A girl and a boy stood atop a tall building.
Winds roughly wrapped around both of their bodies, attempting to tug them down from the skyscraper. When the winds failed to do so, they quieted down just a bit, smiling and trying to coax either the boy or the girl into letting go and jumping down.
His short hair whipping into his eyes, the boy raised a thumb and observed how it could cover a car that would be much bigger than him down on the ground. After his observation, he brought his hand back to his side, yet kept staring at the car.
“Are you that bored?” The girl next to him inquired, a sly smile on her lips. Her black eyes curved sharply in a smile when the boy nodded thoughtlessly. “Don’t you want to play a game?”
The boy turned his head and looked into the girl’s dark, laughing orbs. For a moment, he only stared, then turned his gaze onto the building’s surface. “I think so.”
Without waiting for the boy to speak anything more, the girl half jumped across to the boy’s side and tugged him back so that they both stood less than three steps from the building’s edge. “Let’s play a game of suicide,” her thin, pale lips whispered. The boy gazed at the empty space in front of him, rolled the words around in his own mouth, then nodded, just as thoughtlessly.
“Let’s play that game,” he replied.
Laughing and clapping, the girl let go of the boy’s arm and stood right next to him. Now, they both faced the edge of the building. “It’s really simple,” she murmured softly, her eyes curving gently even more as she cocked her head to the side. “One person gives the other two lies and a truth. If that other person doesn’t manage to pick the truth, he or she takes a step forward. If the other person does pick the truth, the person who gave the problems takes a step forward.”
Blinking numbly, the boy glanced at the girl. “Do you stop when you’re about to fall?” He asked.
A wind swept through the space in-between him and the girl. It seemed angry — keen to howl and cut. The girl giggled again behind the icy air current. “Of course not.”
“Of course not,” the boy repeated after her, and raised a hand to sweep a small amount of black hair out of the girl’s face. “Do I go first?”
“Be a gentleman,” the girl chided, grinning. Her white teeth showed. “I go first.”
The boy nodded.
Immediately, the girl opened her mouth after quickly running her tongue over her lower lip. “One, I am a male. Two, I can fly. Three, I’ve attempted suicide before.” She smiled brightly, and tapped a foot against the concrete surface of the building. “Go on. What’s true?”
“The third one,” the boy replied without thinking for far too long.
“That was a little too easy,” the girl guffawed. Without hesitation, she took a wide step forward, toward the evening sky that looked like blood. “Your turn.”
It took a while for the boy to respond to her. “One,” he said, at last. “My family is planning to kill me. Two, I’m allergic to dogs. Three, I’m allergic to cats.”
“You’re allergic to dogs. Try harder,” the girl answered, pouting. The boy gave a tilted smile like a passing breeze, and took a step forward so that he stood next to the girl again. “Now we’re even again!” Her face much brighter, the girl exclaimed.
“Alright,” she said when she was relatively calmer. “My turn now. Let’s see — one, I like to write. Two, I am mentally ill. Three, I can see things.”
A moment of silence passed. The winds picked up again.
“One,” the boy murmured eventually, cutting through the gelid air, a shade of uncertainty flashing across his face before it disappeared.
“Wrong,” the girl snickered, running a hand through her hair that nearly reached her waist. “Take a step.”
Scratching the back of his neck, the boy advanced another step forward. This time, the girl didn’t have to wait long. “One, I killed a person. Two, I remember my past life. Three, I’ll go to hell when I die.” The boy said in a low voice.
“Well, wouldn’t it be the first one?” The girl half stated and half questioned. A faint smile found itself on the boy’s face.
“No,” he told her. Chuckling under her breath and shaking her head, the girl took a step forward. The wind that had advanced from behind pushed her hair into her face. She didn’t bother to fix it.
Through his own veil of hair, the boy stared at the girl, yet looked away when she opened her mouth to speak. “One, I used to live in a graveyard. Two, my mother is cheating on my father. Three, you’re my brother.”
After a second of gaping at the orange, fading clouds, the boy mouthed something to himself before he formed a retaliation. “Two.”
“How did you know?” The girl asked in mid-step. The boy brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes, which were trained on the edge of the building that was now right in front of the girl. The sky burned like an inferno behind her, seemingly about to swallow her whole.
“I guessed,” he told her quietly. She laughed like a flutter of avian wings.
Unlike before, the boy didn’t glance away from where he was staring. “One, you told me to play this game,” he said at a very slow pace. “Two, I’m a very old man. Three, I have only one hand.”
The corners of the girl’s lips curled up, centimeter by centimeter. Then she released a silent laugh into the air. It scattered and swirled around the girl’s eyes. “The second one is the truth.”
The boy parted his mouth and blinked rapidly. “No,” he managed to rasp out.
All of a sudden, the air was alive and filled with the high-pitched giggles that escaped from in-between the girl’s lips. She whipped herself around to face the boy, and spread her arms out wide, grinning. Her white shirt was fluttering all around her like something alive.
In the split second, the boy reached forward with an expressionless, white face. The girl tipped herself back and fell as if she were flying.
When she disappeared from where she had been standing, nothing about her remaining, the boy’s legs froze. He exhaled like a groan, and turned his body back around.
Only a boy now stood atop a tall building.
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,786 Reviews
I love the idea of this story! The girl is wanting to kill herself, but makes a game out of it! Brilliant!! I love the way that the boy just agrees to play the game, no dread or anything! The story is an amazing thought! I can't even begin to explain how well it is!
I like how the "game" is layer out, and how obvious it is that the girl wants to die. The boys simply agrees to! The ending I love! The detail is amazing! Then the last sentence, "Only a boy now stood atop a tall building." I love it!
Please! Please! Please write more like this and I will definitely review it, and tell some friends!
I love the idea of this story! The girl is wanting to kill herself, but makes a game out of it! Brilliant!! I love the way that the boy just agrees to play the game, no dread or anything! The story is an amazing thought! I can't even begin to explain how well it is!
I like how the "game" is layer out, and how obvious it is that the girl wants to die. The boys simply agrees to! The ending I love! The detail is amazing! Then the last sentence, "Only a boy now stood atop a tall building." I love it!
Please! Please! Please write more like this and I will definitely review it, and tell some friends!
WOW
JUST WOW
This had to be THE BEST horror story I've ever read.
I just loved the detail!
"Let's play a game of suicide," her thin, pale lips whispered.
YOU, SIR OR MA'AM OR DOG OR CAT, HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE A BOOK!
knock 'em dead
OMG, This was so great! It was morbid! My kind of story! Know, this feels like something I would write! This was spine chilling! If I had to change one thing, it would be this:
At the end, include like, a separate part, expelling the truths that the characters revealed. This would make it better, and more spine chilling to find out the complete truth, the full eeriness of the whole thing.
I love the end. How the girl just does it. It was morbid. Maybe there should be a part two. Where the boy has to live with the fact, and they find the girl's body! Just a thought, lol.
I feel some of the truths and lies were so close- that I think it would be me plummeting to my death! Great job! Please keep writing!
OMG, This was so great! It was morbid! My kind of story! Know, this feels like something I would write! This was spine chilling! If I had to change one thing, it would be this:
At the end, include like, a separate part, expelling the truths that the characters revealed. This would make it better, and more spine chilling to find out the complete truth, the full eeriness of the whole thing.
I love the end. How the girl just does it. It was morbid. Maybe there should be a part two. Where the boy has to live with the fact, and they find the girl's body! Just a thought, lol.
I feel some of the truths and lies were so close- that I think it would be me plummeting to my death! Great job! Please keep writing!
Gotta say, while this isn't terrible, it's certainly not as good as people are making it out to be. There are some fairly major flaws that reveal themselves on closer examination. You clearly have talent, but I feel it's misused. It's frustrating, because really, I like this a lot in ways, and wanted to enjoy it! But, it fails in some critical ways.
For one thing, it's fairly obvious you've used a thesaurus. "Gelid", for example, is most glaring. This word, in the 21st century, is insanely obscure. It was more common in the 1800's, and dropped down to nearly nothing after the early 1900's.
Using big words does not make a piece better. In fact, it does the opposite.
If you are choosing a specific less common word precisely because you feel it gets the meaning across more specifically, such as "boon" rather than "gift"/"helpful item" or "regurgitated" rather than "thrown up", then that's one thing, but to use "gelid" as a stand-in for "very cold" sticks out like a sore thumb. There are a lot of other examples, but that one's clearest and I'm sure the rest are apparent if you take that into consideration. That's not to say that you should necessarily say "very cold". Typically, avoiding the lazy "very" modifier and finding a word with more emphasis is a better choice. A more descriptive term like gelid but less out of place, like frigid, would fit well.
Of course, if you legitimately have a vocabulary this expansive, then I commend you, but showing off how many words you know does nothing for your piece and becomes distracting.
Along with your attempt to show off with word choice, your descriptions are very, very over the top. This is known as "purple prose", and it's to be avoided. While it can be fun to do things like this for extra dramatic flair, you should avoid it. The most obvious example is describing her eyes as "dark, laughing orbs", which made me chuckle a bit. All over the place, you're constantly describing the sky as blood, air being "alive and filled with giggles escaping lips", "silent laughs swirling around eyes", "eyes curving sharply in smiles". It sounds very flowery and it's nice to look at, but it's incredibly distracting, unrealistic, and hurts the strength of the piece with unstable imagery.
But in fact, there are places where you could create descriptions a little more fitting and elaborate, to strengthen the imagery and make it easier to visualize. For example, in place of "He exhaled like a groan" you could use "He let out a soft groan", which would make more sense and sound less awkward.
Or, "the boy raised a thumb and observed how it could cover a car that would be much bigger than him down on the ground. After his observation, he brought his hand back to his side, yet kept staring at the car." isn't flowery, but it's a quite long-winded way of describing how far up he is, and there are better ways to describe his observation of the height.
To move on, this certainly isn't all bad! I like the overall concept and the characterization, while rather basic, is effective.
However, I don't feel you've used it as effectively as you could. I liked some of the questions a great deal, they led the audience to actively try to figure out what was going on.
“My turn now. Let’s see — one, I like to write. Two, I am mentally ill. Three, I can see things.”
"One."
"Wrong."
Now, this shows, clearly, that she is mentally ill. But is she aware of it and acknowledging it as the truth, or is she truly delusional and sees things that aren't there? A tantalizing mystery that I'm assuming you intentionally set up. But, you didn't really apply that depth to the entire piece; the questions are for the most part throwaways with no relevance to the story, which is a shame because when I read that one I was fascinated.
Some grammar troubles too, though a fairly understandable mistake. Even if a sentence of dialogue doesn't end in a comma, you still treat the words after as the same sentence and no capitalization is necessary. For example, "What are you talking about?" he asked. For a bit more on this, see this thread. Punctuation within Dialogue
Overall, I loved the tone and what you were going for, and I can clearly see that you have lots of potential. I would keep a quote in mind, a favorite of mine from Hemingway in response to W. Faulkner saying he had "never been known to use a word that might send the reader to the dictionary".
Other than that, I hope to see further works from you polish your skills! Definitely an interesting writer.
I have nothing to say except that it was flawless.
wow, just wow.
I had no idea what to expect reading that. I had thoughts like 'well if she were mentally ill maybe she wants him to die.' 'Maybe because she has tried to kill herself before she wants to die.' I found the whole thing strange when she was giggling while she achieved to fall to her death as she possibly planned in a game. Very good job telling the story between the lines. Almost all of it was in-between them.
I had no idea what to expect reading that. I had thoughts like 'well if she were mentally ill maybe she wants him to die.' 'Maybe because she has tried to kill herself before she wants to die.' I found the whole thing strange when she was giggling while she achieved to fall to her death as she possibly planned in a game. Very good job telling the story between the lines. Almost all of it was in-between them.
Wow, I totally expected for both of them to commit suicide in the end, but he was left all alone.
Good job. This is great. ^^
A slight sense of dread all throughout the story, even in the title. But especially in and near the end!
A well written short horror story and pretty captivating if you ask me!
It would have been a bit more pleasant if the background between the boy and the girl were revealed. Like are they friends? Brother and sister?
There are some questions that are still left in my head after the story. Why would the girl WANT to kill herself, and go so far as to purposely loose the game, knowing the horrible consequence?
But I guess that's just another beauty of horror stories such as these. Leaving the readers with a head full of questions even after the story ends.
But in general sense, I truly enjoyed it! Giving readers that feeling of sadness, dread, etc. is what make a great writer!
Keep up the good work!
-WL-
This was beautiful.
This story was absolutely captivating. The mystery behind their relationship teased me as I wanted to know more. It would have been nice to be able to understand the characters on a deeper more personal level, brother and sister? How did he know? Why did he not know? Why did she kill herself? So many questions left inside my mind unanswered. However over all the descriptive language and at least the surface level of the characters was highly interesting and a pleasure to read.
Wow, this was brilliant. Despite the tragic ending it was quite sweet and somehow beautiful. I was really rooting for them to make it, but such is life. Not everything has a happy ending. It is such a intense read, I congratulate you on that. And do tell us what happens to the boy!
I really did truly love this story. It was fantastic. It made me hold my breath and made my heart stop mid beat. Amazingly brilliant. I presume there is not to be another chapter to this chilling tale, correct? If there is I certainly will be one of the first to read it. And if that is where the story is to end well I have a few requests to make. Can we find out a little more about what will happen after her death? what will the boy do? that is what your story has left me pondering about, but all together I loved it and I want more from you.
Great descriptions and good job using powerful words. Please write more.
I don't think I'll write more of this particular story. Here's the thing; when I start to stretch things out, it gets really awful, hahaha
Sooooo, yep.
I don't think I'll be able to answer your questions... Mainly because this story was meant to be a fragment, something 'mysterious'. Sorry
Thank you for reviewing!
Ah well thank you for the work anyway and I guess what happens to the boy will be left to the imagination.
Hello!
I'd love to start off saying your story quite fit the genre you placed it under. Relatively chilling, and a damn interesting game to be playing. I suppose the absence of detail of their background - namely who they were, or their interactions with others - became a detail that wasn't needed to illuminate the story. I have just a few points I'd like to make:
“It’s really simple,” she murmured softly, her eyes curving gently even more as she cocked her head to the side.
When you say that "her eyes curving gently," it tends to confuse me a bit. It doesn't allow an easy image to flow through my mind rather only the opposite.
There's also some unnecessary words such as "from in-between the girl’s lips." The "in-between" isn't exactly needed to make the image clear. The sentence, however was quite nice to read.
"Then she released a silent laugh into the air. It scattered and swirled around the girl’s eyes." This in particular strikes me a bit odd. Although, it seems to be written in a way that doesn't seem literal, I can't help to see it without the literal sense. Do you mean the air? Is it cold? Despite the absence of details in characterization, more details surrounding the area around them would be nice to know, to visualize what you intend for us to visualize. I found that simplicity is a great way to deliver your points.
Some sentences seem a bit run on, but I understand where you're trying to emphasize. I think that speaking aloud the sentences and seeing which parts are a bit odd in the phrasing of your sentences help create a nice rhythm within your words (but rhythms aren't necessarily needed to make a wonderful story).
Overall, this was a thrilling story and your writing fits the story you're telling. I hope you take my input into consideration, and that you keep writing! It's great!
- myfairladybug
Thank you so much for responding to my request!
Mephis
Wow...
You see, I like to read about interesting characters, not necessarily good-hearted ones all the time. That's what keeps people wanting to read more, because the odd ones out are the most unpredictable. But here we have two interesting characters, and we know that one of them has to end up being crazier than the other. We don't know who it'll be! I guess you can say it was expected for the girl to be the one in the end, because she gives off that vibe at first but the setup makes us keep an eye on both of them. I liked discovering more about each of them through the game because it wasn't all in your face but paced well. I also think it was a good idea to leave names out because people associate names with a lot of things, maybe just by the way it sounds and it just makes it more mysterious to go: girl and boy. Good job on this terrific piece of work!
Hello~!
)
Oh my.
This story.
I can't even.
Perfect. Flawless. Amazing.
It was pleasantly spine-chilling to me. I loved every second of reading it.
The game was a very clever idea, I must say. The detail was absolutely perfect. There was something almost eerie about this story, but I'm not quite sure what.
I loved the detail about the horizon. I could see the horizon, and could feel the cold chill while reading this (or maybe it was just my ceiling fan XD ).
Great story. I loved it. Keep writing~!
One question, however. How old were the boy and girl? (I'm just curious
~ Kortez
Thank you for reviewing!
As to answer your question, they were high-schoolers (I didn't think about the exact age).
Again, thank you so much for your comment.