Young Writers Society

Scritch.

Slumped in bed , his bloodshot eyes shot open, pale in the shadows. His mouth grimaced and contorted, moving with a mixture of horror and anger. Slamming into the side of his head, his right hand, jagged nails cutting through his sweaty hair, raked against his scalp, leaving searing scratches in their wake.

No, not again. Oh please, not again just go away just go away now get out of my head now!

A fleeting image of a parisitical creature feeding on his inner parts shot through his mind. His fingernails dug into the skin of his ears as he clawed at them, wanting to reach in and pull out what was inside, to yank out whatever detestable thing was in there and hurl it into the wall. He wanted to pummel it with his feet, to grind it into the ground and smash it until there was nothing left but a smudge of mucus on the concrete floor.

Scritch.

Stop it! Stop it ! Get out!

His head throbbing with agony, he couldn't help but to visualize the creature inside holding his brain in its insect-like pincers, ripping pieces of his mind with its barbed claws and devouring it slowly, savoring it, licking it with its darting red tongue and leaving strands of rotten spittle behind. Its mouth would be covered in his blood as it ate, soulless eyes shining in the cramped, musty places of his mind, eating and eating and eating and eating...

Scritch.

He screamed shrilly, hands clamping down on the sheets, his bare, muscular sweat-slicked torso contracting, grinding his teeth, unable to breathe. He flung his fists into his head, beating himself until his cheekbones were bleeding and his mouth was shredded and the whites of his eyes had turned entirely red. When the door to his room opened hastily and people in white coats streamed in, one of them carrying a hypodermic needle, he barely noticed.

He was already in too much pain to notice the miniscule sting of the needle digging into his left wrist or to feel the anasthetic seeping into his veins. As the doctors held him down, his movements slowed, his screams fading into muted moans, swollen eyes drifting shut. When at last he was still, the nurses cleaned his wounds, dabbing at the blood streaming from his arms with gauze and bandaging them when they were clean. After they left, he slept deeply, rough breath catching plegmatically as it emerged from his purple lips. He slept until the next evening.

As the anasthetic wore off, he found himself slowly growing conscious.

Scritch.

This gives me the creeps. But I suppose that was the point, yes?

I LOVE how you wrote this. I liked the use of the word contorted in the first paragraph. Contorted. Just adds to the feeling.

Slumped in bed , his bloodshot eyes shot open, pale in the shadows. His mouth grimaced and contorted, moving with a mixture of horror and anger. Slamming into the side of his head, his right hand, jagged nails cutting through his sweaty hair, raked against his scalp, leaving searing scratches in their wake.

I don't like how many commas this paragraph has, especially the las sentence. I think it would work better as "Slamming into the side of his head, his right hand with jagged nails cutting through his sweaty hair raked against his scalp, leaving searing scratches in their wake."

also:

Its mouth would be covered in his blood as it ate, soulless eyes shining in the cramped, musty places of his mind, eating and eating and eating and eating...

I don't think "eating" is strong enough. SOmething more graphic would be better, I think. Munching. Chewing. Gnawing.

Thanks for sharing, this was fantastic.

Hey there, creativity.

I won’t sit here and prattle on too much about nitpicks because, when it comes to short pieces like this, the focus isn’t on the grammar but the emotion which I think you’ve done splendidly. I actually only have three itty bitty nitpicks.

Oh please, not again just go away just go away now get out of my head now!

There are actually two things I wanted to mention about this line. The first is actually a compliment. I like that you didn’t put a ton of focus on italicized thoughts like this section but on his physical actions instead. Thoughts all a lot like just telling the reader. His actions show rather than tell. The other thing about this is that I think you should scrap the word “now” and turn this into two separate sentences. When someone is in a terrified or frantic mood, they’re thoughts are likely to be short simple and scared. Not so long and wordy like this.

eating and eating and eating and eating...

Rather than ending this line with “eating…” it might have more impact if you chop it off rather than let it trail of like it does now. So it would be: “eating and eating and eating and –”
Heck, if you’re feeling adventurous, forget the hyphen and just end it on the word “and” no punctuation to be heard of and let it drop into the “scritch” that follows.

As the anasthetic wore off, he found himself slowly growing conscious.
Scritch.

This ending, I don’t know, it’s not what I was hoping for. I mean, I like that the scritching is still there but, well, this just feels anti-climactic. Maybe that’s what you were going for but, well, something seems to be lacking. And I can’t put a finger on it but hopefully you know what you want your piece to say.


Overall, I like this for a lot of the reasons I pointed out obviously. Your use of physical words and actions over thoughts It’ especially. And the scritch noise is actually a really nice description. It’s short sweet, to the point and it spins off of the tongue nicely.

Best of luck! And if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

~lilymoore