A young man of 21 was seated on a sofa in the living room of his small yet comfortable apartment. His eyes were glued to pitch black pages and his hands moved, carving his innermost ideas and thoughts onto them with ink red as blood. The stars twinkled brightly in sparking rhythm hoping those down below would be less enthralled in the fast paced chase of life in order to appreciate their beauty. As he wrote a sweet, soft voice asking with politeness and grace for his help.

"What is it, ruby?" Elias asked his little sister who was now thirteen, still with his eyes glued to the pages of his book.

" i kind of forgot that we had an assignment due tomorrow, please don't be mad." She said, her eyes glowing with innocence enough to put the starry night to shame. Elias sighed and motioned for ruby, who had her books in hand to come sit by his side.

"What is it about?" he asked to which she replied that they were supposed to write a poem of their own and give a detailed essay on the themes and their inspirations.

"I've tried my hardest. I thought about writing one about mom and dad but i hardly remember anything about them and it makes me feel so guilty, like I'm dishonouring their memory. And everything else I've tried just doesn't feel right.

.....

Sometime In The Future

Eight people slowly woke up from a deep trance only to find themselves in an unfamiliar setting. The skies were a mix of blood red and gray and the ground was covered in a black sludge they couldn't distinguish.

" we did it we finally managed to escape that dreadful place," one of them stated

" wait a minute,where are we?, what is this place?" as they became aware of their surroundings they grew extremely wary and afraid. This wasn't the earth they know and there was no way the skies were red and gray. Maybe they hadn't escaped at all.

As they were debating and fighting amongst themselves one of them crashed onto the ground screaming. The sound of bones snapping echoed throughout the bizzare world the found themselves in. They all rushed to check up on her but another individual also started screaming. As they turned to him they saw both his eyes in the palm of his hand with blood dripping from their sockets. Before they could scramble out of their horrified status another scream was heard and when the unaffected turned to him they saw what looked like a cicada's wing rip out of his back