All photos from Pixabay.com

Virus
by Anna Cotrone

​​“Dad? Daad? DAD COME HERE! LOOK!” yelled small, 12-year-old  me. We were at our campsite in Senegal, Africa. My parents were both biologists, and spent half of their lives traveling the world to collect different organisms to study and bring back to their lab in America. You would think that as the most successful biologists of our time, they would be able to settle down and let people do the work for them. Nope. Not Richard and Kate Thomas. Before my brother and I were born, they usually moved around every month or so, but ever since I came along, we have only moved 5 times. Next week, we were moving back to our house in New York, so my dad was packing but being the softie he was, came over to see what I was looking at.

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The Dragonfly Girl
​by Talia Newman

“Once upon a time, in a land far far away,there lived a dragonfly princess,” I began, as my siblings, Ezekiel, Joel, and Rose, settled down on the gritty sand of the Cape Charles beach, eager for another one of my imaginative stories.
    “Her body shown a beautiful blue-green and her wings were iridescent. Her name was Guinevere, and she was the most powerful being in the land, even though she was just a small dragonfly, for the dragonfly was a symbol of imagination in that land. Whenever anyone saw a dragonfly, it sparked an idea.”

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The New Cloak
by Savana

Wyn didn’t move. He couldn’t, not really.  His arms were starting to tire but he couldn’t risk letting them fall to his sides. He had to keep them suspended on either side of his head, palms forward as a show of surrender. If he were to let them fall... Wyn eyed the razor-sharp point an inch from his Adam’s apple. It could easily. . . he didn’t want to think about it.

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h17
​by Sarah Woodruff Carter

“Nope, nope.  Not thinking about death today.  Not gonna.”
Sal went back over to the bed and plopped down next to the guitar.  His fingers ached on instinct. He had changed his mind. The B minor A minor E minor E minor could wait.  He should have gone with Wally. He was bored out of his mind, and the thought process that kept heading towards death was not the pleasant alternative.  Speaking of which, Cal had been awfully quiet recently.
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Untitled
​Rachel Crabtree

The walk home was a bad one. Jason switched between kicking random things on the street angrily and thinking about how to get out of this - but there really was no way. He looked down at his report card like it was the spawn of Satan. He’d hardly passed social studies. Of course he passed health. Everything else was awful. So far, no one was cutting him slack for being from another state, which in his opinion was not fair. “You’ll just have to get used it,” Tom had said. Tom said he wasn't really trying. Thomas said one semester was enough to get used to things. But honestly, Tom said a lot of crap that Jason didn’t listen to.
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Palace   
​by Kayla O’Brien

From the back of the class you can see everything and everyone. The note that Clarissa Evans had given to all the girls around her was moving quickly, but it hadn’t reached me yet. Carter Vinishe was texting under his desk. I didn’t care what the note said. I didn’t care who Carter was texting. You see, I get disinterested quickly. I sat next to a window and there was a beautiful black mass moving towards us. It lit up occasionally and filled me with wonder. What was it like to float in the sky? Did you feel guilt or pride knowing that you could destroy someone’s life with the crack of a white hot whip?
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INKBLED
SWORD OF HOPE
​ By Kofi McIver
 

The king couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. He had never considered himself a bad person; despite his hateful actions towards others; despite the chilling way he talked to people below him, despite torturing and slaughtering those with magic; despite tricking the Princess of the crown, the apple of his eye, into marrying him; despite assassinating his mother and father-in-law so that he and his wife could rule; and despite poisoning his pregnant wife's soup with the toxin that would force her body to give birth to a boy. Even after the toxin failed and not only caused her to give birth to all girls but to quintuplets. It had strained the Queen's body to the limit. Her last words had been their daughter's names. Prophecies. Predictions. Divinations. Forecasts for what they would be. The King had never considered himself to be a bad person until his daughters started to show power; that magic he hated. He tried to love them. He tried to raise them. But the older they grew, the more powerful they became, the more he couldn't stand them. Today, on their 12th birthday…. this is when the king decided he was a bad person.
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Why?
​By Ian Solomon

I woke up and I couldn’t remember a thing. I couldn’t remember where I was or how I got there. I couldn’t remember anyone or anything. I couldn’t even remember my name.
    I studied the room around me, hoping to see if anything jogged a memory. The room was especially plain. White walls, white floor, even the bed I was lying in was white. There were no traces of paintings or pictures hanging on the wall. While I was in the process of examining the room, the door squeaked open and a young boy came in.
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When Tears leave Scars
by Sofia Kizhnerman

I briskly walked down the poorly populated streets of our neighborhood. Genetically modified grass on people's yards slightly blew in the wind as I walked by. My bag weighted me down making me slower than I wanted to be, but it wasn't to much of a bother noting that I was walking as fast as I could. The light breeze ruffled my hair, slightly knocking my perfectly placed ponytail out of its place. Where I was going seemed forever away, but the anxiety seemed to be getting closer with every step.

Untitled
​by Elisa

it's so quiet.
it's dark, too, but the reading light next to me illuminates the book. i can feel her smile, and i can see her eyes, dancing in the light of the fire. the curling tendrils of steam from her coffee rise and swirl away into the darkness, twisting into spirals in the light.
"you haven't read a word, have you?" her voice takes me by surprise.
"i have; maybe two or so." it's a lie, but that doesn't matter. i said it to make her laugh and it works.
"no, really."
"then no."
"why not?" she knows why. i'll tell her anyways.
"i can't focus. this all seems too perfect."
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Soup
by Bodhi Moreau

She sat at the table by the window, too upset to even stir the steaming bowl of soup in front of her.  Apple imagined ripping the gingham cloth off the surface off of the wood, sending the bowl and spoon and stupid freaking flowers flying, splattering the broth across the glass and floor as she wrapped it around her. She saw the reflection of her face in the window, one ghost before the death of winter. She was crying. Apple wiped away her tears, rubbing them off of her cheeks as if she could scrub the last few days from existence. She thought that a bowl of soup would make things better, warm her up the way that she was before- Apple slammed down the spoon, bothered even by the slight echo of the sound. Apple wanted to run. She wanted to leave and never come back, out of the Warehouse, out of this apartment, and just be gone. She wanted to fill the holes in her with new experiences and tequila. She wanted to be free from her life and the people she knew. She wanted to throw on some clothes, leopard and leather, beat her face, rubies and rouge, and have a night out on the town. A girl gone wild, bathed in neon strobes and wreaking colourful havoc, ready for smashing bottles, hearts and rules alike. She wanted to feel the adrenaline pulsing through her, alcohol bleeding through her pores, high on the feeling of youthful freedom.
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