Author: Elizabeth

Elizabeth Rossi (11) | STAFF REPORTER

Francis couldn’t remember the last time she’d lived; truly and most unapologetically lived. It didn’t feel real, her days more empirical than whole experiences themselves. One more day simmered beneath the scorch of her own hatred. One more night of deserving nothing short of the next day. Her good eye, hazel unlike the dulled grey of her left, tracked the alcohol’s curl within the small glass in her gloved hand. She never liked drinking; didn’t do much except hurt her head but the burn of it was grounding. The straw-haired girl pressed the rim to her lips chewed with cuts and the past’s brandings, downing the sharp liquid at a paced rate. read more

Elizabeth Rossi (11) | STAFF REPORTER

Town population: 6,918.

Non-human population: Unknown. 

Rowan adjusted the wire frames atop his nose bridge, pencil flicking to and fro between his fingers within the other hand as he stared down at the newly scribbled statement front and center of his journal. He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, feeling the gap between as he sunk further into thought. The diner was humming with the clattering of dishes and utensils scrapping the contents off of them, a sound that he didn’t mind but Kirsty seemed to feel differently. The dark-haired girl’s lips were pulled down, brows drawn together in a scowl that seemed to be permanent as she glared at nothing in particular. Her hands were fidgeting with one of the many braids trailing over her shoulder as a few had come undone from their earlier hunt. Even Mila was uncharacteristically quiet considering the ecstatic thrum she would normally have about her, half asleep against the pane of the window. The blonde’s ringlets were partially uncurled but still, somehow, retained enough shape to practically cushion her lolled head. She had felt sick from the start of the evening up until now, nauseous and unwilling to nurse any drinks or food. Mila had told them that the house they’d visited reeked so profusely it hurt her head but the others hadn’t smelled anything.  read more

Elizabeth Rossi (11) | STAFF REPORTER

Deadbolts, check. Door chains, check. Peephole covered, check.

The buzz of a rerun Tuesday night sitcom filled the dank living room with a cyclical laugh track. In the dingy kitchen, painted by the acidic yellowed bulb of the ceiling light was a kettle upon the stove. The gaseous flames, indigo and abstract, licked wildly as they sparked beneath the griddle but hardly bathed the iron in heat, seemingly taking their time with the matter. Pinned against the decoloured wallpaper, its peels having curled forward from age, stood the grandfather clock, rigid and familiar. It’d been a week since the last incident when their security cameras had stopped working. Then the time before that, their garage doors had opened while they were away at work.  read more

Elizabeth Rossi (11) | STAFF REPORTER

I don’t know my name or face anymore. I can’t remember how or when it happened. I don’t even know if it did. I can’t remember the beginning or the end. read more

Elizabeth Rossi (11) | STAFF REPORTER

The hallucinations were the same as always. The same three-eyed felines and one too many winged birds slinking between the branches outside her window, singing away. Pollen and dust clouded the creases of her walls and furniture in a hydrodip smog. Her hands wove around the stem of one of the cocooned buds, too young to flower. The plant couldn’t help its innate hunger to spread, seemingly starved and equally as determined to leave no surface within the basement untouched.   read more

It doesn’t bother me, the notion of being another little person with another little name.

No documents or history, or star-stricken revelations to praise for times indefinite. Instead, only a half scratched out name on a few sticky notes and receipts. read more