As each day went on, I never saw the hurt in my own friend. Life went on and as usual I never took life or the people around me seriously. Until one day!
One day I found out that must save my dear friend from her Dark Nights. No one knew her location or whereabouts. All I knew was the last text that I received from her. The text said, “Please hear this, I did not mean to hurt anyone but I need to escape this pain. Life is not as it seems and my Dark Nights help me deal with life, but I want to leave these nights behind.” I never knew she was depressed, but then again I never paid attention to the signs she gave me. As soon as I received the text I knew something had to be done. I ran out of school that day and went straight to her house, but when I got there she wasn’t there. As I ran around frantically looking for clues of her whereabouts, I noticed a yellow sticky note that read, “Don’t bother to look for me and if you find me don’t be sad, for life and its problems have overtaken me. I will be in my secret hiding place forgetting and punishing myself for the things that I have done. I’d like to come out of these Dark Nights, but life won’t let me. Maybe now life would be better, peaceful, and hurt won’t fall upon me. Don’t try to find me!” Panic began to overwhelm me as I thought of any place she could be.
In our early years we had a little private place where we went to play. After finishing the note and remembering the place she could be, I ran straight there. The little “private place” is an underground room that goes through a tunnel and it is on her grandparent’s property. It’s been years since we have played here and I could only pray that I find the tunnel going into the underground room to save her. When I stumbled upon the property I ran towards the tunnel, but as I went in I could not remember which way to turn. Suddenly, I realized that I had no time to panic, so I turned right. As soon as I turned I saw the door leading into the underground room. Before I turned the knob, I could only hope that my dear friend was in the room. When I opened the door I was surprised at what I saw.
There she was lying on the floor in a low state of mind. It was such a remorseful moment to see her overtaken by these Dark Nights. Why had it happened to her? What had she done to deserve to be eaten by these Nights? It had driven her into a deep state of sadness and, sadly, she could neither tell nor express. Is she happy? Is the pain gone from everyday life? Can she now sleep at night without awakening from the evil nights that kept her up? These Dark Nights brought her to her fate and all she could was cry in pain. As I asked myself these questions, I noticed a note. The note read, “As the blade goes deeper in my skin, I forget about life. Every person that could have ever hurt me is now forgotten. I can also punish myself for the pain that I have caused upon others. My Dark Nights, are now forgotten and laid to rest because the pain is now swept away. So, don’t be sad when my Dark Nights overtake me, just know that I am happier than ever before.” After finishing the note, I thought to myself of how much pain this child must have went through. Her Dark Nights was the only thing that seemed to help or care and in the end it ended every good or bad thing that she worked for.
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141,299 Literary Works • 674,335 Reviews
Hi, Legy here,
Ok, where to start....what are nights? It seems like the whole story is about nights, yet I have no idea what the heck they are. I don't feel like you made it very clear as to what these mysterious nights are. Were you talking about the typical darkness after sundown? Or? I dunno. You tell me. Another thing (sorry to be so brutal), the language use is a bit cliche'. Here are some examples:
"One day I"
"Panic began to overwhelm"
work on that, think of better ways of manipulating introductory sentences, and improve your description.
Other than this, it is an interesting idea you've got, just elaborate on it more and the story could be a whole lot better.
What's wrong with using cliche' in a narrative?
Hey!! Silver here to review for you!!
Well this was an interesting short, it captured my attention and held it the entire way. I think though as CorianderLee said, that this piece was a little rushed. I think that with a little more time spent on it and a bit more detail you could have something really special here. One thing that confused me was that you said:
Then later on the protagonist looks for her at her house and is surprised to find her gone. That was a bit strange. Besides that this has a lot of potential. Happy writing!!
Silverlock
It was a good one.
I keeps me totally engaged.
I love the "note" thing you have put as clue to find the reason.
It makes the reader curious to know what will happen next ?
I love the concept. I can understand how a person's deeds become his own fear. It keeps him disturbed and when he isnt able to forget that then this sufferings become his nightmare.
Good job
Keep it up
Hello!
I really liked this plot! The whole time I was worried what would happen to the friend.
I didn't see any grammatical errors except for the ones magenta has already pointed out.
I do have a few comments to make.
The narrator isn't who the story is about so you don't really need to go into too much detail about them so you're good there. But the story is about the friend and we don't know much about her except that has depression and ran away. I think it would give your story more background and a lot more emotion if you talk about the bond between the two characters. Maybe you could have our narrator flash back to a fond memory or give us more insight into the girls family life. Did she have a hard life? abusive parent? Or maybe her parents are really concerned about her but she shuts them out.
Ok now your probably saying "Did you even read the story? There was a flash back when our narrator remembers the place their friend is hiding at!"
Well, yes, but there wasn't much detail. Describe the place. The smell. The light. The color of the walls. anything! But when I was reading this I just couldn't quite picture it.
I'm almost done and then I'll get out of your way I promise!
When I was reading your story it seemed very rushed. You had point A and point B and the journey between was a white walled hallway. This is mostly from lack of description, but it's also because we don't get much feeling from the narrator. We know He/she is very concerned for the friend. But it makes just one flavor and in the end one flavor is pretty bland. (We want rainbow sherbet not vanilla) A way to fix this would be to sloooow it down. Write about the frustration and panic that's clouding her mind and making it hard to focus long enough to find her friend. the nervous sweat forming on her forehead as she enters the hallway. Her heart beating out of her chest as she gets closer to the door, hoping it's not too late.
ONE more thing! Throughout your story you refer to her depression as Dark Nights and with the capitalization and repetition of this phrase I was seriously wondering if medieval knights in dark armor had taken her dear friend. The repetition is was sticks out the most and makes the story like popcorn instead of flowy. I would suggest using Dark Nights twice maaaybe three times in your story, but the other times should be switched out with another word.
I hope I was helpful, not harsh, and if there is anything I over thought, or missed the point completely (!), please let me know
Hello Inlovewithwriting,
I don't know if this is the best way to start it. I would also suggest using an ellipse at the end of "until one day" to make it more dramatic or have just a period instead of an exclamation point. With the exclamation point, it just seems a bit random. But no worries!
Salutations! This is Magenta here to do some reviewing of your short story, Dark Nights, which you have just submitted. I just have some suggestions for you as you continue on in your writing.
"As each day went on, I never saw the hurt in my own friend. Life went on and as usual I never took life or the people around me seriously. Until one day!"
When you are writing a story, long or short, you try to have a juicy beginning or some sort of a hook, right? Well, you story has a good hook, but I think it could be even better! You know what I mean?
"One day I found out that must save my dear friend from her Dark Nights. No one knew her location or whereabouts."
You must use some commas. Change these two sentences so that it is grammatically correct and so that it is in the same tense. Also include an I between "that" and "must". Try this...
"One day, I found out that I had to save my dear friend from her Dark Nights; no one knew where she was." By saying "location" and "whereabouts", it changes the writing when you seem to assume a casual way of writing.
You wrote "dear friend" a couple of times. Perhaps you would like to use a different adjective when describing your friend.
"It had driven her into a deep state of sadness and, sadly, she could neither tell nor express." This seems to be a fragment. It doesn't look like you finished the sentence.
Anyway, great job with this writing. I hope to see more of your writing on YWS. Good luck! ;P
~Magenta
That strange looking ":P" is really supposed to be a smiley face with a tongue sticking out but I don't know how to do that...
It would've come up as a smiley face, but you used a semicolon instead of a colon.
See?
Thanks Iggy!