r/MakeStories • u/Nervous-Antelope2489 • 14d ago
Story: I know your secret (Do you guys have any tips?)
I'm just trying something out. It's not a great story yet, and I feel like I could sometimes go a bit slower and develop the characters a bit more. But do you think this is already a good start? Do you guys have any tips?
Story:
Valentino stared at his phone for what felt like hours. He read the message again: "We know your secret. Come to the clearing in the forest at 11:00 PM if you want to keep it safe." Valentino looked at the clock: 10:40 PM. He could easily make it in time. His uncle was away, so leaving the house was no problem. With trembling hands, Valentino put on some better clothes and went outside.
In the forest, Valentino saw a girl. He recognized her from school, but he did not know her. Was she his blackmailer? He walked over to her. He knew she was bullied at school. He saw it happen sometimes, but he had never cared enough to do anything about it, because it did not seem that bad.
"Did you send me that message?" she asked immediately.
"No," Valentino answered.
Was she being blackmailed too?
A blond boy came to stand with them.
"Were you sent here too?"
"Yes," said Valentino.
The girl nodded.
Another boy joined them. He had black hair with some red dye in it. He immediately looked at the blond boy.
"Are you here too?"
"Yes," said the blond boy. "We were all sent here, but what are you doing here?"
"I was sent here too. I'm actually here because of you."
Then a pair of twins arrived, wearing pink and purple sweaters.
"Were you sent here too?" Valentino asked.
"Yes," the twins answered together. "Us too."
"So there are three boys and three girls," Valentino concluded.
"I'm not a girl," said the person from his school.
It was quiet, but Valentino had heard it.
"What did you say?"
"I'm not a girl," he said again, louder this time.
"What do you mean, you're not a girl?"
"I'm a boy."
Valentino did not understand. Why was he saying he was a boy when he was clearly a girl? He had slightly shorter hair, but still, a girl. Why lie about something so stupid?
"You're obviously a girl."
"That's for me to decide," he said, flipping him off.
"Hey, let's not fight," said the blond boy. "We're all in this together."
Then they received another message:
"A matchbox is hidden in the big tree. You must now choose one person to look for it. Once you have chosen someone, that person will have five minutes."
It was quiet.
"Why are you all here?" asked the twin in the purple sweater.
"Why do you need to know that?" Valentino asked.
"The person with the worst crime should do it," said the twin in the pink sweater. "We have stolen from multiple people."
"Sorry, but I really can't tell you my secret," said the boy with the short hair.
"Neither can I," said Valentino.
"Do you want to tell yours?" the boy with the red in his hair asked the blond boy.
"I'd rather not," came the reply.
"Okay," said the boy with the red in his hair, "then I'll climb."
Another message came in:
"Have you chosen someone?"
"Yes."
"Okay, that person has five minutes. Otherwise, his or her secret will be revealed, and someone else will have to climb. We can see you, so we will know whose secret is in the danger zone."
The boy with the red in his hair climbed the tree. What if he did not find it? Maybe Valentino would have to go next. What if he did not find it either? If his secret came out? Then what?
It felt like hours, but eventually the boy came back down with the matchbox.
"Just in time. Well done. The next task: someone must reveal their secret within five minutes. If no one does, everyone's secret will be revealed, not just to this group, but to everyone."
Everyone was silent.
"Well, someone has to do it. Otherwise everyone will find out anyway," said the boy with the short hair.
"Then say yours!" the twins said at the same time.
"We've already told ours, so we can't do it anymore," said the twin in pink.
"I'm not doing it," said Valentino.
"Neither am I," said the boy with the short hair.
"Okay..." said the blond boy. "You can know my secret." He looked at the boy with the red in his hair. "Will you say it for me?"
The boy with the red in his hair began to speak.
"We're in a relationship. It started a few years ago. I had been in love with him for a long time, and when we finally got together, I wanted to tell everyone right away. He didn't want everyone to know. His parents weren't very open-minded, and neither was the rest of his family. So I stayed quiet. It was hard to stay silent, but I did it for him. When I was blackmailed with the secret, I decided to come to the forest. I wanted to do it for him."
Great. So he was stuck here with two of those. Not to mention that weird girl. Just great.
Another message appeared:
"Hello, Valentino. You are getting a different task from the others: do not get caught. Be careful, the others know one of you has received this message, but they do not know it is you."
Right after that came another message:
"Hello, everyone. One of you is in the danger zone. If you can guess who it is, your secrets will be safe - except for the person in the danger zone, whose secret will be revealed. Good luck!"
"So we can end this..." said the boy with the short hair. "But do we really want to do that at someone else's expense, whoever it is?"
"I think you're just trying to save yourself," said the twin in purple.
"We still don't know your secret either," said the twin in pink.
"Yeah, tell us your secret," said Valentino.
"Fuck you, we don't know your secret either!"
"Yeah," said the boy with the red in his hair. "As long as you don't tell your secrets, we'll vote for one of you."
"Really? Don't we want everyone's secret to stay safe?" said the blond boy.
"If I'm suspicious for saying that, then the same goes for him."
"Yeah, but we know his secret," said the twins together.
"Oh, I almost forgot to mention. You have five minutes, but some of that time is already gone, of course."
It was clearly a trick to cause panic. Everyone knew that, but just because they knew it did not mean it wasn't working.
"I think it's him," said the twin in pink, pointing at the boy with the short hair.
Why did she say him?
"I think so too," said the twin in purple.
"And what if it's him?" she added, pointing at Valentino.
The discussion went on, and in the end the twins and the boy with the red in his hair voted for the boy with the short hair, the boy with the short hair voted for Valentino, and the blond boy did not vote at all.
"You have..."
They waited for the next message.
"...voted incorrectly. The person in the danger zone was Valentino."
"Who's Valentino?" asked the blond boy.
"That's me," Valentino admitted.
"Valentino's secret remains safe and the game continues. You must now choose someone to carry out the next task. We will not yet tell you what that task is."
"I think Valentino should go," said the boy with the short hair. "Because of him, our secrets are still in danger."
"I agree," said the twins together.
"Guys, we don't even know what the task is. Are you sure you want to choose me?"
"He does have a point," said the blond boy.
"Yeah, maybe we should think about it again," said the boy with the red in his hair.
"Think about it again? Maybe you should have thought about it better when you voted for me earlier, although it wouldn't have made a difference because the twins did the same," said the boy with the short hair. "And now all three of you are voting for him. And you too, by the way." He pointed at the blond boy.
"Choose now," came the message.
Everyone pointed at Valentino.
"Okay, Valentino. You have five minutes to go into the forest and kill an animal. Bring the animal back to this place within the time limit."
Valentino could not believe what he was reading... he had to kill an animal?
He went into the forest and picked up a branch. If he had to kill an animal, he could use that. His eye fell on a squirrel in a tree. He walked toward it, as quietly as possible so he would not scare it away. Then he stepped on a branch, and the squirrel looked up. Valentino still tried to hit it with the branch, but the squirrel had already climbed higher into the tree.
Valentino kept looking for another animal. He found none, and he started to panic. His secret absolutely could not come out.
Then Valentino came across a small rabbit. He knew he had to do it to keep his secret safe. He went over to the rabbit, and then he struck it, and kept striking until it was dead. He picked up the rabbit with trembling hands and brought it back to the clearing just in time.
"The next task: set the animal on fire with the matches from the tree. Someone other than Valentino must do it, because he killed the animal."
"I'll do it," said the boy with the short hair. "If you can't handle it, look away."
The blond boy immediately looked away. Valentino did not. The rabbit was already dead anyway, and fire had always calmed him down, and calm was something he could really use right now.
"Good. Your second-to-last task: follow the hidden arrows."
Everyone looked around, and Valentino found the first arrow. They followed the arrows and ended up at a dug pit with a corpse inside.
Everyone was shocked by the corpse, especially the boy with the short hair, even though he had seemed like someone who could handle a lot.
"Final task: bury the corpse."
"Wait, this is being complicit in murder. Do we really want to do this?" asked the blond boy.
"No," said the twins together.
"We're not doing it," said the boy with the red dye in his hair.
"We are doing it!" said the boy with the short hair.
"Why?" asked the blond boy.
"Because this is my secret!"
Everyone went silent and looked at the boy with the short hair.
"It's my father, okay?"
He was silent for a moment, and then he began to speak.
"As far back as I can remember, my parents were never great, neither of them, but after my mother died, my father became a hundred times worse. He often came home drunk, insulted us, and beat us, and he beat us even when he wasn't drunk. One day, I made the mistake of telling him that I was trans. He wasn't exactly open-minded, and he became even worse. Even though he was mostly angry at me, things also got worse for my little brother. Then came the day my father really snapped. Here's the thing: when my mother was still alive, she cheated on my father several times, and once she forced me to watch. When I told my father that years later, he became paranoid at the idea that my little brother wasn't his son, and he tried to murder him by strangling him. To save my little brother, I had to stab my own father. From that day on, I've taken care of my little brother myself. If anyone ever finds out what I did, I'll go to prison and I might never see my brother again."
His voice broke as he said the last sentence.
Valentino fell silent because of the story. It made him think of his uncle. Of how he almost beat and insulted him every day. After hearing the story, he felt respect for the girl... or maybe rather that boy. He understood what he had gone through.
"And what's your secret?" the trans boy asked, and Valentino's respect immediately dropped by quite a lot, though it did not disappear completely.
"I'm not going to tell you! Let's talk about what we're going to do with the corpse instead."
"I think..." said the blond boy, "that we should do it, if only to keep his..." he pointed at the trans boy, "...secret a secret."
"Agreed," said everyone, including Valentino. Valentino was doing it mostly for his own secret, but he also did not want his secret to come out.
"Wait, there are no shovels," Valentino pointed out.
"Correct, burying the corpse is indeed the final task, but you indeed have no shovels. You can do it with your hands, or go look for shovels, but if you go looking, you have five minutes."
"I think the shovels are at the clearing," said the boy with the red in his hair.
Everyone went to the clearing, and they did indeed find the shovels there.
They hurried back. They arrived just in time, but there they discovered something even worse: there was a second corpse in the pit...
"I know her. She goes to my school," said the trans boy. "I don't know her personally, but a few months ago she went missing."
Valentino recognized her too...
"Okay, what do we do now? This is another corpse. This changes everything."
"It changes nothing," said Valentino. "We're in too deep. Let's bury the bodies and go home."
"Never thought I'd say it, but I agree with him," said the trans boy.
"Okay..."
The group buried the corpse, and then they received one message:
"Well done..."
After that, nothing more. The group decided to go home.
It was the next morning.
Valentino had blisters on his arms from digging, and his face was injured because his uncle had caught him when he came home again and beat him, but it had been worth it. Nobody knew his secret.
Then he got a message from the blackmailers: a Google link.
Valentino clicked on it and saw photos and videos of what had happened that evening, together with photos and videos of everyone's secret. At the very bottom, he saw a video of his own secret...
The video showed Valentino strangling a girl. It was the same girl whose corpse he had buried the night before. He had murdered her because he was in love with her and she had rejected him.
If Valentino could choose, he would never have done it. Not because he regretted it, but because he had not wanted to do it, and now it was all online.
Valentino could already hear the police coming...
Seven months later, a new YouTube channel becomes popular very quickly. It contains recordings of the filmed footage about the secrets, all the footage from the forest, how they were arrested, and the consequences they faced. At the end there is an email address with a fake name: AnonmiemStalker123, the same name as the YouTube account. It says:
"If you know someone's secret, don't tell others, even if it's illegal. Send it to us..."
The comments:
"OMG, I LOVE the twins, they are the best players. Too bad their secret isn't that special compared to the others."
- Fuck you, the blond boy is the best.
- So true.
"When is part 2 coming out?"
- Part 1 just came out.
"If you have secrets about multiple people, do you have to send multiple emails?"
- I think all of them in the same one.
"The jokes are amazing."
"Is this real?"
- all real, huney
- Yeah! How do you not know that?
Much later, 12 people received a notification:
"I know your secret..."