x3nn16

"Sink or swim, Riley," my father once said to me. Rays of sun battered the pier deck, gliding over the water's surface like hundreds of shimmering snakes. His words were delivered moments before I found myself hurtling towards the subtle waves at his hand. I drowned that day. Twice. The day he died was not a day I mourned, nor was it one I celebrated. The lessons he taught me are etched so deeply into the back of my brain that I can't fill the holes they burned. He taught me to survive and he taught me how to hate. He told me that love did not exist, and that expression of emotions should be punishable. He asked me to be perfect and he beat his expectations into me. My father threw me into the deep end and I've been struggling to keep my head above the surface ever since. I don't know how much longer I can struggle against the current. The waves keep breaking over my head, hurling me further and further back towards the place I've tried so hard to claw myself out of. I'm drowning again, and the water is turning dark. I can't reach the lifelines at the surface. But I'm not the only one sinking, this time. I was taught to survive at any cost, even if that means letting someone else drown. My father said, "If you drown, you weren't built to survive." He only knew how to save himself. He didn't believe in mercy. The most important lesson I ever learnt from my father was that I could never let myself turn into him. He built me to survive and yet I'm drowning. Maybe he was wrong when he told me that you can't teach someone to swim when you're sinking.…

x3nn16

Things didn't fall apart the night i lost the two people in the world who meant the most to me. I hit rock-bottom long ago and i hit the ground running. What's the point of getting out when you're just going to fall back in again? The more i think about it, the more i wonder if my siblings are better off dead. They had no one. Aside from me, but let's face it, i may be clinically insane. They never have to grow up. Ten years old for all eternity. I was never going to be able to shield them from this world forever.+++Tilley Kieran, in her seventeen years of existence, never had a chance to be a child. From the moment she could walk, her world had begun to spiral. Years of abuse, neglect and unwarranted responsibility begin to take their toll on a kid. The loss of her two younger siblings leaves Tilley with nothing to lose, and nothing left to fight for- a concept Tilley embraces whole-heartedly.Tilley has only one goal: to hurt those who have made her life a living hell. Her shattered heart can cut them all to pieces, given the opportunity. What better way is there to seek revenge than to burn all that has harmed her to the ground? In her mind, she is unstoppable. Nothing can intercept her fury. Not the cops riding hot on her tail. Not the boy chasing after her, oblivious to the hurricane that is Tilley's mind. She believes she's past help, and past love. She will shake the world if it's the last thing she does. After all, what's more dangerous than someone who has nothing left to lose?…

x3nn16

"I am its weapon, and at my hand, its exploits will be painted red for all to mourn."•••Ella Cassidy has spent the past five years of her life trapped in the midst of a game of tug-of-war between freedom, and the confines of West Pier Juvenile Correctional Facility. On paper, it's a centre dedicated to setting mentally afflicted teens on a path steering away from life in jail. In actuality, it is a facility from which many will never fully escape.The world outside of detention has never felt safe for Ella. And with her on the outside, the world will never be safe from the darkness whirring within her. Uncontrollable is how Ella describes it. It isn't her, it simply acts through her. In the blackness it rises, playing puppet-master to her body, and causing those around her to drop like flies to the ground. She is simply a weapon for something greater than she can comprehend; than anyone can comprehend. Deemed stable enough to be released once again into the province of creation, Ella is fear-stricken. Inside her head, 'It' is scheming. The countdown has begun.Someone will die when the count reaches 'one', and the blood will be on Ella's hands.…