Young Writers Society

This is just a rough draft, and so there's likely to be some grammatical/spelling errors that will be corrected. I'm happy to take any critiques you have, but I'd really love to know about a few main things, which are:

1) Character portrayal/development, or the sense you have of them.

2)  Description! Please help me with that! Sometimes I don't give enough, other times too much, and it's something I'd really love to improve on.

3) Any critique on dialogue & its portrayal.

I'd also love to know what your initial impressions are of it, if you have any, and maybe what you think may happen.

I hope you enjoy!

~ Feather

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— Chapter 1: The Viper —

~ To Sleep, Perchance to Dream ~

The melancholy whistling echoed through long, stony halls, reverberating with miasma. The melody was haunting and eerily beautiful: a masquerade, a dance of hidden knives and subtle lies, where a single soul didn’t live much longer than the next, but the macabre steps had an unidentifiable draw that kept pulling the dancers back.

A man in a white lab coat looked up as the song began. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard it — ever since that woman arrived she’d been whistling that bone-chilling tune. She scared him, if he was honest; he’d worked with a lot of people who were both dangerous and psychotic, but ‘Jane Doe’ brought it to a whole other level. She didn’t just enjoy causing pain. No, she reveled in it, and then there was that manic element of joy derived from playing games with her captors. He’d only just come here as a replacement for the last doctor. He hadn’t been told what happened to him but he suspected that his death wasn’t an accident. Her medication didn’t appear to be helping much, either; from just looking at her file he suspected she was beyond repair. She’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia and sadistic personality disorder. There were delusions and hallucinations, mostly centered around demons, and about having people after her. She also had been hearing a voice she called Apophis and seemed to wholly believe truly existed within her mind. That didn’t even begin to take into account the sadism part of the situation. It all gave him the creeps.

He picked up the orange tray he’d been preparing. He was nervous using needles around her, but how else was he supposed to give her her medication? And besides, she was restrained quite securely, and last time he checked, sedated — he had nothing to worry about. He pulled out his key and unlocked the door, stepping inside.

She wasn’t partially sedated and groggy as he’d hoped, though she was tied down. The shade of brown-red of her gaze was unnerving, unnatural, and only served to make him more nervous. She could tell, too, judging by the look in her eyes.

“Good morning,” he greeted, pushing the fear to the back of his mind as he approached. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh, you know, just dandy,” she drawled. “What about you?”

“I’m doing well, thanks.”

She bared her teeth in a smile. “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” she clucked, shaking her head. “Didn’t your mother teach you to tell the truth, doc? Hm?”

“My mother also taught me my manners,” he replied, setting the tray down on a nearby table and picking up the needle. His hands were shaking.

“Oh-ho,” she laughed, eyes alight. “I suppose that has some merit but I can still smell your fear from here.”

Something to note: a supposedly supernatural sense of smell, in her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“You’re thinking there’s no way that I could have that kind of scenting ability, aren’t you? That it’s another of my delusions.” She chuckled softly. “We’ll see, now won’t we?”

He came to her side and leaned over to pull up her sleeve and clean the area with a cotton swab and some alcohol, just as always. “Yes, I suppose we will.”

“I bet you’re wondering what happened to the last doctor.”

He started to move the needle towards her, ignoring her words. He just needed to get this over with, then he could go…

Cold fingers around his wrist, face mere centimeters from his. His eyes widened with surprise and his heart leapt, pounding in his ears.

“I did to him what I’m about to do to you,” she whispered, and before he could react her leg came in contact with his head with impossible force. He slammed into the wall and slumped to the ground. Crimson blood ran from his head and his lifeless gaze stared at the opposing wall without emotion.

She stood and walked to his body, picking up the needle off the ground and ejecting its contents onto the ground. No reason to have that in the way. The woman proceeded to pull the card off his shirt and put it between her teeth while she took his coat with the keys in his pocket; the hospital gown didn’t exactly offer her much coverage.

Jane Doe pushed her way out of the door and into the hallway, glancing up at the cameras in the corner. On a good day she’d block those, but she didn’t have the time or the means at the moment. Of course, he never had time to sound an alarm, so it was just when she got seen that security would be an issue. Honestly, though, she welcomed their coming — that meant guns, particularly for someone like her.

Maybe they wouldn’t be that stupid if they knew who she was. Maybe they would be. Maybe she should figure out who she was. There was a thought. She liked that. She resolved to begin on that the moment she got out of this mess.

Getting distracted was never a good idea in the middle of something like this, as she learned shortly thereafter when she walked right past a nurse. In this ward she was well known, though — anyone in their right mind was scared of her, and the nurse recognized her instantly. Jane Doe stopped and turned towards the woman who was pressed against the wall, eyes wide in terror, heart thundering.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” she drawled. “I’m not going to kill you. You wouldn’t mind calling security for me, would you? Oh, you already have. Well, in that case,I take back my initial statement.”

“P-please,” the nurse said, tears in her eyes. “I’ll give you anything y-y-you want, b-but please sp-spare me…”

“Sorry, darling, but this is the most you could give me,” she replied, leaping forward with the speed of a striking serpent and grabbing the woman by the shoulders before sinking her teeth into the nurse’s jugular. The metallic tang of warm blood flowed over her tongue and she drank it greedily like the predator she was. Her prey slumped against the corner as her heartbeat began to fade and her struggles became weaker and weaker.

“Stop right there,” a voice said behind her. “Put your hands behind your head and step away from the lady.”

She chuckled softly and turned as she wiped the blood from her lips. “You sure you want to play, sweetheart?” she asked the guard with a wide smile. His dark uniform complemented the ebony plastic and metal of the handgun in his hands, aimed at her with shaky fingers. Smith & Wesson, M&P 9, a slide-action, semi-automatic pistol, loaded with 17 rounds in a standard magazine. A nice weapon, but she preferred Sig Sauer P229 — more accurate.

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

“Feel free to try,” she answered, racing forward. The lights flickered and went out as she sprinted towards the man. Now in complete darkness, she had the advantage; he couldn’t easily shoot blind, but she didn’t have any such problem in the shadows. He did, however, try, and six bullets hit the wall behind her.

Two luminescent scarlet spots pierced the pitch black, their shape broken by long, vertical pupils and she grabbed his wrist and twisted, forcing him to his knees. The gun fell from his fingers as her knee hit him in the chin and she released his wrist, sending him falling back. She had her foot on his chest in mere moments to pin him.

“Wh-what are you?” he said, voice shaking and eyes wide in the blinding abyss.

“I am your worst nightmare,” she murmured close to his ear as cold metal pressed against his forehead.

Bang.

The static buzz of the lights resumed. Perhaps it would have been better if they hadn’t shed light on what lay in the hall and splashed the pale, white tile of the floor and walls with bright color. It certainly didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Footsteps down the corridor; it was time to go. It was a standard magazine and she’d used only one bullet, so with luck it was fully loaded and now had sixteen shots. Better not to waste them. She reached the end of the hall and reached the elevator before taking a sharp left and slamming open the door to the stairs, bounding up them several steps at a time. The sounds of pursuit were right behind her — not enough time to even block the door.

There were more coming above her, too, she could hear them stampeding down the stairs. She pulled her gun and started shooting the moment she could see the first one, hitting him right through the head. For a fleeting moment she wondered if she was a sharpshooter; that was a very fine shot on a moving target with ease. She didn’t have time to wonder it at long, however, as there were seven more right behind him.

Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, bullets left once she felled them. She wished she had the few moments necessary to take their firearms, but with the other security guards on he trail she simply didn’t have the time.

The moment she set foot on the ground level she found herself surrounded by several guards, not counting the ones closing in behind her. She skidded to a stop and quickly took in her surroundings: hanging lights on the ceiling above them, ten guards in front of her and another seven behind, all standing either in the hallway facing her or the stairwell at her back. The elevator was, of course, at her left, and currently on lockdown. The hall opened into a large room to her right — the entry way/waiting room/lobby. The windows were all covered and locked, as was the door. Damn these people had the money for good security.

She didn’t have enough bullets for all of them. On a good day, maybe she’d be able to take this many of them, but now she had neither the time nor the strength nor the resources necessary.

“Drop the weapon,” the man told her.

She put her hands in the air and knelt slowly, watching him closely. “Just puttin’ it down, sir,” she said, placing it on the ground before slowly standing and putting her hands on her head.

They watched in tense silence with their weapons readied and they found themselves enveloped in sudden oblivion, shadows around them as the lights went out.

Bang, bang, bang, bang! Shot after shot was fired in panic, but it was too late; she was on the move, pushing her way through them. She darted around them, sweeping up her weapon as she ran, and went for the metal that blocked the door and firing off a couple shots to keep the guards panicking and trying to find their wounded. Despite the irrationality and seeming insanity of her actions, she followed her instinct, charging the barrier and closing her eyes tightly and bracing for the impact.

She opened them as she stumbled and tripped off the curb of a sidewalk, nearly colliding with a Honda Civic flying past her. She glanced back at the glass door behind her, through which she could see the silvery steel of the locked building. How…?

No time now. She shook it off and bolted down the sidewalk, taking a sharp right into an alley and through the backstreets. There were no sounds of pursuit behind her, though she did hear distant sirens. Whether or not they were for her it was impossible to know, but she found it unlikely they didn’t call the police.

Her gait finally slowed as she reached the rooftops, heart pounding in her ears and breath frosty in the chill night. The air was frigid as it entered her lungs, and only now did she notice it, with the adrenaline finally subsiding. She sat down and pressed her back against a chimney as everything caught up to her — the blood, the kills, the look in their eyes when she put them out of their miserable existence. Most of all the sheer terror and despair in those last few moments.

She laughed. What a night. Besides, look at her now; she was finally free. Four years and she was finally free.