap, Max thought to herself. She would recognize that shaggy black hair and emo clothing anywhere.

-------------------------------NAME: Delcan Garcia HERO NAME: Dark Wing AGE: 16 GENDER: male POWER(S): Has two large raven-like wings/ has the ability to fly extremely fast, (top speed is roughly 240–250 miles per hour)/ has an internal compass which can gauge distance, wind currents, and magnetic direction / has raptor vision MISSION: defeat villain Doctor Nuclear/rescue hero Storm Max looked different than the last time he saw her. She looked skinnier and sickly, but he guessed that it had to do with her superpower. The paper said she had a “radioactive parasite,” whatever that meant. He watched as Max poked roadkill that was lying on the side of the road with a stick. He sighed. He wished that the hero academy had paired him up with someone other than Max. He looked down at the small map that headquarters had given him. It showed the way to Doctor Nuclear’s villain lair, but other than this map they were all alone. The map showed that Nuclear’s lair was located on a private island not too far from where they were. Delcan rolled up the map, annoyed. At least the hero academy could have given them a boat or something.

“Alright, so the coast isn't too far from here. Once we're there we can figure how to cross the—what are you doing?”

There was a sickening crunch as Max bent down to let the radioactive parasite swimming in her come out and eat the leftover animal remain.

“Jesus Christ.” Delcan gagged and turned away.

-------------------------------The pebbles and rocks crunched under Max’s feet and large dark waves crashed onto the shore. From the shore she could see the evil villain’s lair. It was a small island with a large building on top of it. Storm clouds whirled and shifted around it. It didn't look too far away.

Hopefully she and Declan could get there without any problems.

“Nuclear probably has a place where he keeps boats to get from his lair to here,” Declan said, squinting to catch a better view of the lair. “We could sneak onto one. Henchmen shouldn't be a big problem. He isn't super popular, so I doubt he has a lot of people working for him.”

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“Or you could just carry me across,” Max said while flapping her hands, intimating bird wings. “I'm not super heavy anyways.” The radioactive parasite that swam in her intestines made sure to steal all her food and keep her skinny.

“I'm not carrying you.” Delcan rolled his eyes. “Also, would it kill you to take this a bit more seriously?”

“Yes.” Delcan rolled up the map he was holding and shoved it into one of his pockets.

“Whatever, let's go find the port.”

The Doctor Called Mark Foster I work from 10AM-8PM every weekday at the local barbershop so I am usually not answering my phone. The only breaks I take from work are for doctor and dentist check-ups.

What is the worst thing that could happen to a young work-fiend like me? Well, when a fiend has been pulled away from work, he suffers. When I got home from work, I had a missed call from my doctor. This wasn’t initially concerning, but the voicemail was so vague and blippy, I was unaware of what was happening to me. “||Sunday. January 27th, 2019|| Hi... This is Dr. Stane from the **** hospital and we desperately need to see you back at the office as soon as possible.”

He said nothing else. The ancient landline telephone just sat there. Of course, the doctor had taken a blood sample from me as he does every time I went for a checkup. Did I develop cancer? Do I have some terminal disease? I sure hope not! I have work tomorrow. Logically, I called the hospital right back.

“Sorry, we are closed until Monday and open at 8 AM. All communication servers are down, so you must visit in person. Thank you for your patience.”

It was only fair that I had to pay my price to the almighty power. I had gone my entire life without missing more than 2 days of work every year. If I broke this trend, it would only be a matter of time until my entire life spiraled out of control. Fortunately, work didn’t start until 9 AM and the hospital was only a 20-minute drive from my office. I would just need to sacrifice an hour or two of sleep to show up early and get it out of the way.

I did not sleep. I just squirreled back and forth knowing the millions of deadly bacterial diseases I could have contracted. I got up and went straight to the bathroom to shower.

6:45 AM (BATTERY 40%) As I turned on the water, I considered every single aspect of my life. I could not let my near-perfect attendance die. As a strong workaholic, I couldn’t put my coworkers at risk, so I had to ensure that I get this pathogen out of my body. After doing some internal morality debates, I got out of the shower and headed back into my room.

7:45 AM (BATTERY 22%) Shit. I hadn’t had a time travel shower since I was 15 years old. I couldn’t waste time in the future reconciling moral obligations in human society. I skipped breakfast and ran directly to

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get dressed. Once I was in my car, I punched it into reverse and zoomed to the hospital.

8:05 AM (BATTERY 10%) “Hi! Can I see Dr. Stane?”

“Sorry, we don’t have a Dr. Stane here.”

“Ok, well, he gave me an urgent call and said to come here.”

“Well, if you would like an appointment with one of our doctors, we have an online signup.”

No, no, no. I wanted Dr. Stane. How could these imbeciles forget about one of their doctors? I needed him, and I needed him within the next 30 minutes. I was about to start screaming until I realized my own ignorance.

Outside the window stood a guy who I had seen before. I think I had only ever seen him once before, and it was here at the hospital. Just like he had before, the man stood wearing a letterman jacket with Rayban aviators. This time was different, though. He stood completely still, except for his head, which swiveled to wherever I stood. I could not see where he was looking, but I had an uncomfortable feeling that his gaze was aimed at me.

“Excuse me, we have other customers. Can you please step aside?”

“Yeah sure.”

I looked back at the nurse and stepped outside of the hospital. Work started soon and I didn’t have time for any foolish nonsense. It turned out I did not have a choice.

8:15 AM (BATTERY 1%) My car broke down. I know I shouldn’t have been mad because it was not an expensive vehicle. The car was a 1992 BMW, so its engine was bound to give its last breath soon.

Unfortunately, I am not always rational. I ran straight into the hospital declaring my right to see Doctor Stane. Of course, they still did not know who that was.

“Sir, we have dialed the police. If you are not out of a 5-mile radius of the hospital in the next 10 minutes, you will be arrested under public endangerment.”

Now jail was something I was not able to cope with. If you think that being late once is bad for your reputation, try getting a good job when you are rocking a felony (especially when it’s in relation to endangering a hospital). It was only logical that I sprinted out to try and find a way to get out. I didn’t trust any bus stop to show up on time, and I definitely didn’t trust them to follow their schedule enough to put any time in jail on the line. Searching the parking lot, I saw him.

Aviators and letterman jacket. Middle-aged. Scruffy hair. Gloves. Black Jeans. Most importantly, the only way to escape the 5-mile burden.

“Need a ride?”

Strange. It makes no sense how he knew I needed a ride because he saw me drive in and wasn’t there when my car broke down. Sadly, he was my only opportunity.

“Yeah pretty badly.”

“Well hop in the van.”

I was so stupid. This was possibly the worst decision I had ever made, but when left with only one choice, I took it.

I got in the car and he slammed the gas. At this speed, escaping the 5-mile radius was the least of my worries. If anything, I was fearing who he was, where we were going, and the danger of driving 90mph down neighborhood roads. On the other hand, he seemed unfazed. He was

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driving like it was his job to help people like me. People who need to escape the police after threatening hospital staff.

8:45 AM (BATTERY 0%) “Who are you exactly?” I said, “I don’t think you are in the position to be asking these kinds of questions,” the man responded.

“I would appreciate you telling me, then. Not as an obligation, but as a favor.”

“I think you should wait instead.”

“Wait for what?”

“Wait until they announce it.”

“Announce what?”

“Stop talking.”

Okay, maybe this was his job. Maybe he was just a good Samaritan who spent his time helping people escape the police. Or, maybe he was a cartel member who was about to sell me into human trafficking. This thought was the one that especially bothered me. If it weren’t for his radio playing the pop station, I would have thought he was an insane extraterrestrial lunatic.

Well, that was my perception until the radio blurted out a sudden announcement.

“As of 8:30 AM, a man was kidnapped by Jonathan Stane. Jonathan Stane is a serial killer on the loose and we strongly urge you to not approach any public service workers under this name. Footage has been released of the doctor hacking and manipulating the local hospital into letting him create a persona. If you have scheduled an appointment with anyone name Doctor Stane, we strongly urge you to come to the police station immediately.”

“See. I told you that my name would be announced,” said Jonathan.

I reached for my phone and attempted to turn it on. It was dead. I would have jumped out of the car, but he was still going 90mph.

“Boooo. Phones ruin all the fun. Luckily, you are too busy trying to get to work that you don’t charge your phone, ever.”

“Where are we going?”

“What is with you and all these questions?”

“Maybe the fact you are going to murder me is enough?”

“Well, it isn’t just me. We have a team in the back of the van.”

“Are you all Jonathan Stane?”

“No. My brother is Doctor Stane. I am Jonathan. My sister... You will meet my sister.”

“I think I would rather not.”

“That isn’t really your choice anymore.”

“Was it ever?”

He was done talking. I badgered him, but he did not say one word more. At least, until we were out of the city.

“Where am I going?”

“Somewhere nice.”

“That is not a place.”

“Someplace nice.”

“Okay well I still need to know.”

“You do not need much. Trust me.”

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Having a serial killer tell me to trust him was an interesting concept. I had no phone and I was outnumbered. All I had left was the hope that maybe he wasn’t like every other serial killer.

Unfortunately, hope does not substantiate too much in these kinds of situations. In reality, I had nothing to rely on. No phone. No car. Nothing.

Footprints Elly Whitehill “I think I’ve found it!” exclaimed Brian.

“Really?” I asked cheerfully as we drove up and down the streets of Alamo Square in San Francisco.

“Look, Jane. Just look how beautiful and perfect this house is for our soon to be family,” Brian said to me, looking hopeful.

“This is the one,” I said to Brian as we looked at each other, smiling.

“I’m expecting in just about two months exactly from today,” I said to our realtor on the phone. “We need to be settled into a house for the most part before my baby comes. Brian and I had been looking for a house for months when we came across this home, and we both just have a feeling that it will be perfect,” I excitedly said on the phone.

“I’m looking the house up, and it says the people who are moving out only lived here for a couple months. I know they have a baby as well. That’s weird. I think this house would be a good fit for you too, Mrs. Jane. I will see you at the house tomorrow,” the realtor said before hanging up the phone.

Brian and I arrived at the house the next morning with our realtor to meet the family moving out. The couple didn’t have a baby with them like we had been told. I asked where their baby was and told them that I would be having my first baby very soon. They both got sort of strange looks on their faces and went blank for a second, ignoring my question about their baby.

Instead they just asked me if I was having a girl or boy, and then they wished Brian and me the best of luck. They also told us the house just wasn’t working out for them, but they were very vague about it. We were excited to move in.

Brian and I moved in. One day while Brian was away at work, I was at home still unpacking and getting everything settled in. I started putting some things that we already had for our baby into the nursery. I put some boxes up on the top shelf in the closet. I was standing on my tippy toes trying to balance the box up on the shelf so that it didn’t fall back down on me.

After I got the box up, I noticed a pair of baby girl silk shoes.

“They are so elegant and beautiful,” I thought to myself.

“Someone must have left them, but who? The people who lived here before us had no kids.” I started to tear up thinking about how much of a blessing this was that baby girl shoes were found in my soon-to-be little girl’s bedroom. I knew that this was a sign that this house was going to be perfect. I took both of the shoes down and placed them on the nightstand so that I could show Brian when he got home.

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“Honey! I’m home! How are things going up there?” Brian yelled to me upstairs. “Brian come here, look what I found!” I told him joyfully. “The room is looking so good!” he told me. “Thank you but look! Look what I found up in the closet. These beautiful slippers for a baby. Someone must have left them here on accident.”

“Those are lovely. They look like they’ve never been worn either,” Brian said. “Dinner is ready for us downstairs, we better eat before it gets cold.”

6:30 A.M. I woke up in a startle to Brian’s alarm. I was still half asleep trying to remind myself that it was just a dream.

“Are you ok?” Brian asked me, looking kind of concerned.

“I just… I just had a weird dream last night that seemed so like, like real,” I told him finally calming down a bit.

“What was the dream?” Brian asked me, eager to know.

“I heard walking around in the hall, so I got up to go see what it was. Then I heard a cry coming from the baby’s room. It wasn’t just a fuss though, or a little cry, it sounded like screaming crying you’d hear on a horror movie. When I walked in, the shoes I found in the closet weren’t there anymore, but I saw baby footprints leading down stairs. Before I could walk down stairs, your alarm went off. It just felt so real, like I couldn’t remember if it was real or not when I woke up,” I explained to him, breathing heavily again.

“Oh, babe, you are probably just nervous about having a baby and having nightmares about it. Look, I’m right here with you. There is no reason to be scared,” Brian said to me, rubbing my back and trying to calm me down.

“I know. It was just weird. I love you,” I said.

“I love you too. Try and go back to sleep,” Brian said.

“I don’t think I can fall back asleep. I’m pretty wide awake at this point,” I said, laughing.

Brian had already left for work and I was sitting downstairs watching television and drinking coffee. When I walked up stairs to get dressed, I decided to go into the baby’s room just to check on it. I noticed that one of the shoes had fallen down on the ground. A shiver ran through me and I got a little anxious. I tried to calm myself down by telling myself it just got knocked off somehow, and I decided that I was not even going to tell Brian this because he would think that I was going insane.

That night, as Brian and I were lying in bed, I was having trouble falling asleep. Since the next day would be Saturday we would get to sleep in. It was strange that I was getting a queasy feeling in my stomach that was preventing me from being able to fall asleep, and Brian was sound asleep, so he didn’t even notice me tossing back and forth trying to get comfortable. All of a sudden, I heard a door creaking shut down the hall. I immediately knew where it was coming from: the nursery. I jumped out of bed and ran to the baby’s room. The shoes were now both on the ground, which was starting to freak me out, so I picked them up and took them to my car, where I hung them above my dashboard on the rearview mirror. They could now remind me that soon I will be driving with a real life, new baby in my car, rather than just the shoes. I know it sounds silly, but for some reason not having the shoes in the house was a relief for me. I finally fell asleep.

We slept in the next morning and I woke up to the sight of the blazing, radiant sun shining in through the window. This was the day Brian and I would finish setting up the nursery.

We worked so hard that we both worked up a sweat, and it was finally warm enough outside that

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we decided to take a dip in our pool for the first time that evening after dinner. We realized we didn’t have any pool floats, so Brian ran to the store while I just sat on a step in the water. At this point it had gotten dark outside and I felt something bump my leg. I look down to see something floating up in the water.

I was thinking to myself, “It’s the slipper, the slipper I put in my car. This can’t be real, I hung these in my car. How can they be in the water?”

I got out of the water as fast as I could and ran to my car. The shoes were gone. They were not anywhere in the car. I ran inside to call Brian. As soon as I walked inside, I saw water footprints that were the size of a baby’s foot.

Brian picked up the phone, “Hello? Is—” Before Brian even got to finish his sentence, I was yelling to him on the phone “BRIAN! You need to get home right now. Please hurry. It’s an emergency. Please tell me you’re almost home.” I was sobbing by then.

“Honey? Babe, what is it? Did your water break?” he said starting to sound worried.

“No, but please just you need to get home right now.” I said frantically. Hysterically crying.

“I will be there in two minutes. Stay calm please,” Brian said, sounding like he was about to have a panic attack. I started to follow the footprints up the stairs, and I didn’t even have to get to the end of them to know where they led to. I already knew—my baby’s room. Brian got home and we called the police.

It turns out this house that seemed perfect to us, isn’t so perfect after all. Everything now is pieced together. The couple who moved out had a baby girl. That’s why they ignored my question when I asked about their children. The realtor knew they had just had a baby. They were playing with her in the pool and took their eyes off of her and she slipped into the water.

She drowned and before they were able to save her, she was already gone. That’s why the shoes were left there in the closet. They were supposed to be for their baby, but they left them for us knowing we were having a baby girl. The police had a ghost whisperer come visit our house. It turned out the ghost of the baby was jealous. She wanted to haunt my baby’s room and kill her when she was born. Brian and I moved out and our baby is born now. We are currently now living in a different house, happy as can be, and hoping no ghosts visit this time.

Party Ethan Brown “Sweetheart, you really ought to doll yourself up for this shindig. We can’t have you embarrassing us with the guests.” The sharp voice of my mother pierced my ears like a bullet. It was the eve of my birthday, and my parents had decided to throw a grandiose party. My mother promised a feast that would leave silver platters lining from the door to the streets, and my father promised me that every young man in the town would be present. Distractions, he called them. It was readily apparent from the moment they announced their plans that this would be for them, more than anything. Just like them, to throw some lavish celebration for even the most basic of events, and this party seemed hardly different. Through the nights, I would often be kept awake

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within my room by the raucous laughter of who knows how many people I’d never met and would never see again. I couldn’t stand these events, or the presence of these disgusting people who would crawl from every nook and cranny of the city and stink up the place with their perfume and who knows what else. Friends, they called them. Of the many parties we had each year, I couldn’t remember a face I had seen twice.

My father’s voice skittered up to my room from the foyer and up the stairs, “Darling, we’ve gone out of our way to set this up for you! Don’t be so sour, the price of catering alone would be a fortune for any other family!”

I steeled myself. It would be only this night. After this, I wouldn’t have to come out for another year. One night. I peeled myself off of my bed, stepping into the hallway. My body felt like it weighed a ton, and each step felt like a monumental effort. It must’ve taken me minutes to trudge my way down the hallway, overlooking the foyer. I saw the long dining tables set on the floor, the golden sheen of the polished floors choking the air. As I made my way to the stairs, I considered sliding down the rails, as was tradition. But I could already hear the scolding of my parents, and no doubt they would wretch and hiss until I crawled back up to my room and fixed myself up. So, gingerly, I went one-by-one down the steps, imagining each step to be the skull of some unruly guest.

I could hear them now, their dulcet tones souring their lips. “I never knew you had a kid!” someone said to my father.

“Why, they’re quite a looker, ain’t they?” someone said to my mother.

“You know how reclusive young money can be. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll teach you how to enjoy the high life?” someone said to me.

I was surely buzzing with anger as I stepped into the foyer, ready to begin the worst night of my life, and I stood motionless, waiting.

My father was wearing a finely woven grey suit with frilled sleeves, his beady eyes waiting in anticipation behind his rounded glasses.

A rose was pinned to his breast pocket by a golden pin. My mother was almost unrecognizable under the layers of powder which marked her face. Her hair was stuck in a vertical position by a long golden pin: a gift from her father, and the hallmark of a long standing tradition.

The doors burst open with a flood of guests, spilling out like blood from a stuck pig. My parents swarmed about, greeting each one, and I stood at the end of the foyer, watching in silence. If any of the guests

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could hear the disdain in my thoughts, they surely would have left in droves as quickly as they’d come in. But I knew better. They relished the hatred and vitriol they felt for one another, and to them I was surely nothing but a steady supply of it. So, I held a smile, grinning like my face was about to split open. I held my hands over my gut, as if to keep them from tearing at it. When the river of guests slowed to a trickle, the doors slammed shut, marking the beginning of the hunt.

My parents had a particularly interesting idea of entertainment for these parties, a sport I’d consider impressive if I wasn’t so reviled by it. They made an effort to single out the ones less fortunate than others. Be it by virtue of wealth or prestige, or simply for standing out, they would invariably home in on a target, and sting them red with their insults. I scoured the room for them, drinking in the details of each and every guest, searching for any blemish that grew too large in their crowding. I spotted them making their way to a large fellow, who stood seemingly half asleep, and wearing a suit which was a bit too tight over his rounded form. Though I couldn’t hear them over the chittering of the room, I was sure they were enjoying the occasion, spitting ever more hateful quips and diatribes. Judging by the twisted spread of their smiles, I’m sure I was right.

They jeered at the man, pointing to his gut, grabbing at the seams of his suit as he whipped his head back and forth to each of them, trying his best to retort. The man seemed ready to cry, his words unanswered and drowned by the crowd. The crowd seemed to be pulled towards the mocking, their conversations fading as they watched eagerly, eyes wide.

I heard my father speak. “Really, it’s like another man’s skin around you! Goodness, Roger, I can’t quite separate the fat from the seams! You weren’t this large last we met.”

The laughter of the crowd drowned out Roger’s response. “It’s like a pig wearing a man’s clothes. Perhaps this is just some pig, and after all, it’s eaten poor Roger and decided to walk about in his clothes!” My mother jeered.

The crowd erupted with a ferocious roar of laughter, and again Roger went unheard.

“Perhaps we should split you open then, and drag poor Roger out of your gut! With all of that flesh, we could cut the cost on catering in two!”

Roger stood, not even opening his mouth to respond. The crowd quieted, waiting like jackals in preparation for the kill. A thousand staring eyes pressed into Roger, mine included. He stared back, and I saw the eyes of a cornered animal, struggling for life. It wasn’t my duty to help.

The mob parted, revealing a glint in the eyes of my parents, hungry and mad. Their faces contorted with joy, as my father plucked the rose from his suit and raised his hand high. The roaring of the crowd quieted, and their anticipation finally came to match my own. My father cracked his head in my direction, and a grin spread across his face. “Dear, dear; it seems something’s caught your interest. Come closer, there’s so many people who wish to meet you.”

I made my way across the floor, my steps weightless. I would just have to make my way to the center of that crowd, and then I would have the rest of the night to myself. I stood before Roger. He lowered his gaze to the floor. My father reached forward, pointing the pin towards my heart. I took it in my hand. This was it. It was just a matter of seconds now before I could be free of all this madness. I raised the pin in the air and brought it down into Roger’s back. For the final time, his squeals were drowned by the laughter of the crowd. I looked at the pin in my hand, felt the sickening warmth which dripped over the rose petals. I turned to my parents, their faces gleaming with pride, then to the crowd, their faces frozen with a mix of shock and awe. I was free.

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Every Breath You Take Faith Borchers I can hardly believe that today is finally my day. As I slip into my reception clothes my new husband hugs me from behind. ¨We did it¨.

These words fill by brain and soul with love and happiness. As we enter the dance floor I know every breath I take for the rest of my life will be with him and every breath that fills his lungs and comes out of his nose will be spent with me. As we are enjoying our wedding reception with our families, the DJ announces it is time for the newly married couples first dance.

My new husband steps in front of me, offering his hand.

“May I have this dance?” he says, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear his voice.

“Of course.” I get up from my chair, nervous but excited to show our dance off for the first time. I start to breathe faster as the song comes on. I know I´m dancing, but it’s as if I´m having an out of body experience. The Police song pops into my mind as I take notice of how fast I am breathing out of excitement.

“Every Breath You Take.” I start subconsciously start humming it under my breath.

“Are you really humming that song right now?” I hear my new husband ask me, breaking me out of my trance.

“Yes, sorry, it just popped in my head as we were dancing and I started hearing my breath in my ears,” I say thinking he was mad because I wasn´t paying full attention to our dance.

But to my surprise he says to me, ¨I was thinking that song in my head, too.”

We laugh together, which confuses everyone else, but it doesn´t matter to us. We are in love, and that’s all that matters.

After the reception, when all of our family has finally left, and we can be alone, we walk into our room that we are staying in at the hotel where we had our wedding reception. As my new husband pours us glasses of champagne, I see him slip a CD into the stereo. The song that starts to play fills me with joy, and my husband sings along.

“Every breath you take, Every move you make. Every bond you break, Every step you take, I´ll be watching you.”

As the song comes to an end and the last chord plays, my husband comes over and kisses me. He sings the last verse in my ear and our breath starts to go at the same pace. We look at each other, knowing that this will be our song for the rest of our lives.

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Ode to Friends Dakota Garza Friends, Trust intends Laughing, loving, things that won't unbend Symbolizing to all, things that don't end That’s the definition of best friends

7 Deadly Sins (poetry collection) Amaya Leon Pride I am violet like the queen’s dress.

I am mightier than the rest, no contest.

I am always beating my chest.

I am greater than the rest.

I am better than the best.

I am always the one with the best jest.

I am Pride, and I will not be repressed.

Envy My face is flushed green.

For your possessions, I am very keen.

I desire your touchscreen.

I long for your limousine.

I crave your caffeine.

I cannot be foreseen.

You can’t treat me with chlorpromazine.

Gluttony Some might refer to me as a pig.

I am just a little big.

If you offer a buffet, then I am all over that thingamajig.

Hand me a cookie and I will do a jig.

Try and take my food and I will pull off your wig.

Give me a milkshake and I will take a great big swig.

Gluttony is my name and all I want to know is, are you going to eat that fig?

Lust I am Lust.

There is no need for disgust.

Don’t treat me with mistrust.

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I help you spot a large bust.

Don’t leave me on a shelf to rust For that is unjust.

I just need to be discussed, for I am lust.

Wrath Hello, my name is Wrath.

I lead you down a dark path.

I make you steam and fume in the bath.

There is no telling the aftermath.

The thing that really makes me angry is math.

In a fit of rage, I hit you with a lath.

But don’t mistake me for a psychopath.

Greed I want a new cello.

Just like the one owned by my school fellow.

I want s’mores, but just the marshmallow.

I want a new car in the color yellow.

I get what I want, and if not, I won’t be mellow.

I want to buy a factory that makes jello.

I get what I want or else I will bellow.

Sloth I’m slower than a goat.

All I want to do is float.

I don’t have the energy to vote.

I lay around bundled up in a coat.

Sleep is the only thing I can quote.

Exhaustion surrounds me like a moat.

All I do is sit here and bloat.

Mined Craft (poetry collection) Asher Ford Dirt Dirt, it makes people exert Indifference To the abundance Of this plain block No one is shell-shocked Everyone mocks The block We walk on

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Under grass In pockets below like natural gas Populating all of our worlds en masse Useless, that everything surpasses With only one crafting recipe, Make coarse dirt And continue the dirt legacy But it made our first houses, our early nerd poles It’s the block that soothes our nostalgic souls When we dug hidey holes And learned the controls Of this game about Mining and crafting

Water, Lava, Obsidian, Nether The only two liquids in the game, complete opposites but still the same. They may be found apart, but together is where the fun really starts. Stone of cobble, obsidian, Nether hell portals wherein the adventure truly begins. While you defeated lava to get to this hellish domain, here is where only that liquid hot fire may reign. water can’t save you now, it dissipates wherever you wish to place it down. Any beds explode, lava burns, ghasts will shoot, and dark black skeletons wither you to boot. It’s hopeless here if you have any fear, but gather your diamond gear and you might persevere.

The End The end (er dragon) rawr xD

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Holiday Poetry Collection Bitia Sanchez Cruz Christmas - Concrete Poem Christmas, It's practically here!

Looking out at the window And watching the snowflakes falling Down as I prepare for my family party today, I begin to decorate the Christmas tree, with many cute Ornaments.

Also, putting other Decorations around the house.

While my mom begins cooking I begin To wrap gifts with Santa themed wrapping paper And winter themed paper. Once Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m done wrapping gifts I begin to Make sugar cookie Dough and bake them in the Oven. The rich smell of warm, freshly baked Cookies spreads over the house. Greeting my family Members with warm smiles and laughter. Watching the kids Sitting around the presents as they patiently wait to open the gifts.

What a joyful Christmas to Spend with My family.

Thanksgiving Today is the day to stuff U and eat you.

Running is no option, as Knives carve you up.

Eating you today, that's why I say thank You for being a yummy dinner.

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New Year’s Day- sonnet In with the new and out with the old Today is New Year’s Day, a cold, fun night Time to be bright and time to be bold!

Fireworks and lights shining so bright.

A happy new year is now to come With goals in my mind to carry out Looking at the year and who I’ve become I'm ready for the new year without a doubt As the clock strikes 12, we wait with excitement With our family and friends all together We wait with our grapes for the special event Feeling the wind in this fine, cold weather 2019 is near, can’t wait for this year That is practically already here.

You Ally Soltero It’s the happy moments we remember the most in life. When we’re breathing in our last breath, and we look back at how either we lived the most we could or wasted the time we had left. Out of all those memories, I’ll remember you the most. I’ll remember how your smile lit up the room, how your laugh would fill the air. The way your hair looked when my hand would push it back, how the sun hit your ocean eyes. I’ll remember all the good times we had, like sitting in the back of your truck, watching the sky turn from blue to a reddish orange until the stars poked through the seams. The countless surprises you planned for me like birthdays, prom, and even small dates. The gifts you gave, the hugs, the kisses. Out of every memory, I will never forget the ones with you.

“Conner, where are we going?” I asked as our small town grew smaller in the rear-view mirror.

“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you now would it?” He asked me, a smile growing across his face.

I sat back in the seat and looked out the window. This was pretty normal for us. Conner coming to get me and taking us on spontaneous adventures. It didn’t take long before Connor stopped the truck and turned off the engine. I looked around. The polluted glow of the town’s lights were gone and only sounds you could hear were crickets and owls.

“Are you planning on killing me?” I asked him jokingly.

Connor gasped. “How’d you know?”

We both broke into a fit of laughter before he reached behind his seat, pulling out a large

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fleece blanket and some pillows. “Well come on, the food is going to get cold,” Conner said, hopping out of the truck. I pulled my eyebrows together.

“Food?” I asked as I got down.

Walking around, I found Connor laying out some food onto the blanket. “Nothing like a picnic under the stars, am I right?” Conner smiled. He came over and grabbed my hand, pulling me with him.

“What’s this for? I didn’t miss an anniversary, did I?” “No, I just want to do something special for you.”

“You’re always doing some special though,” I told him, laughing.

“If I don’t treat you like a queen then who will?”

We stayed out there for who knows how long. Watching the stars, talking about anything and everything. I remember we got home late and instead of going home, you stayed the night at my house like you have done time after time before.

I wiped the tears away from my eyes and squeezed your hand tighter. It wasn’t fair. You shouldn’t be in here, in this bed, hooked up to all these machines, the sterile hospital smells starting to settle onto your skin, the scent of your cologne slowly fading away. Who knew fate could be cruel, to stop us from all the plans we made. Stop your life so young.

“Honey, it’s time.” A hand rested on my shoulder and I looked up to see your mom, smiling down at me sadly.

I shook my head, the tears now coming down like an unstoppable wave. “I can’t.” I let out, my voice cracking. “I can’t leave him.”

Your mom crouched and hugged me. “I know, but there’s nothing more they can do for him.” She told me, wiping away fallen tears.

I looked up at her, her eyes matching mine. Broken and sad. After a few seconds I nodded, stood up and backed away from the bed, from you.

The doctors came in and told your mom what was going to happen. She held my hand the whole time. With each passing second, I could feel all those hopes and promises fade away into the air and turn into phrases without meaning.

“No!” I yelled, tears streaming down my face as your mom held me back, cradling me from behind. Within seconds, the heart monitor flatlined and it felt like the air had been knocked out of my lungs. I fell to my knees while it felt like my heart died with you.

It was a bright summer day. You drove us out to the meadow you told me about—the one you used to go to when you were young. You took me to the treehouse you and your dad built and told me all about the adventures you had here, like playing superhero and saving your mom from bees. How you broke your arm from falling off the ladder.

“So you really spent all of your childhood here?” I asked, my back laying against the cold wood flooring.

“Pretty much, up until my dad died. He brought me here every weekend until I was 14,” Conner told me, his head turning to look at me.

“You must miss him every time you come here then.”

“Yeah, but now, I can bring you here. Fill it up with our memories and make it feel a little less lonely.”

“As long as I don’t get murdered out here,” I said jokingly.

Connor gasped beside me. “How’d you know my master plan?”

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We both laughed, and I hit his arm gently, turning to face him as well. We both stopped for a moment and just looked at each other, neither of us daring to say a word. It was almost like there was an unspoken shift in the room and we both could feel it, but didn’t bring it up.

“I love you,” he said, for the first time.

“I love you too,” I said back, a smile growing on my face.

Whenever I think back to my most peaceful, most happiest moments… it’ll always be you.

Air Emma Nix Is it possible to tell someone that their words carried me high above the earth?

That they were the wind at my back, and with a single touch they blew me away.

That each lustful gust filled me with amorous mirth.

And without them my air is stagnant, my world turned grey.

Is it possible to feel that I’ve fallen from paradise?

As though I’ve been expelled like the breath from my lungs.

Your words have turned our love to sacrifice.

As though you are now speaking in tongues.

Is it possible to see the shifting winds that changed our fate?

To weather the storm and emerge unbroken.

I long to begin again with a clean slate.

And take back all the words I’ve spoken.

Is it possible to again feel the breeze?

As life marches on, I want to progress with ease.

Grow the Hell Up (poetry collection) Piper Duffee To All the Kids I’ve Met in Fischer Without the hum of cicadas I found it hard to sleep.

I was the kid Who let dust collect on the piano, But they were not.

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The boys make my head spin, But not in that way, This wasn't some school girl crush.

They made me think of the world Like a child.

They would climb trees with their eyes closed And fist fight for no particular reason.

They had arms of sticks And hearts of gold.

The girls were kind and strong.

They laughed till they cried, And never backed down.

They were never scared of anything, Not even the bears or the dark.

We all had the feeling We were headed nowhere.

Beautiful spaces And unfamiliar places Made our stomachs churn.

But here it was different.

The air was cold Even in the July sun, And you could bushwhack All the way home!

You could swim in snow And climb mountains And scream at the sky And no one would stop you.

Because for those eight days, We were invincible.

God Complex In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit I relinquished my personal freedoms Three months old, but hey, who's counting?

I asked God, but he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hear it.

And not long after me, they were born Pretty girls with stars in their eyes Sitting in stiff pews on Easter Sunday In the clothes that their siblings had worn.

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So this was it? Four sisters to call my own?

We never believed in the old sayings All that “blood is thicker” bullsh*t Because they were the family I’d always known.

We grew up singing out of purple books Saving a boy from himself on the way We raised hell for miles on end With fiery hearts and stubborn looks.

Summer sleeps thirteen in a duplex It drives itself eight hours It breathes outside, it hums Sanctuary Six kids and one God Complex.

Hawkshead Dr. I miss the kid I used to be.

I did my homework And said my prayers Before I went to bed.

Now I sit in the mess Of the girl I have become.

I bask in my regrets Like they are the August sun And I am nothing more than a newspaper Sitting on the pavement, Fading.

The little girl in me cries After someone raises their voice at her.

She gives the furniture in her room names, And sleeps with the lights on.

The little girl in me never wants to grow up, But she knows she already has.

She gives herself bad tattoos And cusses like a sailor And drinks like a fish And plays pool The way her mother taught her.

So here I stand 15 going on 25 Mourning the loss of my innocence.

Praying that the little girl in me Found a front row seat

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At the right hand of the Lord.

I wiped my tears Because big kids don’t cry, And I resume life as it once was.

Go home, Don't look up, And miss the kid you used to be.

Two Poems Elijah Kleinman Jade (sestina) Whenever we wandered the world, the world was wandering with us.

Wherever the world went, we would whet our worries with work.

Whatever the world was, our wishes were still willfully wild: Forever fabricating forms, fables, and failures for fear of fading; Whiling away the weeks while the world just wanted to be— Never knowing, never inverting, yet shifting evermore.

And, in the distant now, it still is simply shifting evermore.

And, in the gloom that’s bound, its crazed, catatonic cacophony still filters down to us.

And, in the throes of decay, we struggle to recall what the meaning of those scraps of sound used to be.

And, awash in the Sun’s rays, they sift throughout what was once ours to make their own lives work, Just as we stole the storied stashes and sacred secrets of those who were then fading And who are now fading with us as our wills shift like the world and we forever abandon the wild.

Yes, there once was a time when our wills were wily and wild.

But now, although this woefully wondrous world will wage its wars evermore…

Somehow, our years of youthful yearning are, after all our hours of aging, finally fading.

At last our lives have lost their luster, and our old longings have died within us.

Lessons learned, senses burned, world spurned, we won’t work!

Not when we’re free from it all as can be.

But they won’t let us be.

Still submerged in the thrill of the wild, They ask us why we have abandoned our worn-down work, Why this dull darkness has become our lair evermore, Why what was our world now means nothing to us, Why we have embraced it - why we so long ago forsook our old, solemn fear of fortunes fading.

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We don’t respond—can’t they see we’re fading?

They know we’re all as good as gone—don’t they know what’s meant to be?

We don’t care if they used to know us!

Now they’re split from us, still stranded in the wild.

Now we know freedom evermore, And now they have the nerve to demand our return to work.

We were once with them, the same as them, and their work Will finish in stillness, the same as ours, fading Forever, falling from finality to forgotten evermore For this world never notices the clever endeavors of those trying to be.

It never even notices its very own wild.

Although they don’t know, it’s never noticed them, and it never once noticed us.

You see, whenever whatever work the world’s wild willed wanted us To wish to wage war evermore and forge glory or fathom fearlessly facing feats, failures and fates wherever the wild Was, it was never the world. Although everything else is forever fading, the world always is, so don’t blame me - rather, blame what we used to be.

Teutoburg Mud walls meekly sit still on the silent incline, Embarrassed. Their 5-foot heights, held up by planks and rope alone, Can’t withstand the sky’s sudden torrent of tears that tears away their earthen kind And mixes with the soup of earthen blood to become brine That carries away the scattered soldiers’ last chance to be known By country or by kin or by any other sort of mind Save the worms and the beetles and the German pines And the lonely dirt walls who know no home With Rome’s grasping arm severed by the rushing Rhine!

For, as we speak, upon the soldiers that raised these walls the Germans dine As triumphant steel routs an army: stabbing skin, carving flesh and cracking bloody bone.

But still the mud walls meekly, sobbing, sit on the silent incline And, although they still can’t withstand the torrent of tears that tears away their Roman kind, Futilely feed the fatal flood with bursts of tears; tears of their own— The tears of torn memories: the names, the faces, the burgeoning lives That cease to exist without witness. In the end, stars shine Not in the sky, nor in the dead minds, nor on the planks and rope that the formless loam Devoured—nowhere at all on the once-again silent incline, But only in the tears that well for years across the Stygian divide.

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Imagined Autobiography Jadin Leon

Happily Ever After

By: Callie Fartold Being Fairytale’s only therapist in town came with its perks. But after enduring years of, “I tried to kill (insert name here) and now we’re dating,” I had to quit. Finding a new job is always a struggle, especially when the only thing you’re good at is being an introverted stick-inthe-mud. In this autobiography, follow my journey of self-discovery while trying to find employment in a town filled with literal psychos. You’ll get the opportunity to hear about all of my misfortunes and stupid ideas. If you enjoyed reading fairytales as a kid, you’ll be disappointed to hear that Goldilocks got me arrested for stealing, Snow White cheats on her husband with seven other men every Saturday night, Belle suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, and Cinderella tried to make me into a gold digger.

By the end of this, you’ll either feel good about having read this, or feel like you wasted your life and had your childhood ruined. I apologize ahead of time. If we’re being honest, Cinderella forced me to write this book. She also forced me to go onto the Fairytale Bachelor.

Cindy will never admit it, but Charming had a major foot fetish on that show. He honestly still does. But I’m sure you’ll hear more about that when you read my book...

“I have to say, this really ruined my childhood. If you’re looking for the truth about some of your favorite characters, you’ll definitely find it in here. Sheesh.” - The New York Times “Wow. And I thought my life was a mess. This tragic and comedic true story will have you crying and laughing at the same time.” - The Wall Street Journal “Ms. Fartold has certainly had a difficult time these past few years. However, her story is very inspiring and gives me hope for my own future. Somewhat.” - USA Today Anderson High School

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Pan Poetry Althea Lloren

Neverland Fly to Neverland Forget your jobs and duties Your Childhood awaits

Hook Tick Tock goes the clock My worst nightmare has turned real Crocodile is here

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Inhale, Exhale Liam McGrath

I knew that the guys on the Apollo 13 missions were brave, but then again they were all test pilots for shoddy aircraft with minimal testing and insane amounts of thrust for inatmosphere flight. But even I, in this safe, metal box, still got jolts of fear with every new click, whirr and groan of The Benevolent. I guess people a hundred years ago were a lot braver.

At least those guys had each other.

And were a lot closer to home.

But right now, it was just me, 390,400,000 miles away from Earth on one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, with nothing but a few movies and an entire planet counting on me to find something.

A whole planet, checking in on my reports each day, while I kept drilling and sending out probes, hoping I dug up life forms from beneath the surface. Scan, drill, probe, move, repeat.

Years of training, countless news media conferences, and more than my fair share of dreaming, all for this mission.

But I never imagined this little would be happening.

Right now, I was waiting for The Benevolent’s drill to break through the 40-mile thick ice crust on the moon’s surface. Underneath the ice was a huge ocean, where scientists said life might be found. This would be the sixth hole I’d drilled, all six spread out all over the planet.

The ship had its own thrusters and could move fairly quickly around the moon. I’d been on Europa almost a year and had plenty of time to collect and analyze data. Based on what I’d found, this drilling might be the one time I finally dug up something.

The drilling would be done today, but it was going to take a while, so I pulled out my laptop from the drawer in the command console and scrolled through the movies I brought.

Interstellar, 2001, First Man, etc. I’d seen them all countless times over the past few months, and I was beginning to regret only bringing movies about space. I definitely should have thought about that more. I had nothing here to remember home with. Once again, my mind took the deadly drift back to Earth, and how I still had almost 9 months of moving and drilling until I could re-dock with the transport rocket that had brought The Benevolent from Earth to Europa and go into hyper sleep, until I could sleep in my own bed again, or feel real gravity. I felt homesick immediately. I took a walk around The Benevolent to get my mind off of Earth.

I stepped out of the command module, and saw the stark white hallway stretching out in a circle. This ring, the living module, spun constantly to simulate Earth’s gravity. It rotated around the large drill, the real hero of this mission. Having the drill at the center meant I could land right on top of whatever point I wanted to drill. The whole ship looked like a wheel laying sideways on the surface of Europa, with the drill in the center like a short axle. I walked clockwise from the command module and glanced into each room. Just across from me on the inside was the drilling room, where I operated the drill, launched probes, anything like that.

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A small airlock lay right next to it, where I could suit up and manually unjam the drill if it got stuck, pick up samples from the drilling, or investigate if anything went wrong.

Next was my small bedroom, kitchen, med bay, and bathroom. Not a ton to say about those. Nothing but the moonshine I brewed two months ago with some chemicals and spare parts. Don’t tell NASA. I was saving it for my last day here.

Down the hall was the biology lab, which I hadn’t had to ever use. Right next to it was my least favorite room in the whole station, the cryogenic chamber. In there was my partner, Dr. Arden Green, who would be kept in a cryo freezing pod until I drilled up some aliens or we made it back to Earth with nothing but rocks. The thought of him completely missing out on this mission always made me sad. Not to mention that he was basically more or less dead right now—completely frozen so he wouldn’t use food or water or even age, making this room extra creepy.

Down the hall was cold storage, where I had some ice samples waiting for NASA to look at. But when I came back around again I was met with the hardest part of this mission. A white air-sealed door, unmarked. In there was the escape rocket, where I could go to re-dock with the transport rocket in case of an emergency. I can’t say how many times I’d wanted to take off in it after days of nothing but reading data.

Next to that was the only floor-to ceiling window on the ship, my favorite part of the ship. The sun glinted off the surface of Europa, illuminating the whole ice crust, nothing but gentle hills and scattered rocks until the horizon.

Jupiter sat perfectly on the horizon, the Great Red Spot staring right at me, until the ship’s rotation turned me away from it.

An electronic beep sounded from the ceiling, meaning the drill had broken through the ice.

I headed back into the drilling room and flipped a switch, turning on the computer, and was met with graphs and charts as the probes were launched. I knew that thousands of tiny robots were now swimming around, scanning the water.

For the first time in months since I’d started this drilling, I had something to do. Filled with excitement and anxiety for what I might find, I stared at the blank data tables, waiting for something, anything. This could be the moment humans made contact.

I heard a beep from the computer, and I got a rush of adrenaline. A couple lines of data spun out across the screen.

Scan 6A-Probe 1138-236: Scan cycle complete. Processing data...

Scan 6A-Probe 1138-236: Scan cycle complete. Result: Positive.

I stared in awe at that last word.

Positive.

What that probe found… is insane, huge.

I had discovered life on another world.

Fingers shaking, I started typing in commands. I began to receive data on the specimen on a different monitor. There was one blurry, dark photo of it. All I could make out was a dark, curved figure. Beneath it, information about the creature began to appear. Further scans showed it had a nerve center but was not an intelligent life form.

Damn.

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I was a little disappointed, but since it was just an animal I could take it up to The Benevolent and examine it. And I could wake up Dr. Green. And message NASA. But then another line of data appeared on the first monitor.

Scan 6A-Probe 2914-303: Scan cycle complete. Processing data...

Scan 6A-Probe 2914-303: Scan cycle complete. Result: Positive.

Another specimen? In the same drilling? I got some brightly-colored blobs next to the first picture. Not an animal, but a bacterium. A little more disappointing than the first find, but this could mean there was in fact a well-established ecosystem beneath the ice, a whole biome full of life unlike anything anyone had ever seen. Anyone except for me, now.

I sent down two collector robots to bring each specimen up, and went to wake up Dr. Green. I entered the cold, dark cryogenic chamber and began the wake-up sequence on Green’s body. It would take about 2 hours, and I couldn’t wait for him to see what I’d found.

Then a beep from the hallway sounded, meaning the specimens were waiting in the airlock.

I walked slowly to the airlock, strangely calm even though I could feel my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.

I opened the door. Two crates lay perfectly, side by side in the inner lock. I couldn’t see anything through the metal of the crates, but the presence of the crates struck me with awe, almost like a religious experience. In those crates were possibly the two biggest scientific discoveries of mankind. This blew Neil Armstrong’s footprint on the Moon out of the water.

I picked one up and carried it to the biology lab. A screen on the side showed that it was the bacteria. In the lab, I set the crate in a glass examination box, and reached my hands inside the gloves on the outside of the glass. I opened the crate, and with a hiss of air, two petri dishes sat, with perfectly black bacteria inside. It was blacker than the space I could see out the window, to the point where I couldn’t even see the strain’s shape or form.

I am the first human to set eyes on life outside of this world. Right in front of my eyes, the first actual alien life known to man. I then saw again why I signed up for this mission. The countless days sitting by myself, reading over graphs and charts with nothing to look at but the blindingly white walls and nothing to eat but flavorless nutrition paste had just payed off.

I went back for the other crate, suddenly elated. I reentered the airlock and picked up the second crate.

It looked a little out of place from where it was before.

I went to pick it up, but when I reached for the side handles, I found nothing on the left side.

Confused, I looked down at the left side, and found a hole.

Uneven, Jagged.

The metal was sheared with marks, Marks from teeth.

My heart jumped into my throat.

The creature had torn straight through steel, with its own teeth. An alien that could eat through steel was somewhere in The Benevolent right now, meaning that it could eat through the exterior wall and depressurize the entire ship.

I screamed.

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My heart raced more than before as I looked around the airlock nervously. I turned around and saw something scurry into the biology lab. I ran forwards and hit the button next to the airlock door. I ran to the wall and begin suiting up in a spacesuit. I couldn’t risk touching it, the creature. I didn’t even want to know what diseases it was carrying. And like before, it could eat through the outside wall. I was fortunate these suits only took a few minutes to put on, not like the suits they had back in the old days that took hours.

I jumped into the pants and quickly locked the torso into the waist. I locked in gloves, oxygen, and finally the helmet. I heard the air seal lock in the helmet, and the whine of the ship’s systems was blocked out. I heard myself breathing, shakily, as the oxygen began flowing with a low hiss.

I picked up a fire extinguisher as a weapon and opened the door.

I slowly walked back into the lab, my eyes peeled. I checked behind every corner, under every table. I kept thinking I saw something, a shadow under the incubator or a tail sticking out from some rolled up cables. I kept glancing back at the case holding the bacteria, but there was no sign of the creature.

I went to the doorway of the lab and glanced around the corner, both ways. I coul almost see it just around the bend of the hallway, waiting for me.

The next room was the cryogenics room.

Oh God. It was dark in there, and already pretty scary.

I clicked on the flashlights on the side of the helmet and held the fire extinguisher ready.

I worked up the courage and wheeled around the corner into the room.

My flashlights barely illuminated the room. I could just make out Dr. Green’s pod. I held out the nozzle of the fire extinguisher and could barely keep it straight. Standing quietly, there was nothing I could hear except for my own breathing.

Inhale, exhale.

Inhale, exhale.

These breaths never felt so precious before.

I began moving forward. I kept my eyes fixed on the pod as I watched the light slowly reach up until the top of the pod.

At the top, the glass was shattered in where Green’s face would be.

Blood was slowly pouring out from the glass.

My breaths quickened, and I started walking backwards, my eyes darting around the room, trying desperately to find the creature.

A high-pitched noise I didn’t hear before started, and kept getting louder. Something hit me in the face and knocked me to the ground.

The thing was right on top of my helmet, screaming like a tornado siren, and I finally saw its face, staring me down.

There were no eyes.

Everything was as black as the sky, almost impossibly black against the white of the ship’s interior. I could barely make out the opening where black teeth emerged, almost in radial patterns, like some kind of tool, ready to tear my face into shreds. I grabbed the thing’s back with both arms.

My hands barely fit around its thick body. I tried moving it away from me, but its front claws dug into my visor.

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I pulled harder.

The glass began to crack.

It screamed even louder, its foul breath entering my helmet through the cracks, burning my sinuses. The pain made me scream back. It started wriggling, and then I finally got its damn claws unhooked, and threw it as hard as I could into the wall.

It hit the wall, leaving some black fluid, and then fell and scurried back into the biology lab. I took some duct tape off of my belt and sealed the cracks in the visor. The fire extinguisher lay a few feet away, and I grabbed it and headed back into the biology lab.

The door got closer and closer. I took another deep breath, and I entered the room.

But it was right at my feet.

I yelled in surprise and pulled down on the trigger of the fire extinguisher.

The chemical covered it in AFFF foam, and it burned the creature. The thing started screaming again, and I backed up.

But it was too late. It launched up at me, grabbing my left arm with all six legs and dug its teeth into my hand. It went straight through the suit, and the teeth broke my skin.

I had never felt so much pain. Its teeth worked so smoothly, making easy work of my flesh.

Screaming and yelling, I hit the thing off of my arm with the fire extinguisher. It ran across the lab and broke through the glass of the bacteria’s case.

I knew I shouldn’t be, but I was mad. It was no longer about science. No longer about the mission. I was going to kill that creature. F*ck the mission, and f*ck NASA for locking me in this prison of a spaceship. I ran forward, feeling only hate, fueled by pain. Blood poured onto my suit from what was left of my hand. I raised the fire extinguisher above my head, bringing it down on the animal, with my full body weight.

The glass shattered into a million pieces, and the creature got crushed by the extinguisher.

Its insides, also pure black, splattered everywhere.

I dropped the tank and leaned against the table in relief.

Something felt weird. I looked down.

My exposed left hand was right in the petri dish.

I saw the bacteria, not flowing, growing into me. Whatever pain I thought was bad from my hand being shredded paled in comparison to what I was feeling now. I couldn’t contain the pain at all. I screamed again. I saw the exposed flesh, now black and grey, falling from my suit sleeve onto the floor. I unhooked the arm piece from the suit and saw that it was up to my wrist.

More flesh was rotting by the second.

I knew what I had to do.

My arm was going to have to come off, or I was going to die.

I ran out into the hallway, and into my kitchen. I reached into the cabinet and pulled out the canister of moonshine I’d brewed. I downed half of it. That stuff eased everything, but I felt my left arm burning still. I moved into the med bay. I grabbed the anesthetic and shot four shots right below my shoulder, just like they’d showed me in training. With a saw in my hand, I closed my eyes and began cutting. It hurt less than the disease currently killing the flesh above my elbow, but knowing that I was cutting off my own arm made it worse. I almost couldn’t believe I was actually doing this.

After two slow, painful minutes, I heard my arm fall to the ground. I slowly opened my eyes. I looked at my shoulder.

The disease was there, just above the cut line.

My shoulder was rotting. I was too late.

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I was going to die. And not a quick or easy death. It would be a disease slowly tearing up my insides and rotting me piece by piece until it killed me. The mission I had trained for almost my whole life had failed because of something I had brought on board the ship.

But I was not going to let this disease consume me. I exited the room and hit the emergency switch on the wall, and the alarm started sounding.

The door to the exit rocketed opened.

The AI told me my suit was breached and the rocket would not launch, but I entered the manual override code onto the wall.

I entered the rocket and sealed the door behind me. I strapped in and set a course for only about ten miles away on the surface. The rocket would crash down on that spot in a couple minutes, and I’d die instantly and painlessly.

The rocket jolted upwards, the craft shaking a little as it steadied on its course.

Having nothing else to live for, I decided to make a final message to NASA into the onboard computer, to explain how their mission failed.

Transmission 2887410: Microphone—on. [ Transmission Open ] Houston…

I am writing this from the escape rocket. On my sixth attempt at drilling, I discovered two species beneath the ice. One black, six-legged creature about a foot long, and a bacterium. The creature escaped and killed Dr. Green. He was still frozen. I was forced to kill it. In the process, the bacteria infected me, and is currently spreading into my chest. It hurts. Oh God, it hurts. I will die painfully in a few minutes, so I have chosen to end my suffering with the escape rocket.

It’ll hit Europa’s surface, and I’ll be dead instantly.

I don’t think mankind should ever return here. The moon is beautiful and serene, but under the ice we only face death. I hope to only think about the serene part as I’m flying above it now. It really is beautiful out here. Jupiter’s right in front of me. It’s like, like I could hold it, and the sun— [Cough!]

Is beautiful.

[Cough!]

[Cough!]

Oh, God. I wasn’t fast enough with the rocket. The disease just got to my lungs. The pain[Cough!]

I just coughed up blood. It’s all in my helmet, I can’t see. Blood all in he[Cough!]

[Cough!] ...I-I can bare-ely t-talk. I can’t bre-eathe-e. Everything hurt-ts so much.

[Cough!]

Ahh! Ah! [Cough!] [static] [ Transmission Ended ]

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Thanks for Reading

Anderson High School’s

The Writers’ Block Literary Magazine 2018 – 2019

Until Next Year …

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