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Szeth's Facepalm

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Hi guys!! I have 1000 posts now! This was going to be my 1000th, but i accidentally spent it on the theater kids thread. So this is 1001!

To celebrate, I wanted to share some writing with you guys, and hopefully gain some feedback and critique? Feel free to be harsh, as long as it's constructive. I'd really like to get better :D

To start, here's a short story I wrote during the shard's month of prompts (someone me didn't realize aes had already posted a prompt and posted another, thus resulting in the combination of these two prompts: "A hungry soul" and "The children are gone. Something is taking them."):

Spoiler

Soul Stealer

Seeli wakes.

It is dark, and she is cold. Seeli doesn't like cold. Jak gave her extra blankets tonight so she would not be cold because of the storm. Why is she cold?

Thunder booms outside. Seeli reflexively pulls the covers over her head. She hates thunder. It is probably why she woke.

Seeli listens to the splashes of rain for a minute until her quickly beating heart stills. It is getting colder by the second. She is getting scared. Why is it so cold? She slowly pulls the covers down till she's peeking out. She can't see anything in the dark. She thinks she will make a dash to Jak and Veric's room, and risk being scolded for waking them. It must be very late. It is so dark. And so cold...

Suddenly lighting flashes and brightens the room, and Seeli's heart jumps painfully in her chest as a person is illuminated, standing next to her window. It is only a burst of light, but she sees a tall shadow with a loose cloak. the light seems to shine through it somehow, as if it is insubstantial, not all there. Her scream is drowned by the huge crash of thunder that follows almost immediately. She jumps up, but suddenly, another flash of lighting, and the creature is in her doorway. it reaches a gnarled hand towards her. She can feel the cold, freezing air radiating from the shadow, the thing. She is frozen in place- almost literally- as long shadow fingers reach through her chest and extract a long glowing string: her soul.

Seeli feels it consume her. It's horrific. She can sense her body, still standing, inches away, but her soul, the stuff that makes her herself, is trapped. Trapped in the shadow being. She can sense others here too- other children, like her. Their souls are dim and weak. They are trapped here as well. She can feel the thing becoming fuller, less shadowy, as she fades more and more quickly away. It grows warmer as she grows colder. She is dimming. She is weakening. Why has the creature done this to her? She can sense that it is leaving back through the window, away from her warm bed, her parents, her own body. She senses Jak and Veric dash into her room, and she tries to scream for them, but she can't. She is just a weakened soul with no lungs, no mouth. She wants to cry, but she has no eyes with which to do so.

     * * *

Veric shot up in bed. "Did you hear that?" He blinked through the darkness. Why was it so cold?

Jak groaned and rubbed his eyes groggily. "What, the thunder?"

"No, it was coming from Seeli's room. I think she screamed."

Jak was alert as well now. He reached to light a candle. Veric stepped out of bed. "Seeli? Seeli, are you alright?"

The only answer was the sound of a window slamming shut.

Veric shoved the door open and they ran down the hall to Seeli's little room. "SEELI??" Jak pulled her door open. "Seeli!! What's happening?"

She stood right there, staring at the door. She was motionless.

"...Seeli?" Veric's voice was soft. He and Jak were used to gently guiding her back to bed after she wandered the house in her sleep. Jak chuckled softly. "Seeli, you scared us." The words weren't meant for her, as she probably couldn't hear them. He gently steered her towards her little bed, and Veric, relieved, started to make his way back to their room. A false alarm. He could sleep.

He could have sworn he had heard her scream…

"Veric... Veric, something's wrong." Veric frowned and turned back. Jak's tone and the words chilled him. "What? What do you mean?"

"She... just... look at her eyes. Seeli? Seeli, wake up." Jak knelt and gently shook her shoulders. "Seeli, please wake up." Veric looked at her blank expression, her motionless form. She stood there, rigid. Unmoving. And her eyes...

Empty. No vibrancy, no emotion, no light. It was like they were made out of glass. Veric's stomach dropped.

    * * *

The Ancient Shadow watches the men descend into hysteria. He does not care for this part: The horrified families, seeing their children dead and empty even as they breathe on. But when the cold hunger strikes him, he has to eat. He has to consume the youth that keeps him alive and warm. He has to live, even if it means another will suffer. Even if it means hundreds have to suffer.

If you’ve been blessed with immortality, it would be foolish to give it away, no matter what it costs. Wouldn't it?

Just an fyi, I'm not usually that dramatic in my writing. I wrote this one sleep deprived at three AM (when i am at my most profound lol) so please have mercy on it ;-;

I wrote another one about chickens (also at three am) that was absolutely bizarre so i'm not going to share it. i honestly have no memory of even writing it, but when i woke up it was posted in the month of prompts thread, and when i read it through, i was mildly concerned. BUT ANYWAY

Here's the main thing i wanted to share. It's a prologue, or first chapter, maybe, of something that has only been written in my head. By that i mean i haven't put anything down on paper for backstory, magic, plot, nothing except this. There is very little plan for where it's going, so if any of y'all liked it i thought it could be a sort of choose your own adventure thing? Though i do have a few specifics in mind. Also, don't expect particularly frequent updates, because unlike the fabulous @CalanoCorvus i am a very slow writer. (oh btw doomie pls read this stuff i wrote :333)

No name yet... something circular, most likely. Ring. Hehe like the doorbell

Spoiler

Gwendolyne ran like she’d never run before. Her boots slammed into the pavement. Her throat sucked in breath after ragged breath as she desperately propelled herself forward, never daring to pause or slow down. In her right hand she held her prize: a small, inexpensive green handbag which she gripped as if the entire world was trying to take it from her. She glanced up at the bright moon for a second, then cursed as she almost tripped. Halo's voice echoed through her skull. Watch where you're going, idiot.

Gwendolyne sped around the corner of a large brick building and emerged into a dead-ended alley. She collapsed to her knees and gasped for air for a moment, loosening her fist and letting the handbag fall to the grimy concrete. She snatched it back up and undid the clasp, tipping the contents onto the dirty ground. Out spilled mascara, a wallet, some hand sanitizer. Not what she was looking for. She heard voices, not far from where she knelt. They had caught up. She frantically dug deeper into the bag. It had to be there somewhere. If it wasn’t….

There. Gwendolyne felt a small item through the fabric, a tiny pocket behind the bag logo. She had neither the patience nor time to find out how the pocket opened, so she ripped through the soft inner material of the purse with her teeth and shook the bag into her hand. This time, a small stone ring slipped out. It had been formed from gray marble hewn perfectly smooth, and there was a flattened side with a symbol of interlocking rectangles carved into it. Her eyes widened. It was real. It had worked. They’d been right.

Though she’d never seen the ring before, Gwenolyne knew exactly what to do. She slid it onto her middle finger, feeling the cold, smooth stone against her skin. She balled her hand into a fist and raised the ring to her lips. "Open, please," she breathed, throat raw, voice laced with desperation. She felt a gust of wind behind her. She snapped up and whirled around. 

Further down the alleyway, where there had previously been a red brick wall adorned with faded spray paint and accumulated grime, there was a door. It was a deep chestnut color with a dull golden doorknob. Bright light shone through the cracks, hurting her eyes. Making her heart beat fast. Making her mouth dry. She walked over to it, legs wobbling from her frantic flight. She reached out and pulled the door open quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. She beheld the shining white abyss it led into and she gulped. 

The shouts were getting closer. Gwendolyne whipped her head back and forth, glancing at the miraculously terrifying doorway and then at the mouth of the alleyway where they were almost upon her. Her eyes filled suddenly with terrified tears. 

Gwendolyn was suddenly reminded of a time she was smaller. She and Halo had been on a rare frivolous excursion, courtesy of the fact that Halo had just had a vicious fight with Wreath. Halo had taken a fistful of bills from the cash bag and brought Gwendolyne to an amusement park, allowing her to run wild for the afternoon, while they themself sat on a secluded park bench crying quietly and muttering ominously. Gwendolyne waited for half an hour in line for the biggest rollercoaster in the park, ecstatic at the thought of hurtling through the air at high speeds in a controlled environment while screaming and pretending she was in peril. Until she had reached the end of the line, climbed into a seat, and realized it seemed far too high, far too dangerous, far too scary. But she couldn’t go back. She was already strapped in. The coaster car was rolling up, up, up, and the ground was running away, away, away. The Gwendolyn of the past had made a decision for which the Gwendolyne of the present was going to have to pay, whether she liked it or not- and she didn’t. The imminent stomach-lurching drop was as certain as the sunrise, or as death, but much, much closer, and she had been the one who made all the decisions that brought her to this place of inevitable self-inflicted terror. All she could do was clench her teeth, blink away the tears, and then plummet.

Gwendolyne snapped back to the present. She heard running footsteps round the corner, heard an enraged exclamation. She choked out a desperate prayer to a god who didn’t exist. Then she sat down on the ledge of dirty concrete at the bottom of the doorway, legs dangling into the abyss, and pushed off into nowhere.

Alright... whatcha think? (you can be completely honest it's ok)

Also, here's a list of other things i'm working on (though i don't have enough concrete writing to share yet):

- A sort-of steampunk trilogy about an engineer who's discovered a way to produce insane amounts of power and needs to keep it away from a powerful gang, ft. her mildly evil super rich bff and her flight-obsessed head-in-the-clouds gf
- a religious-fiction novella (but not the way you're thinking, probably- actually i might be misusing that genre name) about a girl whose life slowly but steadily descends into chaos after a new guy moves in across the street
- a book about a group of people who live alone with chaotic, sometimes malevolent spirits, but something much bigger is going on that one of them- the one who was accidentally put in charge of communicating with the spirits when she was way to young- is starting to figure out
- a book about a magic circus that is being disgustingly corrupted by a possessed ringmaster

Which one(s) sounds the most interesting? (i can't promise immediate progress, of course. In fact, i can't promise any progress at all, really, but knowing one of them is particularly interesting to someone might inspire me to focus on it.)

Tagging people who expressed interest in my SU about posting my writing: @The Wandering Wizard @dannnnnex @Cinnamon @Morningtide @Justice_Magician @Wittles of Shinovar <333

Edited by Szeth's Facepalm
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WOAH THIS IS REALLY GOOD!!!!!! I had no idea you could write like that!

33 minutes ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

Also, here's a list of other things i'm working on (though i don't have enough concrete writing to share yet):

- A sort-of steampunk trilogy about an engineer who's discovered a way to produce insane amounts of power and needs to keep it away from a powerful gang, ft. her mildly evil super rich bff and her flight-obsessed head-in-the-clouds gf
- a religious-fiction novella (but not the way you're thinking, probably- actually i might be misusing that genre name) about a girl whose life slowly but steadily descends into horrifying chaos after a new guy moves in across the street
- a book about a group of people who live alone with chaotic, sometimes malevolent spirits, but something much bigger is going on that one of them- the one who was accidentally put in charge of communicating with the spirits when she was way to young- is starting to figure out
- a book about a magic circus that is being disgustingly corrupted by a possessed ringmaster

Which one(s) sounds the most interesting? (i can't promise immediate progress, of course. In fact, i can't promise any progress at all, really, but knowing one of them is particularly interesting to someone might inspire me to focus on it.)

I think the first one sounds AWESOMEEEEE!!

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I really really like the first one except for the very last line. That last paragraph makes it seem like the Ancient Shadow is forced to consume the children, like it’s an urge he can’t suppress. The last line then switches that vibe and says he’s choosing to. I think either way works, but if he’s forced to do it, the last line should change, and if he’s choosing to do it, the last paragraph should be reworked a bit. Depends on how villainous you want him to be perceived by the reader. (personally i like the “forced to do it” angle better, opens the possibility for a tortured sympathetic antagonist, which i find more appealing than a selfish murderer antagonist, but either one could work.)

as for the second one, I also really like it. I have a few notes on prose, points where i’d reword a sentence or change the ordering or whatever. Small things like that. I’ll share them if you want but i’m on mobile atm and don’t wanna type anymore =P

but in general both seem very cool, very well written. much applause. 

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43 minutes ago, dannnnnex said:

I really really like the first one except for the very last line. That last paragraph makes it seem like the Ancient Shadow is forced to consume the children, like it’s an urge he can’t suppress. The last line then switches that vibe and says he’s choosing to. I think either way works, but if he’s forced to do it, the last line should change, and if he’s choosing to do it, the last paragraph should be reworked a bit. Depends on how villainous you want him to be perceived by the reader. (personally i like the “forced to do it” angle better, opens the possibility for a tortured sympathetic antagonist, which i find more appealing than a selfish murderer antagonist, but either one could work.)

hmmmmm i see. i was thinking it's a choice and you read the first paragraph and think "uh oh poor guy" but then you read the line and you're liek "woah ok, pretty scary, maybe he's actually a jerk". but i get what you're saying, i'll re-work it a bit.

43 minutes ago, dannnnnex said:

as for the second one, I also really like it. I have a few notes on prose, points where i’d reword a sentence or change the ordering or whatever. Small things like that. I’ll share them if you want but i’m on mobile atm and don’t wanna type anymore =P

but in general both seem very cool, very well written. much applause. 

yes please and thank you very very much :DDD

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44 minutes ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

i was thinking it's a choice and you read the first paragraph and think "uh oh poor guy" but then you read the line and you're liek "woah ok, pretty scary, maybe he's actually a jerk".

ok yeah lol, the exact thing you were intentionally doing is the exact thing i thought didn't work =P
i think it just makes his character seem inconsistent, someone who's willing to kill exclusively for his own gain isn't the type to feel sympathy for the families of his victims. even if its just a tiny bit of sympathy. if there was an element of urging, a lack of agency, it'd make more sense.

50 minutes ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

yes please and thank you very very much :DDD

alright i'll go through it

 

and let me start off with saying this is already some of the best prose i've seen on this site, so i feel comfortable nitpicking it this critically because it's really really great. I'll go through each of these with what i think is the issue, and then how i'd fix it.

I think I'm much better at identifying problems than I am at fixing them though, so take the second half of each point with a grain of salt. 

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

Gwendolyne ran like she’d never run before. Her boots slammed into the pavement. Her throat sucked in breath after ragged breath as she desperately propelled herself forward, never daring to pause or slow down.

The short sentence "her boots slammed into the pavement" doesn't flow well here, as it's right after another relatively short sentence. I can see what you're doing with the three parallell sentences, first talking about Gwen, then her boots, then her throat, but the third sentence is too long, it doesn't balance with the first two. I'd maybe combine it with the next one like "Her boots slammed into the pavement as she sucked in breath after raggedy breath, never daring to pause or slow down.", but that does remove the parallel sentence structure you were going for so idk. I'd either do that or cut the third sentence so it's shorter.

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

Halo's voice echoed through her skull. Watch where you're going, idiot.

this isn't a critique, just a warning. using overly complex dialogue tags is a trap many writers fall into. I think 'echoed' works ok here, as it's the first time we see Halo speak, and so it's important to emphasize that its telepathic, but be careful to not use special tags for them too much. 
(this is hinging on my assumption that hearing their voice is gonna be a recurring thing, like Reen and Vin.)

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

Her eyes widened. It was real. It had worked. They’d been right.

These three consecutive thoughts don't flow well. They're all very similar sentences, three words each, all back to back, it just feels weird, especially with the sentence before ALSO being 3 words. Easiest fix imo would be to just remove one of them, but even then, two identical sentences like that isn't super ideal. maybe remove the middle sentence and expand the contraction in the third so it's just "It was real. They had been right." ....eh no i don't like that either. Maybe like this? "They were right...it was real!"  yeah that's not terrible. combining the sentences, adding an emphasis on 'was' and an exclamtion point. Idk that might be a bit much. i don't have a great fix for this one.

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

"Open, please," she breathed, throat raw, voice laced with desperation.

not having a possessive here feels weird to me. i definitely see what you were going for but it reads a bit off. maybe just "Open, please," she breathed, her voice raw and laced with desperation." also, again, careful with overcomplicated dialogue tags. expecially in this case, where you're already taking the time to describe her voice right afterwards, i really don't think you need the word "breathed". no need to describe her voice twice, in two different literary methods, in one sentence. 

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

Making her heart beat fast. Making her mouth dry.

I like the parallel sentence structure here, I just think the word "making" absolutely does not fit. Not sure how i'd fix it without restructuring that entire section though.
 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

The shouts were getting closer. Gwendolyne whipped her head back and forth, glancing at the miraculously terrifying doorway and then at the mouth of the alleyway where they were almost upon her. Her eyes filled suddenly with terrified tears. 

2 things. "miraculously terrifying" feels weird. maybe just "the ominous doorway". not everything needs two adjectives. and then i'd break the sentence at "they were almost upon her.". so it'd be "Gwendolyne whipped her head back and forth, glancing at the ominous doorway and then at the mouth of the alleyway. They were almost upon her. Her eyes were filled suddenly with terrified tears."

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

rare frivolous excursion

strongly dislike the word frivolous here. "rare excursion" works well. and if you want to clarify that only the frivolous excursions are rare, try the word outing. so "rare outing". 

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

Gwendolyn was suddenly reminded of a time she was smaller.

typo?

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

courtesy of the fact that Halo had just had a vicious fight with Wreath. Halo had taken a fistful of bills from the cash bag and brought Gwendolyne to an amusement park

it's hard for the reader to see the connection here. it might just be because we have no idea who Wreath is, but the connection between "halo had a fight" and "halo grabbed money from the cash bag" is very tenuous. Some more details here would be very helpful. I don't have much to critique because I don't know what's missing, I don't know who wreath is or why halo would fight them, but I know that something is missing, and it makes this bit rather confusing. Maybe clarify that Halo won the fight, and therefore was allowed to take money from the bag? i don't know if that's even the case, but if it is, clarifying that would help.

 

5 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

She and Halo had been on a rare frivolous excursion, courtesy of the fact that Halo had just had a vicious fight with Wreath. Halo had taken a fistful of bills from the cash bag and brought Gwendolyne to an amusement park, allowing her to run wild for the afternoon, while they themself sat on a secluded park bench crying quietly and muttering ominously.

Halo's they/them pronouns are really messing up these few paragraphs. I can see why you made each choice you did, but it still doesn't work. Referring to Halo three times in a row by name feels very clunky, but you can't really refer to them as "they" because that implies plurality, and with Gwen also being in these sentences, that messes things up. You try to fix that by saying "they themself" in the next line, but that also feels clunky. I have no solution here other than rework the entire section so that Gwen and Halo are never subjects of the same sentence. They/them pronouns are very tricky to write because of implied plurality, I don't know how i'd fix it here. \

 

6 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

- and she didn’t.

this is redundant. it sounds nice and zingy, but you've already made it abundantly clear that gwen is uncomfortable. 

 

6 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

and she had been the one who made all the decisions that brought her to this place of inevitable self-inflicted terror.

first half of this sentence is great, but this feels clunky. i think it's because "inevitable self-inflicted" are inanely redundant. The point of the entire sentence is how its inevitable and self-inflicted, saying it again at the very end is kinda silly imo.

 

6 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

She heard running footsteps round the corner, heard an enraged exclamation.

saying "heard" twice is unnecessary, makes the sentence feel cluttered. i can tell it's intentional, but it clashes strangely imo.

 

6 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

She choked out a desperate prayer to a god who didn’t exist. Then she sat down on the ledge of dirty concrete at the bottom of the doorway, legs dangling into the abyss, and pushed off into nowhere.

i think this would read better as one sentence, trimming the second one a bit to make it fit. "She choked out a desperate prayer to a god who didn’t exist, then sat down on the ledge at the bottom of the doorway, legs dangling into the abyss, and pushed off into nowhere." (in fact I did just naturally read it as once sentence the first time through, didn't notice the break until now)

 

my final nitpick is that you have a severe case of adjective abundance. many many things have two or more adjectives describing them when they really don't need it. not gonna go through them all, but remember that its okay to leave some things up to the readers imagination. you don't need to add adjectives for the sake of adjectives. 

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facepalm DAYUM

these are

this

this is actually really good. i don't have feedback like dannnex does... but i have kind words!!

these are good, i'm excited to read more, I'd love to see that steampunk idea.

keep working on this, you're really good :D

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5 hours ago, dannnnnex said:

ok yeah lol, the exact thing you were intentionally doing is the exact thing i thought didn't work =P
i think it just makes his character seem inconsistent, someone who's willing to kill exclusively for his own gain isn't the type to feel sympathy for the families of his victims. even if its just a tiny bit of sympathy. if there was an element of urging, a lack of agency, it'd make more sense.

Yeah, i re-read it and i totally get what you're saying. it does feel pretty weird. i do want it to seem like he's just convincing himself he has to do it, so he may seem sympatheitc, but he's actually a monster. but whatever it's a short story lol

And thank you SO MUCH for all the feedback!! That's exactly what i was hooping for :D I'll watch out for adjectives haha. i usually write pretty late, and my brain is a little more creative at that time, but also... it's 11:30 and my mind is not at it's full capacity and enjoys fancy words. anyway i'll go through it with your suggestions and keep them in mind for the next installment. thanks so much for taking the time to do that, it's so helpful :lol:

Can you clarify one thing--

5 hours ago, dannnnnex said:

this isn't a critique, just a warning. using overly complex dialogue tags is a trap many writers fall into. I think 'echoed' works ok here, as it's the first time we see Halo speak, and so it's important to emphasize that its telepathic, but be careful to not use special tags for them too much. 
(this is hinging on my assumption that hearing their voice is gonna be a recurring thing, like Reen and Vin.)

so you use the word telepathic here,. does it seem like gwen and halo are communicating telepathically? i just meant, like, it was something halo used to say to her a lot, and now she thinks about it when she trips. if it seems like they are communicating i can change it ahaha

Thank you so so so so much!!

1 hour ago, CalanoCorvus said:

facepalm DAYUM

these are

this

this is actually really good. i don't have feedback like dannnex does... but i have kind words!!

these are good, i'm excited to read more, I'd love to see that steampunk idea.

keep working on this, you're really good :D

awwww doomie :wub::wub: tysm :DD

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:o You're so good! I *love* the first one! So creepy but so cool. 

I also don't have super good feedback other than you're doing great! Keep writing! 

13 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

- a book about a group of people who live alone with chaotic, sometimes malevolent spirits, but something much bigger is going on that one of them- the one who was accidentally put in charge of communicating with the spirits when she was way to young- is starting to figure out

This sounds suuuper awesome and I would absolutely read it

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4 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

does it seem like gwen and halo are communicating telepathically?

it doesn’t seem like they aren’t, that’s for sure. i wasn’t sure if it was literally telepathic or not, so i was using the word loosely, but if you want it to be clearer i would change it, yeah. 

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17 hours ago, Szeth's Facepalm said:

Hi guys!! I have 1000 posts now! This was going to be my 1000th, but i accidentally spent it on the theater kids thread. So this is 1001!

To celebrate, I wanted to share some writing with you guys, and hopefully gain some feedback and critique? Feel free to be harsh, as long as it's constructive. I'd really like to get better :D

To start, here's a short story I wrote during the shard's month of prompts (someone me didn't realize aes had already posted a prompt and posted one, thus resulting in the combination of these two prompts: "A hungry soul" and "The children are gone. Something is taking them."):

  Reveal hidden contents

Soul Stealer

Seeli wakes.

It is dark, and she is cold. Seeli doesn't like cold. Jak gave her extra blankets tonight so she would not be cold because of the storm. Why is she cold?

Thunder booms outside. Seeli reflexively pulls the covers over her head. She hates thunder. It is probably why she woke.

Seeli listens to the splashes of rain for a minute until her quickly beating heart stills. It is getting colder by the second. She is getting scared. Why is it so cold? She slowly pulls the covers down till she's peeking out. She can't see anything in the dark. She thinks she will make a dash to Jak and Veric's room, and risk being scolded for waking them. It must be very late. It is so dark. And so cold...

Suddenly lighting flashes and brightens the room, and Seeli's heart jumps painfully in her chest as a person is illuminated, standing next to her window. It is only a burst of light, but she sees a tall shadow with a loose cloak. the light seems to shine through it somehow, as if it is insubstantial, not all there. Her scream is drowned by the huge crash of thunder that follows almost immediately. She jumps up, but suddenly, another flash of lighting, and the creature is in her doorway. it reaches a gnarled hand towards her. She can feel the cold, freezing air radiating from the shadow, the thing. She is frozen in place- almost literally- as long shadow fingers reach through her chest and extract a long glowing string: her soul.

Seeli feels it consume her. It's horrific. She can sense her body, still standing, inches away, but her soul, the stuff that makes her herself, is trapped. Trapped in the shadow being. She can sense others here too- other children, like her. Their souls are dim and weak. They are trapped here as well. She can feel the thing becoming fuller, less shadowy, as she fades more and more quickly away. It grows warmer as she grows colder. She is dimming. She is weakening. Why has the creature done this to her? She can sense that it is leaving back through the window, away from her warm bed, her parents, her own body. She senses Jak and Veric dash into her room, and she tries to scream for them, but she can't. She is just a weakened soul with no lungs, no mouth. She wants to cry, but she has no eyes with which to do so.

     * * *

Veric shot up in bed. "Did you hear that?" He blinked through the darkness. Why was it so cold?

Jak groaned and rubbed his eyes groggily. "What, the thunder?"

"No, it was coming from Seeli's room. I think she screamed."

Jak was alert as well now. He reached to light a candle. Veric stepped out of bed. "Seeli? Seeli, are you alright?"

The only answer was the sound of a window slamming shut.

Veric shoved the door open and they ran down the hall to Seeli's little room. "SEELI??" Jak pulled her door open. "Seeli!! What's happening?"

She stood right there, staring at the door. She was motionless.

"...Seeli?" Veric's voice was soft. He and Jak were used to gently guiding her back to bed after she wandered the house in her sleep. Jak chuckled softly. "Seeli, you scared us." The words weren't meant for her, as she probably couldn't hear them. He gently steered her towards her little bed, and Veric, relieved, started to make his way back to their room. A false alarm. He could sleep.

He could have sworn he had heard her scream…

"Veric... Veric, something's wrong." Veric frowned and turned back. Jak's tone and the words chilled him. "What? What do you mean?"

"She... just... look at her eyes. Seeli? Seeli, wake up." Jak knelt and gently shook her shoulders. "Seeli, please wake up." Veric looked at her blank expression, her motionless form. She stood there, rigid. Unmoving. And her eyes...

Empty. No vibrancy, no emotion, no light. It was like they were made out of glass. Veric's stomach dropped.

    * * *

The Ancient Shadow watches the men descend into hysteria. He does not care for this part: The horrified families, seeing their children dead and empty even as they breathe on. But when the cold hunger strikes him, he has to eat. He has to consume the youth that keeps him alive and warm. He has to live, even if it means another will suffer. Even if it means hundreds have to suffer.

If you’ve been blessed with immortality, it would be foolish to give it away, no matter what it costs. Wouldn't it?

Just an fyi, I'm not usually that dramatic in my writing. I wrote this one sleep deprived at three AM (when i am at my most profound lol) so please have mercy on it ;-;

I wrote another one about chickens (also at three am) that was absolutely bizarre so i'm not going to share it. i honestly have no memory of even writing it, but when i woke up it was posted in the month of prompts thread, and when i read it through, i was mildly concerned. BUT ANYWAY

Here's the main thing i wanted to share. It's a prologue, or first chapter, maybe, of something that has only been written in my head. By that i mean i haven't put anything down on paper for backstory, magic, plot, nothing except this. There is very little plan for where it's going, so if any of y'all liked it i thought it could be a sort of choose your own adventure thing? Though i do have a few specifics in mind. Also, don't expect particularly frequent updates, because unlike the fabulous @CalanoCorvus i am a very slow writer. (oh btw doomie pls read this stuff i wrote :333)

No name yet... something circular, most likely. Ring. Hehe like the doorbell

  Reveal hidden contents

Gwendolyne ran like she’d never run before. Her boots slammed into the pavement. Her throat sucked in breath after ragged breath as she desperately propelled herself forward, never daring to pause or slow down. In her right hand she held her prize: a small, inexpensive green handbag which she gripped as if the entire world was trying to take it from her. She glanced up at the bright moon for a second, then cursed as she almost tripped. Halo's voice echoed through her skull. Watch where you're going, idiot.

Gwendolyne sped around the corner of a large brick building and emerged into a dead-ended alley. She collapsed to her knees and gasped for air for a moment, loosening her fist and letting the handbag fall to the grimy concrete. She snatched it back up and undid the clasp, tipping the contents onto the dirty ground. Out spilled mascara, a wallet, some hand sanitizer. Not what she was looking for. She heard voices, not far from where she knelt. They had caught up. She frantically dug deeper into the bag. It had to be there somewhere. If it wasn’t….

There. Gwendolyne felt a small item through the fabric, a tiny pocket behind the bag logo. She had neither the patience nor time to find out how the pocket opened, so she ripped through the soft inner material of the purse with her teeth and shook the bag into her hand. This time, a small stone ring slipped out. It had been formed from gray marble hewn perfectly smooth, and there was a flattened side with a symbol of interlocking rectangles carved into it. Her eyes widened. It was real. It had worked. They’d been right.

Though she’d never seen the ring before, Gwenolyne knew exactly what to do. She slid it onto her middle finger, feeling the cold, smooth stone against her skin. She balled her hand into a fist and raised the ring to her lips. "Open, please," she breathed, throat raw, voice laced with desperation. She felt a gust of wind behind her. She snapped up and whirled around. 

Further down the alleyway, where there had previously been a red brick wall adorned with faded spray paint and accumulated grime, there was a door. It was a deep chestnut color with a dull golden doorknob. Bright light shone through the cracks, hurting her eyes. Making her heart beat fast. Making her mouth dry. She walked over to it, legs wobbling from her frantic flight. She reached out and pulled the door open quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. She beheld the shining white abyss it led into and she gulped. 

The shouts were getting closer. Gwendolyne whipped her head back and forth, glancing at the miraculously terrifying doorway and then at the mouth of the alleyway where they were almost upon her. Her eyes filled suddenly with terrified tears. 

Gwendolyn was suddenly reminded of a time she was smaller. She and Halo had been on a rare frivolous excursion, courtesy of the fact that Halo had just had a vicious fight with Wreath. Halo had taken a fistful of bills from the cash bag and brought Gwendolyne to an amusement park, allowing her to run wild for the afternoon, while they themself sat on a secluded park bench crying quietly and muttering ominously. Gwendolyne waited for half an hour in line for the biggest rollercoaster in the park, ecstatic at the thought of hurtling through the air at high speeds in a controlled environment while screaming and pretending she was in peril. Until she had reached the end of the line, climbed into a seat, and realized it seemed far too high, far too dangerous, far too scary. But she couldn’t go back. She was already strapped in. The coaster car was rolling up, up, up, and the ground was running away, away, away. The Gwendolyn of the past had made a decision for which the Gwendolyne of the present was going to have to pay, whether she liked it or not- and she didn’t. The imminent stomach-lurching drop was as certain as the sunrise, or as death, but much, much closer, and she had been the one who made all the decisions that brought her to this place of inevitable self-inflicted terror. All she could do was clench her teeth, blink away the tears, and then plummet.

Gwendolyne snapped back to the present. She heard running footsteps round the corner, heard an enraged exclamation. She choked out a desperate prayer to a god who didn’t exist. Then she sat down on the ledge of dirty concrete at the bottom of the doorway, legs dangling into the abyss, and pushed off into nowhere.

 

 

Aahhh I know I’m late but WOW Facepalm, wow. I remember the first one, that was a fun combination of prompts :D. I also remember your chicken one, actually every time I go out to feed my chickens I panic a little bit now.

Anywho, you’re an incredible writer!! I’m excited to see everything you create!!

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