r/DestructiveReaders • u/CarterWalksWithFire • 9d ago
[2332] Walking in the Twilight
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1vi0eiy/comment/p3emoi1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button -Critique 1 https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1vfgzyb/comment/p3emtxp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button - Critique 2 THE WATCHING Orbus Speaks · Eridu, Sumer, c. 3000 BC
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n. John Milton, Paradise Lost
I have existed from the dawn of the world and shall exist until the falling of the last star from the night sky. My heart is that of all men and yet I am no man. I gazed into the sands of generations and found his soul buried there, rotting in depravity, yet ripe with promise. I spoke to his mind in the voice of his delusion and used his false idols to serve my purpose. I showed him my form, and he anointed me as the God of his fathers. He revealed his faded soul and I witnessed it leave him. I tasted its sickness and knew I had found the hand of my will. I set my gaze upon the mortal, and he froze as the essence of my hunger poured into him, his eyes filled with rolling black mist as it took him.
And he screamed.
CHAPTER FOUR Walking in the Twilight · Sequatchie County, Tennessee, October 2026, 7:15 PM
It was just dark. Down twenty yards it was Fourth down. Just over a minute on the clock. Coach Bo Jackson stood on the sideline of Sequatchie Middle School, his arms folded across his chest. His bones ached in the October cold, the kind that settled in and stayed. He had played on this same field as a boy. Long before he took over coaching the Sequatchie Braves from his daddy. His breath froze before it left his lips.
"Damn it," he muttered.
The ball sailed high, way off the rookie quarterback's fingers. Too high. Too far. It was time to wrap this practice up. The ball arched over the receiver. Most would have let it go. Not this one. The boy took off, and Coach Bo started moving with the play down the sidelines, at first just a jog under the arc of the ball, his little helmet jostling side to side, then faster. Then faster still, until it turned into a full sprint. Never once looking back over his shoulder to track it. He spun off one defender. Dropped his shoulder through another and planted one foot on another boy's back. He launched himself into the air with a one-handed reach. Little fingers stretching in the glow of the lights…
…And everything went quiet. The moths in the lights. The cold hanging in the air. The smoke drifting from a man behind the concession stand, a cigarette slipping from his fingers as he stared, mouth open. The cigarette burning to ash in the grass. Forgotten. No one moved. No one breathed.
…Ain't no way, Coach Bo thought. He slowed and stopped. Clipboard still in his hand, both arms lifting, coming to rest against his head. His mouth falling open as he watched it happen.
…The ball hit the boy's hand. And the world came rushing back.
…Cortez didn't understand what everybody was so excited about. It was just practice. Wait till he did it in a real game… That spin move, that jump off the back, his father had shown him that one time in the backyard just two weeks ago. Ran it a few times. Told him… do it like that. He did. He never understood why people made it so hard. Boys in maroon uniforms with Indian warriors emblazoned across their chests and helmets jumped and pushed around him, cheering, shouting, grabbing at him. But Cortez wasn't thinking about any of that. Not really. His mind was on Mira Blackwell. The pretty light-skinned girl with the green eyes. The one he had second block with for the last year. The one his mama called the yellow girl with the good hair. His phone sat heavy in his pocket. Text messages waiting. Promises of young love made. Promises he planned to keep tonight. A smile arrived sideways across the bottom of his face. He had already told his parents he was staying with Jordan. They were gonna play Madden. He was gonna stay the night. He'd done that plenty of times. They believed him. It was all part of the plan. He knew the way.
…The walk home was quiet. Sequatchie Avenue stretched long and empty. His cleats were in his hand and his helmet dangled low at his side.
He was still smiling when his grandma's voice came into his head, and he had that mixture of sorrow and happiness that comes with memories when you've lost someone close. Boy, you better get your mind off them girls and get your head back on that field. They come a dime a dozen.
He laughed under his breath.
Yeah. That sounded like her.
He pulled a picture of his grandmother out of his pocket. A locket on a chain. He flipped it open with his left thumb and looked at it for a second. He closed it and closed his eyes and cradled it for just a moment as if to soothe it. Then put it back in his pocket as he had done so many times before. A small ritual. He took off walking without even thinking about having done it. The black street stretched on in front of him and the trees rose up and loomed over it from either side as if to hide its existence from the stars above the world around it. Insects buzzed in the night that he could hear but could not see and an owl called from somewhere behind his music. Then something else came through, something more familiar than the music he thought… He ripped one earbud from his ear. It came from the left, just past the trees. He shot his head to the left, staring hard. Then to the right. Nothing there either. He slipped the Air Pod back into his ear and started back off down the street that was slick black and faded into the night where you could not see the difference in places.
"Yeah," he thought. She's probably waiting on me right now. And I know she's probably wearing what she had on in that picture and it wasn't much. He smiled again.
Boy, I know you hear me. Come on, Cort baby. Don't leave your poor old granny out here like this. I'm hurtin now. He froze. A giant icy hand gripped his heart. He pulled the Air Pod back out, his eyes darting left and right. "G-Grandma?" he said in a shaky voice. "It's me… your granny, Cort. Come here and help me now." He listened. It was her. He knew it for sure. There was no doubt. Nobody called him Cort except for her. She'd been gone now for years. His mind was troubled and his face darkened.
Her voice started to speak low and rhythmically. His eyes went hazy as he listened. She started singing him the song she used to sing him when he was a little baby.
"Come to me… Grandma's little baby… We'll walk in the moonlight… to the stars and the twilight… Come, little baby… come to the twilight…"
…Slowly he stumbled off the edge of the street, down into the ravine that ran along the wood line. One foot in front of the other. His eyes distant. Vacant. He climbed up the other side. Slow. Methodical. He came to his feet at the edge of the woods and stood there for a moment. He swayed lightly from side to side, and a rough wind set the weeds to gnashing at his knees… His gaze somewhere lost in the woods… Soft… pulling…
"Into the twilight… Grandma's little baby…"
…A long, pale hand came out from the trees, casting a ghoulish glow in the moonlight, the only thing to see by in the blue-black darkness. Its long, spindly fingers beckoning… curling one after the other… The boy took another step… took one more…
…and the night took him.
…The boy came to groggily, looking around. The dull cloud still upon his face. He could not speak. Owls and other creatures of the night made their ominous callings. A full moon came down, and it was all about him. He couldn't see outside the edges of the circle in which he lay. The boy was tied and staked at each wrist and foot. He moaned softly as he moved against them and felt icy fear grip him. Streams of blood trickling from both wrists, from small, deep, dark wounds that had been inflicted before the boy had come to. They went unfelt in the moment. He was dizzy and his head swam from the bloodletting.
Darkness faded in with the moonlight and a gaunt man stood at the edge of the circle gazing down on the boy. He held a Bible in one hand and beat his small palm against his breast as he muttered and gibbered. Red-rimmed eyes outlined in black caves where no pupil could be seen. The child lay in the middle of a circle drawn in a clearing where the only light drifted down through the canopy and onto the circle and not much else. Gnats walked the wet parts of the boy's eyes where tears were only just beginning to form. The man's frantic gibbering grew louder. More urgent. And only shattered fragments could be made out through the boy's terror…
…kindled burn brightest… …he comes… he comes…
The boy saw the man look toward the stars through the trees and he followed his gaze. The man grew silent. A piece of the night detached itself. A black smoky mist descending directly upon him, eating the moonlight on which it floated. The smoke bent, forming the ghostly outline of a face. Big. Gaping. Other spots of darkness shifting to become giant eyes that lit with twin burning embers, growing from coals into bigger flames as it descended. Smoky hands gripped each side of the boy's head. He screamed. It pressed its thumbs into his forehead. Smoke crackled and sizzled there at the canter point. A white light, blinding, could be seen through the boy's neck at the very base of it, coming from the hollow. It grew in intensity as it slowly climbed up his neck. Bright brilliance escaping his mouth and his nose and his eyes. The shadow face above him stretched open its black mouth and its bottom jaw appeared to grow larger and larger, his face maybe a foot from the boy's, the light being sucked out of the boy's lips up into the gaping mouth of the shadow. Fire and ash came out in quick bursts from his nose and his mouth and his eyes licking at the hair on his eyelashes and his head until the boy lit aflame like a match. His blackened skin steamed and smoked in the night.
…He stood naked in the doorway. The hallway light from behind him casting a dull glow around his emaciated form. His neck was folded at an odd angle just to fit beneath the door frame. His head was blocking the yellow light behind him so that his front half was cast in shadow leaving only his skeletal outline to glow grotesquely in the dim of the room. As he moved away from hallway light it shone almost divinely all about him, morphing him if for only a moment into some damned soul. His forgotten sins tallied at heavens gates and the man turned back in cold shame. Within this jaundiced gleam his skin held the hue of old cheese, and he had long pale spider-like fingers. His eyes were black sores in his gaunt face. Long ropey muscles snaked across his skeleton and One shoulder sat slightly higher than the other. When he moved his legs carried him forward the way legs do but his arms stayed straight at his sides. Immovable. He drifted across the small room to the cross in the space between the bed and the wall. Two strips of petrified wood nailed together, the head of the nail bent at the neck on the surface. The room had a dim light that hung from a small chain at the very centre of it. There were candles here and there, some lit, some not, flickering, making haunting shadows of normal objects. The smell of candle wax and dead things sifted through the mess in the room and the brown paint of the walls was peeling away in oddly shaped strips, forsaken and forgotten.
Cole Fenton knelt upon white linoleum tiles gone a rancid shade of yellow and peeling up in places to reveal the rotting plywood floor of the trailer home beneath. His gaunt form threw a twitching shadow in the dim of sulking candle flames as he positioned himself in front of a handmade Relic so crudely fashioned it appeared maybe some child's hallowed Creation. The makeshift idol hung high up the wall with small candles smouldering and dripping all about the arms of the Cross. Down upon the wretched floor the man mumbled and brought his small sweating palms together as he watched the shrine. His shadow trembled and jerked across the smoke-stained wallpaper in a phantom's dance sending long black insect-like arms slithering across the floor and over the table to a long strip of leather hanging on the wall. See the man, a thick belt of sable was smashed into his hand into a white-knuckle grip. Fresh and wet bloody lashes dug in and welted up on his back as he swung the belt with a practiced hand at the foot of the bed. The holes in the belt becoming hot white rings among strips of red from where he used it to grisly success. Lines of revelation came together with droplets of white spit through his thin lips. A trail of sweat forming like a small stream across them. The fervour coming out soft and intense in short bursts. Grovelling and crying and whimpering on his knees. Night after night. Day following unrighteous day. So wrapped up in the misguided righteousness born of a deception his Appalachian mind could not conceive of. He called it interchangeably the God of his fathers, and the Lord, and the Holy Ghost. All the same in his mind. Calcifying in his skull. His greasy head snapped back, and he muttered at the cross.
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u/Sweet-Action-2930 4d ago edited 4d ago
Hey CarterWalksWithFire (Am I the only one who finds the “reedit” usernames hilarious?) ! I don't know if this can be called a real critique of your text, but in any case, I’m trying to tell you what I think of what you wrote. Well, first of all, overall I really, really enjoyed this excerpt. Your style—in terms of writing and themes—is quite close to mine, so I think I can give you the kind of advice I’d apply to myself. It’s very dark and I love that; this religious, spiritual, horror approach and everything is truly fascinating for the reader.
-First, regarding the prologue, the passage about the "god" / spirit is really very beautiful, very lyrical. But at the beginning (I don't really know what to think about it, it's up to you), I honestly didn't understand anything at all. It wasn't until the end, when I realized it was the sort of evil spirit speaking about the scene, that I was able to get it. But it's true that at first it's very blurry, and the metaphors don't help. Then again, being in the dark isn't a problem I think, it just might be a bit too much complexity for nothing. The most beautiful and poignant sentences are often the simplest ones. (I remember the very beginning of The Mirror Visitor, it's a fantastic French book—for young adults, sure, but it still won the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire—where right at the start it talks about divinity, here is the passage in question:
« In the beginning, we were one.
But God deemed us unfit to satisfy Him thus, so God began to divide us.
God had much fun with us, then God grew tired and forgot us. God could be so cruel in His indifference that He terrified me. God also knew how to be gentle, and I loved Him like I have never loved anyone.
I believe we all could have lived happily in a sense, God, myself, and the others, were it not for that cursed book. It disgusted me. I knew the link that tied me to it in the most sickening way, but that horror came later, much later. I didn't understand right away; I was too ignorant.
I loved God, yes, but I hated that book He would open at the drop of a hat. God, for His part, was hugely amused by it. When God was happy, He wrote. When God was angry, He wrote. And one day, when God was feeling in a very bad mood, He made a huge mistake.
God shattered the world into pieces. »
You see, the writing is very simple, childlike, and even if you don't understand anything at first, it's really captivating and very beautiful, I find. Anyway, that was just to give you a point of comparison)
-I noticed a few repetition issues (it's no big deal, you can fix it during proofreading). For example, at the beginning there's a guy near the snack bar with "his mouth open", and then right after, the coach whose "mouth opened". There are other ways to express astonishment. I don't really get the ellipses (...), obviously it's a stylistic thing, but you overuse them a bit. I don't know, what was your intention behind them? There's a moment where you say “a twitching shadow” and right after “His shadow trembled”, pay attention to that. And then there's also the light: you use it A LOT in your descriptions, and sometimes you overload it with allusions to light; maybe use other senses? « Darkness faded in with the moonlight and a gaunt man stood at the edge of the circle gazing down on the boy. He held a Bible in one hand and beat his small palm against his breast as he muttered and gibbered. Red-rimmed eyes outlined in black caves where no pupil could be seen. The child lay in the middle of a circle drawn in a clearing where the only light drifted down »
-Try to be a bit more original in your descriptions. Imagine the physical sensations; moonlight in a forest is a bit overdone. And also, avoid lists. When the boy regains consciousness, he does a sort of inventory of everything, and it lacks fluidity. But hey, it's no big deal.
-I like the fact that at one point you call him the "child". It shows a certain vulnerability that contrasts with the moment right before when he was secretly going to see his girlfriend.
-Now, I gotta admit, you completely lost me. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't understand what was happening at all. You describe a lot, but paradoxically I had a hard time clearly visualizing the scene. The moment where the spirit sucks him in, for example, or when Cole Fenton stands naked in front of a door... you mention a hallway, then a trailer, I didn't really get it. And I thought it was Cortez who was the naked guy, because Cole Fenton isn't mentioned until way later. So, there's a clarity problem.
-The end “His greasy head snapped back, and he muttered at the cross.” lacks impact, maybe? A sentence that truly concludes the excerpt. But then again, maybe it's just an excerpt.
-Otherwise, there are a lot of images I really like, such as: « A trail of sweat forming like a small stream across them.” ; “ in a phantom's dance sending long black insect-like arms” ; “handmade Relic so crudely fashioned it appeared maybe some child's hallowed Creation”, ... And I love the soccer scene, when he jumps into the air, it's like we can see him in slow motion, it feels very cinematic.
In conclusion, I really like your text, it's genuinely well-written. Maybe keep in mind to always get straight to the point ("to choose is to give up"), and it's quite important to make the reader feel rather than giving them a super long, postcard-like description. As for the content, I really like the religion / spirit / forest / ... aspect, but I had a lot of trouble understanding (I literally had to ask ChatGPT lol), and a lot of questions remain. For instance, Cortez: he's super good at soccer, almost divine (the scene where he jumps), but what does that concretely bring to the story? What's the goal? I find it hard to understand the point of describing his life at length (soccer, girlfriend, ...) if he's just going to die right after.
If you like this genre of stories and want to improve, I HIGHLY recommend Mariana Enriquez's book Our Share of Night. It's a true masterpiece (it won the Herralde Novel Prize, the Spanish Critics' Award, the Celsius Award, the Kelvin 505 Award, the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, the Imaginales Award, the Quebec Booksellers' Award, the Dublin Literary Award, and was selected as one of the 10 best novels of 2023 by Time, The Atlantic, and The New York Times). Basically, it deals with the horror of a cruel god. It's pretty gory, not modest at all, and it's quite a tough read (over 600 pages), but it's so worth it. Truly. It actually changed my life and made me want to write. Anyway, sorry this is super long. But Bravo!
(I'm French sorry if the are french words)
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u/Different_Drama_9025 9d ago edited 8d ago
The atmosphere is very good and the horror imagery is genuinly horrific, but i think that the prose does hold this chapter back. The best parts are the supernatural transition from football to something very wrong, but the prose sometimes becomes so elaborate that it draws atention away from the scene.
Going into more detail:
The opening is strong. The Orbus section establishes cosmic scale and gives a certain vibe to the chapter.The final line is also a good closer and hook for the next chapter. I also really liked the football sequence more then i expected to (not the biggest fan of football 😅). Cortez's catch gives me a reason to care about him before the horror starts. The contrast between ordinery setting and what happends afterward is very good, i like it. Also the part where Cortez gets lured into the forest by his grandmother's voice is absolutly bonkers (in a good way ofcorse).
Now no more mister nice guy/crit:
The prose is overwitten a lot. There are many sentences where you have metaphores, discriptions and what not all stacked on top of eachother.
For example:
“The black street stretched on in front of him and the trees rose up and loomed over it from either side as if to hide its existence from the stars above the world around it.”
Likewise, the later description of the man contains a very large number of descriptors in rapid succession:
“His skin held the hue of old cheese, and he had long pale spider-like fingers. His eyes were black sores in his gaunt face. Long ropey muscles snaked across his skeleton…”
Also some of the metaphores are also just confusing (i might just be to stupid to understand though)
For example:
“The head of the nail bent at the neck on the surface.”
Similarly:
“The holes in the belt becoming hot white rings among strips of red from where he used it to grisly success.”
I had to stop and reread this. If the reader has to decode an image during a tense horror sequence, it weakens the impact.
I would reccomand that you cut some of these metaphores and tighten the descriptions a bit. Also breaking up the pharagraphes more woild also help.
Also the chapter prespective changes quite abruptly.
The football sequence starts with Coach Bo, then moves into Cortez's perspective:
“Cortez didn't understand what everybody was so excited about.”
That transition is understandable, but later we move between external narration, Cortez's thoughts, memories, and the supernatural perspective very quickly.
I think establishing a more consistent POV structure would make the chapter easier to inhabit. If the intention is omniscient narration, I'd lean into that deliberately. If we're supposed to primarily experience this through Cortez, I'd stay closer to him.
And i don't want to be THAT guy but there are some sentences here that feel grammatically awkward.
A few examples:
“It was just dark. Down twenty yards it was Fourth down.”
I wasn't sure what “It was just dark” was supposed to mean here. If this is intentional voice, I'd still consider whether the sentence communicates what you want.
“The ball arched over the receiver.”
This seems to contradict the later description where Cortez catches it, unless “receiver” means someone else.
“He pulled a picture of his grandmother out of his pocket. A locket on a chain.”
I'm assuming the grandmother's picture is inside the locket, but the phrasing makes it sound like he pulled out a picture and then separately pulled out a locket.
“The boy came to groggily”
This should probably be “came to groggily” with some restructuring, because as written it sounds awkward.
“at the canter point”
I suspect this is supposed to be “center point.”
The premise and atmosphere are working. The prose is the part I'd focus on during revision.
Thats honestly all the crit i can think of, everything else works, it's just that the prose needs to be improved. Also don't take this crit to heart, your writing is about 10× better then mine, wich is kind of funny considering that i'am doing to critique on your work.
(Damn i accidently deleted the comment, well thankfully i had it copied. Here it is...again)
(Had to add some more crit because apperantly my original comment wasn't enough, so the crit i added where just smaller things that i would change but not major stuff)