Fear of the woods

by LostMagi42

Published August 11, 2011

The window creaks, the lampshade quivers. I pull the sheets over my head, squirming into a corner. The storm door slams, then the main one. The stairs squeak. My door is locked, but it won't be enough. I try to slow my breathing. What a waste of energy. The creatures from the woods have found me. My parents are gone, taken by the creatures. I shiver. The thought of my parents' mangled bodies cross my mind. Another creak. Loud banging noises come from above me. BANG! BANG! CRASH! They've broken through the roof. More banging. My attic door trembles, my other door shivers. They are at my front step, howling into the slowly fading night. I look at my mirror. A gruesome face smiles across it, then a mangled arm reaches and grabs my chest, and pulls. I manage to cut off its hand with my knife. The attic door gives way with a loud snap. A wolf like figure charges at me, full sprint. I raise the bloody knife in self defense. It stops, grabs the knife with a deformed hand, and cuts off my ear. I howl in pain. The other mutant charges in. The sun rises. They howl in pain as I am free of them, thanks to the sun. The last thing the monster does, before decintegrating, is throw the knife at my stomach, killing the baby inside of me and causing me a slow and painful death. I had been six months pregnant at the time.

Comments & reviews · 5
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shadowraiki
Review
shadowraiki wrote a review Review · Aug 11, 2011

Hello and I hope you have a pleasant stay at YWS. Here is my review.

While this piece is already short, you may want to work on the formatting. I would split it into two paragraphs at a minimum.

The window creaks, the lampshade quivers. I pull the sheets over my head, squirming into a corner. The storm door slams, then the main one. The stairs squeak. My door is locked, but it won't be enough. I try to slow my breathing. What a waste of energy. The creatures from the woods have found me. My parents are gone, taken by the creatures. I shiver. The thought of my parents' mangled bodies cross my mind. Another creak. Loud banging noises come from above me. BANG! BANG! CRASH! They've broken through the roof. More banging. My attic door trembles, my other door shivers.

The beginning is essentially a series of fragments that establishes a fast pace, yet tense mood. I feel that you should change the sentence I underlined and fuse it with the last one using a colon. So it should read, "I try to slow my breathing: a waste of energy." It sounds better in my opinion. Other than that, there is nothing wrong with this part.

They are at my front step, howling into the slowly fading night. I look at my mirror. A gruesome face smiles across it, then a mangled arm reaches and grabs my chest, and pulls. I manage to cut off its hand with my knife. The attic door gives way with a loud snap. A wolf like figure charges at me, full sprint. I raise the bloody knife in self defense. It stops, grabs the knife with a deformed hand, and cuts off my ear. I howl in pain. The other mutant charges in. The sun rises. They howl in pain as I am free of them, thanks to the sun. The last thing the monster does, before decintegrating, is throw the knife at my stomach, killing the baby inside of me and causing me a slow and painful death. I had been six months pregnant at the time.

This part is where stuff hits the fan. First, the MC mentions that the wolves are basically coming from the attic and the front door. But where is she sitting relative to them? The bedroom? The kitchen? The living room? When you mentioned the attic, I assumed she was hiding in the attic. But then you mention the front door again and that just confused me. A lot of the actions seem random. Not random in the way that they're unrelated to the story, but random as in they pop out of no where. A creature in the mirror? I thought they were physical beings that were breaking down her doors. A knife? Where did that come from? What, this figure cuts off her ear all of a sudden? The sun is rising? When did this happen? WHAT? She's pregnant? You throw a lot of information at us out of the blue. You need to explain or give some reasoning behind each one.

For example, to answer the knife, you could add a sentence saying, "I fingered the knife by my side, praying that I wouldn't have to use it." That way, we know that she has a knife before she whips it out and cuts off something's hand. For the sun, you can add a thought, "Where is the sun? I had sat in the dark for what seemed like hours." The pregnant part is ok, but too much sudden information is bad. I hope this review has helped you, good luck in the contest.

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ndioro
Review
ndioro wrote a review Review · Aug 11, 2011

It's an impressive piece! The content is unusual, this makes your story different from all that I read before. However, there are some suggestions, hope they'll be helpful.
1) "The window creaks, the lampshade quivers. I pull the sheets over my head, squirming into a corner. The storm door slams, then the main one. The stairs squeak. My door is locked, but it won't be enough." - at the beginning, most of the sentences have almost the same size and similar structure. it's not bad, but it makes the story sound more monotone and kinda flat. I would recommend you to experiment with sentence length, to mix short and longer sentences. Also, you can use short sentences as attention getters or use exclamation marks("What a waste of energy!").
2) Also, the ending. The idea is good, but the ending is unexpected, so better make some connections to it, or, instead, make the last sentence a separate paragraph to shock the reader.
I love the strangeness of this work, honestly! Good luck with writing=))

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joshuapaul
Comment
joshuapaul commented Comment · Aug 11, 2011

Oh and by the way, Welcome to YWS!

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joshuapaul
Review
joshuapaul wrote a review Review · Aug 11, 2011

I will assume this is for my contest so I will be reviewing the final product later on.

I must ask, what theme did you select? It could be one of two, the death one or the revenge one? In any case this is great. I would suggest, for now, that you break it up into paragraphs. With such a limited word count you must learn to compose your story to maximise effect. For example, use one line to emphasis an important thought.

They've broken through the roof.

It's over.

More banging. My attic door trembles, my other door shivers.


This breaks it up and provides a moment for the reader to catch their breath. It also places weight on the thought, the resignation of fight. There are a lot of other small things that may need to be tweaked but I will save them for my final critique when you enter. And, the chances are, others will point them out. Well done!

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Firearris
Review
Firearris wrote a review Review · Aug 11, 2011

Hey there, LostMagi!

I quite liked this piece, really. At the end, I expected the girl to survive - and I didn't really expect her to be pregnant. Overall this is a really good piece, and I think you managed to capture my attention within the first couple lines. The one thing I would correct is towards the end.

I had been six months pregnant at the time.


Up until the last line, the story was in present tense, and then suddenly jumps into past tense. With this story/ending, it isn't too bad, but you should most likely attempt to avoid doing that in most of your other writing/stories, if you can. Changing tenses is usually pretty confusing and disliked.

Otherwise, this is really good - it makes me wonder what your prompt was. Good luck with the contest, and feel free to PM me with any questions or if you want more reviews.

--Heather



An existential crisis a day keeps the writer's block away <3
— LadyBug