Young Writers Society

Wow 😮 I love the plot twist at the end!

I enjoyed how this story gradually builds with suspense until it reaches the climax in which Rose is murdered. I liked how it keeps the reader guessing what the father did but am curious about his motive behind the murders.

The despcriptions were precise and full of imagery. The pacing was great, not to slow to the point where bored the reader and it wasn’t too fast where the reader couldn’t keep up, it just right. The reader is able to keep up with the events and follow the story right to the end without confusion.

Nice work! 👍

WOAHH, that ending was a shock! Poor Rose...RIP

I really like this story, as well as how dark it became at the end. Kinda reminds me of the game Mad Father (which was also traumatizing lol). The pacing and narration is great! Even though the story moves quickly, it's well done, and the events are still terrifying. The descriptions are direct and gruesome as well. The start was sweet, but the ending was not sugarcoated.

I agree with Plume, though, that it'd be nice if we knew more about the father's job. There's a sweet sense of mystery from not knowing, but here, it also feels like a loose end and left me itching to know the truth.


The Gacha design is really cool! Same with the doll pictures. I'm curious, do you feel any differently about the doll after this story? XD

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Okay it seems I have at last run into a story that is purely a sad ending which is what I am more used to, although I have to say I've know kind of gotten used to the happier endings that I am maybe slightly biased towards. At any rate this was nice and terrifying as usual.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Once in 1864, there was a ten year old girl named Rose Davidson.

Rose had no siblings and no wealth, but she did have two loving parents who cared about her deeply and that was all that mattered.

Her father had a job, a strange job. One neither she nor her mother knew about.

Every day, he’d go off to his mysterious job. Rose would sometimes think about all of the jobs he could possibly be doing. Mining? Officer?

She really didn’t know.

But his peculiar job was worth it because one day, all of his hard work had paid off. They were moving to a splendid mansion, much more stately than their simple cabin.

The house had beautiful rose gardens and marble statues. The inside was even more marvelous! There was red velvet carpeting and such fine furniture everywhere! There were paintings of beautiful people and landscapes, crystal chandeliers that cast a honey glow everywhere, and the scent of flowers was sweetly in the air.

Rose was even given a lovely porcelain doll with curly brown hair in a green silk dress from her father. It wasn’t even her birthday.

She clutched her new doll, Chrysanthemum, she would call her, close, walking around the house, admiring the atmosphere, until…

She smelled something. An overwhelming stench of…something.

Rose followed the scent, confused. Why was such a rotten stench in the air?

It was coming from one of the closed doors of a room in the mansion.

She opened the door…

And screamed.

All around her were piles and piles of rotting bodies ,one of them being her mother. Masses upon masses of awful, bloody, broken bodies…so many…bodies.

“FATHER! C-COME UP HERE!” She screamed frantically, unable to run. She was rooted to the ground.

Nothing.

“Father?” Rose asked in a quieter and smaller voice.

Where was he?

“I didn’t want it to come to this.” Her father said.

Come to what? What did he mean?

She turned around, holding Chrysanthemum tighter.

“Father?” Rose asked.

She didn’t want to believe it.

She didn’t want to see it.

But there he was, holding an ax. An ax stained with blood.

“Did you..kill them all?” Rose asked.

He nodded.

“How could you?”

“I had to. For your sake. For your mother’s.”

What kind of a job would allow murder?

Rose turned back to her mother, lying on the ground, eyes gone, mouth gaping.

“But you…you killed my mother…”

“And I’m deeply sorry for it. Rose, please. Don’t scream.” He said, taking a step closer.

Her mind flared, fear going up times a hundred.

He was going to kill her, just like he did with her mother.

Rose tried to run, screaming, but he grabbed her arm.

She screamed louder, clutching Chrysanthemum even tighter and closer. She wouldn’t let her go, no matter what.

“Shut your mouth, Rose!” He cried out.

She tried to escape, but he pinned her against the ground and clamped a sweaty hand over her mouth.

Why was he doing this? Why was he killing her? Why… She was going to die…

With shaking hands, he took out needles and thread…what was he…

He…he was…it hurt so much…it…hurt..

He was stitching her mouth shut.

She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t move. She could only watch in mortification as he sliced her body, one slice and then another, until she couldn’t feel a thing.

Legend has it that Rose still haunts the house, possessing her doll and scaring away those who dare enter the house.

She is called “Shut your mouth Rose” and if one went down the hallway she died in, they could hear her screaming and screaming, till her screams were abruptly cut off.

Hey there! Plume here, with a review!

Ooh, this story was certainly chilling! It definitely had the vibes of one of those messed-up stories that start out innocuous enough, but slowly get more disturbing by the time you get to the end. I enjoyed reading it, and I also liked how you used one of your own dolls to inspire the story!

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of this story. You did a great job of selling Rose's narration in the beginning; she sounded just like I'd imagine a little girl would sound. It made the twist about her father even more disturbing; telling it through such an innocent lens made it feel even more twisted. I also enjoy the time period you set this in; by providing a year at the start, you fully immerse your readers in a Victorian world, full of the eerie and macabre. Really nice job with that!

I think one thing that would have made the morbid ending land even harder is if you dragged out the story longer. It felt like it moved very fast, which took away some of its shock value. Maybe adding more clues about the father's hidden secret or a part where Rose cannot find her mother would make the buildup even more dreadful and suspenseful, increasing the impact of the twist later on.

One thing I would have liked to see is more closure on the father. You open by teasing the audience about the father's profession, which I really enjoyed, but by the end, you still haven't answered the question of what he does. Obviously, he kills people, but you never explicitly answer why. You say he's sorry, but you don't really build up a case for remorse on his part. I as the reader am left wondering if he did it to earn money, like a sort of hitman type thing, or if he simply was a serial killer and killed people to get everything he owned. While not making things explicitly clear is nice, I feel like you've left too much unanswered in this short story.

Overall: nice work! I loved the cleverness of basing the doll in the story on your own doll, and you managed to create a very atmospheric horror vignette! I hope to read more of your work soon! Until next time!