Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25597877-20151016015751/@comment-26475800-20151016021806

"There I sat reading heroic tales by the hearth, hoping the stories of adventure would take my mind off her. But the details only freshened the wounds in my mind; the heroine’s amber hair and soft green eyes only served to remind me of her sweet smile and flawless skin. I closed the book to walk to the bathroom when I realized that I had not turned the lights on, my sunset habit of illuminating the halls was forgotten in the books words. My terrible phobia of the darkness and I had been oblivious to the suns passing outside the very windows I faced.

“I suppose I could finish the book first” I quietly told myself to ease my mind.

The climax passed with a happy end and I had nearly forgotten my predicament until I looked back over to the black hall. I looked out the window to see nothing, no lights but the ones within my dwelling, not even the moon could penetrate the thick layer of storm clouds that lingered. To further procrastinate I decided to make myself a simple sandwich for dinner, piling the ingredients I pondered what I could fear from the dark hall and pitch bathroom.

Why there could be an animal in there for all I could know, a rabid raccoon from outside the window, the window that lets the darkness creep in during the absence of the sun. As I cut the meal in half the knife reflected the kitchen light, it forced memories of the headlights and her screams into my mind.

I opened an old wine, “Her favorite” I muttered to myself reading the label. The cold and harsh irony struck me without humor, this bottle brought so many fond memories, and yet the intoxicant within is what caused me all this sorrow. The pouring crimson liquid brought my thoughts back to the bathroom,

“What horrid corpse lies within my bathroom, what foul cadaver leaks scarlet fluid onto my tile floor, what carcass so terrible could be hiding behind my bathroom door?” I questioned, only to denounce myself for having such silly thoughts,

“Why surely there could be nothing horrible behind that bathroom door, surely there could be no body there… not without a killer having placed it there.” My voice only worried me further,

it brought up a good point I do say, the murderer could be behind that very door, standing with knife in hand poised to strike. I began to pace, it was only a matter of time before my bladder would fail,

“Should I go outside? Would the bleak darkness outside be safer than my own home?” I rejected the thought; anything within my home would have access to the outside.

I looked to my car to be reminded of the accident, and my thoughts returned to her, the fairest lady to bear the name Lenore, I called out to whatever lurked in the pitch halls,

“Tell me, who or what is behind my bathroom door, please tell me I truly and dearly implore, is that you, my sweet Lenore?”

Silence, and nothing more. I let out a shriek and a screech “What foul fiend does not answer! What Lovecraftian horror brings me this madness! Why must you remind me of the lost Lenore! By what foul intention do you linger in the darkness behind my door!”

And with a crash I threw my plate into the dark, with a smash my glass hit the wall. I threw a nearby lamp into the void of my hall,

“Darkness so foul, do you wish to extinguish all the senses! The blackness consumes any vision, and the silence you give me is only broken by my own actions and voice, the dark has neither taste nor smell! You cannot touch it yet it still exists!”

Feeling of sorrow, fear, loss and dread leaked out into tears as I wept, I wept like a child without a mother to comfort him… after a long while I could no longer fight the urge to use the bathroom, so I walked. I walked down the hall feeling the crunch of glass beneath my shoes; the cold handle of the doorknob chilled my hand as it turned. I opened the door and what I saw was so foul, so terrible and horrible, worse than my greatest fears, things better left shrouded in darkness this thing was not human yet very human at the same time, more ghastly than any fiend of the hells or any creature of unfathomable origin. And I screamed."

Spacing isn't the only issue with this story though, you have sentences that go on far too long. Use periods and not just commas.

Not only on a grammatical level, but you were writing as if you were trying to sound like Poe, and even using Lenore in rhymes isn't really that good of an idea. If you were able to keep my interest before you first mentioned Lenore I may have kept reading to see where you were going with it, but at that point, and rhyming with the bathroom door, you lost me forever more.

Personal option, maybe others will love this story. Break up the wall o' text and it will be easier to read and look over. maybe I was just being too hard on it. see what others will have to say about it.

By the way, to break up Paragraphs is when you finish a group of similar thoughts. Also, speech should be its only paragraph with a few other words thrown in to show who is talking and/or perhaps emotion. Always end quotes with a comma, and you don't have to cap the first letter of the first word in a quote if it isn't a new sentence. Those are some of the grammar issues that I've found with the story if you want to fix them as well.