"today you will read a short story. then you will write an essay analyzing it. the paper will be due on the same day as the wonderland project, which is in 2 weeks."

he watched the teacher's eyes dart around the room like two butterflies.

her eyes were were blue with uneven splotches of gray / a blue silk cloth the texture of tissue paper / shredded from being pulled at the seams for too long

her voice was like the sun shimmering on the ocean / or the cool summer breeze blowing over the surface, adding a spice of chaos and a pinch of excitement / just enough, but not too much / to make the waves move / in a peaceful way

#TheOceanWasHerClassroom

but as he watched a ripple go through the room he felt like a rock peaking out of the water.

#ColdJagged&Dead

no caps is for style*

curls of ivy and wallflowers twisted up the gold wall, their vines hanging down like rusted green hair to meet the salt ocean breeze and the silk lined water lined with silver under the glimmering sky, adorned with silver sequins and the moon's bare face, shining the brightest she had ever shone due to the darkness that wrapped around her like a blanket

it was a long climb up, but with the twisted ivy scaling the whole wall it was not impossible

the wall touched the sky, an ethereal dome overhead, surrounding the city, imprisoning the people within. it cast a shadow over the entire city.

no one had seen the sun for so long.

on the inside of the wall, the stony surface of the gold looked over the people staring up at it, their eyes straining in the dark to see where the shadow ended.

a boy leaned against the wall. he'd often tried to climb it, but there was nothing to hold on to. the wall was slippery and too strong for his knife, now bent and twisted from all the times he tried to dig it in. he had a dying flashlight and as he swept it through the darkness, he sees people huddled against the wall, watching him with pity. they'd all given up trying to find a way out.

he knew it was only a matter of time before he gave up too.

but a lingering echo continued to bounce off the walls of his mind, an echoing memory. he still remembered the times before the wall was built. over the wall, there was danger, there were storms ready to consume him. there was dark water the shape of claws. there was pain.

but there was also an open sky, a blood red sun, and light.

his hands trembled as rested the paper down on the desk.

the bell shrilled through the tension / caused by 30 pairs of eyes moving over the same words / he abruptly got up and walked away / his heart beating loudly in his chest.

#ADeadHeartbeat

one without an echo.

unlike the boy in the story / he'd given up hope a long time ago

but he didn't know that someone was fighting the dark ocean water the shape of tentacles about to pull under and drown the slightest pinch of resistance, that there were still people in the world who believed enough that they'd climb walls reaching the top of the universe just to break them down so the sun would shine on him once more