*This story is underneath my folder titled “What on earth is this monstrosity”. Gacha Club character designs are under this forum: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=117842&start=90. Enjoy!*
Introduction
Bethel could still remember the day his own mother stabbed him with the syringe, how she tore him apart and put him back together again.
How could he forget the cold determination in her eyes, illuminated by the blinding gas lamps? She wanted him to live forever and she had succeeded in her goal.
But a lonely heart can do cruel things when left unattended.
Chapter One
Bethel reached out a long, clawed hand and pulled away the canopy curtains. It was the morning, which meant that he had to get up and check on the humans. He had closed the curtains in all of the windows to keep out the sunlight, so the manor was still very dark.
He would have felt nothing if it wasn’t for her. She was the girl who wanted to listen to him, the girl who never saw him as evil, the girl who loved him even more after what she did…
Addison.
Chapter Two
Bethel opened the door and walked out, past the weathered, dirtied portraits. Addison would be waiting for him. She needed a treat. She deserved a treat.
“What happened?”
“I made you beautiful. Look. Now you can run faster than you ever imagined.”
She looked up at him in fear with her big, brown eyes. She didn’t understand, but that was okay. He was willing to console a soft face like hers.
Chapter Three
He stumbled into the kitchen, slamming open cabinet doors as he tried to search for something to give Addison. What did humans like? Did they all have a favorite food? They must have. He hadn’t needed to eat food in a long time, but surely, there was some food he liked better than others.
Bethel slammed each door more angrily than the next. Nothing looked appetizing. All looked moldy with thick fuzzy white things growing on it. All smelled more foul than the next.
Something that was almost like a heart raced anxiously inside of him. Why couldn’t he find anything good? He had to find something good for Addison because if he didn’t then she would hate him and if she hated him then she would want to leave and if she wanted to leave then he would have to-
He wouldn’t dare. Not for her.
Chapter Four
Bethel stopped. He found a plastic container of chocolate pudding, something he remembered stealing from a child years ago. He put something in it to preserve it. He didn’t remember what it was but it couldn’t have been worst than what Mom gave him to make him a vampire.
He took the pudding out of the cabinet and rushed to the cutlery drawer, taking out a silver spoon to go with the pudding. Yes. Addison would like it.
Humans liked sweet things.
Chapter Five
With his spoon and the pudding, he made his way downstairs to-
Something began crawling on the floorboards, the dragging of many legs following the arms.
Bethel’s heart lifted, knowing that only Addison would care enough to crawl to him. Nina was not kind, but Addison loved him.
He didn’t need to go down to the basement.
Chapter Six
“Addison, you’re up! It’s so good to see you! How are you feeling?”
Bethel had found Addison in the parlor room, next to the stairs. He was standing in front of her and kneeled down to her level, as she could not stand on her own.
“A little hurt, but okay.” Addison smiled. He lifted her chin up with his hand, his claws gently wrapped around her face.
“That’s alright. I have something special for you.”
Chapter Seven
“What…what is it?”
Bethel produced the plastic cup of pudding to her along with the spoon, handing it to her waiting hands carefully and slowly.
“Is it really for me?”
“Of course it is. You deserve something sweet.”
Chapter Eight
Bethel led her over to the stairs, where she sat down on. He then beckoned her to give him the pudding and spoon, feeding her with it.
Addison could still very much think for herself, just like her friend, Nina, but the experiments he did on them made them very weak and bound more to him. He liked that. He liked feeling close to them.
Sometimes he wanted to be closer to Nina, just so it’d be more than on person. Addison was good enough to him because she listened like a girlfriend would, but still…
Why didn’t his heart feel completely whole?
Chapter Nine
FLASHBACK
Bethel couldn’t move. Mom had strapped him to the table with thick leather ropes that were so tight he felt like his limbs would fall off. There was a gas lamp that was too bright, almost blinding.
He could make out Mom’s shadow above him, inserting silver tools into his body, biting her bottom lip in concentration. She always worked hard. She always wanted to make others better. She tried to make Dad better but it didn’t work. Maybe because he was too old. It would work with Bethel because he was young. Or so she said.
But he didn’t treat Addison or Nina the same way at all. He loved them. He protected them.
He was different.
Chapter Ten
Bethel lay the black-haired girl on the white table. He had already put the syringe in the blond one, it was her turn.
The black-haired girl tried to sit up, but Bethel was already strapping her onto the table. The white light shone on her half-open brown eyes. Her parched lips were turned in a frown, sickly lips that would be perfect for kissing. She sighed as though she wanted to scream. She was scared, but Bethel would calm her down.
Bethel smiled to himself at his first memory of Addison.
Chapter Eleven
He was walking to the basement, so he could check on Nina. Nina always tried to escape. It was tiring, but maybe he could stop her.
Bethel got closer to the basement door, hoping that Nina would not attempt to leave again. He wouldn’t know unless he checked.
He didn’t want to see.
Chapter Twelve
But nonetheless, Bethel had walked down the stairs of the basement and was witness to Nina attempting to climb up the stairs, trying to escape.
What was it that he was doing that she didn’t like? The fact that he gave her and Addison more legs? But wouldn’t they like more legs? At least they did not crave blood. That would have been more painful.
They could be something more without hurting themselves. What more could have Nina wanted?
Chapter Thirteen
“Where do you think YOU’RE going?!”
Bethel could not help but scream out the words Mom had yelled when he tried to escape before. It was rude of Nina to do that and she had made him upset when she didn’t need to.
She looked at him with fear, trying to scramble away, but he was faster. He had gotten to her faster than she could leave, interlocking his claws around her human ankles, dragging her to the table.
Nina deserved it.
Chapter Fourteen
“You wouldn’t have anywhere good to go if you got out. You shouldn’t be trying to leave.” Bethel said.
He was searching in his tool box for the right things to use for Nina, who was strapped on the table. Mom would have used the right tools. He just needed to know where to look.
Bethel would have better focus if Nina wasn’t groaning and constantly moving against her restraints.
Chapter Fifteen
FLASHBACK
“Where’s Dad?”
“He died, remember? You won’t die though. I’ll do better this time. Just hold still.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m helping you.”
Bethel wanted to leave the table, wanted to break the bindings and run, but Mom shoved a syringe into his open mouth and suddenly, the lights above him looked brighter than before.
Chapter Sixteen
After a while, Bethel had finally found the right tools and used them to further numb her, so it’d be hard for her to stand on her legs. It sounded wrong but he was just doing it to protect her.
“Where is Addison?” Nina croaked.
Bethel stared at the gray, grimy wall for a bit before looking back at Nina. He could tell her, but he hoped she wouldn’t try to leave with Addison. He hoped she had gained some sense in her.
Chapter Seventeen
“Addison? She’s upstairs. She hasn’t left.” Bethel said.
Nina might have wanted to know where in particular Addison was, but he wasn’t about to tell her. Addison was being good and staying. Nina still needed to learn.
No more questions needed to be asked.
Chapter Eighteen
FLASHBACK
“What are you trying to do?” Bethel asked. His voice sounded distant and foggy, unnatural to his own ears.
“I’m making you a vampire. Your father couldn’t handle it but maybe you can since you’re younger. You won’t die. You won’t get sick. You’ll be practically invincible.”
“A vamp-“
“Calm down. You’ll mess up my work.”
Chapter Nineteen
Bethel never had a girlfriend before. Addison always listened attentively to him. But Nina did not. She still wasn’t. She didn’t listen when he injected her in the basement and she wasn’t listening hours later as they fought.
But couldn’t she understand that he wasn’t a monster? That they weren’t monsters? Bethel was just helping them out! Why couldn’t Nina see that?
If she understood, then they could all get along better.
Chapter Twenty
Bethel did not want to fight Nina, but she was not understanding. She was hurting him and he had to hurt her back.
Which was why they were both upstairs, clawing at each other nonstop, Addison unable to move because of the pudding he gave her. The pudding that he stole from some human child who passed by his house once, the pudding he put poison in just in case…
And Nina was beating him.
Epilogue
Bethel had been killed by Nina, but Nina had killed Addison and herself in great gore. He had thought for sure that they’d all be great friends with each other, but he was wandering the void of the afterlife accompanied by disembodied screams, certain that he was trapped in Hell.
He would feel the phantom pain of desiring to drink blood, the very real coldness that came from the lack of Addison’s warmth.
He was truly alone, but why, why couldn’t he have changed that? He was doing everything right, wasn’t he?
Alright, maybe Bethel wasn’t, but that did not mean that he was less deserving of love. He wanted something bigger than the lab and blood.
Something human.
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140,071 Literary Works • 672,990 Reviews
Hello!
Later, the laboratory has a white fluorescent light. Gas lamps and fluorescent lighting suggest quite different time periods, so I think you need to decide when this story takes place and make the technology consistent.
I assume "what she did" should be "what he did," since Bethel experimented on Addison. Unless Addison did something important before the story began, this looks like a pronoun error. It’s also immediately obvious to me as a reader that Bethel’s interpretation of her feelings is unreliable, which works well. He insists she loves him, while everything we later see suggests she is frightened, drugged and physically dependent on him.
The placement of this dialogue confused me. Bethel has only just left his bedroom, but suddenly Addison appears to be speaking to him, and then in the next chapter he is still searching for a treat to take to her. I wonder whether this is supposed to be a memory of the moment Addison woke after her transformation?
Since Bethel is a vampire, the silver spoon stood out to me. Silver is more commonly associated with werewolves, but some vampire stories also make it harmful to vampires. Does silver affect him in your world?
This tells me a lot of important information quite directly. I think it would be more effective if we discovered it through Addison and Nina’s behaviour. For instance, Addison might hesitate before obeying, showing that she still has her own wishes, but her altered body or conditioned response prevents her from resisting. Nina’s attempts to escape already show us that she can think independently.
"Great friends with each other" feels too mild considering he thinks of Addison as a girlfriend and wants Nina to join them. That may be intentional because Bethel has a childish understanding of relationships, but I’d make sure the language reflects his established desire for companionship rather than suddenly reducing it to friendship.
***
This is a nice story! The parallels between Bethel and his mother work very well, and they were the most interesting aspect of this for me. He repeats her words, uses her tools and performs similar experiments while insisting that his love makes him different. I think this should be the more central idea of the story. The more he tries to distance himself from her, the more clearly your reader should see that he has become her.
At the moment, though, the story reads more like an outline than something completed. Almost every event has been divided into its own tiny chapter, and important moments are summarised very quickly. I’d particularly expand the climax! Nina is restrained and physically weakened, then suddenly she and Bethel are fighting upstairs, and the epilogue tells us that everyone died. I would like to see how she escapes, what she says to Addison and why she ultimately kills both her friend and herself.
Cheers, thanks for sharing this story!
Lipton
Thank you for reading. I’m glad you enjoyed this and I appreciate your advice.
Ohh Bethel. I am so curious how this guy got the way he IS in later chapters! Bring it on!
Hmm I wish he would elaborate on a) how he did that and b) what he means by “making them bound to him”—because it sounds more like since they kept their free will that the opposite is the case?Welllll that is one heck of an intro sentence and gives probably a short summary in all that is wrong with this poor guy ^^°
I think I loved everything in that introductions, from the wording to the foreshadowing of what is to come!
Also things are pretty chill in ch1, I like it. I still don’t know why you are calling them chapters tho.
Ohh I like how he sounds so …. Creepy, probably without even meaning too (although he IS!), good ch2 too!
Hmmm how can he know that things look moldy without knowing what mold ist?
Ahh so this is where she got the pudding from. Also I just love how he doesn’t comment on the fact that they need to crawl. It’s just how it is to him, no reflection no nothing. This is exactly what I wanted from this villain :3
Ahhh I think now the chapter breaks are kinda irritating since the scene actually continues and each time the new chapter header appears, it just drags my attention OUT of the scene, the last thing you want. Seriously, plsplspls tell me why you are doing it this way. I need to know why @.@
Oh no, oh no that flashback. No wonder he has so many weird ideas abt consent and experiments with a mom like that…
This feels a lot like a repetition since you already mentioned in the previous paragraph that these are his exact thoughts. Or.. reading on, it actually feels like padding since there are only so many ways to say “is she there or not” and that irritates me?
I kinda expected when he said this: “the words Mom had yelled when he tried to escape before.” That he would comment on “oh I see now why Mom was like this she has been right all along”
Okay… it feels like this is the wrong time for you to have her say that: You already had the exact same information earlier, almost word for word, in narration when Bethel thought abt his mom and why she did what she did. I feel like this either should come sooner, or you should skip it entirely, or just focus on what this means to Bethel now. Bc we get no commentary at all from his narration now.
Ok and this is also getting repetitive: The beginning was very strong but now it just feels like you’re inflating the word count of the story by endlessly threading the same ground :/
I read the other story so idk why ch20 confuses me so much. Probably because you set up a rather slow narration and explained everything so often but then you hit us with this EXTREMELY important scene where they are fighting and there is 0 buildup to that? And instead we get a repeat of the pudding which you already mentioned like five minutes ago, the only new info was the poison but why is it relevant when Nina who didn’t eat the pudding is the one winning? I am so confused :/
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I split the chapters for better organization.
Thx for reading and advice!
Ah so it is to help you?
Yes, it is. But this has been talked about before so I might consider trying to find a way to tell a story like this without breaking it up into chapters.