The room was not dark.11
A strange sort of violet light glowed in the room, lighting up the surroundings with an electric glow. The girl's face was pale, her eyes staring at the ground, her hands wrapped around her legs. Yet, she did not seem weak or defeated. She was frightening. I could sense her eyes staring at me, watching my every move. My first days as a peon in this damn jail, and I have to clean the prison of Ghost Girl. They had locked her up for revolutionary activities, and I could see why, despite the fact that she was only fourteen, they had killed her. She had a strange sort of smile, the sort that said, "You think I have lost? You are wrong."22
I think I fell in love with her.33
I know that even if she was alive, she would have never loved me. I was not brave or dark or even a revolutionary. I was just an ordinary farmer's boy. She was the princess of the kingdom, well at least before the raiders came. If she had lived, she would have been sixteen today. Two years since she died. Two years since I stopped seeing her face from the castle garden, and had to make do with the fair, but annoyingly arrogant face of the new princess. I had thought of Ghost Girl of just as a beauty, not someone to think about in the night, someone to dream about, someone to have nightmares about.44
Yes, I did have nightmares about her.55
She was as much of a monster as she was a princess. No one objected to what the raiders said. The king and his family were a blasphemous lot, they practiced horrible black magic within the very dungeons in which they were imprisoned and starved to death. I would often imagine that I was in the very room, with that very violet glow, and she would come for me, her mouth uttering unspeakable words, her eyes glowing, smiling that very same smile. If you think I am insane, you should see the castle. It is now abandoned, save for the new princess. She doesn't want to live with her parents in the new one, she prefers the dark chambers of this one. They say that the decrepit state of the castle was the reason they abandoned the castle, but I know the real one-each of them had nightmares more terrifying than the ones I have.66
Except the new princess.77
I don't know what is her problem. How dare she boss over us villagers? My love at least had an aura of mystery about her; she had grace, and class and elegance. This girl? She is not even fit to be a commoner! I would often spy on the first one in the night, dancing. I did not love her then, but I was infatuated with her dancing. She would move her feet delicately, her gown sweeping like giant curtains across the earth. This girl was born with a left foot. Her steps are nothing more than the thumps of some giant walking. Her gown is ruffled and merely bounces up and down when she moves. If only my love was alive! But Ghost Girl will remain Ghost Girl.88
I moved forward, and gently kissed her on the lips.99
I drew back and stood with bated breath, hoping that my sleeping beauty would wake up. But she never did. She remained motionless, her eyes staring into mine. They did not seem as crafty and cunning as before. They seemed sad, little pools of darkness. I touched her silken skin, wrapped my arms around her waist and kissed her again, hoping against any hope that she would open her eyes. But alas, my fairytale ends here. I smoothed her hair, ran my hands across her lips and started the long, long journey up the staircase, my heart pounding, both with fear and excitement. I touched my back continuously and felt around for her hand. I only felt the rough cloth of my shirt.1010
I reached the door.1111
I pulled at the handle, but it crumbled into dust and settled on the floor. With a growing sense of dread in my heart, I tried to kick the door open. Nothing happened. It remained closed. I knocked on it repeatedly, hoping that the princess would hear me, but I slowly realized that nobody would as I was right beneath the castle. That is why they locked all the prisoners here-so that no one would ever hear their screams. And when I turned around, there was Ghost Girl, smiling, and the lump in my heart disappeared. I smiled too, and I kissed my love, and we were finally united together.
Author notes
My username is Xm. Though you can already see it to the right of the story.
A contest entry
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Comments
1 - 17 of 17
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that was great. I loved it. You did well. Totally unexpected. I'm adding you to the finalist list. Thank you for entering and good luck.
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Wow, this was awesome! Great job and thanks for entering. Good luck
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Oooh, great job! I love the twist to this story!
Wow, the ending was great and actually completely unexpected to me. I love the... (I don't know the right word)... tone in this story, and the style in which it was written.
Great job! -
I actually liked this, quite surprising. You mentioned necrophilia and I was like oh man this is going to be some twisted erotica, but no, this is very good. I felt it needed a little fleshing out. More detail and such. In a sweet sort of way the ending was quite disturbing.
Here are some things that I noticed that you might consider altering.
The term peon didn't really feel right. The term itself was derogatory and an unlikely way for a serf/peasant/proletarian to describe him/herself.
"A strange sort of violet light glowed in the room, lighting up the surroundings with an electric glow."
This sentence is a little awkward, you used variations of glow and light twice. Maybe consider something like this:
The violet light bathed the surroundings in a strange electric glow.
"My first days as a peon in this damn jail, and I have to clean the prison of Ghost Girl."
This statement sounds like he resents his task although it seems that he shouldn't as he loves her.
Many of the other grammatical errors have already been pointed out by Voldo, so I won't waste your time.
Like I said, good work, keep it up.
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actually he's sort of scared of her. like she chills him and she makes him fantasize at the same time.
what do you mean by flesh out?
as i said this is under editing, so i still have some work to do.
thank you for reading my story! -
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"what do you mean by flesh out?"
I thought further description would help clarify the setting, the characters, and the plot.
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OMG!!!
The imagery is WOW!!!
I LOVE the beginning, very original and creative! So beautiful and gorgeously written! Fantastic plot and amazing setting! What a beautiful, beautiful story! Excellent job! Lissy really loves it! XD
Lissy
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"A strange sort of violet light glowed in the room, lighting up the surroundings with an electric glow."
-I really dig this line. Fantastic word choice.
This story was a bit confusing. Mainly with the princesses. As I kept reading, they sort of became the same person. I like the fact the characters are nameless in this story but I think if they did have names it would have to clearify things.
I think your story is interesting but I was that impressed. I feel like it's missing something but I can't put my fingers on it.
Thanks for entereing.
PS. When judging a contest, the usernames are hidden from the judge, so no I couldn't see your name on the right, that's why I asked for it to be in AN. -
Yeah, it was!
Ironic how the peon is trapped in that dugeon in the end. At least he can be with his love, the Ghost Girl. Gosh, she was so eerie....give's me the creeps!
Very well-done, describing the gloomy atmosphere and all.....I enjoyed reading it.
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I love this story!!! I thought it was gonna be a broken hearted story, but this one was love united.
Nice job and good luck with the contest(s) 
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Okay, I'm giving a full blown critique :-P.
A strange sort of violet light glowed in the room, lighting up the surroundings with an electric glow. The girl's face was pale, her eyes staring at the ground, her hands wrapped around her legs.
*WC on glow*
*Period after pale. Say... her eyes stared at the ground. Her hands were wrapped around*
prison of Ghost Girl
*Isn't it prison cell?*
This girl was born with a left foot.
*only a left foot instead of "a left foot"?*
Look out for tense changes "her steps are" shouldn't it be "her steps were"
I'm... kind of confused.. is she alive or dead? I thought they killed her two years ago. Can you make the clearer with transitions maybe?
mmm... love the idea of how... he has to feel very important and powerful and meaningful for her because she is this revolutinary princess and yet, he doesn't because she loves him in the end.
I like how slowly the people leave and he's the only one left and he's clinging onto an idea.
I think you have a very good rough draft/outline. I think you just need to develop clearness/transitions more. It actually wouldn't be that hard either, you have the story, just make a clear point of saying what was in the past, what is now (you mixed up some verb tenses so I was confused)
*nod nod* -
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i'll consider your changes, i'm going in for a mega-edit of this story. Sorry I took so long to reply. Yeah, this is pretty rough, but still I'll try and make it more appealing. Wish me luck!
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i didnt understnd tht as much as i think i aught to
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It's okay. I don't really mind it, I was in a crazy mood while writing this.
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I understand the general plot of this story but you really need some help on describing the setting of the strory better. I did not get that the main character was in the dungeon until the very end. This strory was confusing because you kept going back and forth between the new princess and old princess and at a point both of them morph togehter creating one person. And I don't think that's what you want. Well what I am trying to say is, you need to create more of a distinction between the two princesses, in either the way you write [creating a paragraph for each, or using more transition (words and phases)]. This could be done also by naming the characters, and describing in some details how they look like.
What I mean by setting is, I want to know where themain characters are, what place, what time, describe the castle, is it medival looking, or does it look like those castles in Europe. You said it was dark and scary, but how dark and scary I want to feel scared, I want to feel like I would never venture into that caastle like the rest of the population in the story. I want to feel the main character's disgust for the new princess.
I think that you can make the characters feel more a part of this story by adding more details and describing more of what's going on. Right now, this story is very strechy and disoriented, I don't know what's going on and this story does not allow me or make me feel like I want to go on and find out what's going to happen. This dilema is can easily be taken care of by you, the author, just add some more. More of everything, more emotion, more details, more action, more explainations ect.
Another issue I want to write about is this:
There is alot of princess stories, alot of dark romantic stories, but what's going to set yours apart from the rest, what's going to make it unique, relateable, and bankable? I want you to think about these things.
But on a bright and cheery note, I will leave you with a happy thought
I think this story has the potential to be a wonder dark, romantic story but I also think that inorder for this story to reach that status you need to work on
making this story more interesting
and making this story more understandable.
on that note xxxoooxxx Nay
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Thank you for that huge critique, seriously, no sarcasm or anything. I know I need to describe, but the thing is that I wanted to maintain a mysterious mood. I'd initially written this as the first chapter of a novel(thus the lack of descriptions). Thank you again!
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Wow, very interestingly done. Its a beautiful story.
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