My single footfall sends creaks and groans cascading through the well-worn floor. The pictures and lamps shake from the vibration. Timidly, I wet my lips and glance back to the door, swallowing hard. I know I can’t go back and, as I force the lump down my throat, I take another shuddering step.1
The walls quake, the window blinds shiver, and I feel the pulse in my wrist shake my hand violently. With chattering teeth I look towards the stairs wrought by termites. An eerie whisper caresses my ear, prompting me forward. I dare not go, but I already feel the pull on my soul to ascend the stairs.2
With quick glances to the web-infested corners, I take a gasping breath and slowly move my bare feet towards the first step. Shivering again, the blinds bang against the bubbled glass. I touch my toe to the stair and try to still my jawbone. Grasping the railing with a spasmodic hand, I lean forward putting weight on my foot and lift the other to the stair. The steps quiver sadistically. With every step I take my heart leaps at chance of the stairs collapsing until I finally reach the landing.3
Looking down a hall of dusty wall lamps I feel my heartbeat deaden. There are closed doors cut between every three feet of the walls. The whisper returns to me again and orders me forward; I dare not disobey.4
Trying the first door on my left, I give it a slight shove opening it barely an inch. Wind gushes out of it blowing the long orange hair from my silver eyes. Slamming it quickly in my horror, I try the door opposite it. And, with a whimper escaping my clenched teeth, I budge it open slowly. It is empty; I take a deep sigh of relief and step into the room. Nothing seems to happen as I prod the walls and floor looking for the vault opening.5
My fingers run against a knothole in the left wall. Slowly, I push my pointer finger through it, testing the condition of the other side. It is cold. An icy chill surrounds my knuckles, freezing my finger’s movement. Quickly, I pull the appendage back, examining it. My bottom lip trembles as I gaze wide-eyed upon my skeleton finger.6
I run for the door with as much force as I can muster and swing it outside spinning it off its leather hinges. Flying backwards, I land against the wall as the wind is knocked out of me. There before me floats the apparition with a rotting smile upon its decaying face. “Lovely day, eh, son?” it whispers softly as I scramble back into a darkened corner, praying out loud to God to deliver me from this demonic shade.7
It moves closer to me cocking his head to the side in pleasant enjoyment. Widening, its smile stretches the ghoul’s face as it stops a foot before me. “You like treasures don’t you, child?” it murmurs to me. I nod my head up and down not daring myself to speak. The ghoul leans towards me, “would you like to know what treasure truly is?” I nod again. Staring me in the eye, the ghoul silently whispers: “soul.”8
With that single word, it leaves me huddled rocking back and forth staring into the darkness. “Soul,” the word resonates within my being clutching at my heart refusing to let go. “Soul,” it squeezes. “Soul.”9
I feel myself being lifted from the rotting floor and being taken out the door, but my thoughts don’t register it. I am in a complete state of shock with my eyes leaping wildly about the collapsing walls. Nothing remains but the floor gliding below me, and the stairs approaching solemnly. I float down the rotting steps as they fall away behind me crashing into dust.10
I shut my eyes tightly as ripples form on my lids. I don’t hear the shivering of window blinds or the creaking of floorboards; all I hear is silence, complete and unending silence. Carefully, I open my right eye and then my left. I am laying in the woods with willow trees swaying above me to the wind’s blissful power. Once again, a voice caresses my ear. “Soul,” it whispers quietly.
Author notes
The circumstances of the main character being in the house are unimportant to the story itself. However, I gave a hint to them.
In a list
A contest entry
- Writing Exercises - Descriptions by Delfishie.
400 points, ended August 6, 2007, 11 entries
Honorable mention
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Horror Contest!!!!! by MoonRoseWolf.
135 points, ended September 3, 2007, 11 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Horror and Crime Stories Wanted!!! by Andy Stephenson.
350 points, ended September 21, 2007, 16 entries
Honorable mention
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - SCAREY ME, if you can. :) by Jennywinnie.
550 points, ended October 13, 2007, 11 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest - Theme contest with options.... by parntsoftwins.
100 points, ended January 18, 2008, 5 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 21 of 21
-
That was creepy.
But you wrote it very good.
It was interesting but kinda confusing.
Great job and good luck!
-
Beautiful wording of the setting! Bravo on that!
Favorite line;
"The steps quiver sadistically. " Beautiful personification! Yes, I sound like an English teacher, but I value this writing skill.
Tense mix-ups in para 9.
Very good story indeed, I applaud you. The bit about the skeleton hand did amuse me for a moment but...no chills.
-
This was definitely interesting. Thanks for entering. ^_^
-
Please which option did you choose to write on, please put it in your anotes, thank you.
-
Great job!!!! sent chills down my spine!!!!
-
Wow! This was terrific! It sent chills down my spine! I just absolutely loved this piece!
-
Really good tension here in the beginning! Very good! I like how I'm placed in the action at the very beginning, it makes me have to work as a reader and I'm getting tense because I want to know what's going on. Yet you're giving me enough information that I'm not confused.
I also like how you took a pretty cliche scenario (the old creaky stairs) and beefed it up, and gave a motivation for this character being stupid enough to "ascend" them anyways. Normally in movies I'm saying... "Why the heck are they so stupid! Just run out!" but when you wrote "I already feel the pull on my soul to ascend the stairs." I finally understand that possibly they aren't completely in control of themselves. Great fresh idea there!
Great description with, "I feel my heartbeat deaden." It's using two different senses here, feeling but also hearing since you use the words "feel" but then "deaden". This is awesome.
I like how you describe the character very sneekily, "the long orange hair from my silver eyes..." My one suggestion here would be to split these two thing up and hide them in seperate parts of the narrative, to make this description even more unknoticable, to keep the action being the center of attention. It still is good the way it is, but you can play around with it.
I love the pace through the story except for one part, I think it goes too quickly when he's sticking in his finger and it turns to skeleton. Maybe take a moment to describe how this feels, is it painful? What was he even doing? Give us some information about what object he's looking for, and why it did that. This should probably be done with a combination of adding more hints at the beginning (being careful not to bog it down too much) and also describing the object or what it's doing. You could also pay up the tension in the beginning by describing his fear of it, or something like that. The speed there got me a bit confused as a reader, because I didn't really know enough information about the object. It could be smoother.
Things become clearer as he comes to the Shade. Very awesome description of fearing for his own soul! Very good!
Wow great ending! Such a surprise! Just letting you know that I normally give long comments when I really like something.
I loved it! Good luck! -
Very Good!
Very descriptive and suspenseful. Had me wondering all along what would happen, however; the 'victim' appears to have escaped without much injury. Tisk, tisk; I would have liked something to have happened to the fellow. I guess he realized that the soul was more important than treasure. Thanks for entering, Andrew.
Andy
-
-
Thank you!
I've re-written the ending. I use to have it as the "victim" being killed, but I'd altered it for a certain contest.
Any better? -
-
Hmm
I think I might have liked it better with the victim being killed
.
-
-
-
I had chills up and down my spine with this.......I really like your descriptions, and I like the ambiguity of it. It would be nice to have a bit more description about the circumstances of your main character being in there, but other than that, a really good piece of writing-good luck in the contest!
-
Good descriptions, thought I felt the story lacked some important details. The first sentence confused me a bit and it made the beginning seems slow.
Thanks for entering and good luck.
x Julez -
Notes:
"the door swallowing hard" - a comma would help this bit, in between 'door' and 'swallowing'
"my ear prompting me" - again, comma 'ear, prompting'
“Soul,” it squeezes. “Soul.” - Ooohhh, this paragraph is GREAT use of repetition.
......
This is a great bit of story. I loved the termite infested stairs, the freezing knot hole of skeletal DOOM (hehe), the cobwebs and the eerie moans and the general sense that any moment something is going to leap out.
And I loved the weird, yet satisfying conclusion. You didn't explain it completely, which is a great thing and, if you ever redo this story, please continue NOT explaining the 'soul' bit completely, as that made the story awesome.
The brevity of the descriptions left me wanting more. Don't get me wrong, you have a LOT of really nice details, but perhaps if they had been a bit more in depth (and even MORE detailed) I would have been sucked in deeper to the creepy atmosphere.
Anyway, great job on this. It was a very nice bit of work. :-D -
very good
it awesome
-
OPEN ONE MORE DOOR
Pretty good! Consistent voice and POV...but, although I realize this was an exercise and contest entry, the mood and creeping around can get a little tedious. I like your ending, a trifle unsatisfying as it is (rendering the "story" a bit of a tease)but you ought to expand on the whole thing. C'mon. Give us a break with these "contests already! (lol) Write a STORY! A WHOLE ONE! (Perhaps it's behind one of those doors!)
GA
-
-
I've been working on a story (right now it's around three thousand words) but I've hit a wall and am trying to drill through it, lol.
-
-
Whoa, hey, whoa
Wow, dude, this was awesome. Hee hee. I saw no falts.
-
Great write. I enjoyed it. I love mysterious stories. Keep penning.
-
Wow wow wow! Finally, a ghost story! lol
-
Wow
This gripped me like a giant claw, from start to finish it was written to perfection and the flow and speed of the story was perfect. It wasn't to slow and it wasn't to fast. Well done, this is a great little story.
-
-
Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it.
-
Adding your comment:
1 - 21 of 21
