The Bookshelf in the Forest

       Daylight is loud. Birds screams slip through the tightly shut windows. Wind bellows all around the house. Everyone is awake. Everyone is alive.      Once night comes, I sleep hard enough that the entire wilderness is ... silence. Pure and beautiful silence. Nothing to be afraid of. Nothing to wish for. Nothingness. Glasslike in its simpleness, the reality of abyss. No darkness, no light, just the black splotch that ends each phrase.      Red splots my hands as I pluck berries from the underbrush. I place them into my basket and ignore the juices seeping into the moss that I kneel upon. I sometimes reach down and touch the moistened moss, rub my hands over it; it's warm. As it dries it leaves my hands an auburn-y red.       I rinse my hands under the sink and watch as the auburn races down into the drain. I try to replicate the auburn with the juice of the raspberries, but it is always too sweet a red.  ...

       The water rushed along my legs, my feet buried in the sand. I could occasionally feel the fish brushing up against my ankles, trying to figure out what I was. The water was cold, as it always was in the mornings. I looked down and rummaged my hands through the sand beneath me, trying to find some rock. I did this every morning; tried to find a rock, and just admired it for some time. Today’s rock was one of my favorites; a shimmery grey that looked lavender when wet. It glistened in the sunlight, and was perfectly round, and fit nicely in the palm of my hand. As the sunrise faded into day, I would hoist myself onto the dock. I wouldn’t stand as I did in the water before; I would sit and just listen to the world. Listen to the sounds of the songbirds looking for worms, the sounds of the waves hitting the dock, the mosquitos, and bees that whizzed past my ears. I would look into the water and see the fish swimming around, the sea plants swaying in the waves, and...

John Jones had married Lucille thinking she could get his little family off of the ground. Instead, Lucille abused the children, spent all of her money before John and she married, bringing the family down further. She refused to sell her jewelry or clothing to help the family, and she would beat the children if they didn’t sell enough cookies each day. She would take away their food and sometimes make them sleep outside at night, even in the winter. John tried to stop her at first, but she manipulated him well, and John ended up being just as cruel as she was.  Lucille had met John three years after the war, he was in rough shape, and had hardly any money; so she decided to step in. She thought they’d care for her, thank her for all of her help. But the family did not, so she just harmed them all, three at a time. Although Hansel and Gretel were constantly filled with fear, they comforted each other. Lucille had a habit of beating Gretel, tearing her down. Hansel would d...

    Willa Anderson grew up with her father and mother when she was very young. Her mother would tie her hair into braids and decorate them with flowers. She would wear flowy pastel dresses, blouses, and skirts in shades of green, blue, yellow, pink, and orange. Her nose and cheeks would get red from the sun in the summer and the cold in the winter. Everything seemed alright for young Willa Anderson. But, her father would tug the daisies out of her golden hair. He would take away the moisture from the moss in her eyes. Her face would go pale as if she were a corpse. Although life was hard for young Willa Anderson, she had her guardian angel in red. She had seen the angel many times when picking flowers, the angel made her feel safe. One day, she went home after picking flowers to find her mother murdered by her father, her father had shot himself. Willa was six.     She then went to live in an orphanage. Not much seemed to have changed; her hair still got tugged on, ...

Children of the Dark I had been sitting in my bedroom when I heard an ominous whistling. Then a loud, high pitched screech from the attic. My parents weren’t home, so what was I to do? I tied my deep purple, curly hair into a bun and silently rushed to the kitchen. I grabbed a knife and went to the old, wooden door in the middle of our living room. I opened the door, there lied a set of stairs which led to the attic. I climbed up the flight of stairs and then slowly opened the door that was an opening directly to the attic. A gust of wind came rushing out of the opening and I fell backward onto the stairs. It all of a sudden went all dark, I had turned on a light at the bottom of the stairs when I entered the staircase. I decided that it must’ve burnt out. But what was there to explain the wind that had pushed me down? I shut my eyes for a minute. Once I opened them, two piercing sea green eyes stared back at me. I screamed louder than I thought anyone could. The eyes disappeared. ...

The Girl Who Could See More      Ruby had awoken to see that she was in her crib. Yet there was something odd about her crib, it was much larger than normal. Even odder, she had been in her attic, yet everything looked much different than normal. Even though everything pointed towards the worst for the five-year-old, she climbed out of the large crib and headed downstairs.      Once Ruby arrived downstairs, she went to her living room to find her ten-year-old brother, Joseph, lying motionless on the sofa. She moved in front of him to discover that he looked two or three years younger. His were eyes a pure, darker than midnight black. Yet, regardless of this, she cared more about the Annabelle doll he was holding, a doll that belonged to her.      “Joseph?” Ruby asked. Joseph did not respond. “Can I have my doll back?”      “Of course Ruby,” Joseph responded in a robotic and chilling tone. He then forcefully shoved ...