The Dark Truth E.1

I saw this story and wanted to read this story for a while. So, here I am! I can say for certain that I’m coming back for more of this story. I think that the boy in the photo might either be the girl’s brother or the girl’s father when he was young. I’m not sure. Guess I’ll have to figure out the mystery along with the girl.

I wish you a fantastic day/night.

Something wasn't right indeed!! What HAVE I found here? A horror story?? *Gasps* Of course it must be. After all, we just read something by THE VAMPIRE ROSE-LIKER!!

Hello, Rose! How have you been in your castle way up there on the hill? I hope you are doing well and those roses haven't gotten plucked by some thief roaming around uselessly in your backyard.

I think it's time to get on with the review here. I have noticed that you like to use a lot of sensory detail. Such fine, tiny little details that it might take a magnifying glass to see it up close. A blood speck on a picture frame. Certainly any careless fool could have cut themselves...but on untouched uncracked and unbroken glass? Odd...and a slimy liquid on the floor. Certainly someone must have been washing the floor recently and it hasn't dried yet. But perhaps with blood rather than soap....

Her father (assuming the main character is a she) seems normal. He doesn't like noise of any sort while he's working (very suspicious, I comment to myself) but he has a rather extraordinary smile one that reaches the brim of his glasses. Now, a detective must always be suspicious when she reads mystery so allow me to conclude that he already knows about this odd room with the chandelier swinging eerily and the picture of the boy etc. I wonder if the boy is the main characters evil brother.

But perhaps I'm shedding a little bit too many dark shadows on the scene. Perhaps this is all bad dream, but having been previously acquainted with THE VAMPIRE, I have my doubts. We shall see. Only browsing through another chapter will tell me...

Overall, great start to a mystery. The beginning words certainly had me caught. I wonder about that phrase that keeps popping up. The one about not believing the truth. It seems quite odd.. Anyway, that aside. I do feel like it was a little bit slow paced in my opinion, but there's certainly enough mystery for this to carry on. I wouldn't worry about it much, but shortening the bit between the girl's background and the part where she enters the room might be to your advantage. Just a suggestion.

And as always, have a wonderful (stormy) day way up there in the dark castle.
-The evil THING *dramatic purple lightning*

Hello, Foxmaster here with that review, as desired!!!
WHOA. *applauds* 👏 It's obvious that we've got a good plot her. I would just recommend giving our main character a name so that we know who we're dealing with here. But if you don't, that's fine, because you give us a really cool mysterious person here. So, in all these reviews, I'm just gonna call her "Mansion Girl" until we get a name.
So... on with the show!!! (Imagine curtains opening to a stage)

“Don’t always believe the truth.”

It almost became a whisper, echoing through the walls of this big house. It felt like those words came out of someone else’s mouth. I let my sensitive fingers slide over the walls. There, I heard the screams and the crying again, it hurt terribly in my ears. It was almost like a grinding sound, only fifty times worse. It felt like I wanted to pull my whole ears away from my face. I did everything not to hear it again. Screams and cries that were begging for mercy, seeking help. I didn’t know whose they were, who sought help? Something was telling me that this wasn’t right, this didn’t feel good. Something bad had happened. What happened?

My heart started to beat faster and my hands started to shake a little. I wanted to walk away when I thought I saw a picture of a boy on the desk. I walked back and yes, I was right. There was a picture of a boy there, curly black hair that hung slightly over his handsome face. Brown shiny eyes with a curious look. A jawline with straight lines and sharp chiseled angles, like a fine sculpture. The photo was framed in a small photo frame. The glass of the photo frame had a crack. It was between the shards and there was blood on the broken glass, on the photo. I stood there for a moment when the light of the chandelier was steady again, the light of the broken lamp remained on. Strange?

I then backed away in shock. That was blood! It didn't look like the blood from a normal cut. That was a lot of blood, and I noticed the blood was all over some of the papers and leaking onto the floor mat. I was paralyzed for a few seconds and something seemed to close my windpipe. I felt like I was falling backwards, but I stood transfixed to the ground. Suddenly I heard a loud terrifying lightning outside that frightened me all over. I jerked backward and the light from the chandelier suddenly went out. I ran out of the room as fast as I could. As I ran on the floor mat out of the room, I felt a slimy liquid on the floor mat. I didn't have any time to take a look at what it was, I was too scared, something wasn’t right.

Hey there Rose! <3 here is your latte, as promised! <3


PLOT

It looks like you've got a solid plot! There is so much potential packed into every moment of your story, and a plethora of questions - about the blood, the scractes, the empty house, the painter and his association with the narrator's sister, etc! You've definitely set the stage for a thriller story quite well!

However, since we have so many unanswered questions, you'll have a lot of loose ends to tie up in the upcoming part, so you might have to be careful about spreading about your information and making sure you're not overexplaining or underexplaining, and also keeping tension high all throughout!

One thing that might also help with keeping your reader hooked with your story is by using short, clipped sentences during high action scenes, or reducing the number of descriptions in your altogether - long sentences often kill the suspense and make the text tedious, which is something you will want to avoid with thrillers!

CHARACTERS
So we've gotten very vague glimpses of our characters so far, not a lot of development, except in the case of the painter, whose situation poses interesting questions, but that's about it! So I have nothing much to comment on here!

FAVORITE MOMENTS

His smile sometimes reaches to the rim of his glasses

Coffee was an important word in this police station. Imagine what would happen if the station had run out of coffee

Hi, I'm here to give a comment/review. I'm new to YWS too, so my review might not be that good.



I've read many horror stories before, and this is really well done. I couldn't peel my eyes away from it, it was so interesting. But what could improve is maybe the paragraphing, like you could
split some parts and make them smaller paragraphs. Again, I really like this story, and I'm sorry that my review is so short! Have a great day!

Hi, hello. This is Ina speaking. I am here to give a comment/review.

I'm not really interested with horror stories but this one is pretty good and has potential. I love how the story can put you on the edge of your seat and feel the chills running down your back. In the long paragraphs, I think it's way better to cut it and put to spaces at the start of your paragraph. To make the story and the dialogue more suspenseful, you should make your dialogue have this mark/symbol at the starting and ending. For example: "Jared?" And separate it like this:

"Stop doing this Ben!" One of them shouted.
The younger teenager didn’t reply, instead he picked up a piece of glass and made a deep cut in the other one’s face. Blood streamed out of his wound. It mixed with the rain that fell down on his face. Pain could be read all over his face.

I hope this helps! Welcome to YWS and have a good morning, day, afternoon, or night.

hi, welcome to YWS!
I really enjoyed reading your piece, it has so much potential. I don't usually read horror stories, but this, I found quite intriguing.

(note: everyone has their own writing style, and you don't need to follow every writing advice you see)

but, the first thing I would recommend for you to do is to use paragraph breaks. When someone first clicks on your story, they have no idea what to expect, and seeing huggeee chunks and blocks of writing can be quite overwhelming, so you should space out your work properly, and divide it into smaller paragraphs, like whenever:

- the "camera" moves
- a character discovers or realizes something
- solely for suspense
- time moves forward or backward
- new characters are introduced
- someone speaks
- a new event takes place
- a new idea is introduced etc.

next, I noticed that most, almost all your sentences consist of:
"There is",
"There was"
"It is"
"It was"

when every sentence is structured very similarly, it can feel repetitive and mundane, and kill the suspense. For example:

There was also a kind of small chandelier installed on the ceiling. It had spider webs on it.

There was a desk in the corner of the room, it looked quite messy. Pens and papers were scattered all over the table. The papers were all crammed and some were in a basket with more paper in it. There was also a table lamp whose lightbulb was broken, the shards were all over the desk.

‘Tell me Thiago, what do you call the mixture of two solids?’ Jared Thiago rolled his eyes and said: ‘No idea, Alwyn. You're the one who is interested in that kind of stuff, if you are still so into it why choose being a police?’ Alwyn smoothed his shirt and took his coffee in his hand. ‘Just to keep an eye on you so you don't drink a lot of coffee.’ ‘How can I? You drink it all before I get a chance to take one’, said Jared as Alwyn walked away smiling.

Cyer here with a review! As always, please keep in mind that this review is not intended to offend you or make your writing look bad!
SUMMARY OF THOUGHTS
This piece has a lot of potential and I loved the phrase 'don't always believe the truth' however, the story telling fell flat for me in certain aspects. So without further ado let's dive into itttt

“Don’t always believe the truth.” It almost became a whisper, echoing through the thick->>>>>> this sentence would sound better without the word thick walls. It felt like those words came out of someone else’s mouth. I let my sensitive fingers slide over the walls. There, I heard the screams and the crying again, it hurt terribly in my ears. It was almost like a grinding sound, only fifty times worse. It >>>>>I notice that you tend to start your sentences with the word 'it' a lot. This manner of sentence structure kinda feels redundant and took away from the suspense of this story for me
almost felt like I wanted to pull my whole ears away from my face. I did everything not to hear it again. Screams and cries that were begging for mercy, seeking help. I didn’t know whose it was, who sought help? I wanted to help, I could help. I felt so lonely in this big, modern house, the least I could do was help>>>>>> you've used the word help at least five times in this sequence of sentences. I don't personally have anything against it, especially if this is simply the way you naturally talk, but again, it did feel redundant to me and took away from the feeling of suspense. Perhaps you could look into synonyms for the world help, or in this case, focus on describing how the cries for help made him feel?
Something was telling me that this wasn’t right, this didn’t feel good. Something bad had happened. What happened?

I never thought I would be afraid of my own home. Yes, this is also my home, I remember that. I had sat down in the large hallway of the second floor against the hard cold wall. I brought my knees up to my chest and wrapped my hands around them, as if I was shielding myself from something…or someone. I didn't know how long I sat there, but it took me a while to get my breathing back to normal and to calm my panic. Lights were placed on the wall that radiated a nice warmth, it only lit the hallway, the entrance and exit of the corridor were dark. Completely dark, it looked like someone could emerge from it any second. I sat next to a small wooden table, which luckily didn't get in the way when you came running into the wide hallway. The table had a nice protective coat of paint on it, which gave it a sort of shine. A green vase with beautiful structures was placed on the table. There were chrysanthemums in the vase, they had a kind of soft yellow-pink color. I noticed a large painting on the wall, in a thick wooden photo frame. I saw a family standing there in a big beautiful garden, they all seemed so happy, while I was here too scared to even get up. I looked at all the happy faces, I really wanted to find my family. I was so scared. I’m sure that they could tell me what was going on. Why I was here and what happened. Especially what happened, I really wanted to know that. Because while I was sitting here, I knew that somewhere something terrible was happening, or had already happened. There was a red carpet in the hallway, it was very long. I ran my hand over the carpet. It was very soft, but I felt something wet again, it also felt slimy. I carefully turned my hand to look at it. My heart started to beat faster and tears fell out of my eyes. It was all blood, mixed with a slimy liquid. I wanted to get all that blood off my hand. I wanted to wash it all away, but I didn’t see any water. It started to irritate me, the muscles in my hand wanted to contract and my hand wanted to form into a fist, but I wouldn't let it. I wanted it off, it had to be off. I didn't want blood on my hands, I hadn't killed anyone. Irritated and with great reluctance I wiped it on my white dress, I seemed to try to scrub it away with my dress, which led to me reopening my already healed scratches. I tried to calm myself down and I slowly straightened my dress, which now had blood, and I put my shaking hands down. The painting on the wall caught my attention again. I looked at the family and I wished I was there. I reached my hand out to them. Suddenly I felt like I was being sucked into the painting, everything around me went dark, all scary sounds disappeared. And suddenly I was standing in that same beautiful garden. And there was the family, alive, beautiful, happy. It took me a while to realize that this was my family. Yes, and there I was. This must have been a painting from years ago, because I saw a much younger version of myself there, about five or six years old with chrysanthemums in little hands. My hair was done up nicely and I had cute little shoes on. I was so proud of them, I remembered getting them as a present from my parents on my birthday. I would only wear it on special occasions, just like this one. A painting would be made of us in our very own garden, that was more than a special occasion for me. ‘Look mom! They fit me so perfectly!’ My mom smiled widely. ‘Yes, of course. They really do!’ My father and brother almost looked alike, with their shirts and two pairs of freshly polished shoes. The only difference was that my brother didn't wear glasses and his face didn't look so stern. My mother and my sister wore the same clothes as me. A summer dress and nice shoes. My dad has dark brown hair, while my mom has kind of blonde with brown hair. I guess I have mine from my dad. My brother and sister were a lot older than me. They looked almost fifteen, they were twins and they had the hair from my mom. My brother did have a bit more dark brown in his hair, but still, it was almost the same as my mom’s. I really love flowers, especially roses or chrysanthemums. I had asked my mom if I could hold them for the painting, she told me to ask my father. He nodded as he looked at me through his rectangle glasses. I was so happy I could hold them, they were beautiful. Our large garden had a beautiful fountain that gave the background of the painting some more life. We stood there for a long time, we just had to hold on for a while. And bad for me, I had a smile that was too wide, the muscles of my face seemed to give up little by little. I promised my parents I wouldn't mind standing there like this, so this couldn't happen. I was watching my family and my younger-self. We looked so happy, a perfect family. But where were they now? I couldn't find them in that big house. They were here, in this memory, on this painting. As I watched my younger self trying so hard to keep my smile wide, I noticed something. The painter was not an old man as you would think every painter looked, but he was a high school boy. A few years older than my siblings. He was the same guy I saw in the picture on the desk in that creepy room. He was obviously younger than in the picture here. I walked closer to him. He was a good painter, because I saw the end result of his work and it was amazing. But one thing bothered me: Why would there be a picture of him with blood on that desk? Things didn’t really make sense. Wasn't he just a painter? Was he? Everyone seemed to act normal, which was definitely not normal for me. I watched him closely as I looked back at my family, through the corner of my eye I saw him look up to be able to paint again. He paid extra attention to my sister while painting this artwork. I suddenly remembered something, that room I was in was my sister’s. What was going on? The sky started to get a little darker, it was unusual on this sunny morning. None of my family members noticed it, my younger self didn't notice it either. I looked up, the sun wasn’t so bright anymore. The wind started to blow harder and the leaves lying on the ground were floating in the wind. This was a memory I was in, it felt so real and although the painting was beautiful, it felt bad. I started to panic again. I wanted to get out of this memory. It started to get darker and there was thunder everywhere. The thunder seemed to make deep cracks in my soul. I didn't know what to do. I called out to my family, uncountable times. But no matter what I did or what I said, they didn't hear me, they didn't see me. Not even my younger self. They were all still standing there smiling, having their best pose. Their hair floated in the wind, our dresses fluttered back and forth, the shirts creased. But nobody noticed anything. No one did, except for the painter and me. The real me. He looked around and saw me, I’m sure he saw me. But no one else did, how could he? You could read panic and shock all over his face. He knew something, something that I didn’t know yet, a heartbreaking secret. I wanted to go to him, I wanted to ask him what happened, but I couldn't. The strong wind stopped me, it blew hard in my stomach. At one point I could no longer stand. I wanted to ask him something, but he turned his face to the other side and looked at the family. Everything was moving so fast, yet I could just spot a tear sliding down his cheek as he looked at my sister. It suddenly looked as if he had been hit hard, his eyes turned lifeless and blood was dripping from his mouth. Terror sucked the very breath from my mouth. My family didn’t notice anything, they just kept on smiling. Another tear fell from the painter's lifeless eyes as he turned into a mist blown away by the wind. Before he was completely blown away, I saw him make a mouth movement, meant for my sister. “Goodbye.”

My hair was done up nicely and I had cute little shoes on. I was so proud of them, I remembered getting them as a present from my parents on my birthday. I would only wear it on special occasions, just like this one. A painting would be made of us in our very own garden, that was more than a special occasion for me.
‘Look mom! They fit me so perfectly!’
My mom smiled widely. ‘Yes, of course. They really do!’
My father and brother almost looked alike, with their shirts and two pairs of freshly polished shoes.

‘Tell me Thiago, what do you call the mixture of two solids?’ Jared Thiago rolled his eyes and said ‘No idea, Alwyn. You're the one who is interested in that kind of stuff, if you are still so into it why choose being a police?’
Alwyn smoothed his shirt and took his coffee in his hand. ‘Just to keep an eye on you so you don't drink a lot of coffee.’
‘How can I? You drink it all before I get a chance to take one’, said Jared as Alwyn walked away smiling.
Alwyn has been my best friend from year one in this police station. He is quite helpful, but can be very annoying at times. But he does have the mind of a real detective, just like me. That's why we get along so well.
‘Jared Thiago!’ That was my senior, yelling, probably to tell me that I was suspended for a few weeks. I am the best of the best, I still can’t believe he didn’t appreciate everything I did for that case. It was a rather interesting one…
‘Thiago! My office now!!’ Yep, everyone in the police station was staring at me, including Alwyn. Just what I needed. He had a questioning face, I shrugged my shoulders. Yes, everyone knew how I kind of blew up the case, but in the end saved it all. I calmly walked to the office which you only enter if you’re either getting a promotion or getting fired. It was probably the second one for me. Alwyn looked a bit worried, I could see that even though he was behind the big glass in the room where he was having a conversation with someone who needed our help again. It was a girl about twenty-three years old with red-brown curly hair. She said something about robbers stealing from her, but everytime the police went to check, nothing was wrong. We had already sent her away a few times, but she kept coming back and insisting that the police take this matter on. She also looked a bit over-worried, there was something else going on, I think. I don’t know what. But why should I care? I’m about to get fired. All my colleagues looked pensive, I mostly helped to solve every case and no one would want me fired, except for my senior of course. I opened the big glass door on which there was a sign with the inscription: “Senior’s office.” Everyone looked at me while I entered the office. There was a big brown desk in the middle of the room with a computer and a houseplant. On the left side there was a long filing cabinet, there were so many files in it that it would take almost four men to move it. There was another table with warm water and coffee. Coffee was an important word in this police station. Imagine what would happen if the station had run out of coffee. My senior stood there facing the window that was behind the desk.
‘Close the door and take a seat.’ he said sternly. I carefully closed the door and sat on the chair that was placed in front of the desk. My senior’s name is Henry Hudsen. No one called him by his name unless you were a really good friend of his. It was mostly just ‘Yes sir’. He had blond hair and was almost as tall as me. He always wore a police uniform with the black shiny boots. My senior turned and took a seat right in front of me. And I thought that he would tell me that this was the last day of my police career, but instead he placed a file that he had in his hands on the big desk. ‘Read it’, he demanded. I took the file and started reading. It was about a few people who were in some dark business. It seemed like every other file, but like I said : “It seemed.” A good detective would instantly notice that something was wrong with this file. Except for the fact that there wasn’t much information about the people there was something else that created a flashback in my mind.

Two teenagers who were fighting. It was raining and you could see lightning in the distance. There was broken glass on the ground, but that didn’t stop them from fighting. There was mud on the ground that made them really dirty. ‘Stop doing this Ben!’ One of them shouted. The younger teenager didn’t reply, instead he picked up a piece of glass and made a deep cut in the other one’s face. Blood streamed out of his wound. It mixed with the rain that fell down on his face. Pain could be read all over his face.

I was pulled out of the flashback by my senior.
‘Jared? Jared, did you listen to what I said?’ I was breathing heavily and I noticed that the file fell out of my hand. My senior gave me a glass of water, coffee wouldn't help now. ‘Flashback again?’ he asked after I drank all of the water. I nodded. My senior and Alwyn were the only ones who knew about my flashbacks. These flashbacks could be nightmares for me. They are flashbacks from my terrifying past. I knew that it would never stop, I guess I just hoped so. If this case could remind me of my past, it was clearly something else. Things are not quite what they appear to be…

I don’t know who I am, but I do know that I have a family. A very loving family: my dad, my mom and my siblings. I just need to find them. I walked very quietly across the cold floor to the next room. My dad doesn’t like it when we run when he is working on an important project. He wants to work in absolute silence. My dad works in a science lab where he often has to finish some projects with unfeasible deadlines, he is a very hard worker. Sometimes he seems very strict with his rectangular glasses on his long pointy nose and his narrow face. But he has always been a good father. His smile sometimes reaches to the rim of his glasses. He watches us closely and always teaches us to be disciplined. While I walked to the other room, I looked at my hands, they had some scratches on them. I don’t know how it happened, I probably fell. The door was open a crack and it creaked when I carefully opened it wider. Trying to avoid my hands from getting scratches again. The room wasn't big but seemed quite cozy. There was a single bed in the corner of the room. I continued into the room. There was also a kind of small chandelier installed on the ceiling. It had spider webs on it.

The room seemed cozy. A single bed lay in on corner. I continued into the room and noticed a small chandelier installed on the ceiling. Spider-webs covered the extent of the structure, giving it an old appearance