Published November 21, 2006
Intense relief rushed over me when I saw who was standing in the door frame of my room. His figure swallowed into the darkness, I squinted through my tears and rose into a sitting position on my soft quilt. I brushed my brown hair from my face, which only minutes before had been dripping with cold sweat.
I shivered although the room wasn't cold, I could feel the heat from the radiator wrapping around me but it didn't warm my skin.
My pulse rate slid back to normality and my breathing was no longer restricted. He moved towards me, through the clutter of my room.
Eventually, he reached the side of my bed and knelt down to take my shaking hand.
We sat in silence. No words needed to be said. We both knew what the other was thinking.
I felt my eyes well up with tears as I thought this. He was so far from understanding but so close to knowing how I felt.
I wanted him close, to comfort me but I also wanted to be alone at the same time.
I wanted to share my thoughts with him, as well as dwell upon them alone.
After a while of awkward silence I opened my mouth to speak, but he was a step ahead of me.
"I need you to..." He began, his eyes fixed on me.
"tell you what I saw?" I finished for him. We had been down this road many times before.
"Yes." He answered softly, removing his hand from mine.
I closed my eyes and tightened my grip on my bedsheets. This one had been the worst yet, I could still see the scene inside my head, playing back like an old black and white movie, the images flashing behind my eyelids causing me to remember all of the horrible events that had happened years ago.
My eyes snapped open.
"I can't." I breathed heaviliy, not wanting to look at him.
I avoided his watery eyed gaze and crossed my arms in a defensive way.
"I can't help you unless you help me first." He whispered calmly.
He turned his blonde head to look out of the uncurtained window where the full moon hung above the gnarled trees.
"I'm not an object in an experiment." I hissed, also turning to stare at the moon.
It cast soft rays on my face making my porcelain skin even more ghostly white.
"You know that I don't see you as that." He replied softly before sighing.
"I can try to prevent those dreams of yours Sadie;"
I felt anger rise inside me like a snake ready to strike.
"dreams!" I repeated in a shrill voice.
"How can you call these dreams." I knew my sentence was dripping with sarcasm but I didn't care. I felt alien to him and I felt so alone. If I was being childish I didn't care at the time.
"Ok, Sadie, Ok." He nodded getting up.
He began to cross the room again.
I slid off my bed into a standing position.
"Where... where are you going?" I stammered, standing there like a vulnerable child in nothing but a black silk nightdress my mother had given to me when I turned sixteen.
"To bed." He answered shortly. He stopped at the door and turned to face me.
"There's nothing more I can do." He shrugged before turning his back on my once again.
"And that's it?" I whispered, I knew he had heard me because he hesitated at the foot of the staircase.
"You won't even finish the battle you started."
"I never started a battle, Sadie." He answered softly.
"It was your own doing." And with that he descended the stairs.
I watched him go with a sinking feeling in my heart.
He had given up on me like many others who had tried to help me.
I had pushed him away for too long. Allowing him to get too close and then ruining it by closing up again. I decided to go after him but as I reached the top of the staircase a pain seared through my body and I collapsed in the hallway. Images flickered before me and before I knew it I found myself reliving the memories of many years ago.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm Knight Hardy here on a mission to ensure that all works on YWS has at least two reviews. You will probably never see this but....Imma do this anyway.
First Impression: So this is a pretty nice little short story, not the happiest at all and you've captured that quite well with your language. Its definitely really well done in that sense. The description I felt was maybe a touch excessive in some parts because things got very poetic in some areas where you're breaking up the tension of the dialogue with some unnecessary descriptions.
Anyway let's get right to it,
This is some really nice description to be starting things off with. Definitely sets quite the scene here.
Okay bit of an overload of one sentence paragrpahs that you have here. That's not a very good thing because by doing this you lose the ability to convey some actual emphasis on lines that really need it.
I think you missed a capital letter there.
And now we are missing a question mark.
Well that's certainly a pretty sad ending that we have here. You did a pretty good job with the emotion to allow us to feel that sadness.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall this was a pretty decent story. The description being a touch excessive and interrupting the flow somewhat is the only thing that feels like it needs changing. Everything else is done pretty well. Great Job!
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
I suppose it just isn't your cup of tea x
Spacing. Use it and this will be much improved. As it is, what you've put here is almost cliche, in the sense that i see nothing new here. The dialogue needs to be improved, with capital letters on responses needed, which for some reason you neglected.
That's an example. Italisized sentence needs to be changed if not deleted altogether. On the whole, it sounds forced and the shift to the whole experiment thing was abrupt and unfit, in the sense that there seemed to be no reason for it. There was no showing of her being treated as an object, dehumanized; nothing more then a guinea pig. You told us, abruptly and with no explanation. It would be better if you showed us.
Overall, the writing was okay, not exceptional but good nonetheless. Again though, spaces are needed, makes it easier to read and you might want to work on your dialogue a bit.