Her Skin Translucent Like Wax Paper

     "Don't do it!" Jade screams as loudly as she can manage, desperately running towards the edge of the cliff where her newest best friend, Tiffanny, stands. Jade gasps for breath, her lungs burning from all the running, but she doesn't dare slow her pace until she has her hands squeezed tightly around Tiffanny's arms, shaking her almost violently in attempt to wake her from whatever world she's in, the daze that brought her to this spot.
     "Tiffanny!" she begs, her voice not a notch quieter than before. "You have to listen to me. You can't do this!"
     Nothing.
     Tiffanny doesn't move an inch, doesn't flinch. Her eyes are unfocused, a pit of nothingness that seems to go on forever. No look of recognition registers in her face, and for a second Jade is hurt that she seems to have no effect on her friend at all. She blinks back tears, because right now, she has to make her friend see the light in this world. That things aren't all tragedy and tears.
     She cups Tiffanny's face in her hands, praying her eyes will find hers. She notices how pale her face is, her skin translucent like wax paper. Her lips, a bright crimson red from the blood smeared across it. She must have been biting on them, hard.
     Finally, Tiffanny's eyes seem to meet hers, but it's almost like she is looking through her, not at her. Still, it's such an accomplishment from a moment before that Jade can't help but feel somewhat relieved. Almost instantaneously, that feeling is washed away like the waves crashing onto the shore far, far below her, because Tiffany decides to speak, a whisper escaping from her barely moving lips. It takes a moment for Jade to really hear the words, let them sink in.
     "Why?"

Sound of Heavy Footsteps

     I chew nervously on my nails, the result them ending in short ragged stubs. My nerves have got the best of me, and despite having gotten a manicure just two days ago, I have scraped every last bit of polish off my nails. It would be a miracle in itself if I don't get poisoning from all the nail polish I digested.
     Actually, it wouldn't be a miracle. Quite the contrary, it would be beyond my wildest dreams if things ended as simple and as peaceful as that.
     I raise my head to the heave thuds of footsteps outside my door. I know the guards walk that way on purpose, making all that unnecessary noise as a constant reminder that I am trapped, confined and powerless. Most importantly, the sound of the heavy footsteps are there to remind me that there is no escape. No hope. No chance of survival.
     My fate is currently being debated by the city council. I'm the most problematic issue they've had to discuss in years. The entire city is divided in opinion. Not on whether I should live or not. No, everyone seems to agree death is my consequence. The debate is on how I should be killed. My guess is, they'll decide on the most brutal torture they can come up with.
     I go back to biting my nails.

In the Wild

     I itch vigorously at my arms despite my mother's constant reminders not to do so. Another mosquito has bit me again, giving me my thirteenth mosquito bite in a single day. I had emptied an entire can of bug spray, covering every inch of exposed skin and yet those blood-sucking peeves won't leave me alone.
     I've begged my parents not to take me on this camping trip. I was perfectly happy sleeping on a comfortable mattress, taking warm showers and watching movies on a flat screen TV. But no, It won't be family time without you, they insisted. So now I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with my odd family who considers a weekend without air-conditioning, internet or flushable toilets to be a "fun little adventure".
     So far, this trip has been anything but fun. I barely slept last night with my dad's headache-inducing snoring and my annoying little brother continuously kicking me in his sleep. And, I admit, I was too terrified to fall asleep in the wild with a tent as the only barrier against those ruthless animals and I. Coyotes. Grizzly bears. Big foot. Just one encounter with a massive beast and I'd be dead in a minute.
     Scratch that. More like a second.

Humument

A dove bolts into the air with mighty effort then plunges into the water.

That Feeling Again

     I remember, being young, everything being remarkably immense in my eyes. During the winter months, looking up at a Christmas tree in my living room was like looking up at a mountain. Things aren't really like that anymore, but when I knelt down beside a bush to catch a ladybug resting on its leaf, I got that feeling again. Suddenly, I wasn't in my back yard anymore. I was surrounded by a jungle.

Beyond the Bundle of Berries

     When you first look at something, you look at what's right in front of you. The eye catching. The obvious. If you stare for a while longer, though, watch more intensely, you notice things you haven't noticed before. When I first glanced at a bundle of berries, that's all I saw. Then I looked deeper and saw leaves. Quite colossal leaves, too. After a while, I took notice of something orange on the ground. It stood out from the dull, dirty brown mud. It was a long-lost letter, and that's how it all started.

Red as a Cherry Slushie

     A single bright crimson berry is attached to a dangerously leaning branch that's just threatening to snap in half momentarily, as if holding up a weightless berry is as difficult as bench pressing five-hundred pounds. The berry is as red as the cherry slushie I had on the hottest day of the summer, as eye-catching as a light at the end of a tunnel.

Deafening to My Ears

     The piercing screams of thousands of people in Rogers Arena are deafening to my ears, and although I know I will spend all of tomorrow unknowingly screaming at people and asking them to repeat every word they say, I disregard all of this as I lose myself in the moment, trying to be heard above the crowd as I watch my favorite singer rise to the stage.

Where The World Began

     The setting sun peeked behind grey mountains and poured new colours across the landscape. The usually dull clouds were pink, transformed into floating cotton candy in the horizon. The surface of the water reflected the magnificent colour of the orange sky, a roughly textured mirror displaying an out-of-focus image of the outside world. Times like this, where everything appears extra vibrant in color, the final moments of lightness before the sun hides away for the night, are my favorite. My favorite, because I know my world is about to begin.

     Scores of people miss out on my world, too consumed staring at a flat screen television while cuddling up on a comfy couch, retreating from my world behind drawn curtains and closed doors. A place they are convinced is nothing but cold and dark, where colours don't exist, only a black as shadowy as a grim reaper's hood. Children, and some adults (although they won't confess), hide under covers and fall asleep with fears of monsters etched into their minds. All kinds of nonsense takes place in my world, corpses coming to life in graveyards and people becoming afraid of their own basements, a death trap with no escape. Hollywood films has viewers convinced it's when things get gory and criminals wander the streets searching for new victims. And who's next? It might be you. But I think it's rather a peaceful place, where a black blanket covers the sky and hides the sun, so faraway stars get their turn to shine.

     It's a time where people's eyelids gain immense weight until they are too heavy to lift. Eyes shut, they close off their surroundings and live in their own imagination where flying dinosaurs can roam a golden sky and rivers can be filled with an endless supply of flowing white chocolate. A secret place no one else can truly understand, never imagine to the exact detail.

     Though, if you stay awake, another world comes alive, full of living things that hide all day from threatening noises they think are chaos, the blaring sounds people call music traveling through speakers and honking of cars frustrated drivers make when in a rush to get to work. In my hushed world, you notice a lot more, see a lot more, hear a lot more. Notice the glowing eyes pouched in trees, the sweet smell of pine in the cool winter air. See the stars, so bright and infinite in the sky, one must wonder how they could possibly be invisible during the day. Hear the soft soothing sounds of waves crashing onto the shore, the reflection of city lights on the water's surface like a blurry painting of the starry night. Beautiful yet mysterious, just like my world.

     My world, not a place where Frankenstein eats the brains of those awake. Not a place where you get hunted down by people chasing you in a scream mask. Not a place where crows transform into pale blood-sucking vampires, their teeth ending in sharp points, two rows of glistening knives smiling at you in the moonlight.

     My world, the beginning and end both equally as beautiful as the other, a picture perfect moment where not a single color is missing. A place where the ocean sparkles like a million diamonds are spread across its surface, where the sky is neither grey or blue, but rather a spectrum of colour fading from one shade to the next, where birds hidden behind a clutter of leaves sing the song to your favorite tune, the best morning alarm clock on the face of this Earth.

     The song, beautiful yet mysterious, just like the night. 
     Just like my world.