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Young Writers Society


16+

Curtain Call

by belladonna


Warning: This work has been rated 16+.

Her eyes, shutting slowly. The whisper of her eyelashes against her delicate skin remind me of why I am here. She is gorgeous. I watch over her silently, ducking through the window. My foot knocks into a discarded perfume bottle and I freeze, willing the sound to not wake my sleeping beauty. The room itself is luxurious; thick tan carpeting surrounded by chocolate brown walls, with richly colored accent pillows scattered around the room. Her queen sized bed is opposite the window, and I creep slowly towards it to get a closer look. I brush my knuckle against her forehead, and I gasp, barely audible. Her skin is so much smoother than I thought it would be. 



The last thing I want is for her to get hurt, so I blow out the lit candle on her bedside table, threatening to set an elegantly embroidered scarf alight. I pick the scarf up gently, and smell it. It smells just like her - vanilla and walnuts, with a faint trace of opium. It is intoxicating, and I force myself to put it back down. Then I notice another object on the bedside table. A half-full wineglass. I pick it up, scrutinize it, and smile when I see the marks left by her lipstick. My hands are slick, and I nearly drop it in excitement. I lap the rim of the glass, getting every trace of makeup off, reveling in the taste and sensation. Afterwards, I drink what is left in the glass. I am in a state of pure bliss.



The ghost of who I once was nags at my thoughts, telling me that this is wrong. I ignore it; I am me now, not him. Petty feelings of wrong and right will not keep me from getting what I want. I slip out of the bedroom, further into the home. While I dislike the thoughts that man is putting into my head, he’s good for one thing. He got me here, after all. I grab several mementos off shelves and shove them into a bag. Anything that connects her to another must be destroyed. It must burn in the same flames that form my love for her. Now that I am inside the house, the locked doors mean little to me. I walk outside the home, into the backyard, and start up the fire pit.



I almost feel bad, but I discard that thought. I always get what I want. I light everything ablaze. Childhood toys, photo albums, treasured letters, and more are incinerated in front of me, casting a hellish glow about my face. I reach into the bag, and find that the last item is a book. Her diary. I chuckle, for I already know all that is in it. This isn’t the first time I have come here, just the first time that I take action. I flip to the latest entry and frown when I see that she has “met someone.” Whoever this is must be eliminated. Not now, though. Now, I have much more important things to do. I toss her diary carelessly into the fire, turning my back to the inferno. It’s time to get to work.



I practically prance up her stairs, aiming to once more enter her bedroom. Every step gets me closer to my goal. When I walk in, I freeze. We are not alone. There is a being standing in her window, and I hiss out a warning, pushing it off the sill in a fit of fury. The man shaped being spread its wings as soon as it started falling and fled, in search of an easier target. I am satisfied with myself. I have protected her once more. I close and cover the window. I can’t afford to be distracted.



I approach her bed slowly. I reach down, and place my face to hers, almost touching her. Suddenly, my body, his body, goes into shock. My true form leaves the corpse of the preacher, and I ooze my way down her throat. She is awake now, suffocating on my slime. She is trying to escape, but I am far too experienced in this to let such a pretty young thing get away. I sink fully into her system, taking control of her from the inside out.



Damn, this is nice. It has been far too long since I have inhabited a young body. I will be able to have a lot of fun in this costume. After all, Halloween is right around the corner.


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5 Reviews


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Thu Sep 21, 2017 11:39 am
fantasywestern wrote a review...



Wow, this is a really cool story.
So, I really love how creepy and genuinely unsettling it is, reading through the eyes of what I'm assuming to be the girls stalker and captor. Getting to know that kind of mindset is not something that we usually get to see in stories, especially ones like this. The way that you constructed his obsession with her to go from sneaking in, literally burning her belongings, and then inhabiting her body just to have power over her is very solid, and the twist at the end is perfect for this kind of narrative.
One thing I will say, it seems your tenses get mixed up a couple of times, but that's really nothing major. Otherwise, it's a solid story and very well written, with your simplistic style that tells the reader everything we need to know to be thoroughly creeped out by the narrator.




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Tue Oct 25, 2016 6:19 am
SofieR wrote a review...



Hey! Sofie Here to review this great piece :)

First off, you did a great job with the beginning. It hooks you in and really makes you want to keep on reading, so kudos! You also created a really interesting, creepy, conflicted main character, which is hard to do!
The imagery started out great, but could be more vivid and clear towards the ending. I also agree it would have been interesting to know the priest's backstory/how he got into that situation. There are also some loose threads that need to be answered but aren't, as were pointed out by other commenters.
Other than those few things, this was a really fun read, especially around Halloween time! Keep writing! Can't wait to read more of your stuff :)

- Sofie




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Wed Oct 19, 2016 1:35 pm
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Sujana wrote a review...



Quite interesting. Strangely interesting. Not a lot to dissect here, so unfortunately this won't be one of my famous eight thousand character reviews (or who knows, maybe it will be--I get out of hand sometimes).

With that being said, I'd like to say that I do want to emphasize a couple of things; my problem with this work is far from it being badly written or having too many fancy words. In fact, I'd like to think that there weren't enough fancy words tossed into the moon. I can't imagine the monster whose the main character being vicious or harmful, because at times his voice is too normal, too affable to be that way. He sounds more like a blighted/possessed ex or stalker, which might be your intention, but he isn't exactly the scary type of blighted/possessed ex or stalker. Maybe it's because I'm a guy, but I didn't feel grossed out by the somewhat tired imagery of the creature smelling the girls' fabrics.

And then there's the problem of what the creature is. Mystery is a good contributor to fear, but I wouldn't describe the questions I asked throughout the story as 'mystery' rather than 'annoyances'. Mystery occurred in the beginning, when I was asking "What is this guy doing in the girls' room? Why is he describing her so creepily?" Annoyance is when I'm led to believe that I already have the answer (the guy is a sexual predator/stalker) and am instead given a cheap plot twist in the ending. I mean, that just might be me. But generally, the ending isn't as compelling to me because it wasn't built up as well as the sexual predator story, and it doesn't make sense once you look back at it. For example, if the monster only wanted to take the girl for the body, why do weird things like smell her scarf and burn her things? Why couldn't he just take the girl and then do all that weird stuff later on? It's not like he's savoring her fear, as the process seems pretty quick, and he's more interested in her body than he is in watching her reaction.

The Beginning

Her eyes, shutting slowly. The whisper of her eyelashes against her delicate skin remind me of why I am here. She is gorgeous. I watch over her silently, ducking through the window. My foot knocks into a discarded perfume bottle and I freeze, willing the sound to not wake my sleeping beauty. The room (itself) is luxurious; thick tan carpeting surrounded by chocolate brown walls, with richly colored accent pillows scattered around the room. Her queen sized bed is opposite the window, and I creep slowly towards it to get a closer look. I brush my knuckle against her forehead, and I gasp, (barely audible). Her skin is (so) much smoother than I thought it would be.


The words I put in the parentheses I think you should delete. None of them are necessary, and they only disrupt the flow of the sentence, making it feel heavy or cluttered without any specific reason.

The Bolded Sentence: I'm not sure why this sentence was fragmented. It might be a stylistic thing, but in my opinion it doesn't match with the mood. If the rest of the prose followed that style ("Her eyes, shutting slowly. Her eyelashes whisper against skin. I know, now, why I am here. She is gorgeous. I watch, silently. Ducking through a window. Knocking a perfume bottle. Quiet. I implore it to be quiet.") But it doesn't, the rest of the paragraph and the story have a relatively coherent tone, and it doesn't match up with the first sentence.

The Italicized Sentence: Describing the girl as 'sleeping beauty' is actually pretty creepy and cool, but I just find the sentence a bit all over the place. "Willing" feels authoritative, controlling, and while control might be exactly what this guy is getting at, that's not how it is in this moment. In this moment, he's not authoritative, but calm, quiet, somewhat afraid that the bottle might wake the girl up. I think something along the lines of 'pleading' or 'begging' or 'praying' or the most neutral 'hoping' would fit better than 'willing'.

As a beginning sentence, I feel like it isn't emotionally intriguing enough to warrant the readers' attention. The anatomy of a perfect beginning varies greatly--some start with aphorisms, some instantly introduce the conflict to the reader, some start with some insignificant conflict (say, the hole in the wall, or the fly on the characters' arm) to contrast with the size of the actual problem--but mostly we can agree that they all have to be eye-catching. They all have to make the reader ask, "What's going to happen next?" Yours almost has this. I think you need to space out a bit, separate the description of the environment from the victim, so that the reader immediately has a vision of what's going on and the current conflict. As it is, though, the girl feels like she's a part of the furniture, or the background is more interesting than the stalker targeting the girl.

The Ending

Damn, this is nice. It has been far too long since I have inhabited a young body. I will be able to have a lot of fun in this costume. After all, Halloween is right around the corner.


I already told you about how this ending wasn't exactly built up well, and I stand on that. There are still certain loose threads that need to be answered but aren't--What does the monster mean by his old self? Is he a ghost, is that what's happening? Is his old self the priest or the man he was when he was alive? What does he mean by 'fun'? Is he going to continue assaulting people? What is his obsession with this one girl if he's just going to keep assaulting other people?--and I think it makes this ending, while certainly creepy, a little hollowly creepy. It feels like you're debating with yourself what the creepy thing is going to be, so you end up mashing them all together and getting an overall weak monster. If it's a sexual predator, stick to sexual predator. If it's a ghost, stick to ghost. If it's a flesh-eating monster, stick to flesh-eating monster.

Also, before I leave this section, I'd just like to say that I'm not entirely supportive of the sudden curse word. I don't know, it just seems unnecessary to me, and it doesn't tell us anything about the character.

Main Criticisms

I basically summed up most of my criticisms previously, but in other things:

-As I said before, you didn't really specify who the ghost of the monsters' thoughts are, and I think that would've been an interesting conflict. It's actually pretty interesting that he was possessing a priest--I actually want to know what happened there, now, and how the priest got into that situation. I think a bit of dialogue between the priest and the monster could've been interesting, really. A mental discussion if you will. It would give both characters a chance to be developed into three-dimensional figures, and it would make a good central conflict. Which leads me to,

-The central conflict being a little iffy here. Usually, central conflicts have some sort of obstacle to make an interesting story. The closest we've got for an obstacle is the strange, angelic figure in the ending, and that wasn't built up. The best and most well-built one, I think, is his 'past-self', the thing that was trying to stop him (according to him) but the audience never actually experiences. It would make a good story, at least to me, if you made the opponent his past self rather than the helpless young girl.

Main Praises

-I will say that, in the beginning, I was intrigued because of what I thought the story would've been. You do make an interesting main character, a creepy main character, and while some imagery needs to be more vivid to avoid repeating certain cliches without substance (the sniffing part, for instance.)

-The idea is definitely worth a try. I like the fact that a monster is using human skin for costumes on Halloween, and I also like the conflict in his head, so I think it would be great to actually see that in full-blown action.

That's all I have for now. Happy writing, and hope my ramblings helped somehow.

--Elliot.




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Wed Oct 19, 2016 9:26 am
mikey wrote a review...



Hello! It is Mikey for a review,

First, I must appreciate your creative work so far...the imagery is well pointed out right from the first paragraph such that as one reads it, it appears as if in a video or rather a movie...
Second, I would wish to discourage about the use of some technical vocabulary used in the story which needs one to first reach a dictionary in order to understand it to satisfactory, I might be the one ignorant such that I don't understand the words but I guess not all of us are all equally equipped with the English vocabulary, rather prefer simple English vocabulary for easier connection and linking of ideas.
Third, its hard for someone to predict what the story is all about from the tittle since even from the story I have found it hard to link the ideal story with its tittle ' Curtain Call'. The story is majorly centered on a love or romantic theme because it rotates in the bedroom setup and some romantic makeups it is built on. Therefore to my opinion I think the tittle does not well suit the story because it is only in the fifth paragraph when you are involving yourself with the window cover which is probably the curtain if am not wrong by the aim of covering it to avoid distraction which ' you couldn't afford'
Last, I must appreciate the nice work you have...




belladonna says...


Thank you for the review! I'll keep what you said about technical vocabulary in mind. The title was actually referencing the curtain call before a play, because that's the time by which all the actors must be ready and in costume. This is related to the story in that the main character is a being that wears the bodies of others. I appreciate the feedback!




I don't care what the miserable excuse is for showing the death of books, live, on screen. Men, I could understand; but books! -
— Edwin Morgan, From the Video Box 2