Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence.
You sit up. Hazily, you rub your eyes as you check your clock. Eight thirty. Great, now you've overslept, you should already be on your way to work. You crawl out of bed and head to the shower. You hop in the shower, wearily turning the faucet, trying to adjust to the correct temperature. As you start washing, you think about work. Your boss will probably be furious. You've already missed work a lot this month, and he's getting sick of it. "Let him fire me," you think to yourself as you hop out of the shower. You're sick of working at a low paying job with no chance of becoming something. While you're drying off, you notice something. It's quiet. Usually, that would be normal, but something about this silence isn't right. You brush this off as paranoia and continue on with your daily routine.
As you head out, that eerie feeling you had earlier is back. Your neighbors aren't outside. Usually, they are heading for work at this time. As you ponder on this you come across another startling conclusion. There aren't any animals outside either. No dogs, no cats, not even birds. This realization startles you, and you walk towards your car. Wearily, you grab your keys and put them in the ignition. Maybe some music will calm you down. You turn on the radio but there's nothing but static on every channel. You quickly turn it off. Who needs music anyway? Continuing down the road, you notice that you're the only one driving. You try to calm yourself by saying least you don't have to worry about rush hour today, but it doesn't help. The feeling of isolation has quickly escalated. You step on the gas to get to work as quick as possible.
When you pull into the parking lot, you look around. It's completely empty. You rush inside hoping desperately to find someone, Anyone. You run past the empty cubicles faster, and faster, and faster. What the hell is happening? Where is everyone? Your bosses room is empty. The maddening silence continues to overwhelm you as you run through town, pounding on every door you see. Eventually, your legs give out as you fall to the ground. You break down into tears, screaming. You don't want to be alone. Suddenly, a black figure appears in front of you. His red eyes seem to pierce through your soul. "What the hell are you?" you scream. The figure says nothing. It reaches behind him and pulls out a gun. Slowly, you grab the gun and look it over. You put it to your head. "Thank you," you say as you squeeze the trigger.
A crowd gathers over your lifeless body. The girl on the bench is clearly startled. A police officer starts asking her questions. "I don't know why they did it," she says. "They were running through town, pounding on every door. They fell in the middle of the road and started crying. Then, they pulled out a gun and shot themself." She breaks down into tears as the officer tries to comfort her. "That's all I needed to know ma'am" he says as he looks over your corpse. Slowly, he pulls the sheet over you, giving a cold smile as his eyes turn red.
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,842 Reviews
Sorry for the blank comment. I must have posted my review twice by accident. *cringes*
This is a brilliant attempt for your first story. The use of 'you' really made it creepy because I felt like I was actually there in the desolate town. It helped you really get under the reader's skin. The whole atmosphere of the story got more scary as there was no actual character to identify with, perhaps you meant it, to further the theme of isolation. The ending was very ambiguous and chilling, I think it suited the story though. I also loved the plot twist as, in my opinion, that's what makes a good horror story.
No obvious spelling mistakes and I'm not really the best person to ask about grammar as that's the main problem I've found since joining the site.
Good luck and keep writing!
Hello MajesticAura! Silver here to review your story today!
Well, first off I'll say that this was brilliantly done especially taking into account that this was your first story I think you did a pretty smack bang job.
Okay, so I'll start off with some of the things I felt that you could work on a little more.
These two lines are great and i know that they're pretty important in helping to convey that something is wrong. However, the protagonist is late for work right? So usually they would have left for work already and not really seen the neighbours leaving for work. So for them to realise that this was unusual comes off as a little weird for me. Maybe have them spot the neighbours car instead and they think: "well that's weird because they usually leave before me?"
I found this line weird as well. Cubicles? On the second reading I realised that you probably mean some sort of office cubicle? Honestly though, the first thing I thought when reading "cubicles" was toilet cubicles. What I'm trying to say is that because I didn't know that it was an office I assumed the wrong thing. I know that you'e trying to keep it vague so that it can apply to anyone but then you make it into an office environment anyway which sort of contradicts your effect. I say either you specify what type of job it is, or you make the entire workplace very vague, so jut say something like "your ran around your entire workplace an yet no-one was there".
Apart from that I loved your story! I think you managed to convey the eerie atmosphere quite well, which is of course crucial in a story like this. Same with the extreme sense of loneliness. I personally really enjoyed your second paragraph, I thought it was fantastic. I also really liked the plot twist at the end. I'm a big fan of plot twists
So well done! I hope to see more from you. Keep it up and happy writing!!
Silverlock
Hello!
I really like this piece. When I read it I imagine myself looking from the eyes of the character rather than from the outside in, which is hard when using an omniscient point of view.
I don't have any specific critiques, but might I suggest a bit more internal conflict? The character is essentially the reader, so you might want to express how they felt when they were confused with the eery silence. You could do something like "your stomach clenches" instead of "you become frightened". It just makes people feel a bit more connected to the character, the point of view notwithstanding.
My only other suggestion is you try had limit the repetition of "you" in the first paragraph. Because it's a group of actions, you might want to create some variety by describing the objects the person is touching, what the room looks like, etc. right now it sounds more like a list than a group of actions that help the story flow.
Overall great job! It's a very nice work from a very interesting perspective!
First off, I love this! I can't wait to see what else you come up with!
The only thing I found wrong with this is that when the girl on the bench says, "I don't know why they did it." You should change they to a singular form since it is one person. You should also change all of the words they to a singular form: "They were running through town, pounding on every door. They fell in the middle of the road and started crying. Then, they pulled out a gun and shot themself."
You also need a comma between ma'am and quotation marks: "That's all I needed to know ma'am" he says as he looks over your corpse."
You do not need to capitalize the 'a' in anyone: "You rush inside hoping desperately to find someone, Anyone."
I also have a question: Does the dark figure make its victim think that they're alone? Because its victim in the story wasn't alone because there was the girl on the bench and the police, but she didn't see anyone. My guess is that it gives its victims a sense of loneliness.
This is really an interesting story so far. I will definitely follow this story until you finish it! This isn't like a story I've ever read either, so that's a bonus. This is a really unique concept. I love how you made the twist at the end of this section! I can't wait to see the rest of the story!
Thanks for your opinion. To be honest this was my first legitimate short story, so I'm glad I received a lot of positive opinions and constructive criticism. The only reason I didn't make it singular in that paragraph was that I wanted the reader to see this story from their P.O.V., I didn't know exactly how to make this singular while still not assigning a gender to the character.
To answer your question: Yes. After writing this I realized that I projected one of my fears into this story, a sense of isolation.
I'm glad you like my story, but I had no plans of carrying this one out further. I plan on writing more stories though, so if you want to check back every so often there might be a demon or two waiting (Demonic laughter). But seriously thanks again for the review