Ahem. So I had another infamous bathroom idea. (I walk into the room and get story ideas. Don't hate on my magic bathroom.) I have absolutely no idea what the freak this is. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: This is a work of morbid horror. Not for the faint hearted. There are no cuss words. It's just plain creepy, in my opinion. I may change the rating (higher or lower I cannot say), rather like how I just changed my shirt. Who knows?
Claimer: Despite the possible thoughts of fanfiction the word 'disclaimer' brings to mind, this is mine. Yeah.
///
“You know they won’t accept you back.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
“What?”
“You know what I mean.”
Shaking. Movement. Light. A flash—silver hair, chiseled face, singular steel iris. Metallic taste to go with the metallic image.
A nod; brief, concise, to the point.
He understands.
“Society doesn’t accept anyone.” Tugs at the hood; black felt rough on his bloody fingers. Everything is hazy; no sunlight. Bare bulb. Pain.
“That’s a lie.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like lies.”
“Unless you’re the one lying?”
Drip.
“Of course.”
Shift. Cloth at feet; monster in sight. Grasping, eagle’s talons attached to ivory throne arms. Ivory, but not ivory. Chipped. Yellow. Old. Dead.
“You’ll let me go?”
“Did the pharaoh let Moses go?”
“No.”
“He did, yeah. He did.”
“He sent an army after him.”
“You asked me to let you go. You never asked to be left alone. Dimwit.”
Shame. Heat.
“Just let me go.”
“Who said I was ever holding you?”
His gaze jerks to the concrete wall behind Monster. Stain. Rust?
“What?”
“You could leave right now. The door is open. You’re free.”
“I don’t know how to get out.”
“That sounds like a personal problem to me.” A smile. Too white for his age; too white for his sickly parlor. Wrong. “Leave.”
Shift. Door.
“You’re a very odd person.”
Shift. His face—confused.
Drip.
Monster shifts now.
He runs.
“Bye, Sampson! I’ll see you around when they bring you back! They hate tainted things, you know.”
He’s down the hall when he starts to retch.
Drip. Drip.
He can’t escape. It’s following him. She’s following him. They’re following him. The dogs are sniffing at his ankles; ghouls.
There is no escape.
///
Yes, Sampson does need some drugs.
Thoughts?
And, yes, I am seriously disturbed. Why?
Eh.
Points:
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Canary word: Present
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Hi Cspr.
I really like this. As you said it is really creepy, in a kind of "crawling under your skin" kind of way. It's rather unsettling. It's a really good skill as a writer to be able to do this.
I like your use of short, sharp sentences. It's what makes it creepy because it makes it feel kind of colder and distant, if that makes any sense. You can also paint a perfect picture using very few words. A really good example of this is
"“You asked me to let you go. You never asked to be left alone. Dimwit.”
Shame. Heat.
“Just let me go.”"
You capture the feeling just perfectly.
My one problem is the use of onomatopoeia. I think it makes the story lose a lot of its maturity. I think Instead of saying "Drip Drip Drip" I suggest you say "The tap dripped" but that’s just my suggestion.
Beside that I really like it.
Hey Cspr! Maybe you should hang out in your bathroom more often, if you get cool story ideas like this there.
You weren't kidding when you said that this was kind of creepy!
I don't like all of the repetition here. It seems unnecessary and is kind of distracting when you're reading it. I would replace at least one of the "ivory"s with another word.
Maybe I'm just a little OCD when it comes to too much repetition, but all of these "shifts" are bothering me. I get what you're trying to do, and it works for most of the story. I would only use it for the main character's movements, though, and use a different word for the monster's actions, liked "Monster stirs now" or "Monster moves now." Just a suggestion.
Overall, though, I thought that this was pretty interesting. My biggest complaint is that sometimes - okay, most of the time - it's hard to tell which character is speaking. Yeah, it needs to be vague so that the story maintains it's creepy tone, but there are a few times when I have no idea who's doing what. Like, "He’s down the hall when he starts to retch." Is Sampson puking, or is the other guy?
I hope this makes some sense, because I feel like I'm rambling right now. Sorry.
Hope this helped a little.
Magnus
Yes, a little disturbed. Haha, no, this is actual pretty entertaining to read in its own morbid little way. It has a lot of dialogue and lack of detail, which actually works in this case, because it keeps us so in the dark about...well, everything. It gives us room to paint our own image and at the same time to wonder what the heck is going on, exactly. That definitely made it interesting, and there was something really ironic about it that was really cool. I suck at irony. *jealous*
But this was seriously cool.
Keep writing,
StoryWeaver