The Hunted by Hayden Larsen

 It is coming! Running as fast as the wind blows, I cry out as I run through the streets. hoping beyond hopes that my screams will be heard and save me from the thing that is after me.

As I am running I hear a horrible scream of maniacal laughter mixed with the sound of the pattering of clawed feet behind me. As I run down a dark ally in hopes of evading “The Being” behind me, my hopes are shattered as I see to my horror I have came across a dead end. No one will ever find me–even my very bones will not be found. The only one that will know is him:  The Eye.

As I turn around to face the nightmare behind me I see nothing at first, then a shadow comes across the ally as I finally see what I have been running from.

The Being stands seven-feet tall on two muscular legs housing three clawed feet.  The creature's head is hideously deformed and dome shaped, but that is not what startled me the most, as the eye that is filled with both insanity, and pure evil, but there is also a light in its eye that suggested that its life is made up of tragedy and horror. The wide mouth that is filled with razor sharp thin, needle-like teeth.  The mouth is almost transfixed into a psychotic smile and its two long extremely muscular arms that house four long dagger-like claws that could rip a man in two with incredible ease, and the long sharp spike on each of its elbows....

The Being’s flesh is covered with crusty blood red flesh that has an assortment of scars on its chest and a long scar across his eye. The eye fixates on me now, staring into my soul. The creature’s mouth changes into an evil smile as it takes one step closer, and another, and yet another. Its shuffling changes into a run, then bounding, jumping in the air, grabbing with its long talons onto the concrete walls that sandwich both of us, and repeating the same technique as it bounces from wall to wall, all the while laughing manically.  

I have no time to scream, I grope around for a door handle and hidden passageway to escape the fate that awaits me. I find none. I close my eyes as if that could save me from my fate as the creature leaps toward me, talons shining in the moonlight.     

Then suddenly the beast speaks in a voice that sounds like two people talking at the same time, in an eerie echoing voice. "You really think that you could run away without me knowing! Now that's sad. Now I'm going to kill you now and no one will ever mourn you."  

After the creature says this it lets out a maniacal laughter that sends chills to my very bones. Then suddenly there is a blinding flash of pain erupting from my chest, and then there is a blinding flash of light and a sense of comfort comes over me as I reach towards the light as it fades into permanent darkness.

Snow Who? by Janey Willis

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a kingdom pretty far away, I lived in a castle just outside the kingdom. Almost everyone hated me, but hey, I was pretty evil, so I guess I can’t blame them.

The king and queen were blessed with a daughter, Aurora, and oh, she was beautiful. But as I said, back then I was pretty mad at the world, so I wanted her to suffer. After those stupid little fairies cast their good spell on her, I cursed her to die on her sixteenth birthday. Her parents feared, so she all of a sudden disappeared.

“Oh why have we not found her all these years?” I asked my henchmen one day.  Well, it turns out that the stupidheads had been looking for a baby for sixteen years.  “You idiots," I said. "She is sixteen now! Look for a young woman.”

 “Uh, yeah. OK,” babbled my main henchman.

I knew that they would not find her so I went onto Facebook and looked and looked for a girl like her, I could not find anything. It was useless.  So, I waited patiently in my palace watching reruns of SuperNanny and eating leftover Chinese food until my iPhone rang. It was my henchman. He had found the princess living in cottage in the woods. He told me that Aurora had seen the prince, and that it just happened to be her sixteenth birthday, and that she was going to the kingdom that night to get married.

I was thrilled.

I could lure her to a spinning wheel and make her die!  I got up from my bed, took off my fuzzy bathrobe and slipped into my, 'evil gown’, as I called it. I put on my very white make-up and horns, and I looked evil again, just like that. As I walked out the door I grabbed my staff and a raven named Lucifer and was ready to raise hell at the royal wedding. I arrived just as Princess Aurora did. She was pretty bent out of shape because she had met her true love that day, only to have to leave to go marry some prince. Little did she know that the prince was the person she was marrying.

Yeah, what a coincidence.

I got to where she was getting ready for her wedding and saw her there crying her eyes out in a wedding gown. Back then I enjoyed people who were sad, so this made me laugh. I did not see the fairies around, so I cast a spell on her to go and prick herself. Without her even thinking she went to the top tower and pricked herself and died.  I got away before they knew it was me that had done it. You know the rest. Her parents got very mad, the fairies cast a spell to make her sleep until she got true love's kiss. 

Here's what you don't know: After that I quickly got back to my palace in the mountains. And just as I was getting into my bubble bath I heard the doorbell ring.

 “Lucille!”  I yelled to my maid. “Get the door now!"

 “Yes, ma’am!” she yelled back

Boy was I scared when that prince ran into my bathroom, with me naked as the day I was born! I put my robe on and we went at it for a while. As you all think he killed me, but I'm a player. I played dead, and as soon as he left to give Aurora her true love's kiss and then they got married.

I hopped a plane to L.A. for a while so they would not catch me.

I decided to move after that–being evil wasn’t any fun in that kingdom anymore. I got a husband, moved to the suburbs, and had kids, and now I’m a soccer mom by day and an evil witch by night.

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Super Hero by Eli Lay

Sam Mathews was an ordinary everyday window cleaner, nothing special–just a part time job until he graduated college. The only problem he had was he wasn’t all that bright. So graduating college was harder than you would think. 

Sam loved the view from where he would clean the 35th floor apartment building window on the corner of 8^th and Barger in downtown Portland, Oregon. He had only been up there once. He was deathly afraid of heights he would convince his co-worker Jim to do that floor. Today was different, however. He was by himself. Jim, who was supposed to clean that floor, had died the other day. They say he got hypothermia from the wind chill and fell thirty plus floors to his death, but Sam secretly knew something was suspicious about that because the wind blows from the west and they were on the east part of the building.

Sam had cleaned every window when suddenly he felt it a strong chill running down his spine. He broke out into a cold sweat and no longer could stand. He tumbled over and landed safely on the scaffold. He started to mumble something when he suddenly blacked out. When he woke all he could see was white. 

He took in his surroundings. He was laying face down on the scaffolding. His ears and arms where tingling. He reached up and touched his ears. They had changed and the tops of his ears were pointy like an elf’s. He looked at his hands and he was shocked. He had symbols on his hands in the shape of fire and they shined a silvery red.

Sam stood. He peered through the window. To his amazement, he saw a glowing green asteroid that had put a hole through the roof and landed in the apartment's fireplace.  After much deliberation he decided to go check it out so he went to lower himself down. He saw something strange (as if what happened to him wasn’t strange enough): he saw his partner Jim (who had died from falling of the lift earlier that week) was in the room looking for the rock. Sam touched the window so that he could see through the window better. He went to press his head against it when it began glowing red. He took his hands off and the glass shattered into hundreds of pieces. 

Jim shot a glance at Sam with an icy gaze then he spoke. “You can’t take it from me.” He reached behind his back and grabbed something. He pulled it from behind him and lifted it above his head. It was a long, skinny sliver of ice. It somewhat resembled a javelin. Sam exclaimed in terror, “Jim, don’t do this! We're old friends, right?”

Jim replied, “No. You were friends with Jim and he is a thing of the past now. I am known as Ice Man and once I find that rock, no one will stop me.” He thrust it at Sam.

Sam threw up his hands to protect himself and like Mt. Saint Helens erupting, fire burst from his hands, sending Jim through the walls and out a window, on the opposing side of the building. Jim fell 35 stories until he was abruptly shish kabobbed by a lamppost.

Sam spoke. “I like the idea of having a super name. In fact, everyone can now call me Elf Ears, the amazing. My motto will be, 'have no fear, Elf Ears is here.” 

            
Sam went on to save the world, but six months later he was struck by a stalling 747 Boeing airplane and was killed on impact.

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