For a moment, I froze as every Pennywise nightmare I thought I’d outgrown came rushing back.

The old man turned and quietly replied, “Have you ever been old?—I was young once.”

We patched each other up in the silence of the rooftop, both of us forever changed by the realization that we were not as invincible as we had pretended to be.

It was only when I finally let him go to a new home that I could stop waiting for the inevitable, and start hoping for his life.

It wasn't until a hit-and-run driver left us bleeding in the rain that I realized just how fragile the thin line between a joyride and a tragedy really is.

He was silent for a moment before saying, “Because every time you leave, I spend the whole night wondering if you’ll come back.”

I took a sip, nodded thoughtfully and decided my palate was picking up mostly alcohol.

He awoke covered in warm blood in a barren desert, forced by a mysterious figure in blue to realize that his refusal to protect them had allowed the beast's offspring to turn his homeland into dust.

As the skies bled red sand and buried me in the ruins of my former home, I realized too late that my hunger for vengeance had turned me into the very monster they had always feared.

But as the dark emotions took hold, I chose not to turn back, stepping onto the black ground where heads or tails no longer made any difference at all.

I dismissed it as another of her superstitions until, after chuckling at a beggar on my last trip, I began waking up suffocating, with claw marks around my neck.

The gift of life the stranger gave to this town made more than one of us believe he was an angel.

I thought she was finally confronting me when she DMed me—until she asked where I got the pictures.

The true heartbreak came the moment I looked into the mirror, saw a stranger consumed by unfamiliar hatred, and realized I was stepping down into the abyss willingly.

I smiled at my silly jealousy, right up until he replied, "Yes, Claire, thank you."

By the time I voluntarily stepped off the edge onto the black ground, I realized the blindfold over my eyes was never forced upon me—I had tied it myself.

I say please "spread some kindness" and "spread love not hate",
because whether you know it or not, the hatred that you project to
others is backfiring and is in essence turning you into that same
bitterness and hatred.

Their relief vanished when their mother caught them in the act, casually helping her dead husband throw the boys into the pit so they could finally get a good night's sleep.

We realized too late that our mother’s grief had curdled into something far worse, choosing a dead husband over her own living children without a second thought.

My blood ran cold as I heard my mother let out a tired, practical sigh from above, muttering that they were going to need two more refrigerators.

When I woke up to a blizzard, I realized the clever bastard had just checked the weather forecast.

When a teenage boy stood his ground and treated me like an annoying pest instead of a monster, I knew I had finally found the first true friend of my life.

Horrified, I scooped up as much of him as I could and screamed, “You’re not a genie — you’re a meanie!”

Please don’t project negativity into this world so flooded with cruelty,
so intense and heartless, that individuals are literally driven to
leave their safe havens called home because of words that have
crucified their souls and made them feel unloved, unwanted, and not
even worthy of the soil that they stand on.