"Don't go to far Mandy!" a voice called out through the forest as Mandy slowly made her way through the grassy ground where she had dropped her toy. Mandy was a 7 year old girl who was incredibly brave for her age. But her courage got her into so much trouble that her mother was always very worried about her. "Mandy!-" her mother called out again, "be careful!" "...

Once upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry a princess; but she would have to be a real princess. He travelled all over the world to find one, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. There were princesses enough, but it was difficult to find out whether they were real ones. There was always something about them that was not as it should be. So he came home again and was sad, for he wo...

The creature is born of the fetid swamp. From the muck and mire, it rises to life, created from decay, rot, and strange gases that rise from the noxious fauna. It is a brute, an unthinking, unfeeling man-thing. It drags itself from the bog like some monstrous heap. It is bulky massive. The stench of the thing drives all in the woods before it. Something drives it onward, from its putrid lair and...

For years after school Henry had always stopped in to see his father at work. He splashed in the puddles and ran four streets up the hill where his father's workshop stood alone amongst the olive trees and cherry bushes. Careful not to fall he skipped over the squeaking stairs and stairs and rushed into the workshop. "Stop, wipe your feet" his father would say with a wide smile. Henry re...

Mrs. John Emerson, sitting with her needlework beside the window, looked out and saw Mrs. Rhoda Meserve coming down the street, and knew at once by the trend of her steps and the cant of her head that she meditated turning in at her gate. She also knew by a certain something about her general carriage -- a thrusting forward of the neck, a bustling hitch of the shoulders -- that she had important n...

    There were once a man and a woman who had long, in vain, wished for a child. At length it appeared that God was about to grant their desire.      These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one ...

    Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a little riding hood of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never wear anything else; so she was always called 'Little Red Riding Hood.'    ...

I awoke to the sounds of the birds singing in the apple garden, my eyes opened to the view of a cloudless sky with the bright beautiful sun shining all its glory down upon me. I felt so happy and content until slowly but forcibly my mind had fully awoken and reminded me of the reality. During these summer months I now always slept on the roof, the roof of Saint Luke’s Church, my home, it wa...

A quiet and mundane breakroom. Tiled floors with standard wood-varnished cabinets. A simple place that lets anyone in to rest -- at least, employees only. And even then, it's simplicity alienates me. I can't rest here. I can only cease my labor. Distress and monotony. Just some quiet from the storm of a thousand steel presses operating at maximum speed. Thick, tinted windows surround this room. T...

    There were a number of carved stone figures placed at intervals along the parapets of the old Cathedral; some of them represented angels, others kings and bishops, and nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation and composure. But one figure, low down on the cold north side of the building, had neither crown, mitre, not nimbus, and its face was hard and bitter and downcast;...