These 100-word stories were selected as Honorable Mentions. Those who completed this challenge are now encouraged to share their stories in the comments section of the "June Writing Challenge."

Audrey Sing
16
USA

Weathered

Leah was from Portland, Oregon. The girl made of light and beauty and radiance grew up in the gloomiest city in the U.S. How she could continue to live and love freely despite everything dark and depressing around us was beyond me. I fell to the hate of the world years ago.

I met her when we were thirteen. She was kinder to me than I deserved, a greater good than I had ever known. She disappeared into herself during freshman year, lost the light she always held inside. It seemed as though the rain had finally gotten to her.

 

 

 

Gwendolyn Boiselle
16
USA

Internal Demons

Jumbled up scenarios scatter through his brain.
He can’t seem to recall the time a thought he had didn’t end a thousand different ways.
He’d stopped trying be saved.
It’s easier to suffer in silence than it is to feel out loud.
He pops prescription after prescription hoping the chalky capsule infused with unknown power will somehow make him feel something.
You can’t tame someone who doesn’t know how to be caught. Living within the cage of his mind. He’d just have to get used to the slick iron bars that imprisoned him from ever thinking an independent thought again.

 

 

 

Jordan
14
USA

Breathe 

Breathe in you say 1 2 3
Breathe out you say 3 2 1
Forget the past and move along
Your scars are numb
Your heart’s fine
Your home’s secluded under the sky
Your doors are locked
Your neighbors are nice
But they don’t know what keeps you up at night

The blasts, the booms, the deafening roars
The machine like movements of pain and gore
Your skies are filled with darkness still

And you know what happens when it plummets to the ground.
With no protection or soft pillows to pound

But… breathe in you say 1 2 3

 

 

 

Bianca
18
Jamaica

Why Not?

Why not?

I lay curled up on my bedsheets, my eyes fixed on the screen of my phone which displays the hardest question to answer. My heart pounds in panic, as usual, and my brain produces excuses on cue: I already have plans; my mom won’t let me; I’ll be sick on that day. All of my go-to reasons to avoid a social event. I fumble with the keyboard on my screen until my fingers stop trembling long enough for me to type out my first excuse. It’s acceptable in a world where my feelings aren’t regarded. I touch send.

 

 

 

Raizy N.
17
USA

Morning

I open my eyes slowly, conscious of the fact that I am waking up. The clock says it is far too late for this. I breathe in, then out, and so it comes. Do I get up today? I do not want to. I do not want to face my world. I do not want to move my body from this bed. I do not want to be here for this, to bear witness to my life. I do not want to make things worse. I am sick of it all. I am just. tired. of. it.

So I stay.