Carshotta wrote:

This is really Awesome!!!

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

A Faded Spark

Song: La Vie en Rose by Édith Piaf

Original Lyrics (English version):

Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose
When you kiss me, Heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see la vie en rose
When you press me to your heart
I'm in a world apart
A world where roses bloom

Google Translate Lyrics:

patience
Write to your immortal soul.
The color is purple
If you do not, he gives something of heaven,
When it closes
Looking for a small amount of life,
When he did smile
Another world for me
The light flower

Story:

The late summer breeze brushes past my cheeks, intertwining with my strawberry blond curls and flicking them behind my ear. I tread softly across the swaying tall grasses, the green lapping at my bare ankles in curving wisps. Butterflies dance inquisitively around my boots and the hem of my skirt, delicate wings flitting against embroidered floral patterns.

I stop in the middle of the valley, clutching the neatly folded piece of paper to my chest. I cast a longing gaze at the space between the somber clouds: a blinding, light-filled patch of sky, the color of my eyes.

He isn't there.

He always used to be there, waiting for me, his presence subtly outlined in the endless blue. He would wink one eye in the flash of a star, his smile like a flock of birds swooping momentarily. I see him less and less nowadays, often left standing in desolation in the grasses of the meadow between the mountains.

Is that a sign that I'll join him soon?

I sigh in frustration. Patience. I place the letter down, glancing hopefully at the sky above, before turning to leave.

In the night, just as I drift into slumber, a starry hand reaches down from the heavens and retrieves my written words.

~

At dawn, just like that, he's there. There.

In the sky, inscribed by the little puffs of clouds that I know better than anyone. His eyes are crinkled subtly in a gentle smile, his mouth quirked sidelong. His voice is soft and deep today, sounding through the breaths of the wind and distant summer thunder.

“Jenna,” he sings in a taunting tone. “So we meet again.”

I swallow hard. “I see you got my letter.”

He blinks. “Indeed.”

“And do you accept my request?”

We stare at each other for several silent, unblinking moments. My hands begin to tremble, but I shove them into the plaid folds of my dress. Hiding them.

Can't let him see.

“Do you?” I repeat. “Do you accept?”

“No,” he growls, the word blunt and harsh, composed of clashing streaks of lightning and the fury of torrential rain.

I tense. “I'm still not coming.”

“You have to come. Come with me.”

He opens his palm, reveals a sphere of glowing water. He slams it down. The sky darkens, pitching and rolling with murky, inky clouds. Rain pours down, clattering like bits of jagged metals on the grassy soil beneath. Pale lightning outlines his hideous features.

“Wait,” I scream as a tempest howls around me; a tree cracks loose from its roots. “No— no! Don't do this to me!”

His eyes crackle with raging fire. “I'm not doing this to you,” he shrieks. "I'm doing it for you!" With that, another tree slams across my path, sending up a cloud of dust and bits of bark. I yelp and jump back.

Now, the thunderstorm: the screeching wind with its sheets of far-flung rain, the shaking branches, the quivering stones. All that is unmovable and unchanging moves and changes. And above it all stands Will, silhouetted in the sky, laughing manically.

~

Hours later, he fades into blackness, and the storm subsides.

Only violet remains. The land is awash in the translucent indigo twilight, waves of it surging and settling on the crests of the hillocks. I wander the hills and the fields in my white-striped lavender dress, a jaunty bow arranged at the back of my waist. Every few steps, I lower myself and reach into the silky grass to collect a specimen of what was before: a shard of smudged glass, a fallen leaf, perhaps a glinting broken wing from the back of a dragonfly. No such things remain: the storm had swept away it all, leaving only empty fields and barren, barren sky.

He returns as I wait in the meadow, occasionally glancing at the sky as I rummage through my newfound collection, silently mourning the fragments of things past. His final smile warps, refracts, terrifies. The sheer power of it sends sound whirring through my ears, raising me until I hover above the earth.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, and somehow my hushed voice emanates clearly through the cacophony.

“Oh, Jenna. Sweet, innocent Jenna,” he chuckles softly. A twirl of a finger, and I rise higher into the air. “You have dared to defy me, and look where that has brought you. I have taken the world, and I shall take your desire to live.”

I feel it leaving me, the spark extinguished by the darkest of powers. I wilt, a dying flower, brimming with unshed light.

“Come to me.” The voice is low, rumbling, seducing.

For so long, I didn't dare to oblige. Now I wonder… why not give in?

What Dies With Time

didn't finish this in time to turn it in but still a story i guess

Today the world is bathed in gold.

Everlasting.

Blurred streams of warmth trickle past her, tousling her baby blond curls; pollen-fringed forelegs grace lavender-painted petals. The marigolds glow in a thousand shades of ecstasy, grooved faces rising to the subtly clouded sky. The sun's spherical, honeyed figure sets the garden ablaze.

She steps daintily from the smooth wooden stairwell, a delicate watercolor image of success. Her frilled white sunhat is tipped jauntily, a periwinkle sundress cascading gently from her shoulders. Small scarlet shoes fit snugly around her toes. The only entity out of place in this dull monochrome, like a stifling ruby rose rising from leaden concrete.

She sighs softly, inhaling the saccharine fragrance of the afternoon. Her dress swings from side to side as she strides to the center of the garden, where an immaculate canvas lies on a sculpted wooden easel. Blobs of her beloved paints are arranged beneath, the tubes worn with frequent use, dried paint shards sticking to wrinkled plastic. She lowers herself onto a round garden stool and lifts a slender arm to the peeling paintbrush.

A swab of baby blue forms the heavens, framed by swaying bronze reeds. Snow-hued ducks glide across the yellow-dotted ground, bright orange beaks raised to the image of a person. The woman takes but five soaring brushstrokes: soft blue, pale peach, with twin dots of crimson. Dabs of rose from the tip of the brush create a smile.

Settling back to admire her piece, an abrupt thought strikes. He should've been home by now - and yet he isn't.

Her vision blurs, rivulets dotting her eyelids as she realizes he's never coming back.

~

Today the world is bathed in gold.

Everlasting.

But she knows that isn't true.

All things die with time. Feelings die with time. People - the very people you thought you loved and cherished - will die with time. They all leave you in the end, don't they? It's all ephemeral, isn't it?

And yet she finds herself hoping, wishing - a delightfully dangerous dream.

A Bad Day for Mangoes

fun daily

Light had barely flecked the pastel-and-grey sky, when shouts and clangs began to resonate from the distant hills of Mangolia. The vast Mango Palace, with its golden turrets and elaborately carved columns standing proudly at its sides, awakened quite rapidly. The night guards at the castle's sloping marble base jarred from their illegitimate slumber, bleary eyes widening at the sight of a thundering dust cloud on the horizon. Intricate floral curtains were swiftly swept from panes of glass, clearing a view to the impending danger outside.

Princess Pomegranate jolted from her bed. Some of the finest magenta duvets in the kingdom flowed around her slight frame, topped by a heap of airy pale-pink pillows. Her satin nightgown was the color of ivory, with a crimson carnation sewn at her chest.

The princess raised her chin and yawned lightly, her strawberry-blonde locks cascading softly down her back. She was about to sink back into dreamless slumber when footsteps pounded down the corridor of her exclusive palace wing. The door slammed open, and she could swear she glimpsed a corner of immaculate paint peel away at the impact, revealing scruffy wood. Her nose turned up at the thought of an imperfect sleeping chamber.

She swung her head to face the offender, a bulky man in a tight lime-green servant's vest and a scarlet tie that squeezed his broad neck. She recognized him from the team of servants King Mango had employed to guard his beloved daughter.

“How dare you disturb my beauty sleep?” Princess Pomegranate demanded in her resonant, musical voice. “My father shall be informed of this.” And you shall be ordered to repaint my entire sleeping chamber— thrice— in my favorite color. She abhorred that chalky white anyhow; her sleep quality would be much improved when the walls were a rich rose hue, like the fruit she was named for.

The servant's face paled, beads of sweat gathering in the folds of his skin. “S-s-sincerest a-apologies,” he stammered, “b-but there is a severe crisis occurring as we speak. The king has requested that I wake you, and the king's word is law.”

“Indeed,” the princess mused, somewhat irked that her father had not passed a law protecting the perfection of her sleeping chamber. She would consult him on the topic later. “And what exactly is the crisis you speak of?”

For a split second, the servant looked her in the eyes. “Come with me.”

~

Princess Pomegranate stood at the gilded archway that led from the grandiose parlor to the vast landscape beyond. Armored men on horses stretched as far as the eye could see. The horses pounded their hooves in unison, tossing their silky manes and snorting. The princess stepped backward, nose wrinkling. She had donned her most magnificent satin ballgown for this occasion, and she would hate for it to be soiled. Her deep pink skirts draped over one another in white-frilled waves, almost iridescent in the dawn light. A silver tiara sat perched atop her hair, a single pomegranate flower curled into its center.

She resisted the urge to smirk at the dreamy expressions of many soldiers in the crowd, their eyes affixed to her.

All of a sudden, King Mango came storming out of the palace, long golden robes swishing with his rapid strides. “WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” he bellowed.

The soldiers silenced, swift slaps of the reins quieting their horses as well. Both halves of the crowd began to fall away like waves to either side, creating a pathway between them. And through that pathway, a woman emerged.

She was tall, with impeccable pale skin and ink-colored curls that tumbled past her shoulders. A crown of intertwined silver strands ensnared the top of her head, beaded with tiny gems like drops of blood. A deep mahogany gown flowed from her shoulders to her glistening shoes, its velvet folds bisected only by a pale yellow ribbon around her slender waist. Pinned just above her chest, its petals pressed into the fabric, was a pomegranate flower like the one the princess wore.

Princess Pomegranate had never found herself speechless in her life— at least, until that moment.

She noticed, in a haze of shock and lightheadedness, that every soldier in the crowd bore the sacred symbol— some pinned the soft red petals to their clothing; others strung it onto a length of twine around their neck. One man had even woven the stem of a bloom through his stallion's midnight mane, the vivid hues of the flower stark against the black. These were the Bearers of the Pomegranate Flower, and they lived proudly in the great nation of Pomegrania, a country whose might was second only to the legendary Mangolia.

Memories spiraled through her mind, lending weightlessness to her void of no escape.


Once upon a time, the two nations of Mangolia and Pomegrania lived in peace, the combined power of their alliance allowing them to live in a near utopia. The neighboring countries envied this, but were afraid to rebel should the fragile order shatter.

Prince Mango was merely a young man then, still in training to inherit his father's throne. He would forever remember the night when a woman snuck onto palace grounds to see him. She was beautiful, with her long red dress and the stunning flower she wore at all times. The prince was captivated by her smile. They fell, together, into a deep, deep love.

“I am Queen Pomegranate,” she told him under the stars. It was the night right after the old king died, leaving the prince in his father's footsteps. “But I would like very much to rule Mangolia alongside you, my king.” The new king was overjoyed, and plans were arranged for the queen to move into the palace at once.

They had a child— a baby daughter, whom they named Princess Pomegranate for her resemblance to her mother. But shortly after the princess's birth, Queen Pomegranate vanished into the night without a word.

She was never seen again.

Until…


Queen Pomegranate strode down the orderly rows of soldiers and squared her shoulders before the king.

“Oh,” King Mango whispered, tears welling in his eyes. His gloved hands trembled, twitching slightly toward the queen, as if he wished to encircle her waist and dance with her like they used to. He quickly pulled them back, his lips quivering with the struggle of maintaining a straight composure.

“Surprised to see me, are you, Paul?” Several servants gasped at the display of insolence— no one, not even the queen, was to refer to the king by name. He was King Mango, nothing more, nothing less.

Princess Pomegranate, standing in the corner, had gone quite pale. She had always imagined her mother as a gentle, loving woman with warm eyes and a warmer embrace— never the cold-voiced, steel-faced snake she truly was.

“B-but— h-how did you—” King Mango sputtered.

“I retuned,” the queen said in a silky, saccharine tone, “to betray you.”

Their eyes met, one pair wide and glistening, the other narrowed, frigid, wicked.

“I never loved you.” Four words, breathed ever so softly, then the shing of a sharpened blade. One swift motion, and the king was no more.

The queen smiled, satisfied. She wiped her palms on her handkerchief before turning to Princess Pomegranate.

“My child,” she said, her eyes like hibiscus petals. "My sweet, lovely daughter. Will you come with me to my— our kingdom, so we can rule together?“ Her hands were very cold against the princess's shoulders. ”You are so very beautiful, young one. I am so sorry I was never here to watch you become who you are.“

She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, but her skin came back dry. Minute veins throbbed near her temples.

”You're lying,“ Princess Pomegranate deadpanned, staring her mother in the eyes. ”And by the way, no.“

The words hit the queen like shards of glass, and she reeled backward, feigning shock. The shock turned to ice.

”ATTACK!" she commanded.

Escapade

Character credit @SilverMelon

Pale, tender fingers tore frantically at unyielding bars. The metal felt cold and rutted, jagged edges searing Taylor's skin. He gritted his teeth, the soles of his sneakers bracing against the slick stone wall, scrabbling to plant themselves deeper into the nooks and footholds that days of discreet carving had created.

He heard the faint creaking of boots against stone in the murky corridor, then a bouncing light, rapidly nearing. He uttered a hushed word that would've earned him a spanking back home - or more, but he chose not to dwell on that certain aspect. The task at hand was far more important. He had to be out of here before that guard turned the corner and glimpsed his handiwork. With the practiced knife marks on the wall forming a clear, easy climb to the barred window above, there would be no mistaking his escape. It was by mere luck - and a touch of seasoned strategy - that they hadn't noticed yet. For the past few days, Taylor'd lived off saved portions of previous rations, faking a case of stomach flu so that the guards wouldn't dare enter his cell - not even to leave food - for fear of contagion. What the other prisoners mistook as nauseous moaning was simply a façade to mask what was occurring beneath the surface, the trained skritch-scratch of a blade pressing footholds into the wall.

His plan succeeded, right up until it didn't. He had scaled the wall with ease, sneaker tips fitting snugly into the many layers of crevices. It was what came afterward that he hadn't planned. The window lay, as cold and immobile as ever, oblivious to his futile attempts to haul it open.

The footsteps neared, the flame of a torch blurred against the night. Taylor tried everything - gnashing his blade against the metal (it didn't leave a dent), slamming his fists against the bars (ouch), and with seconds remaining, was overcome with a surging wave of desperation. A scream clawed at his throat, threatening to overpower him if not released. He released it. The guard halted, his light wobbling and faltering, at the almost inhuman noise. It wasn't much time - five still seconds, perhaps, before the guard exhaled and continued again - but it was enough.

Taylor gripped the bars and heaved upward with all his might. To his shock and exhilaration, all five slid free without a sound.

He gawped, nearly stumbling off the wall as the bars clattered to the ground with a clang. The last thing he glimpsed was a kind of wire attached to the base of each bar, interwoven into a clever contraption designed to separate them from the sill beneath. Made with the last breath of a prisoner, perhaps, or by a guard turned traitor for the safety of the people he confined.

A bitter smile touched Taylor's lips at the imagining, yet he had long found such dreams to be no more than the silky feathers of a dandelion, beautiful but fleeting, wistful but evanescent.

His mind flashed briefly back to the painful shards of memories he still held, but he shook them and the impending thoughts away.

The guard was below, now, pointing his furious fire up at the boy near the open window. He was shouting, his words blurred with the adrenaline that shot through Taylor's veins. Storming footsteps indicated backup from all corners of the prison, megaphones blaring with news of his demise.

He grinned, once, coldly, with an almost maniacal laugh as he stared down at the enraged faces of the men that would never bind him in stifling metal cuffs again. He grappled briefly with his belongings, stuffing his sheathed knife into his knapsack and drawing its strings with his teeth. His nails screeched unsettlingly against the stone as he hauled himself onto the windowsill and braced his limbs against its frame. His cell was higher up than he'd imagined - dizzingly so - but he'd seen worse. Taylor clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and jumped.

OI SEA OI SEA I THINK YOU MISTOOK TAYLOR FOR TRACY :0

SilverMelon wrote:

OI SEA OI SEA I THINK YOU MISTOOK TAYLOR FOR TRACY :0

OI SORRY MY BAD FIXED NOW

TO KS

NOT PLANNING ON K!LLING TAYLOR BUT OK LOL

ITS STILL AMAZINF!!!

HAHA TONKS

Woah, this is amazing!

shirdade_4346 wrote:

Woah, this is amazing!

Thanks! ^^

Ashen Lullabies

This story is based off a real historical figure, Gisella Perl, who saved countless lives under the horrifying conditions of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Although the plot has a foundation in fact, the exact details are products of imagination. Also, the song lyrics at the end are written by Alba (@-Alocasia).

Twilight seeped in from beneath the ragged, muddied curtains, soft hues of blue and violet fluttering onto the dusty floor.

It was a tiny room, with makeshift boards flung together to form the bunks that pressed from wall to wall. The other women had joined in troubled slumber, their frail, gaunt bodies rising and rattling beneath moth-eaten rags. Only two women remained awake in the starlight that bound them. One lay sprawled on her bed, trembling badly; Gisella knelt at her side. She cradled a small bundle in her arms— a baby boy, his slight limbs jerking with the weight of the skies, his eyes aglow with novelty.

“Is… is he…” the mother choked weakly.

“Shh,” Gisella said softly, lightly dabbing water onto the baby's grubby skin. She dried him gently with a torn corner of a towel that reeked of rancid bread.

The boy's mother made a twisted, throaty sound and reached a quivering, pallid hand for her son. Gisella stood, careful to mask the sound of her footsteps, and placed him into the fleeting embrace. Rivulets welled in his mother's bloodshot eyes and wet her cheeks, her sobs eerily silent as she dappled strained kisses across her child's cheeks.

There was a slight shifting of cloth from the other end of the barracks, and someone yawned groggily. Though the night veiled the three from the rest of the room, just one wrong move could reveal them.

The baby tossed restlessly in his mother's cold arms, his eyes squinting into crescent moons, his lips wobbling with the threat of a wail. One crying bawl, and the night patrols would be onto them. They'd know of the live birth and the mother who'd delivered it. And then they'd… a shadow passed across Gisella's face at the mere thought of it.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered through the darkness, trying to sound as serene as possible, as if this didn't break her every time. “I… I have to take him now, for both your sakes.”

A cry of grief, swiftly muffled. With her final, failing strength, the mother pressed her newborn to her heart. “No,” she gasped, voice shallow.

Gisella remained patient, seemingly apathetic. “If they find out about your child, they will take you away. To a better place, they say, but they're lying. They will take you to the most terrible of circumstances, and both you and your baby boy will die.” Her words stabbed into her soul with their severity, but she knew that every one of them was true. The baby was squirming, writhing, his mouth agape and preparing to scream.

His mother would die if he screamed.

And in a moment of desperate realization, the mother thrust her baby into Gisella's arms with the last threads of hope that bound her to the world. She sank back into bed, hollow eyes filling with glistening tears, chest rattling with sorrow.

Gisella pressed the baby into the folds of her rags, clutching a hand to his mouth to silence him. She flung open the door with her free arm and hurried outside, into the silence of curfew. The silhouette of a patrol was etched in silver against the horizon, but with luck and the shadows as a curtain, she wouldn't be noticed.

She tiptoed around to the side wall of the barracks, where she huddled beside a barrel with the baby in her arms. Carefully, she ripped away a corner of her dress and used it to dry the tears that tripped down his rosy cheeks. She gazed down at him, yet another child who would never live to see a second sunrise. She loved him as if he was her own child, and it was with this love that she would take his final breath.

A fleeting, bitter kiss to his forehead, then the twist of a neck. The baby lay lifeless on the moss-ridden concrete, one life lost for another saved. His death would grant life to his mother, whereas if he was left alive, both mother and child would perish.

That night, Gisella Perl knelt beneath the stars, singing softly as she buried the body of the boy she couldn't save.

"And close your eyes,
Your soul flies high;
I'll sing you ashen lullabies…"

aww, so sad

ikr T^T even more sad that stumb stuff like that actually happened T^T^T^T

As Autumn Falls

Based on the song “Before October's Gone” by Cimorelli

The autumn leaves fall, now, each one a blaze of flame. Slip from the bark of the branches, sail real soft to the heap below, and vanish.

Reckon I'll end like them. Torn from a branch that'll be bare come winter, lost to the eye and the stars. Before October's gone, I'll've faded away. Reckon that's what happens when you drown, even if it ain't in water.

I sit some days on the lawn, plucking at a wrong stitch from the leather coat she crafted. Her hands so wonderfully warm, smelling of butter. Reckon when I fall like the leaves I'll see her again. ‘Cause that’s what happened to her, ain't it, she drowned like I will?

Before March was gone she'd left me, gone into a pile of dirt topped with a worn grey stone. They said she'd fly like the birds did.

She didn't.

And now I'm left sittin' on the garden chair on sunny mornings and by the study window on rainy nights, waiting to drown like her so I can see her.

—

It's bright today, wearily so, the sun a bleached blur against the drying trees. The world was ablaze the day she came, I remember. Like a jug o' milk, she was, delicious ‘til it spoiled.

She comes now, dainty shoes tip-tappin’ on the gravel, broad chalky skirt swayin' around her. Like the one she wore when we danced. I reckon they buried her in it, but I can't be sure. Nothing's ever real sure these days, more like just a wave pourin' by with no respect to those it carries.

She comes now down the path, only it ain't her. It's a boy with ruffled brown bangs that drape beneath his eyebrows, wearin' a beat-up shirt and jeans with a hole in the knee. It's a boy I've never seen before, a boy who doesn't understand.

He doesn't say he does, just sits down on the bench with a strange serenity in the sea blue of his eyes. Close to me, only not too close. The next day he comes again, talks to me.

“Hey,” he says.

I don't reply, just grunt kinda, not looking at him.

“You okay there?” he asks me.

He fumbles behind him, pulls out a worn green book. Sets it on my lap. “Here. Read it if you're bored.” And leaves.

So I do. Ain't much literature, just some messed nonsense over things I've grown too old to care ‘bout. But it’s nice, I guess, having something to do besides thinkin'.

When he comes back next I give the book back to him. He holds out another, but I turn away.

He frowns. “Why don't you read?”

“Got no use for it.” My voice gruff, unused.

“Why not?”

I exhale. “I'll be gone soon, boy. Before October's gone, I'll bet.”

“Oh.” He shifts his feet. “Well, you've still got a month. Enjoy it.”

And so I do, seeing in his eyes the tale of a boy who has drowned like I will, but unlike me, has risen again.

Long, Long Ago

Reeking, sweltering air presses against my cheeks; sweat trickles down the curves of my face. What meager land has not been lost to the rising oceans is beyond inhospitable, its jagged barbs of rock puncturing the blisters that litter my exposed feet. Tiny beads of crimson mark the pulsing throb that will soon arise.

But now, I reason as I gently lower myself onto a relatively flat patch of ground, is not the time to linger on such things. A pale smile strains across my parched, cracked lips as I smooth my tattered skirts across my knees. Shuffling and stamping indicate that the rest of the thirty-four survivors are settling in around me.

Thirty-four. Thirty-four of the most despicable, undeserving individuals ever to have walked this burning Earth. The thirty-four who hid, stole, and killed when our lives depended on it. The thirty-four who discarded our injured, ailing, and vulnerable to die quietly behind us. The thirty-four who lived, when all the others faded in their own despair and injustices.

In a way, our mere survival is a crime.

But we don't speak of it. The dilemma is no longer whether to live honorably or by wicked deeds, but to either live or cease to do so entirely. And we have chosen to live, if in the worst of circumstances, by the worst of ideals. And so we go about how we have always gone about, trudging barefoot in silence through the scorched terrain, away from the tides that threaten to engulf us, living off rations that barely exist.

There is nobody in the group whom I know by name, or who know me by mine. Perhaps it has to be this way, so that once each inevitable death ensues, there will be no name to hold in our hearts. We are, in any case, nomads - designed to move on and move away, to keep moving, until our legs crumble beneath us and our bodies grow cold, left to the sea and the winds.

In the meanwhile, we strive to grace our barren faces with bitter apparitions of smiles, trying to grasp back our windblown wisps of laughter. Once a cycle of the moon we emerge into the humid night, joining in a seated circle. One man, our wisest, tells stories. Softly spoken, fleeting, each word vanishing like the land into the ocean.

Once everyone has gathered, the stories begin.

He raises his bare arms to the heavens, eyes falling closed, tattered tunic rippling beneath him. He inhales a long gulp of hot air, as if attempting to taste the essence of his story. And then he speaks, in a voice as deep and rolling as the waves of the endless sea.

“Long, long ago, the Earth was green, its every corner carpeted in a lush, exuberant viridescence. This swaying, dew-speckled substance was called grass. It was something that felt soft beneath your feet, that tickled your skin when you lay down, that moved in dips and swells from which grew dots of color called flowers. Children - yes, children like the ones that reside with us today - frolicked in these landscapes, and the grass would always catch them and tall columns called trees would provide them shade.

”There was water, as there is now, but less of it, and their seas were lenient and merciful to the land creatures. There was something called ice, too, which was water touched by a feeling called cold, but all of that has long melted away. It faded into water and swept into the waves, causing them to surge and swallow entire islands in their foaming mouths. The cold faded too, blotted out by the gases that shrouded the skies. It was a wonderful feeling, while it lasted.“

”What was cold?“ asks a young woman, eyes shining with curiosity.

”Cold - “ The man pauses, searching for the words. ”Cold was a sense of freshness, of relaxation. You wouldn't sweat when it was cold; instead, you'd wear an extra tunic."

Silence settles upon us like a pall as we drift into remembrance of a planet long gone.

oh, so sad

T-T gughydugh i need to figure out how to write non-sad stories for once. (maybe for the last daily i'll write something non-sad :0) (also swc is almost over :00)