Published April 25, 2015
Okay, so I am trying out writing a light horror. Check it out and let me know if you get the creepy vibe.
Chapter 1.
The strike of the match was deafening and a second later the thin piece of wood caught fire, illuminating the faces of two boys and a girl.
“Quit taking so long and light the candle, Gracie,” the larger boy with light hair and dark eyes, twelve at best, prompted the girl whose matching hair and eyes marked her as his sister. She hurriedly touched the flame to the wick of a candle sitting on the corner of the counter. The flickering light further lit the tiny bathroom room they were standing in.
“I wouldn’t have taken as long if you hadn’t been a dummy and turned off the light before we lit the candle, Bryan,” the girl snapped back. She was around eight.
“Shh, your mom is gonna hear us,” the third child spoke in a hushed voice. The boy looked to be somewhere between the two siblings in age, his bright blue eyes hidden behind shaggy brown hair. “And if she finds out what we are doing she’ll tell my mom and I’ll never get to spend the night again.”
“Alright, back to business then,” the older boy rubbed his hands together, matching the dark haired boy’s tone. “After the candle is lit, you’re supposed to look in the mirror.”
The three shifted to face the mirror hanging over the sink, the orange glow from the candle highlighting the sharp angling of their faces and casting the hollows into shadows.
“Now, Gracie put your finger on mirror.”
“Why do I have to?” the girl clutched her hands nervously.
“Because you said you wanted to do this with us," the older boy showed no mercy. “If you’re too much of a baby to do it you can leave. Right, Adam?” he included the other boy.
“Yeah, don’t be a baby,” the dark headed boy said halfheartedly.
The girl’s lips turned down in a frown. “I’m not a baby. “ To prove it she pressed the pad of her pointer finger to the cool glass and met the two others eyes defiantly in the mirror. “What’s next?”
“We turn on the water,” the blonde boy said as he leaned forward and did so. “They say it was the last sound she heard,” he whispered before falling silent. The thin trickle of water splashed against the porcelain of the sink.
The brown haired boy splintered the quiet a moment later.
“Then what?”
A sly smile curled the older boy’s lips.
“We say her name together three times.”
Nervous smiles tugging at the children’s lips as they exchanged glances and at the same time took a breath,
“Bloody Mary.”
Their voices echoed, slightly out of time with one another, memories of the words hanging in the cramped room for a breath before fading. The flame of the candle flicked once.
“Bloody Mary.”
The three children’s eyes never wavered from their glass twins, forming a single voice, louder this time. A draft crept under the door and the spigot sputtered.
“Bloody Mary.”The hushed words seemed to shake the room and a face appeared. Not of a women though.
Yellow reptilian eyes glared out of face of stretched leather skin and open oozing sores. A wide mouth of jagged teeth opened, splitting the lower jaw from the rest of the head and a long forked tongue flicked out to lick the pus from one of the boils directly above two slit nostrils.
The dark headed boy’s terror froze him, too scared to scream, his eyes darting to his friends placid expressions in the refection and felt an even deeper horror set in his gut.
They didn’t see it.
The monster’s tongue snapped out again and the front of the boy’s jeans became wet. A serpentine body emerged from the shadows of the mirror.
“No, no, no,” The strained whispers escaped from the boy’s lips as he watched the beast wrap its self around the girl’s refection. “No, no, stop, stop it.” His voice growing to shattering screams. The girl standing beside him suddenly collapsed but he didn’t notice, her reflection still trapped in the coils of the scaled demon, struggling. Her eyes were wide with terror, her lips moved soundlessly but the boy could read them perfectly.
“Help me!”
***
Sooo, what did you think? Let me know below.
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140,714 Literary Works • 673,675 Reviews
Sarah here for a review.
Reading this at 2am probably wasn't a great idea. I found this absolutely terrifying. You did a great job of setting up the atmosphere before the shock of the monster appearing. I feel like the fact that it was all happening to 3 kids made this scarier in a way as they were just ordinary people who couldn't do anything about the situation.
Another thing I liked was how your description of the monster told enough to help the reader get a mental image, but still left things to the imagination. In my case the things I find scarier are generally the more subtle things that let your imagination go wild with your own worst nightmares, which I found to be the case in this story.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that with a combination of pacing and atmosphere you've written a story that's going to make it hard for me to sleep tonight. Well done and keep writing
Hahaha, thanks. I am happy to hear you found it terrifying....
BOO!!!
Happy Review Day! ^_^ Hopefully this review will be useful to you, but sorry if you don’t like my reviewing style, as I tend to show by example haha. Let’s get straight to it, shall we?
Spelling & Grammar
There are several little typos scattered throughout the story, but the kind that spell-check won’t catch because technically they’re still proper words. A few examples:
“[…] the thin piece of word caught fire […]” → wood
“The flickering light farther lit the […]” → further
“[…] flicked out to lick the puss […]” → pus
“The dark head boy […]” → dark-haired
You get the point. (There was also some slight mistakes with spacing.) Additionally, be aware of when to use an adjective vs. an adverb, as well as verb tenses. Examples:
[…] her lips moved soundless […]” → soundlessly
[…] the thin piece of word (wood) caught fire, illuminated the faces of […]” → illuminating
Try to go through your work again to catch all those tiny little mistakes.
Next point: please review quotation mark rules! When you are using quotation marks to set off a direct quote and it’s something that ends with ‘he said/asked/etc.’, there needs to be a comma, not a period. The next bit should not be capitalized, as well.
Ex. “We turn on the water.” The blonde boy said […]
This should read: “We turn on the water,” the blonde boy said […]
You use a period before a closing quotation mark when the quote is being implicitly attributed to someone.
Stylistic Elements
You do a fantastic job of providing great imagery! The description of the monster labeled “Bloody Mary” seriously made my cringe while I was reading.
Although I really like the sentences with fluid imagery, don’t be afraid to break some of them up into two separate ones so they don’t seem so… runny.
Ex. “The three shifted to face the mirror hanging over the sink, the orange glow from the candle highlighting the sharp angling of their faces and casting the hollows and dips into shadows.”
Your choice of wording is excellent, but the sentence just goes on. I blame the repetitive use of 'and'. In fact, you don't necessary even need two separate sentences, but try to avoid linking clauses together with just 'and'.
Ex. “The three shifted to face the mirror hanging over the sink. The candle’s orange glow highlighted the sharp angling of their faces, casting the hollows and dips into shadows.”
One thing though: after you start mentioning the characters names by way of speech, you still call them “the girl” or “the dark-haired boy” even though we know their names. As a suggestion, perhaps consider using their names after they have been referenced!
Plot
As for the overall story, I really like the twist on the Bloody Mary legend. You certainly left off this chapter on a suspenseful note (curse you!), and I’d definitely want to read more to find out what’s up with that!
A specific suggestion: to increase the suspense of the situation, maybe let nothing happen after they perform their so-called ritual. Like, they all go to bed, or go home or whatnot, and then the reptilian demon strikes! You may find that a little too cliché though, and it’s totally up to you.
That being said, this chapter doesn’t flow like a normal first chapter would. It’s rather short, more of a prologue size. It also seems to throw the story straight into a frenzy mode. I’d have to see the next chapter before I’m able to make assumptions on how this goes. (It’d be really clever if this was like an introduction to the legend through the experience of three kids from the past.) I also have no clue on how long you plan to make this story/novel/etc., and its overall length would certainly make an impact on how soon you should jump into the action.
Overall
Neat idea! Bloody Mary is all good fun, and your twist intrigues me. Your writing is great, but remember to clean up those little mistakes and lengthy amounts of imagery. Hope to read more, and keep up the excellent writing! ^_^
Also, if you found this review useful, please feel free to contact me should you ever want more
Thanks for the awesome and helpful review. As soon as review day is over I will be applying a lot of your suggestions.
Hey Dragongirl! CHRISSY321 here with a review!
***Happy Review Day***:D
This is great! I love how you took a classic, and took it on a completely different turn than expected! When I went on this, I was thinking that I was reading a story about kids just doing a regular game of bloody mary- but that is not what you brought to the table- and that is amazing!
There is only a thing or two that I would fix. Even with this it still does not change the story:
"The monster’s tongue snapped out again and the front of the boy’s jeans became wet as he pissed himself."
I think that there really was no need for for the "as he pissed himself." because I think that it clarifies it's self. Also, this story seems to be sort of calm, and that the word "pissed" stands out too much, so I would take out the phrase I mentioned out completely, to change the word to 'pied'. I think that it makes it more subtle, and not be so harsh on the story.
Overall- I think that is all! I loved this story, and there is nothing else I would change. I greatly encourage you to continue this! What would be in chapter two? I think that maybe this should just be a story on it's own- not chapters- unless you are going back, and expelling all the event proceeding to this event. Great job though- I will continue to read your work!
Thanks for the review, I am glad you enjoyed the story.
Hey Dragongirl! CHRISSY321 here with a review!
***Happy Review Day***:D
This is great! I love how you took a classic, and took it on a completely different turn than expected! When I went on this, I was thinking that I was reading a story about kids just doing a regular game of bloody mary- but that is not what you brought to the table- and that is amazing!
There is only a thing or two that I would fix. Even with this it still does not change the story:
"The monster’s tongue snapped out again and the front of the boy’s jeans became wet as he pissed himself."
I think that there really was no need for for the "as he pissed himself." because I think that it clarifies it's self. Also, this story seems to be sort of calm, and that the word "pissed" stands out too much, so I would take out the phrase I mentioned out completely, to change the word to 'pied'. I think that it makes it more subtle, and not be so harsh on the story.
Overall- I think that is all! I loved this story, and there is nothing else I would change. I greatly encourage you to continue this! What would be in chapter two? I think that maybe this should just be a story on it's own- not chapters- unless you are going back, and expelling all the event proceeding to this event. Great job though- I will continue to read your work!
Hey Dragongirl! CHRISSY321 here with a review!
***Happy Review Day***:D
This is great! I love how you took a classic, and took it on a completely different turn than expected! When I went on this, I was thinking that I was reading a story about kids just doing a regular game of bloody mary- but that is not what you brought to the table- and that is amazing!
There is only a thing or two that I would fix. Even with this it still does not change the story:
"The monster’s tongue snapped out again and the front of the boy’s jeans became wet as he pissed himself."
I think that there really was no need for for the "as he pissed himself." because I think that it clarifies it's self. Also, this story seems to be sort of calm, and that the word "pissed" stands out too much, so I would take out the phrase I mentioned out completely, to change the word to 'pied'. I think that it makes it more subtle, and not be so harsh on the story.
Overall- I think that is all! I loved this story, and there is nothing else I would change. I greatly encourage you to continue this! What would be in chapter two? I think that maybe this should just be a story on it's own- not chapters- unless you are going back, and expelling all the event proceeding to this event. Great job though- I will continue to read your work!
Fire here, representing the Stitches for this review day
First things first: Whoa. This actually blew me away. I absolutely loved this description. It was bone-chillingly real. This was a great horror story, and I can't wait to see future chapters. Also, this was a great idea for a novel, to expand on the legend.
Nitpicks:
I didn't really see many nitpicks here, but this was what I found.
"The whispered screams"
This part confused me a bit. Screams can't really be whispers, can they? When you think of a scream, you would normally think: loud, yelling. Whisper is the exact opposite of scream, so "whispered screams" is a little confusing. I get what you mean, but I might try something like "desperate whisper" instead of whispered screams.
One last nitpick was you made a slight typo in the last paragraph. You typed 'refection', but I think you meant 'reflection'.
other than that, this was a great story, please update me on future chapters
-Fire
Thanks buckets for the review, it tickles me pink that you liked the story.
That was pretty awesome, that's what I think. Not sure why you chose a reptilian, but it's a nice twist from the original myth. Depending on how you use it will determine how good the story ends up. But for now it's really good, and I look forward to seeing the story progress. Would love a notification when you publish the next chapter, if it's not to much trouble.
Kevin, thanks! Glad you like it! I will defiantly give you a hollar when the next chapter is up!
Thanks, and awesome new picture by the way.
Thank you much. On a side note, way to rock the leadboards!