Ruby Red Psychosis

***Please note that our March picture prompt will post on Thursday, March 6th instead of the first of the month. So stay tuned!***

I turn off my car and absentmindedly rub the keys between my fingers. I don’t need to drive anymore. It’s about to happen. Too bad I have no earthly idea where I am. The snow is coming down pretty heavily now, and I figure I better let my therapist know that I won’t be making it to our session today. I am about to change, after all. My cell phone is dead though, so I'd pulled over at the first phone booth I saw. They’re few and far between these days, but this particular one is painted red, as if to shout to passersby, “I WORK! USE ME! I’m much safer than talking on your cell phone while you drive!”

            I climb out of the car, shivering a little as I jog towards the phone booth.  It’s too damn cold for anyone to be out here today, including me. A gust of icy wind slithers into my jacket, slipping up the holes around my wrists, down the opening around my neck, through the slits in the fabric that hug my buttons. I shove my hands into my pockets, even though they don’t really offer much warmth. I should have brought some gloves, but I don’t think I even own any. Guys like me don’t need gloves, because guys like me usually stay inside when it’s ten degrees outside.

 My coat flutters around my hips as the wind sneaks through the crack in the door, blowing small flurries of the falling snow into the booth with me, dusting my shoes like powdered sugar. As I grab the phone, someone bangs on the door. It’s a pretty girl with curly brown hair and a smile that matches the color of the phone booth. Her cherry red lips look like something I’d like to taste, but I don’t have time for that right now. I’ve got to get somewhere safe before I change.

Her eyes, which are the color of a dull nickel, slowly rise to meet mine.

“Where the hell did you come from?” I ask.

As I wait for her reply, I blow into my hands and rub them together, hoping that will warm them up a little. She frowns. Without a word, she reaches out and takes both of my hands between her own.

“Why don’t you have on gloves?” she asks me as she slowly starts to massage some warmth into my fingers.

It takes me a second to be able to force my mind to produce words. Her hands feel like the scalding heat of a flame on my near-frozen skin. My muscles are starting to twitch and clench under my skin, and it throws off my concentration. I need to get out of here.

“I… um… I just needed to make a quick call,” I finally manage to choke out. I slowly pull my hands away from hers and shove them back into my jacket pockets. “Didn’t think I’d need them for such a short time.”

“You live around here?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I have no idea where I am, actually. I just started driving, and this is where I ended up.”

She smiles and takes a deep breath. “This is probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but you look like you could use a hot meal and a nap. I actually followed you here because I saw how you’d been weaving all over the road. I think… I think I can help you.”

Her voice trickles to a whisper and her gaze falls to my chest. She looks… hungry, or something.

“But I don’t even know you,” I say with a smirk. “What if you’re a rapist or a murderer?”

She raises an eyebrow, and looks me up and down. My 6’3 frame next her small one is almost laughable. “Yeah. Like that’s even possible.”

“Ok, ok. How do you know I’M not a rapist or murderer?”

Her red lips curl into a grin. “I can see the best and worst and people. And like I said, I think I can help you.”

There’s something about her—something that’s drawing me to her, something I can’t put my finger on. I figure it can’t hurt to have a pretty girl make me some soup and crash on her couch for the night, so I follow her out into the snow. Everything else can wait.

***

A cloud of dust flies up from the floorboards, as she drops her purse onto the floor of her tiny, old cabin, but the girl walks right through it. It blankets her silhouette like a choking hand, but she doesn’t seem to notice, or care. The cabin is unbearably hot, like the way her hands felt when they melted into my skin earlier. It isn’t pleasant at all. It’s like an electric shock to my system after being in the intense cold outside. The musty smell of the old cabin turns my stomach.

I really shouldn’t have let her bring me here. I’m about to change. I thought I could fight it for another day, but I don’t think I can. I don’t want to hurt her, or anyone for that matter. But the itching inside my bones is starting to get worse

            “Um…miss?” I say.

She snaps a glance over her shoulder. “It’s Jana.”

“Right. Jana. I think you should leave for a little while. I can’t… I can’t be… around people right now.”

I can barely finish the last sentence because my teeth are starting to shift and dance inside my gums, and the pain of my body contracting like a dying spider tears me from the inside out.

“Really…” I try to force the words through my lips. “You need to go. Now.”

The change of cold to hot so quickly has been my undoing. It has never affected me so quickly before. I close my eyes and fall to my knees as agony shoots through every cell in my body.           

Hands—hands as hot as fire—grab my cheeks, and pull me back to my feet.

“Man up, dude. I’m here to help you,” she says, her voice dark and low like it was sipped from a cup of fine espresso and spewed through her lips. How does she know what I am?

“Nobody can help me… This… curse… is permanent. I don’t want to hurt you, just go, ok?”

Her fingernails dig into my cheeks and pop into my skin like needles. I can vaguely feel a warm stream of blood run down my face. That doesn’t help with my problem. It just makes every hair on my body stand on edge. A shudder rips through me and I can’t stop shaking. It’s about to happen, I can feel it bubbling in my veins. This is always the worst part.

            Oh so I’ve always thought.

            Her hand explodes through my chest and wraps tightly around my heart. I fall to the ground again, and this time she lets me. She falls with me, landing on top of my torso as she squeezes her damn furnace fingers around my heart. I can’t even make a sound, a scream, a whine, anything, because her other hand is gripping my mouth like it’s been welded there.

            Fire rips through every pore, every vein, every breath, and I wish I would just die already. It’s not fair that I have to feel this pain.

And then she’s gone. I take a gasping, gulping breath and pull my hand to my chest, which is slick with my blood. But there is no hole, no wound at all. I press my back into the cold hardwood floor, and imagine my skin taking on the shape of the grain, my spine speckled and dotted with knots where limbs used to grow.

One of the boards has a sharp, unsanded corner, and every time I take a breath, it picks at the skin in the curve of my lower back. The slight irritation is the only thing keeping me awake at this point. I want to pass out, but I know I don’t really deserve that peace. I let my hand slide off of my stomach and onto the floor. I don’t even flinch when the blood on it spatters little droplets onto my side.

It suddenly starts to itch inside my heart like it used to inside my bones right before I would change. I lose myself in a coughing fit, and I’m afraid that this will make me explode into million pieces.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and when I open them again, I’m standing in a red phone booth. My coat flutters around my hips as the wind sneaks through the crack in the door, blowing small flurries of the falling snow into the booth with me, dusting my shoes like powdered sugar. As I grab the phone to call a cab since I have no idea how I got here, someone bangs on the door. It’s a pretty girl with curly brown hair and a smile that matches the color of the phone booth. Her cherry red lips look like something I’d like to taste, but I don’t have time for that right now. I’ve got to get somewhere safe before I change.

Photo By: wintersixfour

Story By: Stefanie Marks

The Watch

The red phone booth appears in the clearing, still bright under the moonlight despite its age, and I know I’m close. There’s a chance now that I might make it. I run a little faster, arms and legs pumping, chest tight with the effort to breathe.

Two hundred feet. Maybe less.

The night has lasted forever and just a few minutes at the same time, the events of the last several hours alternately playing in slow motion and high speed in my brain. Three hours ago I was coming out of the booth with Ryder, Tuck, and Vi to explore the ruins for the first time on our own. We hadn’t exactly asked for permission, but then if we had, we wouldn’t have gotten it. The ruins are for soldiers and scavengers, not for us—even if the four of us are only a mere year away from being drafted into service. Three hours ago leaving New Sanctuary hadn’t seemed like a good idea exactly, but it had seemed like an adventure of the grand kind found in the few books kept in the school building: dangerous, but somehow not when taken on together. All it took was Ryder’s hand over my own, covering it completely, his fingers lining up with mine to make my resolve not to go dissolve.

We’d jogged the miles to the ruins in silence, but not because anyone in New Sanctuary would hear us. Once we passed through the iron and steel door in the giant stone wall surrounding it and through the red phone booth into the snow beyond we were in Wanderers’ territory. They didn’t tend to hang around the wall in winter—that much is true. The cold seemed to make them sluggish and prone to hibernating in the tunnels under the Ruins, but there was always a chance that one would be awake and hungry and so we were careful to step lightly and keep our mouths shut tight. Still, Ryder managed to look back at me a dozen times, smiling encouragingly every time I faltered, hesitated. Out of the four of us I am always the fearful, doubting one. I would’ve never left New Sanctuary this way had he not asked me, had I not been afraid that if I didn’t, he might start asking someone else.

The Ruins were terrifying in the moonlight, but magical too—all dressed in snow and ice. If I didn’t know what hid inside them I might’ve been tempted to linger at the frosted windows and open doorways, to sift through what was left of the world before.

“Over there, on the left,” Ryder said, his voice sure and calm even now, maybe especially now. Growing up he was the first of us to scale the wall on a dare and walk the length of it while Wanderers howled down below, fruitlessly trying to scrabble up the stone. I climbed it just the once, the day he asked my father if he could call on me. We kissed up there, sitting on the stone, but even in broad daylight I was too nervous to enjoy it fully. I felt Wanderer eyes on me every minute until the kiss went from exciting to excruciating since we were so exposed. Ryder leaned over then brushed his lips against mine as if he’s reading my mind and checking to see if despite my coming along tonight I had changed it. I put my hand on his neck and pull him closer, let the tip of my tongue trace his upper lip. I couldn’t help smiling when he let out a shuddery breath. Let Vi compete with that.

She was watching us, her eyes every bit as dangerous as any Wanderers and I couldn’t help thinking that sometimes New Sanctuary has its risks too.

We trudged forward in a line towards the building Ryder wanted us to explore. His father had been out there last week and the building looked like the one marked on his map—low and rectangular with a sign marked “Costco” on the side of the bricks near large glass doors, broken out enough in places to allow us to crawl through. The building was dark inside. Quiet. I shone my flashlight on the entrance, through it to the gloom beyond. There was no sign of eye shine or the unmistakable howl of Wanderers. This didn’t mean we are safe though. The building was long even if it was not high and there were no windows or doors beyond the entrance, save for a few rolling metal ones around the back.

Ryder and Tuck pulled their guns off of their shoulders, held them at the ready. Vi followed suit. I refused their offer of a gun myself, choosing instead my father’s knife—so sharp that he could cut scrap metal as easily as butter. I liked the way it felt in my hand. Guns don’t sit in between your palm and fingers the same way. It means that any Wanderer that might come for me would get very close before I could use it, but somehow I still felt safer with it. Father had spent most of my childhood teaching me how to use it. Even Ryder is impressed by my skills.

Vi went into the building first. She looked back at Ryder and winked before she plunged into the dark, becoming nothing but a moving shadow, a silhouette. Ryder shook his head and laughed, whistled low under his breath so that I had to strain to hear it. I didn’t like that whistle so I went next, except I didn’t wink at him on my way in, I elbowed him instead.

Tuck and Ryder entered together, their guns already sweeping the space as if the steel had the capability to sniff the Wanderers out. Ryder leaned towards us, jabbed his fingers toward the sign that read Jewelry and motioned for us to follow him. Vi glared at me then, but she didn’t say anything.

We approached the old counter on tiptoe and leaned over the open display. There was a mess of debris inside, but my flashlight picked up the glint of the old watch right away. The diamonds circling its face were still bright. Ryder grabbed my free hand and pulled me towards it. My heart beat a little faster. I’d hoped that this was what we were coming for, but there was always the chance that he wanted to try for the last of the canned goods or medicines.

“What do you think?” he asked as he plucked it from the dirt and dried leaves…and bones.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed and it was. It was just as lovely as the men described it that night around the campfire when they told tales of this place and what they’d seen. The watch was originally meant for Ryder’s mother. His father had been here a dozen times to try and get it for her, but the first few times it had been mounted tight to some kind of velvet board and then the last few times they’d been ambushed by Wanderers. He’d planned to come back in the summer when the sun was out longer and the sky would light up the front of the store enough to keep the Wanderers at bay, but in the past few months Ryder and I had gotten closer and somewhere along the way he wasn’t planning the scavenge for his wife anymore, but for me. The watch was to be Ryder’s engagement gift—except Ryder never liked the idea of his dad getting the watch on his behalf. I was going to be his wife and he wanted to get it himself.

Vi snatched the watch from his hand and draped it along her wrist. “Lovely. Like a medal or something. I like it.” Her eyes cut to mine and I had the urge to slap her cheek and snatch the watch myself. But it felt odd to fight her for it. It felt like Ryder should be scolding her and taking it back instead. He stared at the watch on her wrist for a second as if mesmerized before he held out his hand palm up and waited for her to give it to him. She stared at him and something passes between them: intimate and awful in its longing.

When Tucker started to scream they were still looking into each other’s eyes and I was gripping the knife so hard that my knuckles hurt. Tucker’s gun went off, a brief burst of orange sparks lit up the dark around him, enough for all of us to see the Wanderer before it drug him off.

We drew together and formed a tight circle, each of us facing out the way we’d been taught. My heart was a galloping horse inside my chest. The first howl split the quiet and then there was just the sound of Tuck shrieking as somewhere in the dark he was ripped in two. We moved together as swiftly as we could towards the door while still holding our circular formation. There was the sound of claws against cement and the stench of sweat and musk and fur.

When we were close enough to the door Ryder yelled “Run!” and we took off for the outside, feet slipping in the snow a bit. I felt something brush my foot before I gain traction and I screamed, but when I looked around for help Ryder and Vi were gone. There was only the snow and the dark outline of the other ruins. When the screaming started this time it was two voices making it. I let out a sob and ran for the trees and the field beyond.

 They are gone, they are all gone and now there is only me.

There must have only been three Wanderers because now I am suddenly alone. I run a bit faster, but my legs feel heavy and wooden and my throat is so tight I can’t breathe. I head for the wall and the bright red booth. I can see it now, a dot the color of blood peeking out above the snow.

When the screaming stops I know I am out of time, but I am close enough to make it. Maybe.

My lungs are on fire. I need to stop, but I don’t, even when the fuzzy black circles start popping up in front of my eyes.

Branches snap behind me and then there is the ragged sound of them panting. They are close.

Oh God.

I run faster.

The booth is before me a moment later and then I am through the door though for a painful moment my fingers shake so badly it feels like I won’t be able to open it. I close the door just as the first of them smashes into it. Quickly, I slide the steel bars across the door—all three. The thing, as if sensing it’s already too late lets out a howl so long and loud that it reverberates inside the booth and I cover my ears, my knife clattering to the floor. I grab for the door at the back of the booth, the one that leads into the tunnel to New Sanctuary, but it’s locked. It won’t be opened again until morning when the first scavengers go out. I am stuck here until then.

Outside the Wanderer settles, stops bashing the door with its bulk and begins to pace. I push myself into the corner of the booth farthest from the outside door and try to calm down. The booth was reinforced long ago to withstand their attacks. I am safe enough inside.

“Sarah.”

I am not expecting to hear my name or see the familiar silhouette of Ryder outside the door. The creature looks up at him and howls and I watch as he puts out his hand to pet it. His head lolls to one side at a funny angle where he was bitten.

“Sarah, let me in,” he says, his voice rough, but warm like always, coaxing. Tears pool in my eyes and spill out onto my cheeks, my jacket.

“Please, Sarah. It’s not too late.” He puts a hand on the booth and something clatters against it. I lean forward in spite of myself and peer through the occluded glass as best I can, but I don’t have to see it to know what it is. The watch.

It was supposed to be mine. He was supposed to be mine. Maybe he didn’t love me the way he loved Vi, but he needed me, he’d always needed me in a way she never understood. We were soul mates—the kind born of friendship and history. I ached to open the door all of the sudden, to reach out and take his hand, to let him put the watch on me and take me with him and the others, even if it might mean being one of them.

How can I stay in New Sanctuary without him? How can I leave it to patrol the Ruins knowing he might be out there waiting? That I might one day have to kill him?

I put my hand on the door and he mirrors my movement from outside. He leans his forehead against it and I can see the circle of skin pressed to the glass, the faint outline of his hair.

“Sarah, please,” he says and there is still so much of him in his voice that I begin to move the first steel bar off the door without thinking about it. If I am brave I will open the door enough to stab him through it and end the transitioning. I move the second steel bar slowly out of the way. I can be brave enough, I have to be. I stoop down and grab my father’s knife. I put my hand on the last bar and slowly slide it out of the way too. Ryder’s hands pry open the door the moment the bar clears it, the watch still dangling from his fingers. Our eyes meet. For a moment he is Ryder, the Ryder I rode bikes with and skipped stones with. The Ryder I kissed less than an hour ago. But then the irises of his eyes begin to go red, as red as the booth that we’re standing in.

“Sarah,” he growls.

I reach out to him, my hand closing around the wound at his neck as I bring my knife into his chest then drive it upward. He howls—a very un-Ryder like sound and the watch drops from his fingers to the floor, falling between us. I push him back through the door, careful not to look at his face—more Wanderer now in the moonlight flooding in from outside.

I pick up the watch and with trembling hands try to throw it into the snow, but in the end I can’t and so I slip it into my pocket and wait for sunrise.

Story by: Amy Christine Parker

Photo by: wintersixfour

Observer

Observer

It’s kinda weird to watch the world unravel. To witness people getting shoved into blankets of snow now dented and dirtied into gray slush. To see those people, men, women, children, babies--no one is safe against the wave--bodies pressed deeper into the wetness, mouths taking in gobs of slush and cries barely heard. What could be thought of as snow angels are in the ground but instead there are lumps of where people fell and struggled to get back up.

A hand squeezes mine, a faint squeeze, unsure, kind of like a dull heartbeat. I squeeze back to let my sister know I’m here. Her face is pressed against my coat. I refuse to let her see the worst parts. She can hear it of course. It’s not like the phone booth we’re in is soundproof. The glass is cold to the touch and the wind thrums against it at a steady percussive rhythm.

My sister says something garbled into my coat but I clench her tighter watching while a man kicks someone in front of him, not prompted or anything. That person goes down into the ivory blanket face first. The man steps atop the body and keeps moving, his next step pushing his victim’s head further into the snow and it’s almost like I can hear the crunch of his shoe on the skull that I need to shut my eyes.

“Mmmpfhh,” my sister says. Maybe my nails are digging deep into her down coat but I see the drops of rust seep into the ivory around the person lying on the ground. The opposite of a snow angel.

The herd moves past us. Not noticing the booth we’re in, how it stands out amidst the streets and trees and snow. Perhaps from yards away no one is thinking about two girls in there scared out of their wits while hoping they’re invisible for the first time ever.

Our parents told us to run. They shouted it at us while zipping up our coats and wrapping our heads in scarves. My sister with tears in her eyes and me trying to hold them back as we were shoved, tripping down stairs in our apartment building and then outside. Snow up to our ankles, more of it falling into the open crevices of my coat. In my father’s brown eyes his fear matched his voice. “Run and don’t look back,” he said. I did as I was told, my sister rarely ever does.

My sister squirms in my hold but manages to speak actual words.

“I’m hot!” she mutters, angry.

“Shush!” I grab her again but she pulls away. There’s not a lot of space in this booth but when she backs away her head hits the telephone and jars it enough to fall on her head. I almost laugh. She doesn’t find it funny and rubs her head with a mashed look on her face willing me to shut up. I do.

“Not funny,” she insists.

“Sorry, moonbug,” I say. And just as her eyes try to focus on the outside I hear the crack in the air, practically splitting it. I hunch down and grab her with me so that we’re on the wet and dirty ground of the booth. I already feel the slush of snow we brought in seep into my jeans and the heat of my sister’s breath on my cheek. When I peek through the windows I see the smoking gun and the white clouds coming out the mouth of a woman holding it. The man who did the kicking before is laid out, arms spread, oozing life, just like the one he did in.

The woman wears a long skirt. She lifts it up revealing boots tied up her calves and takes delicate steps in the snow. She leans down at the man's victim. Her lips move, maybe saying a prayer, maybe a curse. She kisses the top of his head, bows hers, and closes her eyes. After a moment she rises. Other people have scattered from the sound. My sister and I remain crouched, invisible. That is, until her focus lands on us. She squints her eyes our way. I turn my head, cuddle up to my sister hoping the gray wool of our coats make us indistinct inside the booth, but it’s the booth that stands out. Red, tall, and imposing amidst the snow. I wait. Hearing the snow fold under feet, the swish of a skirt slide and bunch up the elements under her. Then there’s the whoosh of a breeze when the door folds in. When I look up she holds the gun, barrel down, and smiles at us.

“Ladies, don’t you know the end of the world is coming?” she asks like it’s the most natural question in the world.

I don’t say anything. My teeth chatter too much for me to even respond. I tremble so much I don’t know if it’s just me or if my sister is adding to it.

“Come on now.” She beckons with the nose of the gun as if it’s her finger and not a weapon. “C’mon. I don’t bite. Enough people out there doing biting for us. Us ladies have to stick together.” She winks at me. I don’t move and don’t allow my sister to move under me. We’re merged together and I’ll be damned if we’re headed anywhere with someone who’s packing.

It’s not until a shadow hovers over her, piercing through darkening the booth inside. It’s when the man lurches for her and, without a glance backwards, she flips the gun under her palm to face behind her and clicks with no hesitation that another body falls. He thumps right onto the ground with white powder spraying up under him. That's when I understand how true her words are.

“I’m Celeste by the way,” she says, tucking the weapon into a holster around her skirt. 

_________________________________________________________________________

Story by: Jenn Baker 

Photo by: wintersixfour

An Unknown Cost

By: Krystalyn

They said that if you put in a Susan B Anthony instead of a quarter, it granted one wish.  I'd never tested it out personally, but I'd heard plenty of stories handed down by my dentist and my hairdresser and anyone else who deemed me a captive audience. 

I'd never tried it. I'd never wanted to until the one day I did.

The ground had been touched by snow, not enough to cancel school, but enough to prove that it was darn cold out. My eyes watered and my bones shivered as I walked home. I just wanted to get home, so I wasn't paying attention to the "Walk/Don't Walk" sign. I took a step off the sidewalk and flung myself into the intersection. 

The sound of screeching tires froze my blood in a way that the cold never could. The bright red letters of the "Don't Walk" sign came sharply into focus. And that's all I saw.

The next thing I remember is staring into the driver's side of the wrecked car. The bloody man lay back against the head rest. The air bag rested in a pool across his body. The part covering his stomach moved, barely.

"He's breathing! He's still breathing!" yelled a voice shockingly close to my ear. "Call 911!"

I jammed my hand into my pocket to pull out my phone, but I couldn't figure out how it worked. "I can't. I can't..."

The owner of the voice yanked the phone out of my hand. Her words echoed distantly as she issued directions to the operator. 

I kept my gaze locked on the man. Each tiny movement of the air bag was one more breath. If I kept watching, he would keep breathing. I had to believe that I could fix him.

I vaguely registered sirens and flashing lights. Eventually, someone pulled me away. They asked me if I was fine.

"No, I'm not." I wasn't hurt, but I wasn't fine.

They guided me into an ambulance.

***

Hours at the hospital. Waiting room. Talks of surgery. Whispering adults. Sobbing children.

And thoughts. Well, just one actually.

I did this.

At first, I didn't think about the phone booth. Those stories I'd heard while getting my teeth drilled or my hair chopped had taught me that certain types of knowledge came for a price far greater than the Susan B Anthony.

Skinny Pete asked for the winner of the Super Bowl so he could bet a ton of money on it and live like a king. He sure did win, but the next day, lost his arm in a freak lawn mower accident.

Lily King asked how to get the hottest guy in our county. She got him, but then he stole every cent she'd earned as a Bob Evans waitress and skipped town.

Stupid people, I'd always thought. They threw their lives away for wishes.

But sitting in that hospital room, I suddenly understood the allure of wishes. My thoughts drifted to that shiny red phone booth and the promise that it offered. I wasn't asking for love or money. I was asking for the most essential thing a human body needs - life. My cost would be steep.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I left the hospital and walked down to the all night laundromat. They had a change machine that gave out dollar coins. I put a five in, the only cash I had. Out came four Sacajaweas and one Susan B Anthony. I left the Sacajaweas on a counter for someone else to use and headed for the phone booth.

It was a long walk to the outskirts of town. I shivered the whole way even though I didn't feel the cold. The stretch of road was deserted. The booth looked lonely, like it needed me to come inside. I stared at the door. The red color reminded me too much of the man's blood and how it covered his body. When the color had burned into my eyes like a permanent after flash, I stepped inside. 

I ran my thumb over Susan's face, felt the soft bumps. One dollar. And an unknown cost.

I picked up the receiver and shoved the coin into the slot. A soft crackle filled my ear for an eternity before an ancient voice finally asked, "What is your wish?"

***

"He made it," the doctor said.

Cheering wife. Jumping children. And me, sitting in the corner until everyone had gone to see then man that was the center of their lives. 

I sat alone, my hand propping up my head until I heard feet shuffling through the doorway. An ancient voice spoke softly. "It's time."

***
Photo By: wintersixfour

February Inspiration

It's a new month and so here's a new story inspiration picture. Hope it gets your creative juices flowing. If you end up writing a story, don't forget to send it our way. We'd love to post it here!

Photo By: wintersixfour