Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24124694-20160211064337

So...here's an idea I just came up with today. I'm not very good at going into heavy describtive detail, so please be specific when you tell me which parts to improve. Don't just say "Go into more detail here". Give me suggestions what to change the part to.

Despite being a single child with a single parent, I had a relatively normal childhood.

My father left my mother shortly after she became pregnant with me. I've seen pictures of him before. He had a very distinctive appearance. A large pointed nose, squinty gray eyes, large round ears, half-bald with red hair.

My mother described him as a very nice person. Then he just up and left, for no reason given.

My mom was very upset about this, but she did a good job raising me. We traveled all over the country, visiting various zoos and theme parks all over America. She also got me into some very good schools, where I got virtually nothing but A's and B's on my report cards.

So, yeah. Pretty cool and ordinary childhood, right? There's just one incident in particular that stands out.

One night, when I was eight, I was asleep in my room. Suddenly, I was awaken by what appeared to be a loud tapping at my window. I turned and saw what appeared to be movement outside.

I ran to my mom's room to tell her that there was something scary outside. After waking her up, she noticed how afraid I looked, and ran outside in her nightgown. Later she came back in and said that she saw nothing. “It was probably just an animal, like a raccoon or something,” she said.

Well, I quickly accepted it and went back to sleep.

A decade later, I graduated from college and went to live in my own house. I got a car, a job, and a girlfriend. My life felt complete.

One day, I was watching an episode of Rick and Morty I had DVRed when I got a call from Mom. She asked me to come over to her house, since she had something to show me.

After driving over, I greeted her in her room. She said she had a confession to make.

“Remember that night in which you were woken up by a scary noise outside, and I went out to check and said there was nothing?”

I thought back, then nodded. “Yeah? What about that night?”

“Well...I lied. I said there was nothing because I didn't want to scare you. After I saw what was out there, I ran back in to grab my camera, and I managed to take a couple pictures. The pictures are still on my computer.”

She pulled out her laptop, opened it, and opened up a file. My heart stopped when I saw the two photos.

The first picture showed a pale-skinned humanoid hunched over on our lawn with its face to the ground. The second showed the creature facing the camera.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">I couldn't believe it. Had I known what was out there that night, I never would have slept again.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">But the creature itself wasn't the only thing that shocked me. It was the creature's face in the second photo.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">The creature had a large pointed nose, squinty gray eyes, large rounded ears, and a tuft of red hair on each side of its head.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in">It looked just like my father. <ac_metadata title="Scary Noise (Unreviewed)"> </ac_metadata>