When I was growing up, I was always afraid of the monsters under my bed.
Sometimes I could see them, in the middle of the night, standing on my bedroom’s threshold, with wolfish faces, red eyes and full-teeth venomous smiles. Sometimes I could only listen to them, whispering threats to my ears.
After some time, they were gone.
One day at school, I got in the middle of a spiritual joke. It involved a board, a pen and a group of cool teens, that wanted to mess with spirits.
We played, we saw the pen moving, but I was soon chosen to hold the pen. They said I was “special and sensitive”. The worst thing that happened was that I actually felt the bloody pen moving under my hand, pulling my arm and moving in lots of directions. When we finished, one guy said he saw the spirit had “stayed” with one of the girls. I really saw she was different, kind of sad and paler.
So the monsters came back. Not like monsters, but like shades and shadows, human-shaped, almost transparent and silent. They walked silently in the streets; no one seemed to see them as I saw. They tried to hang out with me, but my mom had a thing called “prayer”. They didn’t like it.
One day, they started to bother me. They showed me nightmares, far visions, awful stories of dying and evil people. Even in the middle of classes at school! There was this masked one that kept annoying me at my Chemistry class and went to my home later. I started praying with my mom and my sight opened.
Months passed and I started to see bright lights and sparks, glowing people and good smelling souls. Some people had bad smelling souls and did not glow at all.The black shades hated me and tried to scary me again. But when I prayed and sang, a curtain of gilded rain would be formed between me and the shades. I saw brilliant ones singing and fighting. It was beautifully fearsome.
This became my life. Day after day I could see heavenly fights and the way angels and spiritual beings moved. It was awesome, scary, lovely and hard to live with: responsibility and power. But it also brought me the most valuable gift I ever had: the power to look at someone’s face and feel when they need a hug, a kiss or a new perspective of life.
Why do I have the sight of a non-material world?
The smells no one else could notice, from roses to rotten burnt flesh…
The low whispers and high songs…
People are afraid of what they cannot understand. Worse: they call you a liar.
I could never ever talk about this to anyone but the people who were like me. They also saw and felt this invisible world. We could share our experiences among ourselves and give support to one another. We, who have the sight, have to manage it among ourselves and hope people won’t notice what we do, because what we do is considered madness among the rational ones.
What we do is our secret, to be well kept, safe and never abandoned. I’m happy with it.
The monsters never came back.
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
Wow this is very well written... you did a nice job with it.
^^ Thanks.
it was a nice peace.
I really did not see the mystery or the suspense depicted in the story.
" When I was growing up, I was always afraid of the monsters under my bed.
Sometimes I could see them in the middle of the night, standing on my bedroom’s threshold, with a wolfish face, red eyes and full-teeth venomous smiles. Sometimes I could only listen to them, whispering threats to my ears.
After some time, they were gone.
But one day at school, I got in the middle of a spiritual kids joke: it involved a board, a pen and a group of cool teens that wanted to mess with spirits."
In the above quotation from your piece I don't think the word "But" was useful there. Maybe a better transitional word or statement, or you could have just started "One day at school..."
A paragraph should have 5-6 lines, your lines. to me your lines are too short for one paragraph in an essay and too long for a stanza in a poem.
This is all I have to say for now.
Keep writing!
good work.
Ps I really liked this part.
" This became my life. I could now see heavenly fights and the way angels and spiritual beings moved. It was awesome, scary, lovely and hard to live with: responsibility and power. But it also brought me the most valuable gift I ever had: the power to look at someone’s face and feel when they need a hug, a kiss or a new perspective of life."
I've always hear about people saying that the Angels and the Devil fighting (mostly when its raining and sun is shining at the same time) and this reminded me of that.
I made the changes. Take a look at it! ^^
About the raining and sunshine: I'm definetely writing a story about that. =)
Hello!
I enjoyed reading this. Your character has a strong, clear voice that paints the words and images in my head. I like how the tone is both matter of fact and emotional, walking that fine balance between stating a reality and not freaking out from the 'freaky' situation of that reality.
A few things I'd like to point out:
You may want to pluralize the 'wolfish face'
I believe the colon is not necessary and a period would suffice. Also, consider removing 'kids'.
I believe you could do so much with this sentence if you elaborate on it. Why did it follow her or how? What was so special about this one that made it worth mentioning?
Were the 'monsters' and 'shades' bad smelling? The protagonist knows the difference but we don't. What does 'good smelling' mean?
How did the association between good smelling souls and angels come to be? I ask because she/he didn't know the significance of that thing called 'prayer' until just a few paragraphs ago, but knows about angels.
What people? Where or how did they meet? I ask because up until this point it was all about the protagonist's ordeal with these visions. Now we're introduced to the fact that there are more people like him/her. Why? How does that relate to his/her personal ordeal?
These are just a few questions that popped in my head while reading this. So I'm asking.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for your review. If you want to take a look again, I made some changes. What do you think of it?
About the questions: I received a suggestion of writing a horror story, so I'll keep the answers until there. I hope you review it when it's done. ^^
Indeed I will!
I see the edits...definitely getting there.
Hello ClariceArrais,
Keep on writing.
Happy Review Day! This is Magenta here to write you a quick review on your short story, Monsters Under My Bed. I see that this is the only thing with no reviews in the Green Room so I came to check it out. You've just recently submitted this about twelve or thirteen minutes ago and most people are tired of reviewing. I just have a few things to comment on. Oh, wait! I almost forgot to welcome you here. It seems that you have just joined a couple of days ago and have already done 22 reviews. Great job with this submission as well. I offer my assistance, should the time come, and all you need to do is pm or summon me and I'll be there to help. Okay, so on with this review.
"Sometimes I could see them in the middle of the night, standing on my bedroom’s threshold, with a wolfish face, red eyes and full-teeth venomous smiles. "
"it involved a board, a pen and a group of cool teens that wanted to mess with spirits."
In these two sentences, it seems that you have no comma before the conjunction in your listings. I would definitely suggest using one. It is, though, your decision.
Another thing that I have noticed is your use of semicolons. In some spots, it seems that you could have used a comma or had made that part of another whole sentence.
Other than those few things, nice story. If you want to, I think that you could make this a horror story. Add some fear and scary stuff and it will be great!
~ Magenta