Content Warning:
This story steps quietly into the dark rooms of grief, trauma, and fractured minds. Within these pages, you will encounter the raw edges of pain — themes of emotional struggle, loss, self-harm, dissociation, and mental health challenges that refuse to be hidden.
Like a whispered secret in a shadowed hallway, this book reveals truths that are sometimes uncomfortable but necessary — stories that echo the silent battles fought inside many souls.
If you find yourself overwhelmed, remember it’s okay to pause, breathe, and seek light outside these pages. You are not alone in the shadows.
Prologue
A few days earlier…
Hey diary it's me again Willow. I'm sorry that I haven't written in a few days. School and life in general has been chaotic for me while I have been studying for 8 hours a day to prepare for my SAT which decides whether I can go to my dream college which is Harvard. Everyday that i’m still alive I feel like i’m better off dead and the amount of times that i have wanted to stay on this earth i can count with just 1 hand. A few days ago I tried to tell my AP social economics teacher Mr.Hambrook about my weird punishments my parents had been doing to me and my siblings and about my suicidal thoughts. But when I walked out into the hallway with the teacher and I broke down sobbing and he then sent me down to the counselors office with this look of worry and dread plastered on his face. Sadly nothing came of it. A couple of weeks ago I tried to commit suicide at school During recess i walked into the schools single use bathroom with my backpack and walked in and locked the door behind me and then i quickly took out this rope and i wrapped it around my neck and hung it to the hook thats close to the ceiling but before I lost consciousness the principal kicked down the door and undid the rope from my neck and walked me too the counselors office while they called my parents to come and get me and told them to go get me professionally assessed for depression and suicidal ideation. There was so many weird things they did to me and my siblings that they called “discipline” but I saw it as a torture method they used to control us and keep us in line like one of the things they did was especially when i was younger starting between the age of 5-6 years old and if we so much as lied to them or were being too loud they would send us into this small cramped utility closet with no food no water and no bathroom breaks and they would lock us up in there depending on what “sin” we committed we were in there for max 24 hours. The first time i was put into the closet was when I was 9 years old in 4th grade and i got back my first ever real report card that they counted and i got straight A+ except in Math which i got an A-, on the walk home that day i was terrified and the moment i walked in through that door that's when the shouting match began my mom snatched my report card and screamed at me for at least 2 hours then i was shoved into the closet telling me to not come out of the closet until I was told i could that night while i was in the closet i was so cold and scared terrified i wouldn't leave this closet alive but this was not the first or last timeI ended up in that closet. The first time I saw my younger siblings Onyx age 10, Angelo age 15, and Michael age 8 being put in the closet shattered something inside me but I just ignored it and made myself go numb. But there was also this yearly summer ritual that for about half of summer break whoever’s name was chosen from this hat my grandfather would pull from, were sent to live on the farm for part of summer break but the sibling who was chosen wouldn’t come back the same they would come back more behaved and they would never say what happened on that farm but the winner would be given $800 afterwards to keep quiet. I have been noticing lately that the house has been way more tense than usual ever since a few days ago my parents found out that Onyx has been cutting herself at night while everyone else was asleep as long as burning herself with a lighter and starving herself. I’m very scared for Onyx because in a few days on Saturday she is gonna be brought to the leader of the congregation, the same one who attempted to sexually assault me at age 13, for a confession session to try and “fix” her. I have seen what happens during these sessions because my parents put me through another one a few months ago when they found out about my suicide plans that i doodled about in my hidden journal, during that session he tried to perform a spiritual exorcsisim on me for thinking such disturbing thoughts and that i was pledging to the devil and that if i didnt confess anything I would be going straight to hell with no second chances of departing to heaven.
Hey Diary, It's been a few days after Onyx went to see the leader John and I have noticed that she has been hiding more in her room and she has been avoiding leaving the house even to go to school, and she has also been eating less and less which is starting to have me worried but when I mentioned my observations to my parents they told me “ It’s nothing your just being crazy and don’t make a big deal out of this.” They threatened to put me into the closet if I mentioned any of this conversation to anybody. Which I knew to not mess with them so i just stayed quiet, I have been trying to hide that im Bisexual cause if anyone from the church or family figured out this secret i would be disowned publicly and shunned from the community and church. After my first suicide attempt i tried to plan and attempt a few more times. I really hope my baby sister Onyx will be ok if one of my attempts is successful. I have been thinking for awhile now that this world would be better off without me and I have been trying to act on it but each time it fails for one reason or another Maybe that's god telling me that it's not my time to cross over yet but i'm not so sure since my parents ignore and neglect me and my siblings in which they only talk to us or acknowledge us to yell at us or berate us which is honestly not as terrifying compared too when they know you did something bad but don't say anything to you which scares me because silence even though its normal in this family it's almost like they use it as a warning to live up to their impossible standards of perfection to hopefully scare us into being obedient towards them. Lately I have been worrying about who will protect Onyx and my other siblings after i commit suicide successfully which terifiys me of how i can keep them safe even when i have left this world and joined our great grandma in heaven who died when i was 2 and Angelo was 1 but sadly Onyx and Michael have never met her. i faintly remember the night before nana passed she had came over that night and slipped this note and necklace into this teddy bear that i loved a lot when i was younger and i still have that same bear sitting on my shelf waiting for the right moment to open the note and the next day my parents said we wouldn't be seeing great grandma again and they then proceeded to over the next couple of days burn and get rid of her belongings and they act to this day like she never existed. I’m a firm believer in that “ One jump and all your pain and problems will go away for life.” I am feeling no remorse or guilt for what I'm hoping to do next. It’s been a few weeks after Onyx got chosen for the summer tradition and the moment Onyx got her stuff packed and was hauled off with tears silently rolling down her cheeks but before she was taken to the car my father slapped her so hard across the face that blood started trickling down her face. I miss her so much but i’m trying to not fight back against my parents and last night i was having a particularly rough night and i was crying a ton and sort of hyperventilating and staring at the bottle of pills beside me while i was holding this notebook and a pen and started to write the suicide note apologizing to onyx and that i hope that they will forgive me for this but when Angelo walked into my room and when he saw me crying he walked over knelt beside me trying to calm me down and eventually after an hour he coaxed me out of the plan and took the pills from me and went and threw them away and helped me discard me the pills and notes. Over time my parents made it very crystal clear to me that they didn't care whether i lived or died and i also noticed that everytime that i get close to someone they end up being found dead or were paid to move away and cut contact from me which i think that they had something to do with it which always kept me scared for my life. When I told the counselor about what was happening to me and my siblings, the words that still haunt me weeks after it was said “ That's not normal.” Those words lingered in my head, keeping me up at night.
CHAPTER 1
When Willow arrived at school that morning she felt this almost eerie coldness. Willow walked into the school soaking wet but she felt really anxious more than usual. While walking through the halls and trying to head to her first class of the day which was math with Mrs.Whitmore there was this awkward tension between the students and teachers which kept her on edge. Willow had been home for a few days because she was sick with the cold and the school wouldn't let her come to school while she was sick. When Willow felt this sickening, awkward tension she felt really weird about it. When Willow sits down at her desk next to her best friend Kat-Lynn leans over to me and whispers into my ear “ Hey do you know what’s going on? Because the teachers have been acting strange lately.” When the class got started on the algebra worksheet of the day there were so many thoughts racing through my mind all at once. But when I heard someone jokingly say “ I’m gonna shove my little brother in the utility closet for fun.” After those words were said I started feeling like i was gonna have a panic attack where my vision started to go blurry and my hands started trembling really bad and i also started hyperventilating but luckily my Best friend ws next to me trying to comfort me and calm me down but it didn’t work and i ended up running out of the classroom while the teacher was grading some tests from the other week which im glad she didn’t look up from grading papers when i ran out. A few moments later my bestie chased after me and ran into the bathroom and walked in and locked the door behind her and then sat down next to me and speaking in this soft voice Trying to calm down my panic attack which after a good 30 minutes worked and we went over to the teacher and asked if i could go to the counselors office to calm down and call my parents to come and get me.
A few hours later…
It's been A few hours since I got home from school early and my parents are pretty pissed when they got that phone call and when they came and got me they didn’t speak to me at all and the 1 hour car ride home was dead silent but when we got home they screamed at me saying “ Why are you always so dramatic. Did you seriously think it was funny to make us come to your school and pick you up early and you are such an embarrassment to this family.” Then they sent me to my bedroom and then I ran up silently sobbing when I walked into my room and I remembered that i had a rope hidden in my dresser drawer and this time i was determined to die and make this time successful so i quickly wrote a note to Onyx apologizing for what i'm about to do. When I wrapped the rope around my neck and hung it to my ceiling fan and after a few minutes i blacked out and i saw my great grandma walking up to me with this light following her and these white angel wings and gold halo on top of her head and she told me “ It's not your time to join me in the sky and i love you also open that bear with the note and necklace it will explain everything about my death. A few seconds later I woke up and I was still on earth and not in heaven and I decided I still wanted to live and I managed to slip out of the rope and threw away my note. For those few minutes when I saw my great grandma I felt at peace with my brain and that I was just ready to die. When I walked over to the bookshelf where the bear was sitting I grabbed the bear and ripped it open silently so I didn’t alert my parents. The words that I saw on the note
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125,024 Literary Works • 672,762 Reviews
Hello! Nice story you have going on!
First, we're introduced to text that describe itself as a content warning. Not only that, the trigger warnings are wrap in this poetic language.
While it is considerate to list trigger warnings in your works for your audience, it blends in too well with the rest of the text. Not only just because of the text not being distinct from the rest of the text, but also because of the poetic language, the warning reads more as a gimmick apart of the story than a genuine warning. While I do applaud your consideration for others mental health, to write content warnings in this way tip-toes into appearing tone-death, especially knowing how necessary it is for these warnings to be direct. I'd say it would be beneficial for the content warning to be distinct from the text somehow, or (which personally I would find more readable and comprehensible) for "Prologue" text to be distinct itself. There could be more spaces, lines, a few asterisks between the text of the warning and "Prologue", or "Prologue" could be bold.
Starting onto the diary entries: I feel the diary entries are written decently for what it's meant to be- an authentic portrayal of a traumatized child writing in her diary. While there are some qualities to it that appears like an authentic portrayal of casually writing to yourself (the awkward grammar, run-on sentences, the constant dump of information), there is some stiffness that remains for the sake of telling information for the audience. However, the stiffness, and also the bits that could be read as unnatural, isn't too jarring to read and can actually be interpreted as apart of what makes it authentic, as it could be revealing of Willow subconsciously (or consciously) wanting others to hear and know her trauma to escape from it. For her, journalism can be more like "talking to" another person rather than just strictly writing for herself, as another way to process what she goes through. While both entries were hard to read due to how long the paragraphs are and the awkward grammar, I think it somewhat adds to how authentic it come across, thus adding to the immersion.
Other than that, I feel the idea of a diary entry acting as the prologue is an interesting idea that can be (and is, in this case) quite compelling. I think the inclusion of these traumas was done decently despite how heavy it is (not really referring to the mention of subject matters, but more-so the lore) as an introduction. It really shows us the complexity behind not just Willow but also Onyx. Willow, while aware of that the treatment of her and her siblings face from their parents is hurtful, it's implied she doesn't really fully comprehend how *harmful* it is until another person perceives the treatment she and her siblings go through—in fact, I interpret that as she journals, she is still going through processing how truly harmful this abuse is. Through Onyx's self-harm tendencies, we are shown the motivates behind these tendencies is to have a sense of control, when the abuse they face constantly takes that away from these children. It appears that Willow's coping mechanisms more-so revolve around the desire to escape, while Onyx focuses on coping with the lack-of-control aspect of the abuse. It's interesting to explore the various of ways these children cope- the similarities and the differences, while facing the same abuse under the same home.
Now we move onto the first chapter. So we're introduced to the perspective revolving around Willow while being in past-tense, then suddenly there a blatant telling that this is first person perspective with some hints of present-tense storytelling. The shifts when reading this is pretty jarring, to the point I'm unsure if it was intentional to first lead the audience to believe we're following Willow before someone else. What also adds to how jarring to read the chapter is the lack of punctuation, inconsistent capitalization, and general grammar issues.
However it's great that we are establishing these warm, characters who are helpful and are a positive influence on these children. While I wouldn't say that depictions of children who are affected by abuse in families "always" need these characters around them, they do well when humanizing these depictions. The continuation of revealing how the characters cope with this abuse is done well.
Overall there is potential here. What this story does very well is showing how these children cope with it all. Keeping writing!!!
hey there! :]
This begins as a diary entry, and I always have enjoyed retrospective narration in stories; paired with the first-person perspective, there is a sense of immediacy to the storyline. I think that is shown through the very fast-paced / shorter chapters as well, since they are exposition heavy in the begin. I'm quickly introduced to the family dynamics, mental health struggles, and past trauma of the main character, which makes sense considering the structure.
That tends to become overwhelming though--it could even be seen as tasteless or inappropriate if not written with care--and it isn't easy to digest a large amount of backstory and trauma all at once. You could show Willow's trauma gradually throughout the story, and considering that this is *only* a prologue and first chapter, there doesn't need to be so much revealed! The structure feels more like a continuous emotional journal than a plotted narrative with a clear rising action, climax, and resolution.
I'm unsure of the reasoning for the switch from emotional diary entry to school setting in the first chapter. It's still first-person, but it is a shift that changes the entire tone of the story. A diary is an omniscient setting for a narrator to write / exist within, but a school is not. It's harder to create suspense because we’re told what already happened. There isn't any transition to show *why* there is a change in tone either. You could write her putting the diary away and heading to school.
The chapter ends abruptly right as the note is about to be revealed, which could either be intentional or due to the fact you mentioned this is unfinished. Either way, the foreshadowing to show how you've gotten to that point could be stronger to make up for the ambiguity! There isn't much balance between internal reflection and external action. The mysterious bear / note is a strong plot hook, but I think it feels like it's dropped in late and without buildup. I'd advise you to start slowing down and adding depth to your ideas; take your time!
I hope this helped!
lina