Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26277607-20150404203030

I spent all day writing this story and it kind of sucks that it just got deleted. They said it didn't meet the quality standards. Any suggestions on how I can improve it? Here it is:

          What was thought to be fun and anticipated took a deadly turn. Nobody expected it, and most didn’t even realize it happened. This story shows how deceiving some things can be and how easy it is to elude people, especially children.

I was 15 years old, on a school trip. Our whole grade was taking a trip to Miami. Everyone was excited and had a good time. We went on a small cruise ship the first night. Outside you could see the resorts lining up on the beach, glowing with color in the night. I don’t remember the rest of the trip too well, but I do remember leaving.

We had left Miami and were in a city close to home that everyone knew well. The only thing was that we were in a bad neighborhood. When I say it was a bad neighborhood, I mean that there were literally gangs walking all over the sidewalks with guns in their pockets.

Then some adults on the bus started passing these things out. They were plastic and were in the shape of a capsule. They were about 6 inches by 3 inches by 1 inch. They were black and had a wrist band on one end and a string on the other, both of which were black. On top of it was a little switch and near the string was a small digital screen.

The bus then pulled into a parking garage that was about 8 stories tall. Then I saw something horrifying. All over the first floor were dead bodies. Dead bodies of teenagers about my age. As the bus escalated up the garage, an adult explained what we had to do with the plastic things they passed out to us. I’m not certain, but I think it was a man. He said that once we arrived at the 6th floor, we were to exit the bus, put on the device, and push the switch. The screen would turn on and it would show a countdown from 3 seconds. Once it got to 0, whoever was wearing it would be dead. It sounds crazy when I try to explain it, but he just worded it so well that nobody really thought anything about it. Besides me.

He said that if you didn’t want to do it you didn’t have to and could just get a ride home from a parent. Yet again, we were in a terrible gang area. Good luck to anyone trying to leave without getting mugged. Anyways, he didn’t really go over that option too much and kind of made it sound like you had to use the suicide things. While we were heading towards the 6th story, I just kept thinking to myself. Why doesn’t anyone see the madness in this? How is this legal? I even asked myself if I should use it.

The guy did make it sound like it was the best option. Before going on the trip, we all had to have our parents sign a permission slip, obviously, and a waver, too. He also gave us the option to back out, so I guess there wasn’t much illegal about it. Everyone’s parents probably didn’t look much at the waver and just signed it.

As we got off the bus, it occurred to me. The 6th floor was the first floor without dead bodies on it. Each year, everyone killed was put on a new floor. So, those bodies on the first floor had been dead for six years, and yet they looked fresh. Why would they want to preserve them? And they weren’t even given proper funerals? It made me wonder if their parents even knew what happened.

I took out the device and looked at it. I thought to myself, should I listen to them and go through. Everyone around me was using the device. They all started falling to the ground dead. I was one of the last ones still alive. Nobody had backed out yet. I thought to myself, “They’re adults. They know what’s best for us. I think it’s only right if I use it.” I put on the wrist trap and was about to push the switch, until I realized something. I was too young. I had so much potential and so many things I hadn’t done yet. It wasn’t my time. At that moment, I ran out of the garage.

Outside, I pulled out my cell phone. I was going to call my mom and go home. Yet again, this wasn’t a nice neighborhood. Right next to me was a gang. They were all white men in their early 20s. They had ripped shirts, gold chains, tattoos, and short, messy hair. They weren’t people you wanted to mess with. Then they tried to mug me. They pulled out guns and knives and before I knew it, I was being chased. I took a bike near me and started riding away.

As I rode down the street, I finally lost them and was out of the gang neighborhood. I then saw a familiar car. It was my mother’s car. She stopped and I stepped in. We drove down to a hotel somewhere in the city. I’m not sure why, since we didn’t live too far away.

Inside the room were my two younger brothers, one of which was four and the other ten. I told the whole story about the suicide devices and the dead bodies to my mom with out even bothering to tell her how the trip was. To my surprise, she didn’t seem to see anything wrong with it. I tried to explain how there’s kids with depression who adults try so hard to keep away from suicide and now the school’s encouraging it, but I couldn’t seem to convince her. She then left for some errand.

I was then left alone with my brothers. I put the device on a table and just thought about what happened. Then, to my horror, I looked and saw my brothers playing around with it. The four year old put it on and flipped the switch and the timer went to zero. I yanked it away from him, but when I checked for a heartbeat or breathing, there was none.

I took out my phone. I was going to call 911 and quickly search the internet for a way to reverse it. There had to be a way. Suddenly, he started breathing again and regained consciousness. I had taken it off just in time. I hugged him and was just filled with relief. And then I woke up.

Author's Reflection

This story was obviously a myth, all just a dream I had one night. But it amazes me how I could have such a dream. An entire week-long vacation in one night. With such a plot, too. This story is best compared to Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler convinced an entire country that Jews should be killed. The school department had convinced everyone that it was right for the teenagers to die.

<p class="MsoNormal">How it happened, I don’t know. Maybe it was similar to abortion. Some people say that abortion is murder, while others say the fetus isn’t a human yet. Maybe while I thought making kids kill themselves is murder, others might have thought it was best for them in a way I can’t understand.

<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe if the dream was longer by just a few minutes, I could’ve found out about what those mysterious devices were. Maybe I could’ve experienced the aftermath of that event. I’ve also wondered what could have rendered such a dream. Maybe it was the mix of my love for horror movies, politics, and video games. Nevertheless, it teaches a lesson that sometimes it can be hard for us to open our eyes, and that there could be horror going on right now that we don’t even realize. <ac_metadata title="Story deleted. Any suggestions?"> </ac_metadata>