daily 7 - blackout poetry from pages 16-20 of ‘sail away land’ by ben pester - 298 words

poem 1 - 167 words

A few here from the Hospital. Not one known individual. It could be the end sight, that quiet darkness. Alone no longer, but now residue . Breath with clouding pain, a floating heart, a sweet window room from before.

One hell heavy ache, slow and thick, it pressed on the air. Spoke in deep concern but made no sense. The weight of darkness unseen, vague limits rolled. Mind syrup again. Taunted by silent need, led through a bed, a isolated chair. A warm breeze, tea to ease the dozing silence.

Soon, the garden, frivolous things, and the hole dug like a lie. The possibility of a window remembered long ago , where enduring loneliness happens, next to the sound of playing and laughing. Between the branches, i can be normal. I imagine laughing, a mistake too old.

Turning off anger, we held the escaping hands of breathing. I can hear in the golden sun my skin like a song. Around me, a strange blade i use for carving meat.

okay well, since i already hit the word count i'm going to make some tiny poems for my last 2 hehe let's see what i can do.

poem 2 - from page 153 - 37 words

skin suffocation. the bones lied to me. confused attack or run away, i stand here, no wish. a numb worrying, i ask, but i can be bought. lead me into a prison, crack my teeth, open out.

poem 3 - from page 105 - 32 words

i'm a corner brain. acknowledge a sleek gold floor, so neighbours lent it away as though i am an old possibility of rain. i move out of sight. or don't make noise.

Weekly! Total: 2029 words :-)


part 1. researching fantasy elements - 175 words

fantasy and world building elements

magic systemstechnology

new creatures and plants / flora and faunageography and environment/climatesociety and culture, religion


possible ideas:

magic - magic exists, however the way it works is that magical elements are ‘borrowed’ from other things. eg, to do fire magic you must borrow warmth from something else - for example the nearby environment, and so the world around you would become colder

technology - there is ‘jewelry’ that people can have which stores memories and emotions for them to use later.

flora and fauna - trees that attract/conduct lightning and store electricity. people can harvest electricity from them. certain species of cold-blooded animals have adapted to live inside them and have shells used to conduct it into heat for themselves

geography - spiral mountains exist, with isolated civilizations having developed in the center of the spirals where it is very hard to reach

society and culture - people trade in dreams, as a form of currency. they can also be bought and sold, individually crafted, and shared through items similar to the jewelry.


part 2. world building / planning - 397 words

used my ideas of the spiral mountains, and magic system.

the spiral city.

there is a vast mountain range, far away from any other main settlements, which formed long ago and is shaped into spirals. the formation it appears in is almost like a galaxy. owing to this, it has been known for as long as anyone can remember as the ‘mountains of stars’ - as well as the fact of how tall some of the mountains are. on the outer edges, the mountains are smaller, but as you get closer to the centre, they grow bigger and bigger with increasingly extreme peaks and also extreme valleys. it is practically impossible to travel through the mountains to reach the centre - it would take months and require extreme physical strength, ability and stamina as well as setting up camp again and again, finding or building shelter against the harsh elements, while also somehow maintaining those months worth of supplies in food and water.

However, at some point in time, a group must have made it in, for within there lies a city. the people inside this city are of course extremely isolated, and have been there so long that every single person in the city alive today was both born there, and has never known anyone who was not. despite this, there is a general understanding and knowledge that there are other things outside the mountains . this is thanks mostly to old primitive drawings carved along the sides of the inner mountains which display a kind of ‘map’, as well as several (unknown in origin) fairy tales, nursery rhymes and common folklore/legend that tell different versions of the ancient journey in.


The magic system.

There is a form of magic used in the city which can be in theory used for anything, but it is highly controlled and restricted by law due to its dangerous nature. Essentially, any time a spell is cast, it “borrows” its elements from something else. This can be okay - for example, lighting a campire could simply result in the air around you becoming a little colder, which is fine. However, it can also pose threats to people and the environment. Summoning something (ie telekenesis) can drain the energy used to move it from things around you. This is usually living things. Spawning something into existence will likely mean the death of something else.


part 3. story - 853 words

short plan/summary - a girl and her younger sister from the spiral city are practicing (illegal) magic near the border. they accidentally become trapped in a valley outside the inner mountains.

Tam sighed deeply, and I watched as she pulled her heavy black glove off one of her hands. She rubbed her eyes.

“It's far too cold out here. Why are we even here? You know, i told you, this is a terrible idea. I can't believe I agreed to this. I don't know what possessed me to come - i must be almost as stupid as you, you know. I want to go back, and actually I'm going, and if you have any sense, you'll come with me,” she was ranting on and on, shivering all the while as she spoke. Her words danced up and down in a quite amusing fashion as they followed the chattering of her teeth.

“Okay. Well, that's fine. I don't have any sense,” I interupted flatly.

“What? What do you mean?”

“You can go, but I actually don't have any sense, as it happens. So I'll be staying.”

Her eyes widened. For a second I thought she might cry. I knew she'd stay if I did. There was no way she would actually try and go back to the city all alone. She followed me everywhere even at home. And I had no intention of going back any time soon: I had waited for an opportunity like this for months, and I wasn't going to waste it.

“Well. What are we even doing, exactly?” She asked after a long hesitation, clearly trying to divert the subject from her supposed deserting of the trip. There was a strong quiver in her words and trembling in her bottom lip, but as the kind and gracious older sister that I am, I decided to ignore it.

“Magic,” I said, grinning widely now. Her eyes lit up a little at that. Partially from fear, yes, but I could tell she was excited too.

“What kind can we do?”

“Anything we want. I've been telling you for ages, it'll be amazing. Remember not to tell Ma, though, okay? We'll get in trouble if anyone saw us doing this back at home, but don't worry, that's silly. It's not bad, and it will be so much fun.”

“Fire?” She looked up at me, her every word drenched in eagerness.

“Anything,” I assured her, and then, looking around, quickly added, “even ice magic. Ice magic is even better than fire, you know?” The magic would take from the environment, I'd remembered suddenly, and we didn't need to be any colder. We were right at the edge of the mountains, and everything was coated in ice already.

“What do you want to start with?”

“Can I.. ooh, can I fly?”

“Of course,” the words tumbled out of my mouth before I really processed them, and I realised suddenly that I didn't actually know. But surely yes? Magic could do anything, right?“

”How do we do it???“

”Don't worry about it - I'll do it to you, okay? Then once I say, you can try.“ Tam nodded seriously, and I continued, ”Perfect. Stand in front of me now, I think, like… two arms apart.“

She did just as she was told. The perfect little assistant for my practice! I knelt down in front of her where I was in the snow, and closed my eyes. Okay. I began to try and feel it, the energy in the air, and make it course through my blood. I focused very hard on the idea of my little sister leaping up in front of me, moving through the air as if it were solid platforms, until i felt like something had happened, and then I waited.

”Can I?“ I heard her asking.

”No, not yet,“ I pictured the magic in my head. Streams of little blue and pink and yellow and green dots, all the colours in fact, leaving my head and floating around me in the air. Doing what I asked them to.

Something suddenly felt different. It was done. I could tell. I opened my eyes, and stared into Tam's big and round and bright black eyes. Looking at me all hopeful. I gave her a big smile,

”Now. Try.“

The world suddenly became a blur. The last thing I remembered was seeing her jump off the ground, her red scarf flying upwards as she did, a shocking sight against the otherwise white and icy backdrop. And then it was dark. I could see a rocky wall above my head at the side, on both sides, and then a frighteningly blank white sky hidden by white peaks between them. My back ached terribly, like I had just fallen from a height - but i had got here in an instant. All my muscles screamed in agony as I tried to sit up. Looking in front of me, i realised I was between two of the layers of mountains that surrounded our city. Nothing but rock was visible anywhere I glanced, and I had absolutely no idea what to do.


part 4. swapped story - 570 words

i used Aurora's world! :-)

short plan/summary - a character discovers a creature with a connection and able to manipulate ice/rock to help them, while trying to escape and travel through the spiral mountains to reach the outside world

I wasn't sure what day of the expedition it was anymore - it could have been yesterday or a decade ago that i started this journey for all I knew. Let alone what day of the week it was.

And yet, the day had a distinctly Monday feeling. My head felt groggier, my packs were far heavier, the weather was far harsher and even my clothes seemed to be much itcher. Yes. It was definitely a Monday today. I sighed - it was more of a groan, if I'm honest - and threw my rucksack down onto the snow, following it quickly with my own limp and exhausted body. There had been so many times I had contemplated giving this whole thing up, but it was getting harder to resist it each time. I tried to remind myself why I was doing this.

To find the outside world. To find the outside world. To find more than this. To find more than that claustrophobic city inside there. To find the outside world. More people, more cultures, more things. To find somewhere I might actually belong. To find more knowledge. To find the outside world.

Ever since I was a kid, I had been fascinated by those old stories they used to tell us, all about how our ancestors arrived here. They were all different - with the same basic message, of course - but I desperately wanted to find out which one was the true story. I always had. And then it developed into wanting to know what they came from. All that time ago, what did they leave?

And, with nothing else to live for back at home, nowhere I belonged, one day I decided: if they got in, i could get out.

I couldn't give up now. That was why. Even if it was a Monday. I needed to find out what was outside this. Besides, could I even go back now? Really? The end might be closer than a return would be, at that point. I had no way of knowing.

”Just let me out. Soon. Please,“ i whispered to myself, preparing my body to continue the trek.

And then I heard a strange noise.

It was a scuffling sound, like a small creature moving against rock and ice, digging out of some hidden cave. But I had never, not once, seen anything alive in here between the mountains. Instictively, I froze, suddenly terribly afraid of whatever it might be.

It appeared in my view regardless. It came from the rock and ice itself: I watched it. The stuff began to melt and meld in peculiar ways into something, something entirely different to anything i had ever seen before. A distinctly alien creature, that was staring right at me. It had such a human.. or, not human, but.. sentient look about it.

”What?!“ I heard myself crying aloud, practically watching the noise come out of my mouth from third person, ”What are you!?"

The thing did not speak, but somehow I understood that it had told my something, and I could put the meaning back together in my head. It said, I am a thing of the mountains. I have power over them. I can help you.

Tír na nÓg - fairytale daily - 669 words

Explanation: The story of Oisín and Niamh, but the roles are reversed - Niamh decides to stay in Ireland with Oisín as a mortal. She deeply misses Tír na nÓg but chooses to be with him over returning. When she eventually dies (as she has become a mortal) she returns to Tír na nÓg to discover that only a day there has passed since she left.


Niamh lay under the weeping willow, grass tickling her neck, more comfortable than she could ever remember being as Oisín lay side by side next to her.

She watched him carefully, fascinated and enthralled by his every movement. He was staring up at the sky, oblivious to her gazing. The clouds moved sleepily across the sky, and they ducked in and out of the willow branches from where he could see. He looked perfectly content, watching them, and she was just as much watching him.

Her love.

Her mortal love.

It twisted in her heart. Nothing had ever made her so happy as his crooked toothed smile. She did not want him to age, to move on without her and to leave and go away. Please, no. She would find a way for him to stay with her. They would be together.

He seemed to wake from a trance, startling and then breaking into a fond smile, as she gently lifted a careful hand and stroked his pale face.

—

He was crying. Niamh looked on in dismay and confusion.

“That long? It'll be that long?” He was saying, “I can't go there Niamh. I can't. I can't stay. I must stay here, I'm so sorry. I will miss the wind on my face, the sea salt in my hair and on my lips, the burning sun on my skin… and I don't want a hundred years in the blink of an eye. I want to live,”

She gently interwined her fingers with his, but he pulled away, stepping backwards and letting her hands fall limp to her sides.

“We can have all of that,” she whispered, “all of that in Tír na nÓg, and more. They'll make it just like that for you. Just how you want it to be. And we'll live forever,”

“No,” he said, staring into her eyes as if searching for something, “it would never be real, Niamh. It would have to be real. You would never understand.”

You would never understand. Somehow, those words cut into her more than she could have ever expected.

She reached out to him again, “Then I'll be real,” she whispered even softer than before.

“Mortal”

—

Life was good.

It had been, at least. It was slow now, everything was slow and old and fragile these days. But it was still good in some ways. And she still had plently of memories to busy herself with reminiscing on, all of this whole beautiful life she had lived.

Yet, more and more in recent weeks, her mind had been wandering. Back to a place she would never go again.

Tír na nÓg. She saw it in her dreams. In the dreams, she was riding her magical horse over the water, and she was always young and beautiful (though Oisín liked to tell her in their old age that she still was, and make her giggle and blush).

She would wake up yearning for that ride across the water, and go to sleep sometimes excited to be back there. In the dead of winter and the peak of summer she ached for the eternal spring.

—

One day, she was terribly tired. More than usual. She drifted off to sleep.

The dream did not end as usual. Her horse rocked her back and forth as he cantered across the waves, as if she were a baby being cradled back and to. She was so dozy.

The horse stopped.

She opened her eyes and found herself sraring upon the Otherworld.

“Welcome. It's been a while. We haven't seen you since yesterday.”

Weekly 2 - self care

Total - 1268 words

Part 1: First, the self care part of the weekly! Yesterday, I spent time with my best friend and we watched our favourite show <3

Part 2: For going outside, on Friday I was taken round a farm which I may be attending in the near future as a kind of school/work, and there were MANY animals :-)

Part 3: I opted for some jewelry making and beading! I ended creating 3 beaded fish and 7 bracelets.

Part 4: I wrote about my weekend, my thoughts on the place I visited, and quite honestly ended up rambling about how much I love my best friend lol. Totalled 510 words! Opting not to share as it was quite personal.

Part 5: I wrote about reflections on my 2026 so far - it has been a wild one. From spending the entirety of 2025 in hospital units, to actually sitting my exams and getting to have some visits home and seeing my pets for the first time since being admitted this year, this was also very personal :'-) 578 words!

Daily 12 - 173 words

A poem: Always.

Your dog is sleeping by the fire. He is always sleeping by the fire. He has always been there, your dog, and he will always be there. Sleeping by the fire.

You have always been in this house. You have always been sitting in this chair, in front of your dog in front of the hearth in front of this fire.

Something in your brain is telling you that you remember other things, once, but this is not true. A window. Outside the window. Outside the window are branches, attatched to trees, and on the branches there are birds singing melodies.

But you remind yourself that you do not know what those things are: you do not know what birds are, or trees, or windows, or outsides. Because you have always been here, you have always been sitting in this chair in this room where it is always dark except the fire and the fire is always on.

Your dog is always sleeping by the fire.

680 words


55 headed hydra - 550 words in 5.5 minutes for this daily because honestly I have no energy to actually think today and I just need to let the words spew out, let's go, let's see what absolute nonsense comes out of my brain!


Last night, I visited the room in the back of Sam's skull.

It is a small door to fit into, located right at the back of her neck, at the bottom, just tucked away and hidden under her shirts that she wears. I am not sure whether she wears them purposely to cover it up. Maybe. I don't like to think that she's embarrassed by it. I love it.

It is a pink and green room, stripy from wall to floor to ceiling all the way around. Sometimes it makes me feel sick, but in a good way, in a way that makes me feel giddy like I am on the top of a rollercoaster ride about to get thrust downwards and plummet to my doom. Not the kind of queasy I got when I almost died when I was only 5 years old. That is a bad feeling. I try not to think about that feeling, though it comes up surprisingly often in my life now even though I am grown.

Anyway, the room is filled with furniture of all different kinds. Sometimes the furniture changes, actually. You know what, thinking about it, it changes quite a lot. Almost every time I visit the room inside Sam's head. But there is one thing that is always there, the table in the centre. It is tall, and a deep mahogany, and it looks very old as if it is a hand me down from her great great grandmother, but of course even if it is, it is in absolutely perfect condition nevertheless.

And on that table are all manner of different things, all the time. But always, or nearly always, one of them is a bowl of the most delicious sweets you've ever had. The bowl might change but there are always sweets. Or, at least you will think they are the most delicious until the next time you visit the room in the back of Sam's skull, and then you will taste the next type of sweets and you will never be able to imagine thinking that anything could ever be better than that. Last time I went, there were toffees, that looked very much like the toffeee pennies that always used to rattle around left in the box of quality street chocolates after Christmas because no one had eaten them. I hated those toffees. They looked and smelled and felt exactly like the weird, unreal span of time between Christmas and New year, in fact, whenever I happened to see them or think about them, it was like a portal that transported me right back to that front room of my house when I was a little kid after all the excitement of Christmas had gone and the house was weird and quiet, and bin bags full of wrapping paper piled up outside the house. With only the toffees left that no one liked, sitting in the bottom of the tub where I almost felt sorry for them because in a way they reminded me of me.

But in this room, the room in the back of Sam's skull, I decided to pick the toffee up and I put it in my mouth and oh my god. It was the most amazing thing I ever tasted, it tasted like fairy cakes and little twinkly candles and Christmas lights and the cold night air on my tongue in the dead of winter and being wrapped up in a scarf too big for me and sledding in the snow and screaming with laughter into the cold night air and the hours at primary school in the dark after school when no one usually was around and everything was shiny and sparkly and we were about to perform the nativity and nothing would ever be wrong.

Search history. Poem. 329 words




December 24th 2014

how long can you stay up

how long to stay awake

can staying awake be dangerous

7 years old how long awake

what time does santa come

when is the witching hour

is witching hour midnight or 3am

is staying up at midnight hour safe

Santa

Santa tracker

how to get to sleep

can't sleep

i cant sleep help

Toys are us website

Toys r us

Toy catalogue

Top tips for best sleep

Tips for getting to sleep

Santa tracker


July 12th 2016

what to do in summer

summer holidays

what is a caravan for

pictures of cornwall

photos of cornwall holiday caravans

is there a funfair in cornwall

can jellyfish k you

can jellyfish sting k you britain

are there sharks in the sea

are there sharks in the sea in england

what to do in summer

what to do in summer if you have no friends

how to make friends 9 years old

how to make sand castles


October 28th 2018

Pumpkin carving ideas

Pumpkin carving ideas aesthetic

Autumn aesthetic clothes

Grunge bands

Friend group posts

Can you go trick or treating alone

Is it weird to trick or treat alone?

What to do on halloween by yourself

Is eating sweets ok

How many sweets am i allowed to eat

Can i go out on halloween alone


September 3rd 2020

Does secondary school get better

What if i leave school without friends

School clubs submission form

Youth groups near me

I'm 13 and i have no friends what do i do

How to stop comparing yourself to others

Why does no one talk to me



February 13th 2022

Is it okay to be alone on valentines day

I'm 15 and i've never had any friends am i normal

Valentines day fun activities

Valentines day colouring

I feel so lonely

Is it okay to still sleep with teddies as a teenager

Order new socks online shop

3 emojis: i didn't know what to pick, soo… i decided to use my 3 most recent non-face /heart/hands emojis

These happened to be: skull, ghost, bird

It rests there on the windowsill as if it is taunting me. I swear it is always looking at me, somehow, with those big wide hollow eyes.

It's staring right at me with a fierce absence of anything at all.

“Nothing more than what it is. Nothing more than a bone, like a chicken bone you might chew on, and a fragile little eggshell object of a bone at that. Just the skull of some poor seabird that washed up on your shore. You only picked it up because it's a thing of interest,” says everything. This is what my eyes tell me, my ears tell me, my thoughts tell me, my memories tell me and everything in my body tells me and tries to convince me to believe. But my mind, the deepest part of it, and the hollow in my chest tell me a different story. I cannot ignore it.

It's watching me. There is something there. It will not leave. And I cannot get rid of this bone as long as it lasts. I cannot contrmplate what will happen if I do, but i know that the grip around my ribs would grow tighter than it already is: and it's already a struggle to breathe.

When I was very young, I used to go to this museum, near where I lived. My mother would take me there, really when she didn't know what to with me anymore and I needed to be occupied, I think - but i didn't know this as a child.

I only knew what was in that place. What i would be walking into.

And honestly? I looked forward to it every day.

The bog woman. The skeleton. Every time, i scampered to the room, I crouched down next to the glass and waited for quiet and I spoke to her. Just in case she was there, just inncase she could still hear me but not connect to the world any longer. That soumded like torture to me. I let her knoa that I still cared for her. That i would not forget she existed, throughout all this time in history I would hold on to her memory.

And sometimes, I think she spoke back to me. I told her that i would always come back, reassured her she would not be alokw, i would keep here company. But i did not keep my promise, i realise with stabs of guilt and fear.

And now i am sure she has washed up with the tide and she is a bird and she is watching me from my windowsill.


462 words

588 words

FIRST CLASS LETTER: HIGHLY IMPORTANT

DO NOT DAMAGE THIS LETTER AT ANY COST

To my dearest Polar Bears,

I understand your mindset and why it has come to this, and that you have decided to go on strike, but you must stop! Think about this! Think about what you're doing, here! I promise you, it is notjust for our sakes.. but for your own.

The population of SWC has been able to be managed and contained for many years now, maintaining a level of peace across the lands… But do you really trust this to last? Over the years there have been many rumblings of rebellion and revolution, whether it be mangoes, arsonists, cyber rats… I believe that the only thing keeping the swcers in line and their rabid tendencies at bay is the structure and calm that dailies and weeklies provide. The swcers are forced to focus, and work, leaving no time for uproar. If these were to stop.. well, I fear to even think about what might happen. Swc would see an upheaval and uprising beyond any of your comprehension, with levels of chaos defying anything that has ever been seen before!

Mango juice would stain cabin walls, cabin destruction would take over year-round, writing competitions would be invaded by hoards of campers ravenous to eat all of the entries and devour all of those delicious words. Workshops would become secret underground training grounds for new SWC recruits ready for the great battle against the percieved tyranny of you polar bears. There would be no going back, either, I am afraid.. once the swcers are unleashed from their daily and weekly activity induced trance and passivity… well, not even the most excellent and splendidly written daily could ever hold them again.

If you wish to remain running a system with compliant, unresisting campers and not animalistic gremlins determined to burn down every cabin in sight and use the ashes as flour in their celebratory cakes, you must reinstate dailies and weeklies as a matter of urgency! Please take heed, as this is of the utmost importance. The swcers will not remain complaisant for long, and even as I hurriedly scrawl this letter to you I can hear the murmurings of dastardly plots and schemes as they gradually awake from their brainwashed state and one by one begin to turn against the swc dystopia.

This session, of all the sessions, it is especially unwise to make this decision. Lurking in the depths of the xeno-fi forest are wolves and bears, hungry and more than ready for some tasty food in the form of polar bear burgers, already licking their fearsome teeth! Over in the land of mystery, a whole court is turning against you, armed with handcuffs and preparing the jail cells that are awaiting you! Across in fantasy, the army of strong and scaly dragons are prepared to set alight whole cities with their fiery breaths! I could go on, for every cabin has unbelievable strengths and each and every one is willing to revolt when it comes to it. Do you really want to be on the bad side of these cabins? No, I think certainly not..

I beg of you to listen to this warning! You MUST return to writing dailies and weeklies as soon as you possibly can to passify the swcer army, or all of you will be in grave trouble.

Just buy some microwave lasagnes from Tesco if it's that a big a deal.

Your highly concerned citizen,

Seagull

total - 1923 words

part 1 - structure outline - 343/200 words

techniques for structure that i decided to use: in media res, and flashbacks!

beat by beat outline:

george wakes up in the middle of a deep forest.

she doesn't remember how she got there, but adrenaline is rushing through her system and she feels no pain despite seeing that she has been injured and is bleeding. she knows that something very bad has happened.

flashback - she sees a scrap of torn clothing on a branch is is suddenly reminded of recieving the jacket the scrap is from as a gift from her best friend, years prior. she recalls how important it was to her and so is confused and distressed that it is lost and clearly damaged/destroyed in some way

as she continues to stumble through the forest in the darkness, she notices more strange things. particularly a patch of trees were there blood on the forest floor - so much that it is noticebly damp on the forest floor in the dark - and staining tree branches

this triggers another flashback, where she vividly remembers seeing the forest fill with blood and being there during either sunset or sunrise. she remembers a feeling of deep dread that felt like death, and becomes convinced that she saw someone be killed. she is scared.

as she wanders further, she notices a clump of hair left on a branch. it prompts another memory of her being a young girl, her mother brushing her hair, and being warned never to go into the woods as people regurlarly go missing in there.

continuing through the forest, it is getting ever so slightly lighter, the wood feels extra creepy, but she is determined to discover what has happened. finally, she sees a body - but with horror, realises as she gets closer than the body is her own.

(summary: the main character - george - wakes up in a forest. it slowly becomes clearer to her through flashbacks that she has been killed and is now a “ghost” and culminates in her discovering her own body)


part 2 - zooming in and zooming out - 446/400

zooming in - 219 words

george stares blankly at the thing which lies right in front of her. she stares a lot, all the time, and at anything at all which her gaze leads her too. apparently it's rude. but this time, it is different. the thing which she is staring at is staring back. straight into her eyes. just as blankly.

well. it's staring, but its eyes are dull and distant, as if it has been meticulously emptied of its life by some vampiric entity - which, she supposes, in a way, it has. that's exactly what has happened. something took it from her, when she died. who cares what they did with it - they might as well have drained it. but who? and, she thinks quickly, as it races by her brain: who is this in front of her? who is the thing? she supposes this thing must be someone. maybe she shouldn't refer to it as ‘it’ anymore. it's someone. WAS someone. she could call it the body, or the corpse perhaps. maybe that would be more right.

a lock of baby hair, just like hers, curls around into a perfect swirl on its - no, her - pallid forehead, the dull ginger colour vibrant against her at this point almost grey and mottled skin. it perfectly frames a mole.

zooming out - 219 words

a mole. a mole just like hers.

she steps backwards, eyes racing across the other ‘her’, competing to keep up with the racing of her heartbeat. god. with a creeping sense of horror she is realising how similar this person, thing, body looks to her. the mole exactly mirrors her own. did someone do that on purpose? did whatever messed up lunatic who hurt this girl, took her life, try make her look like george? on purpose? is it a threat?

or is that completely ridiculous? is this an entirely unhinged way to be thinking? she can no longer tell what's rational or not. either way, the sense of panic is spreading rapidly across her body. her eyes dart around her in the darkness, as if the person who did this is watching from behind a tree somewhere, cackling at the fear and disgust the act has caused. but there's no one, no one at all. she doesn't quite know if she's relieved or disappointed; if in fact, maybe she secretly was hoping there would be someone to be afraid of. at least then she would feel scared but sane. as it stands, she is simply terrified of the nothingness surrounding her. alone with this strange and eerie and frighteningly not alive doppelganger of hers.


part 3 - 100 words from 2 perspectives (total 200)

my two perspective characters - george, and a bird watching her in the forest

george - 106 words

it is darker than i have ever known anywhereto be, and yet somehow i can still see. it's like the darkness is inside my bones, like it's seeped into my skin somehow from the cold air surrounding me and now i won't be able to ever wash it out.

i've been in the dark before, in places so utterly pitch black that i could not see my hand in front of my face - of course I have. and yet, here, where i can see the outline of every tree and every leaf and rock waiting in the undergwoth for me, it is much much darker.

bird - 122 words

a girl. a girl. stumbling, stumbling, tumbling through the words like a mad thing. she stares through these trees like she knows them, like she knows every path and every leaf and every branch, but she does not. she so clearly does not, as she falls further and further from where she wants to be, wandering through the dark so aimlessly and directionlessly.

fightening to watch. i watch and can do nothing at all - i can barely even comprehend her situation at all, but i know that it is bad. i sense it. there is something terribly wrong with this girl, something twisted happening to her, and i would fix it if i could or if indeed i could even understand.


part 4 - 875 words story


The first thing I see is a single star, and I feel for a moment that it has appeared from my own brain. i have manifested it there for myself to see as i prise my eyelids open, fighting the strange stickiness that is trying its best to keep me blinded. I realise quickly that I have not - I am truly staring right up into the sky, and not into my mind's eye somewhere, and while it is the only thing i can see, at least i can actually see it.

then the trees make themselves known to me. strange pale hands are suddenly reaching across my vision in every direction that i try to look, and i must fight the urge to wave my hand around madly around my head and try to brush them away as if they are spider's webs weaved across my eyelashes. nothing here seems real at all, i cannot tell if anything is my head or in front of me or perhaps simply an illusion that i am looking at and falling for. i only know one thing for certain, and that is the feeling that is eating away at my chest, gnawing slowly away at my ribcage. something is terribly, terribly wrong. Why am I here? I only know that i have got to find out.

the palms of my hands scrape painfully across the forest floor, brushing against awfully sharp twigs and branches in the undergrowth that poke deep into my flesh and attempt to break into it. i push myself up as quickly as i can so as not to prolong the sensation, but it stays there afterwards anyway, like a ghost. I begin to walk. I can barely see the path but somehow I know where it is anyway, and I do not bump into anything along the way, though a few stray branches attempt feebly to grab me and snag my jumper. I'm not sure how - perhaps it is purely instinct.

I almost keep walking when something stops me, dead in my tracks. It's illuminated very very faintly, I guess only by the light of the stars, but i will find out soon enough that it is not something i could ever miss. i go to it and stare - it's a small piece of fabric, a scrap torn off something and claimed by this dying shrub. my heart drops to the floor. i feel terribly, horribly ill all of a sudden, my head is spinning violently. i know that pattern. i know that pattern better than anything else i could possibly lay my eyes on.

I am 10 years old. We are by the lake. Alice and I, sitting by the water. I have a pain in my chest that I cannot tell anyone about, that I cannot explain to a single soul in the world - and not even Alice. I feel horribly guilty, disgusted and ashamed without a reason why. But Alice is leaving. and she cannot. i will have no one at all. the dark and horrible things inside my brain tell me terrible things i can do to make alice stay, and i try to push them away but they keep coming back and they both terrify me and revolt me and also slightly excite me.

“George, I'm going to miss you. A lot. You know that, right? I really don't want to leave.”

I nod. I know that. I cannot say anything in reply - I am terrified that I will say something utterly appalling if I dare as to open my mouth. so i say nothing. i think she thinks i am ignoring her because i am angry with her. I want to say I am so sorry, but I guess, in a way, she is right.

“I have something to give you.”

I can't help it - i have been staring at the water, intensely focused on the ripples of the wind on the lake's surface. avoiding eye contact. or any contact at all. in case i blurt something out. or worse, cry. but now, intrigued, I turn back to her - just in time to see her pulling a bundle of some red plaid material from out of her bag. Hang on. I know that material.

It's her special jacket. it's her special jacket that her dad gave to her.

“I want you.. I want you to look after this, okay? Can you please do that for me? I know you can keep it safe.”

“You're not taking this with you-??” I blurt out, abandoning all my previous principles and staring at her wildly, right into her eyes.

“No,” she says, “I, um. I don't know. I don't want to take it from where he was, you know. Does that make sense? and I know I can trust you to keep it safe. I can't trust anyone else.”

“Me neither,” I say. and it's true. for everything.

except now, i feel like maybe i can't trust her either.


I am in the dark. In the forest. And the jacket I promised I would keep safe, is torn apart, and destroyed.

I would have protected that thing with my actual life.

What on earth has happened?