He looked down, watching as the grass turned brown and old. The leaves fell from the trees, the flowers shriveling and wilting. He could hear the quiet patter of the forest animals running away from him. If he stood still enough, he could almost feel the air chill around him. The sun seemed dimmer, as if there were clouds blocking it, but there wasn’t.
He leaned down and plucked one of the dandelions from the ground, feeling the roots try and resist. In the center of his palm he watched as the petals grew grey, falling from the pistil.
He closed his fist around the flower, watching as a few small pieces of the petals fell through his fingers.
He heard a small set of footsteps stop in front of him and when he looked up he was eye to eye with a young child.
He smirked as the child gasped and took a step back from him.
“Are you okay?” The child asked, their eyes jumping from one place to the next, unsure of what to linger on. His smirk widened along with the child’s eyes. In the distance he could hear a mother yelling for her child.
He looked down to where he felt the blood drip onto his closed fist. When he unclenched his hand, the red mixed with the cloudy yellow color of the remaining petals.
There were long gashes covering his entire body, his clothes torn and hanging off of him. The minimal fabric he was wearing was soaked through, clinging to his skin. Hugging, suffocating him. The mother’s yelling was growing closer.
As he lifted his hand up, he watched as the child’s eyes followed the movement. The continued dripping through his fingers, coloring the brown beneath them. He could almost feel the mother now.
His arm stung as he lifted it but he was still smirking, grinning almost, and he could feel the blood dripping into his mouth, coating his teeth. The child tried moving backwards but he had already pressed the blood, dead flower to the child’s forehead.
The child’s eyes crossed to watch as he moved his hand back.
“One.” He said. He could see the mother now.
“Two.” The mother had seen her child.
“Three.” He was sure now that the mother couldn’t see him as she started running towards them.
“Four.” The child’s face had gone from confused to expressionless and pale as the child collapsed.
“Five.” He was gone now, watching from afar as the mother clutched helplessly at the child, calling for help that wouldn’t come and couldn’t do anything even if they heard the pleas through the thick air.
He wiped his palm onto his already dirty pants, blood smearing, watching as some of the green started returning to the grass, starting where the mother was cradling her child on the ground.
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
WOAH. WOAH. !!!!! This is SO NEAT!
I absolutely adore the way you've written this from the perspective of Death; it starts off wandering, like his mind, but grows focused on the flower, and then the child. The parallels between the two are haunting and lovely. The ending was perfect, and there are still goosebumps all up my legs.
This work is utterly chilling and haunting, and it perfectly evokes the feelings you can tell it was meant to. The almost matter-of-fact tone with which it was told only serves to show the reader just how heartless Death is.
Overall, hauntingly beautiful. Fantastic job!
Hey!
RandomTalks here with a review!
Okay...this was truly something else. I am not sure if I have found my words yet, but it is safe to say that this did not go the way I thought it would. Your beginning itself was very foreboding. Elements of nature turning away from the main character, as if rejecting him. You have created the environment very well and I could actually imagine the darkness shrouding everything within it's reach. At that point, I didn't have any idea what was going on. I am not sure if I still do, but you managed to capture the reader's interest very well through that short paragraph.
When the child arrived on the scene, I couldn't understand the character's reaction to him. But as the moments waned, and the uncanniness of it all started to overpower everything else, I was just wishing for the kid's mother to arrive and take him away from there. There was something about the character right from the beginning, and it did not make sense until the blood came into play. I still do not understand how he killed the child, but it seemed like his death brought back an ounce of life to the bleakness of the scenery around them. Still the fact that he waited for the mother to see her child die in front of her eyes, makes him the most twisted and sadistic character I have read about in a while. Who does that?
One point,
I think the 'what' here will be better replaced with 'where', so that it reads "unsure of where to linger on". It's just a suggestion though.
That's all.
Keep writing and have a great day!
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!! And I see you're new here, so a quick welcome to YWS!! I hope you have fun here!
First Impression: Well, this was a really powerful little short here, not the biggest of plots but, it still manages to really convey a pretty impactful story that you can really feel.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Hmm, well this is a really intriguing start here, we're starting with imagery that just appears to be involve all death and decay. Especially how you mention parts of nature one by one and then describe them all slowly dying away...it creates a very interesting atmosphere around this scene here...and you just know something bad is potentially going on here.
Well isn't that a very interesting reaction to a child that appears to be quite justifiably startled and at least somewhat afraid of this person here...certainly gives you a couple of things to think about there.
Wow, well that description brings across a pretty horrifying scene right there, I'm a little surprised that the child manages to keep that much composure and ask this man if he's okay...it seems more likely that the child would just run away screaming here.
Well, that image certainly highlights that earlier point, it looks like someone that either committed some properly horrible act or has been subjected to some horrifying situation, either way this is getting more and more creepy by the minute and I have a feeling something bad could happen to this mother and child here.
Uhh...I don't think that's a good thing there...a dead flower dripping with blood on a child's forehead sounds like the precursor to something properly horrible.
Aand four seconds to kill a child, that is powerful, also horrifying, and the fact that whoever this man is actually waited for the mother to be able to see here child drop dead just cements just how evil this person is right now...and well...it is some properly terrifying stuff right here.
Did this person just leach some sort of lifeforce out the child to feed the environment...well..at any rate, I'd say the horror tag for this is very much justified.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, it really is a well executed story right here, it does what it intends to do quite well. Anyway, I believe that's about all I've gotta say for now.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry