First Place
“Rebirth”
By Lily Liu
Arrowhead High School
Second Place
“San Luis”
By Addison Rahmlow
Slinger High School
Third Place (Tie)
“Headlights”
By Maya Schmaling
Shorewood High School
And
“The Quiet”
By Anabella Filips
Holmen High School
Rebirth
By Lily Liu
1st Place
The door clicked shut, accompanied by the squeak of the rusty hinges. Ana stared at the room bathed in darkness, interrupted with notes of moonlights peeking through the window. Sighing, she felt around the old peeling wallpaper until she felt the cold kiss of the switch.
The old flickering light spun in and out of existence, giving the room a spooky feel. She would need to call Randy later to get the light replaced. Following her usual routine, she began brewing chamomile tea. Her eyes flitted around the room, glancing at the dishes that needed to be done and the breakfast she hadn’t had time to put away. They landed at the family pictures reminiscing about a happier time. Both of her girls were now out of the house. One lived in New York, pursuing a busy lifestyle on Wall Street, never having time to visit home. The other had stayed close to home in town, working random jobs to find her true passion.
True passion, an elusive phrase to Ana. Hard times and bitter regrets had consumed her. It left her stranded in the past, saving every penny she could, even when she no longer needed to. It was a force of habit. Force of habit brought Ana back to the kitchen sink. Above it, sat a Premier DEX-P1R radio, one of the only splurges she had made in her life. She carefully adjusted the radio to her favorite station Classical 24.
After “Symphony No. 5” ended, the memory of her favorite cassette tapes struck her. She made her way up the stairs to the attic. The creaking of the old stairs brought back fond memories of her and Ivan, her brother, chasing each other to the attic in their childhood. Pushing open the door, a wave of dust met her sight. Fanning her hand around, the dust subsided. The untouched, nostalgic cardboard boxes and old nursery items brought back old memories. A chipped, wooden rocking horse caught her eye. It was the rocking horse she had played with as a kid, and the one that Emma, her eldest, had ridden it all across the house. A faint smile appeared on her face. As she looked down, a pink, painted ballerina piqued her curiosity. Striding over, she gently detangled the ballerina from the box of jumbled items. It was a music box. Not any music box, her mother’s. Fiddling with the drawers, Ana slid one open and found a key she had never seen before. She found a peculiarly shaped slit in the back of the box, and the key fit in perfectly. The song of Казачья Колыбельная Песня brought Ana back to better times, times of naivety and happiness.
———
When Ana opened her eyes, content from the song, the sun was shining through the attic’s window.
Where is the sun coming from? Ana blinked her eyes, trying to make sense of the situation. As she was deep in thought, sounds of laughter from downstairs reached her ears. She stood up to investigate the source of the noises, but she found that her line of sight was much lower than it had been originally. She looked down and saw short legs and small, plump hands. Disoriented, she fell to the floor.
“Antanasia!” The attic door slammed open. Ana stared at her brother who she hadn’t seen in three years, except his features were softer and he looked to be about ten years old. Ivan didn’t give her time to process this miraculous event. He pulled her up and downstairs.
“Mama? Papa?” Ana stood in disbelief at the fact her parents stood in the kitchen smiling at her. Her parents had died over ten years ago.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Mama gestured to the pastry on the countertop. The Syrniki was golden brown with sprinklings of powdered sugar and strawberries, exactly the way she remembered it.
“Ana, remember how you said you wanted to help people? Papa’s hospital is having a Bring Your Kids to Work Day. Would you like to come?” Papa squatted to Ana’s eye level. Ana melted into the warm atmosphere and nodded.
The day passed in a blur of smiling faces, nurses rushing around, blue gowns, and Papa’s firm, strong hand. Ana soaked in the solemn, yet optimistic atmosphere, a seed of determination growing in her heart. At home, Mama asked about her day. Ana recounted the many kind doctors, nurses, and patients that she had met, but kept quiet on what she had decided to do with the new fire she had found inside of her, that was for her alone.
“Ana, would you be a dear and grab the cassettes from the attic?” Mama looked inquiringly at her.
“Of course, Mama.” Ana took the opportunity to quickly scour the house once more before it was all gone. She committed to memory her small stuffed rabbit, the warm glow of the fireplace, and the brilliant smiles on her parents’ faces. Scurrying up the stairs, Ana opened the door discreetly, closing it with a click. The attic room was the same as always—she had made sure of it—looking the same both now and 50 years in the future. She shut her eyes and let herself be lulled to the darkness.
———
The attic was as dark as the underside of a bat’s wing. As Ana’s eyes refocused, slivers of moonlight began to infiltrate the room. A paper bag, covered with five decades worth of dust, caught her eye. Carefully sidestepping the other trinkets littered around the room, Ana stood before the bag. Reaching in, she felt the cold, smooth surface of the cassettes her mother had told her to fetch. A paper note on the cassette fell off.
Антанасия – Ваше имя означает возрождение. Что бы ни случилось в будущем, вы всегда можете начать заново. Никогда не бойтесь изобретать себя заново.
– Любовь, мама
Antanasia – Your name means rebirth. No matter what happens in the future, you can always start over. Never be afraid to reinvent yourself.
– Love Mama
Ana made her way down the stairs in a daze. Her childhood dreams, passion, and determination flooded through her like a tsunami. But first things first: (305)-828-7734. Ivan picked up on the second ring.
“Is there something wrong Младшая сестра?” Ivan’s worry-filled tone carried through the phone. “It isn’t time for our weekly call yet.”
“No, I missed you. That’s all.” Ana smiled in relief. Ivan was the same as ever. On a roll, Ana called her daughters, her friends, her neighbors, anyone and everyone she loved. Ana glimpsed a flyer laying on the table.
Volunteers Needed. July 17, 2023. St. Jude’s Hospital. She would start here.
Возрождение. Rebirth.
THE END.
San Luis
By Addison Rahmlow
2nd Place
The Monday after her dog died, Luna buried him underneath an apple tree. She tried not to think of the way she had found him: curdled up in a little ball, numb and bloody and strewn across Arnold Street. She tried not to remember his brain, like a little melon, crushed under the weight of Charlie Whitlock’s pickup. Her grandmother had told her that his body would take root, that it would bloom with the apples and trickle out into the air as if it were a tongue licking the sky.
Luna was not so sure, so she packed the soil down on top of his corpse and pounded her shovel into the ground. It made a loud thwacking noise (much like how she imagined it sounded when Charlie’s wheels splintered her dog’s bones: greedy, thunderous). She pressed her shovel into the soil one last time for good measure, just to be sure he wouldn’t find a way to claw back up to the surface like the little phantom he was, and slipped away, leaving his bloody limbs tangled up with the trunk of the apple tree. Ghosts were the worst, after all. Luna didn’t want any more dead things running around.
***
The girl saw the figure outside her window at half-past two. The moon hung low in the sky, like some sort of cracked bulb, flooding in through her curtains and staining the floor an unnatural, milky shade of white.
“The hell?” she said, tossing her blankets aside. San Luis was still at this hour—the whole valley like some sort of sunken-in fishbowl, the sides of it gradually collapsing inwards with each passing minute. The girl pressed her fingers to the windowpane and squinted, searching for the shadowy figure. She was positive that something was out there; San Luis was far too lifeless at this hour for anything moving to go unnoticed. In the room next door, she could hear her mother’s soft snoring, the click of the ceiling fan, and the low, red hum of the alarm clock. She supposed it all to be some sort of desolate paradox: the night so hushed and stagnant yet somehow endless and breathing.
It was far too late when she turned away because the ghostly figure was already seeping in through the windowsill and facing her, eyes bright and wide-open. When she saw the bloody thing, the girl thought of anatomy class, of the lifeless, glowing pupils of her frog and how its eyes rolled back into its head when she cut it open. She thought of her mother, of the sound of rain on pavement and the chatter of desert songbirds in spring. It was as though her life was flashing backwards all at once, as if none of it really mattered. She wondered if this was a punishment for the lies, for the sneaking out, for her silly, childish teenage fantasy, and for all of the secrets she’d kept over the years. She’d always known that San Luis was haunted, she just never expected it to catch up to her.
The moon seemed to split in two when the tiny, almost fluffy ghost slammed into her. When she fell, it was with more vigor then a crashing pickup truck, and for a second, San Luis held its breath. Then, without really stopping, the night pushed forward. The air cleared.
***
Luna lived with her grandmother and hated it. She hated the frail, yellow wallpaper, the wailing staircase, and the empty quietness of her house—like some sort of hollow shell. She hated the way that, all those years ago, the baby tore her mother wide-open and made her bloody and breathless, the way the world turned over on its side. She hated her mother for leaving and her brother for living and the world for still moving forward; she hated San Luis for its constant, quiet stillness. There was so much hatred and Luna didn’t know what to do with it all. She wished she knew.
Mostly, her grandmother let her be. Mostly she just rode her bike up and down the streets and let the cool desert wind bite at her cheeks. If her dog was still around, she’d take him along, and the two would race up and down the pavement, as though running straight into the sun.
When Luna returned home from her ride, a pained look danced across her grandmother’s face. A half-moon frown pressed into her lips.
“What?” Luna said, and she thought of her mother’s bloody hospital bed.
“Your friend is dead,” her grandmother whispered. Luna tilted her head. She knew right away which friend. Something in San Luis stirred.
“How?” she asked, even though she knew. She was nearly positive.
“They’re not sure yet, heart attack? She was too young.”
“Oh,” Luna said, and something ticked inside her. Was it anger? She wasn’t sure.
When she opened the front door, the apple tree’s roots were all visible and scrambled, and Luna just stood there, staring at the restless, turned-over soil. She just stood there, and kept standing there, as though waiting for all of the dead things of San Luis to crawl out and drag her down into the grave, too. She didn’t know why, but she smiled. It was a wicked, cruel thing.
***
The man worked a nine-to-five at the gas station off Highway Z, but tonight, he was closing late. He taught at the school during the year, but the station had been in the family for three generations, so sometimes, he picked up some shifts in the summer. He missed his students but liked the buzz of the gas station. Its shiny refrigerators and neatly sorted aisles were comforting in some weird, conceited sort of sense. The man had never known anything well—not his wife, though she was long gone, and surely not his kids—but he knew the gas station.
July had been feverish, and the AC was out, so an army of box fans leaned up against the register. The man sipped on some flavorless diet soda, and listened to the soft whir of the overhead fluorescents. He tapped his finger on the countertop. The heavy moonlight streamed in through the front door.
When the rustling noise cut through the silent drone of the gas station, the man put down his drink. It sounded something like truck tires turning over, like rubber scratching concrete, and suddenly, the man was sure something wasn’t right. The welcome bell dinged as he opened thendoor to peer out, and he knew at once that he shouldn’t have—that San Luis and all its damn curses were finally coming to haunt him.
He thought of his kids when the tiny, bloody phantom jumped up at his throat. He thought of his father and his grandfather, of how they built something out of nothing, of how he’d spent his whole life trying to make them smile. He thought of all the places he went wrong, all of the people he’d left, all of the lives he’d endured. He wondered what his daughter was going to say after they found his body—he wondered if she would even care.
Nobody could really hear screams in San Luis—the valley was too limitless—and so when the man opened his mouth, nothing came out. The last thing he saw before closing his eyes were headlights: bright and blaring and endless.
***
When Luna heard about the man—he never was a father to her, really—she wondered if her grandmother would be next. She wondered if she should try and stop it. She wondered what it might feel like to just stand there and watch.
***
Luna had found the dog the day after her mother died. He’d been crouching behind a dumpster, full of bugs and mud and dust. There’d been some sort of wicked glow in his eyes, and even as he sat there huddling in mounds of trash, an ungodly expression seemed to sit upon his face. Luna liked it and thought it all quite funny: here was something just as cursed as her, just as mad at the world.
When Charlie Whitlock smashed him with his truck, Luna hadn’t been sure what to do. Her anger had always been festering, but now it had life to it. Nobody left in San Luis loved her anymore—or rather, she wasn’t sure she loved anyone back.
The man had loved her once, when she was small and bloody and too dumb to talk. This was before he left. Sometimes, Luna wondered if his love was ever real. The girl had loved her once, too, though in a different way—a more quiet, tender one. It was the kind of love they write about in silly teenage movies. Luna often tried to forget about it.
Her dog’s love was different. There were never any strings attached. He didn’t seem to care that she was cursed, or that her anger was blasphemous and otherworldly. He simply followed her around, his eyes two gaping black holes.
***
The moon fizzled out of the sky two Mondays after Luna’s dog died, leaving the valley to sit empty under a heavy black slate of clouds. San Luis swelled full of dead things, and Luna wished it had been her, and not them, haunting the sticky desert air. She wished that the ghost of her stupid dead dog would indulge in its vileness and finally take her, too.
Luna’s anger (or was it hatred?—she didn’t really know) was a mindless thing. A restless thing. An infinite thing. San Luis had always been possessed by the dying, and Luna was tired of trying to stop them and their damn haunting. She knew she was foul for sitting and watching the whole valley collapse inwards, that she was terrible for smiling as the world cracked in two, but he anger was moving. It possessed her, too.
Two Mondays after Luna’s dog died she took an ax to an apple tree and tried to resurrect the dead. Stranger things had happened in San Luis. The ghost of the man and ghost of the girl watched as she pulled her dog’s stiff, suspended body out of the grave, his face devoid of life.
The ghost of the dog watched her, too. At first, Luna wasn’t sure why she was even digging him up—his little spirit had already managed to escape and wreak enough havoc—but it felt good to hold him in her hands again, even if he was horrible and evil and wrong.
Two Mondays after Luna’s dog died she put him in a yellow backpack, pedaled over to her mother’s grave, and shook his body out right over the chalky grass. Two Mondays after her dog died, Luna cursed her anger and cursed her pain and shook it all out right on top of her mother’s resting place. She ran a finger over one of her dog’s unmoving limbs and thought of the people who once loved her (the people she still must’ve loved). The valley listened and the dog’s spirit stilled and Luna pressed her palm into her mother’s grave as if saying look, look mom I am sorry, look mom I am here and there is still life in my hands—look I am trying. I swear I am trying.
THE END
Headlights
By Maya Schmaling
3rd Place (Tied)
It was a colder-than-usual night. The moon had only just begun its reign over the sky, and the memory of daylight had not yet faded. Lunar light, bright and chalky, filtered through the trees and projected dancing figures onto the cracked road. My hands, keeping a tight grip to the sides of the steering wheel, were painted white for a flash– then, again, thrust into the cover of darkness. The moon was so brilliant, so illuminating, that I had not bothered to turn on my headlights; after seven days in nature, I was hesitant to surrender fully to the comforts of machinery. In any case, I was sure that I was the only one on this road.
My landscapes were in the trunk– four canvases, each a stylistic depiction of a location in these woods, each a product of a weeklong camping trip. I’d always prided myself, and been complimented on, my ability to realistically capture a woodland scene, yet in a manner unreflective of its reality. I prioritized aesthetics, and obscured the dead and ugly things, the brown leaves and messy twigs. Everything without clear order I gave a pattern of some kind, which was certainly difficult when working with the inherent randomness of nature.
Quite some time ago, and wholly by chance, I had discovered an ideal niche of buyers, a surprisingly populus group, who preferred their art to be neat and seamless. Most landscape painters on the market then were too self-important to conform to such constraining commands, so I found it easy to carve out a name for myself among them. Four of them, long-time clients, heard about my trip and commissioned landscapes, which, they emphasized, I should paint with their specific tastes in mind. One of the four, the owner of a prevalent firm, met with me the week prior for coffee. It was for his daughter’s birthday, he told me, and insisted that I include an animal as the forefront of the painting. He would pay extra for it, he promised, as he covered both of our drinks before I could protest.
Spotting an opportunity for more than a work trip, I brought an old friend with me, a seasoned hunter familiar with the forest. We camped each night and caught up around a fire fueled by our litter; we lived off of the land and left our mark on it in return. When he shot a young buck, I sketched its face and frame and implemented it into my painting. When it was finished, he cut its antlers off as a souvenir, but left the rest, telling me he had no need for venison or hide. We left the body splayed on the rocks.
After every session of working, the vegetation around me would look like a painting itself, splattered with colorful shades and whatever else had missed the canvas. I used the leftover paint on the logs, sometimes, or the tree trunks– a miniature portrait, a signature. It had been a refreshing, relaxing time, and I was reluctant to return to the bustle of the city. I dropped my friend at his cabin many miles before, but the hour was late, and I remained far from even the suburbs.
There appeared a shadow before me, its presence so abrupt I had no time to consider it. There were eyes reflected only by the moon, wide and brown, almost invisible– I don’t know how I saw them, and how they seemed so large. Translucent saucers, spherical mirrors, swallowing me whole.
I felt the impact before I could think to brake. The wheels kept rolling after the damage had been done, unevenly– I reversed, backing away from the body, which now lay in a shapeless lump in the middle of the road. Moonlight highlighted broad antlers, the fringe of fur, torn muscle beneath broken limb. Spooked, and without a second thought, I pressed my foot on the pedal and left the ghastly sight behind.
When I got home, I carried my paintings one-by-one from the garage to the kitchen, where I laid each against the counter to finish drying. As I put away my supplies in my studio in the adjacent room, I noticed that I kept finding myself back in the kitchen, looking at one of the canvases: the deer, as I had painted it– stiff and dark against the hazy green backdrop. Its eyes were round and reflective, and I was unable to take my own off of them. I left the room a few more times, but was always drawn back, and eventually stood paralyzed in front of it, staring, staring…
It was like falling asleep, a transition so rapid the memory of it becomes obscure in hindsight. It was cold, suddenly, and I was engulfed by darkness. I decided to feel my way to the basement, to fix the radiator, which must be broken, or the power, which must have gone off– perhaps there had been a lightning strike– but as I lifted a leg my entire body was gripped with a nauseating, alien sensation. Something was on my skin, no, inside of it; there was an awful prickling sensation of fine hairs of burs stuck everywhere, like I was suffocating inside of a persian rug that had been glued and tailored to fit every inch of me. I was on my hands and knees, no, hands and feet, for I could surely feel both touching the ground. And the ground I felt was no longer my smooth hardwood tiling, but rather nothing at all, just a fuzzy sensation all over. There were slight twinges of sense, as if blades of grass brushed against my ankles, but it was all secondary, signals sent through an exterior layer. I could not uncurl my hands, could not feel my fingers– everything had been encased in concrete and rubbed down into stubs. I stood on thin, precarious stilts, and I could not stand up, my arms were too short and my legs too long. It was so loud, the insistent chatter of insects came from all sides, along with the faint rushing of water. I could hear every drop that hit each rock, pick out the footstep of a single opossum ten yards from me. I could smell all of this, too. There was darkness on all sides of me, I could see this without turning. And there was a heavy weight resting upon my head.
I had a moment of realization, of panicked clarity– was the weight an ivory crown?– then forced the thought back down for its sheer unbelievability. But the feeling was smothering, and it was not going away, and when I tried to scream I only heard a high-pitched bleat.
I ran unsteadily, blindly, between trees which were now beginning to take shape. The moon was just as bright as before, casting light on the sticks and leaves ahead of me. Somehow, I never tripped; my movements became agile, light and graceful. I was floating, and I picked up speed, my mind blank with fear, heading toward no particular destination.
There was a sound of whistling through the trunks, which increased in intensity until a breathy voice took shape and began to chant, the words sharp and disjointed:
You treat us as a canvas of your own,
You bring about death with little regard,
Now is the hour to reap with you’ve sown,
To pay the price for the land that you’ve scarred!
Then a light, thank God, between the next row of trees– golden, moving quickly, lower than the moon. And another one, close behind. It was my beacon; I dragged my stick-limbs toward it, my knotted tendons jolting, my elbows and knees bending themselves backward again and again. I barely missed the last light, and did not stop until I was in its pathway. All I had to do was wait. Someone would have to help me.
There was a noise. Rough, unnatural. There was something coming toward me, quicker than I could process, never wavering in speech or sound. It did not have light, but I could see the reflection of the moon on a pane of glass. It all happened in a few milliseconds. These thoughts were brief, instinctual, subconscious. While I stared, wide-eyed, all I really had time to notice before it all went black again was a lone face in the abyss in front of me, behind the transparent sheet, behind the dashboard— a reflection of my own.
It was a colder-than-usual night. The moon had only just begun its reign over the sky, and the memory of daylight had not yet faded. Lunar light, bright and chalky, filtered through the trees and projected dancing figures onto the cracked road. My hands, keeping a tight grip to the sides of the steering wheel, were painted white for a flash– then, again, thrust into the cover of darkness.
THE END
The Quiet
By Anabella Filips
3rd Place (Tied)
It is a cool summer afternoon. I kneel in the creek. I kneel in the creek in the woods near my house. I kneel in the creek in the woods near my house where every summer I would play with…I kneel in the creek. Something warm and red drips from my fingers into the water. Between my fingers, there is hair. There should not be hair. There should not be hair, glasses, soft upturned green eyes, a head—
There should not be hair. I look back up at the collapsed creek bank. I am kneeling. Why am I kneeling? Something shifts and pain laces through my leg. Oh… I’m hurt.
The day is fuzzy in the golden light. Like me, it waits for something. I breathe into the quiet. I flex my hands so they remain carefully cupping the neck. There are echoes in the distance. They sound familiar. Important. They sound like…
I turn my focus back to the collapsed creek bank. It bites at the day’s softness like the gaping maw of a terrible beast. It seems… important somehow. I look back down. She is still breathing. That’s good. There is a name attached to the face I hold in my hands. I know it. What is it? The blood slowly drips into the water. “Let’s play in the creek just like old times,” A memory echoes. No. Not a memory. Gabby. Gabby.
Gabby, my best friend. Gabby who likes art and D&D and wants to be a doctor. Gabby, whose head I’m holding in my lap, and whose blood drips between my fingers into the water. Gabby, who fell. Me, who tried to catch her. The rocks that caught us both. Her startled shout, abruptly cut off, still echoes in my mind.
Suddenly, the creek is too quiet. Where are the birds? Did they also flee from this tragedy? Did they, like Evan, run to find help? Did Evan also fall? No. Evan was the most surefooted, he couldn’t have fallen. Right? Yes, I would have heard him.
The quiet envelopes us. How is it, I wonder, that the world is most quiet in crisis? I take a deep breath. I tighten my grip.
Please, let us be okay.
~~~
The sirens are louder now. I can hear distant voices calling out. I can hear Evan’s voice filtering through the foliage. Evan. Evan who got help. I open my mouth. “Help,” I croak, mouth as dry as the setting sun. I swallow, try again.
“Help,” I say again. Then, like a dam breaking, “Help! We’re here! We’re here! Please!”
The voices are closer. I hear footsteps. Evan is in sight now, eyes just as desperate as when he left.
“I found them!” he calls behind him. The answering calls are drowned by the relief that rushes through me.
~~~
“We were just playing,” I choke out to the first responder after they lift Gabby out of my lap, into the stretcher and out of the creek. “We were just playing and then she fell and I tried to catch her and then there was screaming and—”
“It’s okay,” the first responder soothes, but it sounds distant. “Good job keeping her head steady. But let’s worry about you right now. Do you think you can make it to the ambulance?” They help me limp into the ambulance, blood still slowly congealing on the gashes on my leg.
Everything goes in flashes after that. The ambulance ride. Watching Gabby get wheeled away. The bright lights. A calm nurse giving me stitches and wrapping my wounds. My mom hugging me. A waiting chair.
The waiting.
The waiting.
The waiting.
The hungry silence of the desperate. The desolate clock ticking, each moment prolonging hope, prolonging despair. Eventually, a nurse comes in. Everyone in the room looks up, strangers and family alike waiting for news, any news, of their loved one. This time, it is our prayers answered.
“She made it,” the nurse explains. “She has stitches, and a concussion, but she made it. Gabby will be okay.” As my family and Gabby’s turn to each other, grateful tears running their faces, I remain frozen, quiet disbelief still frozen on my face. The nurse kneels towards me.
“You were very brave. I know a lot of people in my field who would have frozen up, who would have hesitated. You did not. You saved her life.” He pats my shoulder, before standing. Against my will, tears flow up in my eyes. Suddenly the world is turning again. I am gently folded into my mother’s side, grateful tears falling on her cardigan. Gabby is fine. Gabby is going to be okay.
We’re going to be okay.
~~~
“Hey, come on! It’s our last summer together! Let’s play in the creek, just like old times!” Gabby pleads, grinning. “We can meet up with Evan and go to the fort. I’ll be the creek monster this time, too!”
“You’re always the creek monster,” I rebuke, but I grin all the same. “Alright. I’ll get Evan. Are you getting snacks?”
“Of course! Wait for me at the creek, alright? You know me, I’ll fall right in if I’m not following you.”
“Yeah, yeah, clutz,” I snark.
“Idiot,” Gabby replies, sticking out her tongue playfully.
I grin. “You know it. I’ll see you at the creek in a few.”
Evan and I are in the creek waiting when Gabby arrives, running a little late. We had been careful getting down the bank, as it had rained a few days ago, and the river had overflowed. In her haste to reach us, Gabby steps wrong. The bank crumbles. My mind crumbles. The world tilts on its axis.
THE END
All works are used with the permission of the individual authors. Copyrights are held by the respective authors.