The Shadow

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Well this was a fun little story. It had a couple of issues here and there but I really like the idea here and its written fairly well too. Well anyway, there's a bit more detail down below.

Anyway let's get right to it,

The morning sun rose as dawn began to take form. It felt as if the night had lasted for days. The wet, muddy and paved paths of the graveyard shimmered in the sunlight, as if it were a mirage.

Jackson walked slowly along the path. His father had died years prior, every week on Saturday morning, he came to visit his grave. Jack had never seen his father angry, even at the worst of times, he always faced everything with a smile on his face. Nothing negative ever came to his mind whenever he thought about him. He seemed perfect. Perhaps a little too perfect at times, but Jack never let that thought linger. After all, he had no reason to.

The sky was turning more and more pink by the second. The clouds dissipated at an unnatural pace, as if someone was blowing away smoke from a candle.

He stared at the tombstone. He stared at it for longer. Something was wrong. The name was incorrect. “Impossible” he mumbled. He came here all the time; this was the correct one. Before he could investigate further, a black smoke rose from the grave. Slowly taking shape of what could loosely be described as humanoid. A ghastly face rose out of the smoke. Jack swore and ran. Cold wind rushed past his face as he sprinted across the cemetery. Trees flew by him as he neared the gate. Not looking sideways to check for vehicles he attempted to cross the road when a truck smashed into him, killing him on the spot.

The surrounding scene dissolved like salt in water as everything turned black. Black pillars materialized as a dark room emerged out of nothing. Like Lego pieces, sections of a room fell into place.

Jack appeared in this room; he did not how he had come here. He looked up and saw three gigantic figures looming over him, all had their eyes on Jack, all lacking any facial features. The only distinguishing feature was that they had glowing eyes of different colors. The one on the right had red, middle had white, and the left; purple. They sat at a long table. It was an unnaturally dark room, with only a light source stationed directly behind these figures. Yet the light did not illuminate the room, serving as only to make the figures appear as silhouettes. The walls seem to suck up whatever light reached them.

A deep voice came from the general direction of the figures; It was impossible to tell who was speaking,

“So, what was so unusual about this human that you have brought him before us?”

“He… seems to have died to… nothing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I see. Heh heh. Look at this.”

A shuffling noise ensues.

“Oh my, I guess we simply have to keep this up.”

Jack fell.

Black smoke engulfed him and once again, things went black.

The smoke slowly cleared as he saw himself in a familiar location looking at a familiar face. The cemetery and himself. Before he could say anything, The Jack that was standing in front of him ran.

Heyy,
I know this is old by YWS standards, but I just felt like going through mystery stories rn, so here I am now. reviewing this work of yours.
I'm not sure if you made a follow-up, but if you did, please tell. This sounds promising and pretty interesting

"The morning sun rose as dawn began to take form. It felt as if the night had lasted for days. The wet, muddy and paved paths of the graveyard shimmered in the sunlight, as if it were a mirage."
This right here, is great.
It's compelling, and you pretty much mastered the art of interesting description with meaning in this little bit. usually descriptions at the beginning of a chapter or book totally bores a reader, but this one is short and effective. It feels like there's a second meaning behind this description, as if the night that had lasted for days was synonym for something else. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but that's what gripped me into the story lol.

This quote here, "as if someone was blowing away smoke from a candle." doesn't make much sense. There's no smoke around a candle. OR maybe something like "as if someone was blowing away the smoke of a snuffed out candle" Candles make smoke after being blown out.

Here too, " they had glowing eyes of different colors" you can simply say "they had glowing eyes" since saying they were of different colours make us think that their eyes are multicoloured.

That ending is just great! There's so much mystery behind it, so much intrigue. It's a twist done right. Thing is, I don't really see how you can make this into a trilogy. If he was the man he saw out of the grave, then he'll run out, and die once again, and that will just loop over and over. So how to continue that. Will the shadow become a person and survive? Or will he break the loop? I just can't seem to see how you will spin this into a trilogy.

Hi hello, I liked this story, it's short but really nice despite that.
The pacing is a bit odd, as in there are a few things you could focus on adding more details to. When the figure appears and when Jack runs away from it, you could add a bit more detail to it.

Another thing,
"...all had their eyes on Jack, all lacking any facial features. The only distinguishing feature was that they had glowing eyes of different colors."
The way this is worded makes it a bit confusing. You should probably start with the fact that they only seem to have glowing eyes before mentioning that they're looking at Jack. Maybe something like "...their faces were completely blank, void of any features. All except for glowing sets of eyes that were all focused on Jack."
But that's just an example, and it's completely up to you in the end.

Also, and this is me being nitpicky, you only describe one of the voices. I like that fact that we don't know which figure is speaking, but you could either describe each voice or say that all of the voices were deep.
But regardless, this was a pretty cool story!

The story has a nice framework. Nicely done with that. Although, I did not quite understand the ending. The story can go ahead a bit too, if you want to. I think when you killed him you could have expressed it stronger than just "killed him on the spot". But that maybe because it's not the centre of the story, so it's your choice. Overall, its cool.

Hey there! Plume here, with a review!

Ooh, this short story was very fun! I'm always a sucker for fun, twisty endings like the one you have here. I think it's thoroughly chilling for such a short piece, and you should be proud!

One thing I really loved was your descriptions. I think you do a really nice job of making comparisons so that the reader can really envision everything that's happening in your story. Some of my favorites include your first paragraph, which is a lovely introduction into the scene you're setting. I think it really works with the rest of your story, so great job!

One thing I think you could work on was your pacing. You spent too much time on things that didn't really matter, and not enough time on crucial plot points. I feel like you brushed over his death a lot, and when he saw the smoke, I didn't really get the sense that something was wrong. I want you to try and take your readers in the moment, rather than just heralding them about it.

Specifics

“Impossible” he mumbled.

Before he could investigate further, a black smoke rose from the grave. Slowly taking shape of what could loosely be described as humanoid.

Like Lego pieces, section of the room fell into place.

The walls seem to suck up what ever light reached them.

Hello, LUNARGIRL here with a review, and a belated welcome to YWS!!!
Let's get straight to it.

The morning sun rose as dawn began to take form. It felt as if the night had lasted for days. The wet, muddy and paved paths of the graveyard shimmered in the sunlight, as if it were a mirage.

Jackson walked slowly along the path. His father had died years prior, every week on Saturday morning, he came to visit his grave. Jack had never seen his father angry, even at the worst of times, he always faced everything with a smile on his face. Nothing negative ever came to his mind whenever he thought about him. He seemed perfect. Perhaps a little too perfect at times, but Jack never let that thought linger. After all, he had no reason to.