Broken

The mist closed on Chelsea, suffocating her. She gasped and began running, but no matter where she went, there was nothing but fog and mist. Chelsea felt a tear escape from her eye and roll down her cheek. She sat on the cold stone ground and hugged her knees in. There was no one that could help her. She was alone in her empty mind with nothing but her depression.

Then, everything around her changed. The mist formed into the shapes of a school hallway. The lockers were to her left, and the science lab to her right. She was walking down the hallway, alone. Chelsea tried to stop the memory, but it was already replaying like it had done a million times before.

“Chelsea Holloway.”

Chelsea turned. The stereotypical popular girl of her school stood before Chelsea with her clique on either side of her. They smirked at her and raised their chins, coming towards Chelsea. The main person in the clique, Abby, stopped right in front of Chelsea. Chelsea looked down at her feet as Abby hit Chelsea’s books out of her hands. Chelsea kneeled to pick them up, and Abby pushed her gently with her foot, making Chelsea fall back onto the ground. The three girls giggled.

“Run home,” Abby smiled. “Cry about it. Cut yourself, you little emo kid.” Chelsea ignored Abby and gathered her books together. Abby, looking disappointed in Chelsea’s reaction, continued talking. “I hear that your parents don’t love you. Oops, sorry, your mom doesn’t love you. Your dad died in an accident two years ago, didn’t he?”
Chelsea continued to try to ignore Abby, even though every one of Abby’s words drilled through her heart. She stood and put her books in her bag that was slung over her shoulder, then turned to go.

Abby leaned forward and whispered in Chelsea’s ear. “Run home and kill yourself. You would be doing the world a favor.”

Chelsea couldn’t hold it in any longer. Tears exploded from her eyes and she raced in the opposite direction, wanting to be anywhere but there. Abby and her friends’ laughter haunted Chelsea all the way down the hall, out the door, and all the way home.

The memory evaporated, and Chelsea was once again lost in her mind.

A knock on Chelsea’s bedroom door brought her back to reality. She was no longer sitting on the stone in the middle of fog, but sitting on her bed with her back against the wall, staring at the door.

“Come in.” Chelsea called. Her mother stumbled in, bottle in hand.

“I...I...I...I wanted to k-know if you n-needed anything...” Her mom trailed off, staring around with wide eyes.

“No, I’m fine.” Chelsea said sadly. Her mom nodded and left, grabbing the doorknob behind her and slamming the door shut. Chelsea didn’t know she was crying until the tears started dripping off her face and onto her lap. She sniffed and wiped her face, but the tears quickly came again.

Chelsea stared at the wall and was pulled back into her empty mind. She sat in the fog, not able to think or move or do anything. It felt as if someone had scraped her insides of everything- all her physical insides, but also all her emotions- and she was now left hollow and empty.

The names have been changed, but this story contains a fair bit of truth. I am bipolar- I know what it feels like to want to give up on life. I wrote this because today at the mall, I was approached by two girls who said basically the things that I had Abby say to Chelsea. The girls laughed it off, especially when I turned and left. It was a joke to them, but not to me.

I mainly wanted to tell everyone that when you say those things, no matter how un-serious you are, you are completely serious to the person you are saying it to. Depression is not a joke. Now that I think about it, I am actually surprised that random strangers would approach me in that way, and tell me the things that they did.

It kind of makes me wonder what society has come to...

Aww! *hugs!* Why does it seem like everything I’ve read today on YWS been kind of sad as of late.

However, this is a really unique story line but the thing I think you should be careful of when presenting a story is to show us what’s going on, rather than tell us. Right now, you’re being very forward and pretty much just saying, this happened, then this happened, and then this happened. It lacks a whole lot of life.
But if you learn how to show in your writing, it can make a story a billion times more believable.

Also, I hope people like Abby fall off of bridges and hit their heads…really hard.

*hugs again*

Oh, I never introduced myself formally, but I’m Lily. And if you have any questions about that mess of rambling I just typed for you, PM me and ask away.

~lilymoore

Hiya,

I am exceedingly sorry for everything that has happened to you, and I hope you come to realize that now matter how hard life can be, it is never worth committing suicide over. You'll always have your friends, and the amazing people on this site to support you, right? It's been said that channeling your feelings into writing can always help, but if you ever need to talk, you can always PM me.

Now, for the critique. Since you've presented this as a fiction story, I'm not going to be soft. In anything that's fictionalized, slapping 'based a true story' in front of it will not garner immediate sympathy from the reader. For instance, take the film Glory, which detailed the lives of the first colored regiment in the Civil War. We're told this story through the eyes of the commander, Colonel Robert Shaw. We're with this character through everything; from the creation of the regiment, through battles and pay cuts and everything the black soldiers had to deal with just because of their race. Because of this, his death, along with the death of over half his regiment is extremely sad and tear-jerking. If Glory had been a thirty minute short film that simply told us the characters had hardships before killing them off, it would have been very different.

You take a similar approach with your story. However, the difference is that you thrust us right in to Chelsea's world and never give us time to understand what she's going through. People aren't depressed for no reason. The only thing you give is the death of the father two years ago. I could understand that she'd be sad and depressed if he had just died, but after two years I think she would have passed the period of morning. The key to unlocking your story is exactly that; if you show us more of what Chelsea's life has been like; if she's been teased before, what others think of her, it will makes us feel much closer to the character and much more apt to sympathize.

I hope this helps! I'm going to leave you with this excellent article about unlocking your characters, as well as Part 1 of Glory if you want to watch it and see what I mean. Anyway, good luck, and PM me if you need anything.

-Elinor x