Beneath the Broken Spell

The woods are never as kind as the stories make them seem. Little Red does not skip, her feet heavy with the weight of the basket, its contents a secret darker than the night. The wolves aren’t just hungry, they’re desperate. Their teeth are sharp, their hunger endless. And the huntsman? His axe is too slow, his conscience too soft for the forest that devours the innocent. The glass slipper is not a gift but a trap— shattered on a floor slick with blood and cinders, and the prince’s kiss? It’s poison in disguise. She wakes, but the dream has already unraveled— her skin is no longer soft, but bruised, marked with the touch of something darker than desire. The stepmother’s mirror cracks under the weight of truth, reflecting not beauty, but the hollowed-out faces of those who thought they could bargain with fate. The walls of the castle are paper thin, and behind them, the forest waits, its branches clawing at the gates.