The Depth of Insanity

2 posts
Random avatar
Gender None specified
Points 300
Reviews 0
Hi, I'm new to this website so I thought I'd start by showing you guys a short story I wrote for my English coursework and to also ask if any of you know where I can find a Young Writers Competition online?

Anyway, here it is.


Freezing cold air whipped through the sky, gently rippling through the leaves on the trees. It shivered carelessly along its aligned path, evoking a reaction from the gently chirping birds that scurried through the sky. Rain, cold rain thundered down upon the earth, making gentle splashing noises that seemed to fade away along with the rest of the world. Thundering heartbeat, laboured breaths, soaked clothes caked with mud from the kneeling position. Hot wet tears cascading down a red sorrow filled face. The lump in your throat making it unbearable to swallow the soft whimpers escaping out of your pathetic lips. Why did life have to hurt so much?

Hands softly reach out to caress stunning white marble, tracing ever so gently across the letters engraved in the smooth flawless stone. The words that etched upon the stone seem... foreign... lifeless... as though it holds no meaning, just words. Words that could not possibly describe the person to which it belongs. “Loved by all” That didn’t even begin to sum up the amazing character, to which fate had cruelly decided to take from the world.

Removing your hand away from the stone regretfully, tears blur your vision once again. Your senses are slowly coming back to you. The birds are chirping without a thought, creating a soft hum that seems to match with the atmosphere in this unpleasant place, like a funeral song. The feeling in your limbs has returned, feeling the ghost of a breeze passing over your soaked form, receiving small goose bumps and a small shiver along the spine in return. The smell of humidity, of wet air, passes through your nostrils; the smell itself would have been a delightful one and would have elicited a sigh from you any other day. But not today. Not even the beauty of the natural environment. Everything feels so dreamlike. As though you’re passing through each place in a deep stupor.

You don’t even remember the journeys, the nature, and the streets that are passing you until you had reached this one point.

A small voice in your head harshly whispers the words “this is your fault. It is your entire fault” Somehow, you can’t help but agree with the voice. It was your fault. If you had been there, you could have done something to prevent it. But no... You weren’t... you were far too ‘busy’ with other things that you couldn’t have possibly been there. This is your fault. IT IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! YOU CAUSED DEATH!

It almost felt like fate was repaying you for your selfishness and for your foolishness, by making you feel as though you were dead. Without the satisfaction of seeing your loved ones again, without being able to leave the world and all of the troubles along with it, to forget about all the problems that keep you awake at night and stress you into a corrupted sleep. Well, why did you deserve such a pleasure as this? Such mercy and forgiveness? What had you done to earn such a right? To earn an easy way out of all your troubles? You didn’t. You deserved this pain. No... You deserved much more than this pain, you deserve to die painfully 100 times over, being condemned in hell for 20 of your lifetimes.

You felt your chest constricting painfully again at these strangely comforting thoughts. Breath was limited now, All air was cut off and a stench so vile it caused you to gag, rotting. Rotting flesh everywhere, hands seemingly void of skin rose from the muddy earth in which you kneel. They reach for you, trying with their greatest efforts to drag you under. It was as though they smelt sin. A sin so unforgivable that it deserved a life in hell. With a final longing and regretful look at the flawless marble and you succumb, allowing these messengers from hell to seal their vice like grip on you and pull you, finally, into the ground below. To be forever punished in a cell, that resides deep within hell.

Wracked with guilt and self – resentment, forever captive to the most evil being to ever exist. The Punishments that consist of mental and physical pain as well as hard labour. Pushing yourself as hard as you can to try to redeem some form of humanity, even if only an inch. It’s a useless effort. You know this all too well, the ties that bind you to this world for eternity, invisible as such, keep you from ever fleeing this putrid world. Never are you able to see the natural light again. Forever swallowed by darkness, even the flames that dance around you, keeping you surrounded are the darkest shade of black. The smoke fogging your mind and all conscious thought. This pain and suffering is well deserved, maybe even not enough. It’s eating you alive, this heart – wrenching guilt, making death appear more desirable.

The line which separates sanity from insanity is forever drawing closer. It won’t be long until you cross it that is of course, if you haven’t already. You are forever trapped in this world of evil souls, condemned to a life of eternal suffering, in the small cell, forever bound to the confines of your mind.

Consumed by darkness.




User avatar
Gender None specified
Points 3437
Reviews 181
Hi there!! Welcome to YWS! As far as the competition goes, I haven't heard of any specific one, but there's always the Literary Journal that you can submit to! Here's the link with more information on that.
topic72034.html?hilit=Young%20Writers%20Competition

Anyway, I'm River, and I will be honored to review your first post. My first impression was "wow. This guy sounds like Poe a little bit." So if that was your intent, good job! Your description is dark and mysterious, which I like a lot.

If you were planning on editing this, here are a couple nit-picky things that I would suggest you consider.
Freezing cold air whipped through the sky, gently rippling through the leaves on the trees. It shivered carelessly along its aligned path, evoking a reaction from the gently chirping birds that scurried through the sky.

Your description of the wind seems contradictory; how can it "whip" through the air but only "gently" ripple the trees? Whip has a dark connotation, but "shiver" and "ripple" have softer, more benign ones. Chose which feel you want to wind to have, and stick with it. Also, try not to use an adjective or active verb more than once in a paragraph (i.e., "gently" is used twice in the above sentences), and if you absolutely have to use the same word, try to get the duplicate words as far away from each other as possible.
A small voice in your head harshly whispers the words “this is your fault. It is your entire fault” Somehow, you can’t help but agree with the voice. It was your fault. If you had been there, you could have done something to prevent it. But no... You weren’t... you were far too ‘busy’ with other things that you couldn’t have possibly been there. This is your fault. IT IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! YOU CAUSED DEATH!

This paragraph has the potential to be incredibly creepy. Maybe you could describe the narrator's physical reaction to the voice. Does it paralyze him? Does it make him want to convulse? Also, I'd cut out the whole part about "being too busy." In my opinion, that's something the audience doesn't have to know. Creepy thought: what if he hears the undead scream the two lines in bold? Just a thought.

Overall, I liked this story a lot. It was a fun, though creepy, read. If you have any questions, let me know! Hopefully this review was helpful to you. You're a talented writer, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff in the forums! Happy writing!
My main project until Script Frenzy is an experiment using blog posts between four characters as episodes of a common story. You can read this work as it progresses at http://knowallchronicles.blogspot.com/.



All the turtles are related.
— Jack Hanna