Writer's Journey

  Adam stayed as silent and unmoving as possible. He held his breath and curled up into a tight ball. The darkness felt oppressive, but he knew it would be worse if he left his hiding spot. Every time one of the muffled voices outside seemed to be coming closer, his heart rate skyrocketed. ‘They can hear my heart thumping! It’s so loud..’ He would irrationally think. But each time, the familiar soft voice of his sister would lead them away. The mattress on top of him barely allowed him to breath, suffocating him. He was feeling uncomfortably warm, and was sweating. Even then, in his heart, he knew that this was far better than the other option. It felt like years had passed before the doors to the little closet opened. Perhaps it had been a mere hour. Adam stayed resolutely silent. The dusty mattress was lifted off him, and warm hands hugged him tight. His nose was buried into his sister’s hair, and he could smell her faint strawberry shampoo. “Those palace officials are gone.. You...

  The black cat crossed my path, unknowing of the distress it caused me. I stared at the omen of ill fortune. It looked like it didn’t care for the doom it was bringing me, chasing a butterfly as it was. The playful swaying of its tail and its pouncing paws  made it seem unaware of its malicious nature. Perhaps I was being silly, I would have thought, if it weren’t for the string of events that had happened to me since that morning. Simply thinking back to it caused goosebumps on my skin, and my eyes flitted around for any sign of something about to occur. It all began when I dropped my hand-mirror this morning. Living in a small apartment, I have no space for a full-length mirror, so my smaller one had to make do. As my luck would have it, terrible as it seemed to be this day, it slipped through my fingers as I was brushing my hair. I haven’t even been one to believe in superstitions, so the shattered shards of the mirror on my carpet didn’t bring me any particular worry. My ...