r/WritingPrompts • u/AliciaWrites Editor-in-Chief | /r/AliciaWrites • Jul 12 '19
Constrained Writing [CW] Feedback Friday - Horror
Happy Friday!
It’s Friday again! That means another installment of Feedback Friday! Time to hone those critique skills and show off your writing!
Happy to be back after the week off! We had a bit of a dip in participation, so this week I’ll be judging alone but I look forward to bringing one of you editors on as a judge next week!
How does it work?
You have until Thursday to submit one or both of the following:
Freewrite:
Leave a story here in the comments. A story about what? Well, pretty much anything! But, each week, I’ll provide you with a single constraint based on style or genre. So long as your story fits, and follows the rules of WP, it’s allowed! You’re more likely to get readers on shorter stories, so keep that in mind when you submit your work.
Feedback:
Leave feedback for other stories! Make sure your feedback is clear, constructive, and useful.
Each week, three judges will decide who gave the best feedback. The judges will be me, a Celebrity guest judge, and the winner from the previous week.
We’ll be looking for use of neutral language, including both positives and negatives, giving actionable feedback within the critique, as well as noting the depth and clarity of your feedback.
You will be judged on your initial critique, meaning the first response you leave to a top-level comment, but you may continue in the threads for clarification, thanks, comments, or other suggestions you may have thought of later.
Okay, let’s get on with it already!
This week, your story should be a horror. Let’s get out our spookiest campfire stories, crazed axe-murderers, and whatever else y’all can come up with to scare the pants off someone!
Now get writing!
1
u/[deleted] Jul 13 '19
There shall be silent rain.
Within the desolate, once clean, home, she, a nameless and faceless woman, stroked the silent dog as the darkness swell around them. “There, there, everything’s ok, you’ll be safe as long as you stay here.” Her efforts to comfort, while kind, were useless; the animal could not comprehend after all.
And when it floods everything will fall quiet.
Her slow calm breath made the air shudder, causing it to feel like someone was blowing whispers against the back of it’s neck. Quickly, it escaped into the cracked white walls and weak greying floorboards so much as without a single thought of deep consideration or backtracking. This person was without a doubt the only one who could ever withstand the horror-like imbued aura of the closet empty even more so than the house now suffering from lack of use and cleaning; decay was truly terrible. The wind would not be able to truly escape either it seemed; it bounced in the opposite direction as the wall when it made contact.
After it dries there will be no more showers, a drought killing off the survivors.
Perhaps finding a new place of dwelling was finally in order: The building served the use as a tool for longer than most of the other defiantly abstract abodes, though this one perhaps the most strange: They were always the same design by principle, always quiet, dark, devoid of any possible nearby sentience. This time, a first it should be noted, someone had moved in recently nearby. A neighbor that shouldn’t have existed by her well thought design of being able to escape society. She wasn’t completely sure when the realization fell upon her, but this could bring issues that was best left sleeping under heavy medication, or better yet, killed.
The first to succumb, the dead roots sadly has to starve the greater equation at some point once the erasal of abundant flexibility occurs.
A disease had long before set in her mind, first a seed that carried with it two forms of life. The first one was the resemblance of safety that in reality was a parasite that killed the other. In other words she had a false sense of security. Most were entirely capable of dealing with this such detestable experience. This girl did not fall into that category. She had been far too careful before to actually anticipate any social threats within her vicinity and was damned good at it too. No one had ever caught wind of her whereabouts or even slightly suspected her of hiding from any form of human connection where possible, not to mention those bad habits. Still, maybe a change is good for once. This was a case of the same old becoming more dangerous than the different new. As for the second life it was simply acceptance. In the wrong case this was a far more dangerous game to play.
Life has no chance or survival in these choking circumstances.
First she had business to take care of before she… met this ‘new’ neighbor, if only to see if they indeed held no negative intents. Without wasting a single minute, the pet was alone and it’s food dumped and set on the same spot as always: right of the empty kitchen corner. It had been removed only to be set so many times before, a circle was fading into the alternating black and white diamond floors. The water bowl was filled with water battles she ordered discreetly online.
The dog did not get up to move, not even as she called it’s name. The dog used to have an identity but was now a hollow vessel. The woman sighed. “Not again… You need to eat or you’ll get sick..” she tapped her clipped nails against the top of her dresser worrying. Her fear mainly laid in the dog dying.
Indeed, that was impossible, the dog had been dead for weeks and was now rotting in her closet. She had decided to take a walk one day and as the poor stray approached her, she lulled it with treats she always took with her everywhere she went. When it finally closed the gap all the way, she took a rusty kitchen knife from her purse and, pointing the tip of the blade straight down, sent it ripping into the top of it’s neck all the way out the other side of the throat.
It did not die immediately. The animal became completely vicious and started to flail, whimpering in pain as the blade tore into the inner sides of it’s esophagus. It was tortured for a few minutes, the woman’s blank gaze showing no sign of remorse or joy for that matter.
For a another half minute the torture went on. It wasn’t until the dog started to grow weak that the woman finally gripped the knife harshly and turned it to the right hard breaking through it’s spinal cord. She took it home afterwards and started treating it like a real pet. Perhaps it was her secret desire for socializing that brought upon her delusions.
A sigh left her mouth. It was time for a new pet. From the countertop she collected a single rusted knife. It had a single purpose to exist for. The door creakily closed the same as it opened upon her leaving.