Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language, violence, and mature content.
"No!" I scream. The only thing I want to do is to run away, but my legs are tied together with rope. The searing hot metal eats away my flesh and clothes and leaves singe marks. The whole room is filled with silent people. No one talks. No one dares make a noise. They all just stand there and listen to my screams. They have dressed their full bodies in black, their faces covered. They all stand there breathing slightly heavy like they had become aroused by my suffering. All I can do is lay here and let them stab me over and over again with a hot poker, till I was so in pain that I stopped struggling and am pulled into a deep murky sleep full of pain.
How did I get here? I can only guess. . . for I have only part of my memory from that night. It was cold, I had brought a sweater, that which now lies across the room in tatters. I was picked up by my friend Rachael; she had a blue convertible. I rode by her side, my hair curled, ready for a night of fun. It was supposed to be a simple party at a friends house, it was everything but. Soon did we find ourselves in a house with alcohol and no doubt some pills and weed. You could smell it from a block away. I didn't partake in the drug use because I told my friend I'd drive her home, and since I happen to be a light weight I stuck to grape juice in a red solo cup. try to look normal, I kept repeating in my head, but everyone already knew I didn't belong here. I'm too safe. I remember it getting late, me holding Rachael's hair then sitting back on the skunk smelling couch, I leaned over and took a sip out of my cup. . .
From there nothing, nothing really anyway. I remember hands. They were men and one woman; they were on my holding me up into something cold, I hit my head inside what seemed to be a van, and once again fell asleep. I awoke to the searing of my flesh, I cried so much and shook so hard, but they just kept going. Taking turns carving patterns. Now I'm laying face first on a metal bed tied down, as they make their way up a set of metal stairs. I hear banging a minute later, a door, shoes, and finally a bed post. I can feel my stomach turning inside me and I puke; it was hard and brought tears to my eyes.
Will someone find me? The thought fills my head and drowns out all of the noises from the couple upstairs. I think it's morning now, I feel as if it is. But this room has a lack of windows so that I am not able to see; so no one can see me. . . I am trapped with masked people, I'm bleeding severally, and the pain I feel is starting to numb. What is happening? I don't understand the numbing pain I can feel in my toes, most my wounds are closed, but the ones on my thigh, oh god please save me. I can feel the numbness go from my toes to my knees.
"How you doing Missy?" A man speaking from behind me, he sounds raspy. I didn't even notice that he came down here, I was too busy trying to save my own ass! He walks towards me with a bright red knife that he had pulled from the large stove in the corner.
"I asked you a question!" He lowered himself on his knees facing me and tried to pull out my gag, I didn't know why, but my first instinct was to bite him. And without thinking, that is what I've already done. He snaps back dropping the knife holding his hand that now streams with red.
"Ahhh shit! Now, why'd you do that?" He says now wrapping a piece of torn cloth around his hand. I wouldn't know if he was mad or not, his mask hid most expression from me. He bent down picked up the knife and went around to my bare back on the other side of the cold metal bed. He slid the blade slowly into my skin and the flesh sang. It was like frying bacon but smelled so much worse.
"shhh, shhh, you know what? I'm gonna stop all your pain." He said slightly laughing, "let it be my gift to you since you provided such a well put on show!" He was hysterical, what did he mean show? This was all a little show for him to put on? I went from angry, to crying, and then to pleading. It was no use my mouth was still gagged he hadn't taken it out!
"Pleaaa, pleaaa," was all he heard, he laughed and my body shook under the straps, then all in once did something happen; it was so quick I didn't know I was doing it. My arm broke the rusted arm brace then the next, I was filled with so much adrenaline that I easily took the knife from his hand. The searing flesh now on his stomach; lighting up his clothes. I soon untied the rope on my feet and ran upstairs. The people who had observed him earlier had seen me come up with the hot knife and stepped back, they no longer had their suits of black on. They were no longer invincible and fearless.
I ran out the door, all woods. I could hear them running after me. I slid fast down a muddy hill, it had rained. . . I didn't hear the rain. I found my way to the bottom of the hill where the grass was overgrown. I laid there, I heard footsteps. They were loud, they broke branches and screamed. I laid there. It felt like hours, the footsteps got quiet. I laid there. They disappeared. I laid there. I waited another hour or so. I got up and stumbled on a half paved road. I walked for a long time, I was half asleep. Then finally a very nice car, with a small women about my age sat in, came to a halt.
"Oh my god, what happened to you?" She smells like perfume and men, but at the moment I don't really care where she has been. I don't want to tell her that I was kidnapped, she looked as if she might run away, here hand on her gear shift.
"I got in a car wreck, it was just me. Can you take me to a hospital?" I was out of breath, it came out wrong. But, she trusted me. She slowly unlocked her car door and I stepped inside. I rested my head on the dash and fell asleep. only half awakening to the sound of doctors pulling me onto a gurney. It was warm.
I woke up hours later I assumed in a room, half the blood was gone and an IV was in my arm. Two men walked into my room, they had badges. Finally! I thought, maybe they can help me.
"Mam, is this you?" They helped up my picture, a bad school picture from a year ago. Senior year.
"Yes, that is me." I thought it was obvious though, it's only been a year.
"So about a month ago you were at a party at the Louis house with your friend Rachael?" They said their eyes looking down. Did they feel bad for me? I was only there last night. The information must be wrong. . . right?
"Yes I was there but it was only last night." They looked at me with shock.
"No Ms.Talbot you were reported missing about a month ago on a Saturday night, you went missing on that Friday. I know this must come a shock to you, but it makes sense that the time seems shortened we found several date rape type drugs in your blood system. It's a wonder too how your still aliv-" He was cut off by the older man in a suit, he had a beard and kind eyes, but when he looked at me it was like he needed something from me.
"We need you to tell us about what they did to you, we have several cases like yours, except your alive. . .tell us about his, show."
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140,831 Literary Works • 673,694 Reviews
Hey, Ineedy0u. Storm here for a review this fine Review Day, so let's jump right into it!
What searing hot metal? You must remember that you just plopped the readers down into this situation, and we have no idea what is going on.
This sentence is rather awkward. "They all stand there breathing heavily like my suffering arouses them' is a less awkward sounding way to phrase it.
Here, you change to past tense. Don't do that. You started in present tense, so you should stay in present tense. It's inconsistent if you change the tense.
You say I and then a verb for 3 sentences in a row. It's redundant and boring to read when you do that.
Skunk smelling couch? From the weed? I'm just going to assume it's from the weed. Also, this sentence is worded strangely, specifically 'skunk smelling couch.'
You don't need the last half of that sentence. All you're doing is restating yourself.
I think you mean 'face down.'
'Recoiled' would be a better word to use. Also, she bit him? She would have had to bite pretty hard to break skin. Maybe mention how hard she bit him.
It's spelled ma'am. It's actually an abbreviation of madam, which I find interesting.
Overall, this was very interesting. You did fairly well with this plot. You had a lot of grammatical errors and used strange phrases. Try to use more interesting language when describing things. Despite these errors, you managed to keep me interested in the story. I would love to see this adapted into a novel. I think that if you expanded this, it would translate well. Good job!
Feel free to reply to this review or to pm me if you have any questions.
~Storm
Hi, Ineedy0u. Pan here to boil up a review.
I love the darkness of this piece. It's full of mystery, and it relates to a very powerful fear that all of us have. You certainly leave it at a point of high tension - I know this is a short story, but I can't help but feel it's worthy of a few more instalments to answer the burning questions about who kidnapped the narrator and why. And how she got away from them! Does she have some kind of superhuman strength, breaking her restraints like that?
Anyway, horror aside, I've got a few points for improvement:
1) Perhaps the biggest issue with this piece is tense slippage. You constantly yo-yo between past and present tense, sometimes even within the same sentence. Paragraphs are spent in either tense before swapping back to the other, and it makes the story quite jarring to read. The first paragraph is past tense, but when you return to the current scene after explaining the events of the party, you switch to present tense - Now I'm laying face first on a metal bed tied down. Later on, however, it goes back to past - A man spoke from behind me, and from then on slips back and forth between the two.
When you redraft the piece, pick one tense and stick to it. Check every verb and ask yourself 'has it happened? Or is it happening?' and change it accordingly. That should get the inconsistencies under control.
2) Comma splices. Your use of commas is a bit all over the place, and you have a tendency to connect independent clauses with commas rather than full stops or semi-colons. For example:
The three parts of this sentence are all independent clauses, so should not be linked by commas. To fix it, you could replace the commas with full stops:
'The whole room was filled with silent people. No one talked. No one dared make a noise.'
This would probably be my preferred alternative, but you could also use semi-colons:
'The whole room was filled with silent people; no one talked; no one dared make a noise'.
If you're unsure as to whether you're using a comma correctly, replace it with a full stop. If the sentences make sense with a full stop, the comma should not be there.
My explanation is a little patchy here, so I'd highly recommend reading this topic for more information about fixing comma splices.
3) Length of description. This is a slightly more subjective point, but I feel like the piece could benefit from less broad description in places. Let's dissect the opening paragraph.
I've bolded the parts that could do with changing or deleting in this opening passage. I'll talk you through the reasons why.
as loud as I could - this adds unnecessary words which slow up the pace of the piece. I would suggest that you cut it, and perhaps replace 'shouted' with 'screamed' if you want to give the reader the sense of her desperation.
the gag was keeping my voice from reaching far outside these walls - there are two problems with this. For one, it's fairly wordy. A bigger problem, however, is it seems to imply that the narrator has some kind of broad understanding about her place in the scene - she's self-aware enough to realise that her screaming won't reach far. This seems strange, given how much agony she's in. You'd think her thoughts would be reduced to her discomfort and very little else - ask yourself, if someone was burning your flesh with hot metal, do you think you'd be thinking about how far your screams were reaching?
If you want to communicate that she's gagged, change the description into something more physical. Mention how the rag in her mouth is wet with her screams, or how it tastes stale in her mouth. Something that she wouldn't be able to help noticing.
the only thing I wanted was to run away, but my legs were tied together with rope - a similar point to the last one. Would she be able to form coherent thoughts about what she wanted to do when she was in that much pain? She seems too aware of herself. Again, if you want to mention her bound legs, you could ground it in physical description - mention how she's kicking her legs and the rope is burning against her skin, locking her in place.
that was burning into me - quite simply, you can delete this. We can gather from the rest of the sentence and the context that it's burning her.
The whole room was filled with silent people, no one talked, no one dared make a noise. They all just stood there and listened to my screams. They have dressed their full bodies in black, their faces covered. They all stood there breathing slightly heavy like they had become aroused by my suffering. All I could do is lay there and let them stab me over and over again with a hot poker, till I was so in pain that I stopped struggling and was pulled into a deep murky sleep full of pain.
Again, it's too much detail. She's supposed to be in agony. She'd be in no state to comment on the clothing of her kidnappers, nor to notice that their breathing is slightly heavier. All of this could be cut.
You could keep the last line, but sum it up in a more concise manner. Something simple about her not being able to get away.
So, with those changes in mind, the opening might read something like this:
'"No!" I screamed, but the gag clogged my throat, wet and coarse against my tongue. Rope burned my into my legs as I kicked out, searing metal eating away my flesh and clothes. I couldn't get away. I couldn't escape them.'
This is only a guideline example, of course, but it shows how less can be more in terms of powerful description. If you ground your writing in physical sensations and really get behind the eyes of your character in terms of what she would notice in that state, it becomes more believable. And by not mentioning much about the perpetrators straight away, you heighten the reader's intrigue.
Hope this review helped! Sorry if it was a bit rambly.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Well normally when you have a rush of adrenaline you are able to have an extra burst of strength. In this case, however, they were rusted and old, so even in pain was she able to free herself.
Also thanks for the help! I used most of your advice!
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT??!! OMG
I thought it was obvious, she tells the story. .. like she just told you.
Well yeah but like what is she gonna say?! How are they gonna take it? So many questions!!
Maybe ill write a sequel?
That would be awesome!