Story Comment

Into the Night

Elizabeth was lying flat on her back, staring up at the stars. She was looking for the Big Dipper - her favorite constellation. The cold winter winds bit into her skin, but she enjoyed it - it helped to clear her head.

Liz - as she preferred to be known - loved being outside at night. The sheer sense of freedom was what she was after - it was like a drug to her, carrying her higher and higher every night... Being outside was also infinitely preferable to being inside - another shouting match from the house reinforced that conclusion.

She rolled over onto her stomach and looked back at the double-story house. It had belonged to her grandfather - a rich, and deceased, oil tycoon - and was now in the possession of his only daughter - Stephanie Jameson, Liz's mother.

Stephanie was a drug addict - she had progressed from marijuana to cocaine quite rapidly, and was now starting to experiment with heroin. Her inheritance - a vast number of millions - was slowly being pumped into her arm, with no signs of stopping. Apart from the endless outflow of money, Stephanie brought home all kinds of boyfriends at all kinds of hours.

The latest one was Jeff. And he was being yelled at. For what, Liz had no idea. She didn't particularly care, either. All she knew was that she was the beneficiary of a multi-million dollar trust fund that would pay out on her eighteenth birthday - she couldn't wait for the day, and it would happen this year. Seventeen years under the dictatorship of the witch had created a certain longing for freedom that couldn't be expressed in words.

There was a crash of glass. Stephanie was yelling at Jeff to get out - he was only after her money, he was a no-good druggie without a future, and wasn't fit for her daughter. There were counter-yells, and eventually the front door burst open. Jeff walked out backwards, giving Stephanie two fingers before turning around and straightening his black leather jacket, disappearing down the darkened driveway.

Liz could see Stephanie through the massive windows. She slammed the door and walked back to her drug table, fetching another marijuana cigarette. This she placed in her mouth and lit with shaking hands. She took a few puffs before disappearing through a door to the left. Liz sighed and rolled back over. Mom would stone herself again and pass out.

Liz found herself questioning the point of this existence - as she always did. She had never kept any friends, since they all left her when they found out who her mother was. Liz had basically grew up on her own, surviving from day to day in the trappings of her grandfather's home - and the relatively meager portions of her inheritance that were released to her every week. Only her dreams for the future, away from this ... garbage heap of human life.

Suddenly she was seized by an unshakable desire - to escape. Never look back. Plans and predictions flooded her mind - suddenly the concept of being on her own was not so unimaginable.

She looked up into the night sky again, breathing in the cold air and exhaling all her frustration. Not yet, she told herself. Her time would come, her time to fly...

---------------------------------------------------

There was a loud crash from the house, blasting through the quiet of the night. Liz almost jumped three feet into the air. When her thumping heart quietened down, she looked back towards the house. Nothing was amiss, but she started running for the door.

The living room was empty, cold and reeking of drugs and alcohol. A wooden door led off into Stephanie's private room. Suddenly the world came to a standstill. The house was as quiet as a mausoleum - Liz could hear her own breath, loud in her ears.

And then she saw it. Creeping out from under the door - a wide, slow-moving carpet of... black. It looked black until it moved into the light, and Liz could see it for what it was - blood.

She sighed. It was over. Dutifully she walked over to the phone, intending to call 9-1-1. Then the cops would come, they would find her body...

And then her life would truly begin. She walked over to the window, and stared out. Into the night...

Author notes:

Umm yeah. I rewrote the prologue intro I was given - hope you don't mind.

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Comments

Zephyr Aryn:

Impressive. You sure have a knack for detail. One thing disturbs me a little, though. Do you think you could use a couple alternatives to all those hashmarks in the beginning? Maybe you could replace a couple with semi- colons or just begin a new sentance.

This portion feels a little repetitive; maybe you could try to reword it a little bit.

"Stephanie brought home all kinds of boyfriends at all kinds of hours."

Other than that, this was an astounding write. Small touches here and there can even improve your already stellar writing. Keep up the good work!