Beautiful Brown Haired Girl.
by JEFFJSB

Comment:
She stood there every day, and watched the world move. People would come and go. They would talk and laugh and cry. They would ignore her completely, or stand and look for a moment, or some would tease and pose for photographs or abuse her in ways she would try to forget.

Now and then, some kind person would come along and change her clothing for her, or style her hair, or give her a bit of a makeover, and that was nice. It was a horrible, horrible thing, this affliction that she suffered, and she often wondered if anyone even knew that she was there. She often thought that they saw her as some kind of non-living thing, an amusement, or a toy. If she could cry, even a single tear she thought, that would show them, but even that small symbol of humanity seemed to be beyond her. Her frustration and sorrow and heart-break would go on, it seemed, without notice.

She stood there every day, and watched the world go on, and longed to be a part of it and move as they did, and laugh as they did, and know the joys of food and touch and kisses and dancing and laughter and tears.

She stood there every day, and every day, she died a little more inside.

Anatolian Mood
by Pascal

Comment:
Every morning, without fail, she would be there. Standing on the rise, she would lift her hand and face and voice to the heavens, and she would sing.

For as long as they could remember, she was there, her song for the listening, marking each day. For some, that song carried them through their childhood, through the pain of adolescence, through the discovery of young adulthood, until one day they found themselves stopping to listen and then gazing down at their own children's faces to see the wonder there as a new generation heard her song.

For as long as they could remember, she was there, but even memory must end some day, and so too her song. So it was that one morning, when the rise stood empty, the air was still, the morning quieter than they could ever remember it being. So they gathered, and they placed remembrances at that spot, and they circled around...

... and they sang her song.

S. T.
by Lorenza F

Comment:
In the dark of night, in whitewashed dreams, came the tortured version of what she only knew as her inner self. That tortured creature battling demons and personal blockades that melted during the daylight, but came to horrific and detailed life in her sleep.

Wrapped in the bandages of her failures, she fought. Reaching for the paper butterflies of her future, struggling hard to wrap her fingers around the prize. She stretched out and fought, but never seemed to get much closer, those bright and fragile winged creatures always flitting just beyond fingertip reach.

What would become of her, if she ever grabbed her fractured vision of a colorful and beautiful future in those dreams? What would she do if the anxieties that clung to her in wrap and gauze were to ever fall away? What might happen if she were to awake, to find her fingers cupped, and one of those butterflies flitting inside, and to finally know hope and freedom?

In the dark of night, in whitewashed dreams, she found a power that hadn't been there before, a gleam in her one good eye, her body taut and ready and reached out with lightning quickness...

The Hunter
by AP

Comment:
Sadly, though he was a little happy with the goose that he got, his real target got away. He swore though, to keep on hunting, to keep on pursuing that elusive prey.

He swore that he would get Cheney back for that little incident so many years ago.

The Blues
by sir_bazz

Comment:
She crouched near the edge of the pool, at the spot where it had happened. She crouched there and released a single white rose on the water, a tear making a streak down her cheek, her chest threatening to erupt into uncontrollable sobs.

She'd lost him here, some weeks before, her sweet little boy, her life, her everything. She'd lost him here when he'd somehow got the back door open, while she was in the shower, and that door should have been locked, and usually was and it was all her fault and how could anyone ever forgive her? How could they, when she'd never be able to forgive herself.

She crouched there, and watched the rose float upon the clear blue waters and she did then start to cry, as the emptiness and loss and pain took over, and she closed her eyes and broke the surface of the water with a single finger, and begged whatever god was listening to bring her baby back...

...and that was when it grabbed her hand. Her eyes flew open in shock, and what she saw filled her with both terror and joy. What had seized her hand was him. Her little boy. Returned from his watery grave, and he stared at her through those goggles that he had loved so much, and he came out of the water, and his eyes were dark and dead and empty, and she screamed.

With a bubbly, choked voice he called out to her, "mommy, join me", and yanked her hand with a strength unfathomable. She tried to resist, because she suddenly realized with horror that this could not really be her boy, not really. This was something else, something horrible and evil and this was NOT HER BOY, but her strength gave out as she saw its face, and it grinned, just a little, but it was the grin of her baby, and her heart gave out and her eyes closed, and she let herself go.

She disappeared beneath the water, and the rose splashed back out onto the deck...

... and her body was never found.

Down on the Farm
by SaraR

Comment:
He stood there, ears perked, suddenly cautious and wary, perceiving the strange presence that had entered his field. Perhaps if he stayed still, did not move, it wouldn't notice him, this presence. This beast. This stalking hulk of a menace that surely meant to make him its prey, to devour him or tear him apart and he would never make it home to his family, and they had so many mouths to feed and what would his wife do without him and oh no, the beast was inching ever so closer, with that tangled hair and that smell of death about it and it wasn't working he couldn't just stand here like this it knew he was there and it was almost withing striking distance and he hadtogetawaygetawaygottogetawayrunRUNRRRUUUNNN!!!!

"EEEEEEE!!!" The creature cried, "It's a widdle bunny wabbit!!!"

He bolted.

Unfathom'd dells and undiscover'd woods
by Schmeldontino

Comment:
In the mists of time and place, along a path long forgotten, lies the way to a future that we can never conceive. As the mists coalesce into dew, building upon the boughs and the branches, to finally trace a path through the emptiness and strike the waters below, one man sets upon that path. Finding it by luck and random chance, lost for days in the thick and unforgiving forest, he goes to his knees and gives a thankful cry.

And so with one foot in front of the other, he sets off down this salvation, into the deepening fog, his form turning to shadow, then melting away, towards what he hopes is civilization and rescue. Instead, he unwittingly enters a world that is not his own, a world apart and between, a world of horror and fantasy, and is lost to time.

Our Youngest
by elru21

Comment:
Wow, you got top 10 with a baby shot!?

I bow to your magnificence!

Pay Phone
by bvy

Comment:
They had searched for him everywhere. When he disappeared the night before, after an argument that resulted in screams and tears and slammed doors, they thought that he'd just gone out to blow off some steam. They'd figured he'd be back once he'd calmed down, and thought things through and needed to be back in safer arms and a warm bed.

However, as the night wore on, and morning approached, and there was still no sign of him, they began to fear. The worry stretched in to anxiety, which then stretched into panic. The authorities were called, and by early evening the next day, the search parties were out. They combed the woods, they called the friends, they searched the stores and theaters and hospitals, but no trace was found.

Then, in the wee hours of that next morning, while darkness still lay over the land, the phone rang. Tearfully, his mother picked it up, and broke into a flood of emotion as she heard his voice.

"Mama, I'm so sorry, I just want to come home."

x X
by posthumous

Comment:
It had been the Summer Camp from hell, they had known this, but nothing could prepare them for the punishment they got after they'd put a frog in Susie's bed. Had they known, they probably wouldn't have done it. Had they known, they'd probably have tried running from that camp for their lives.

Billy and Keith probably would have done things differently, but now it was too late, and as they stood there desperately trying to keep the walls from closing in on them with what little meager strength they had, they could only regret.

It was definitely the Summer Camp from Hell.