Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-38762367-20190310005945/@comment-26444017-20190310065200

I'll start with things I see here that I feel I should comment on, and then I'll get to overall thoughts. Below, anything bolded and in brackets is a suggestion from me. These aren't anything more than suggestions, though, and of course you are free to do with them as you wish :)

I swallowed hard and looked away as the injection pressed into my skin.[Perhaps replace 'injection' with 'syringe', or maybe 'syringe' in the next sentence and 'needle' in this one.] The nurse said, "All done," and pulled the needle out and away. Vials of blood were spread next to me on the bed. I couldn't understand why they were taking so much of it. "It's for testing, hon. I'm sorry I have to poke you so much."

Accepting that answer, but not entirely satisfied, I tried to relax[Maybe put a comma here] back against my pillow, but couldn't shake the unease worming its way like an infection through my mind. The room was small, brightly lit, cold.[Maybe 'brightly lit, and cold', or perhaps something like 'frigidly cold' or 'numbingly cold'] At least I didn't have to share it with someone else. Sounds from the hospital--general clatter, the nurses chatting about their weekend plans--drifted in through the open door, and for a moment, just a moment, I was able to enter a place of normality in my mind. I closed my eyes for a second's breath and then I heard'''[Maybe separate these into two sentences; 'second's breath. I heard'] the door slam shut, felt[Perhaps 'and felt'] th.e[the]''' silence prickle at my skin, licking against my head like hungry flames.

It had been mental torture since the moment I'd woken up. I had been involved in a car accident a week ago, but had only awakened about two days prior[Awkward wording here; sounds like the main character woke up 9 days ago, then was in an accident 2 days later]. I sustained internal injuries and had been laid up in bed, barely able to think, ever since. God, my[Perhaps just 'My'] mind was so loud, it was as though everything outside of me had been blocked out.

The nurses, who were nice enough, appeared and reappeared like clockwork every hour, on the hour. That didn't leave me with much time to sleep, which was something they pushed me to do. Well, I couldn't, plain and simple.

At first I didn't notice her.

The walls were painted the faintest shade of mint green, and that was the color of her dress. She seemed to melt into my room from some distant twilight, some world between worlds, gentle and soft.

The girl in green crossed the room, her heels clacking against tile. She caressed my face. Then she turned her hand, palm facing up, and closed it into a fist. Watching my expression, she released a moth from the clutches of her hand. It drifted toward the light, dancing like a dust mote. '''[This is awesome description. Well done]'''

She smiled.

Then she was gone.

Later, when the nurse named Rita stepped into the room to take more blood, I was feeling far more lucid and chalked the strange incident up as being one particularly vivid dream. Or hallucination.'''[Two points here. First, consider 'vivid dream, or hallucination'. Second, try to avoid single sentence paragraphs unless they are for emphasis.]'''

She wandered the distant corridors of my dreams that night, and I knew in those moments that what I'd seen, what I'd felt? It was all real.[Consider 'what I'd seen and felt had all been real.'] But everything feels more real in dreaming[Perhaps 'when dreaming'] than in reality, or at least it does to me. I'd always felt like when I slept, I was entering the real world, glad to cast away everything I'd known in my waking life as being fantasy.

I was never that lucky. Not until I met the girl in green.

...

"Mr. Alan, are you feeling all right?"

I blinked against the light, dazed. Staring back at me was Annie, one of the day nurses. She placed her hand on my forehead without warning and I instinctively moved away[Consider 'pulled away', 'shrank away', or 'retracted', though what you have is perfectly good] at her touch. The expression on her face was unreadable. Was she concerned? I couldn't tell.

"I'm, uh--"

"You're sleeping so much now, Mr. Alan. You've got us all worried about you."

I couldn't help it when laughter bubbled through my voice. "Isn't that what you wanted me to do?"

"You're sleeping through injections. I mean, you're barely eating anything at all."

The truth was that I never wanted to leave. I would be perfectly content to exist there forever, my physical body forgotten in favor of spending eternity with the beautiful, magical girl in green. I couldn't answer her. Annie, I mean.[Perhaps 'I had no response to offer Annie.' or something similar]

She left the room, and I forced myself back to sleep. There, me and the girl ran through meadows, watched the clouds shift against the bright blue sky. We never spoke. I never asked her name.

And then[Consider 'And in that dream,'] I realized my first mistake.

She turned to face me. She held me. She closed her eyes and her jaw opened wide, unhinged like a puppet's lifeless maw, her melting flesh dripping down on my skin in fat, wet, bloody drops. I found I couldn't scream. I couldn't move. I couldn't escape.

She didn't like me. She didn't like me at all.[Perhaps replace 'like' with 'love', though it really depends on how the character thought the girl felt about him prior to this reveal.]

I stayed awake for the rest of the night, eyes wide, staring up at the ceiling, terrified of seeing her coming at me from the walls. The nurses tried to talk to me, tried to ask me what was wrong. I couldn't answer them because the reality of it all was impossible. How was I supposed to tell them that I'd been dreaming to escape the real world with a strange girl who appeared in my hospital room, one[Perhaps 'hospital room; one'] that turned out to be some kind of monster?

Days passed.'''[Have this as the first sentence of the next paragraph. Perhaps tell how many days, or give a general estimate or time if the character wouldn't be sure.]'''

I regained my physical strength, to an extent, but my mind was weakened. They'''[Who is 'they' in this case? Is it the hospital staff, or some group that the reader was unaware of prior to this. May need clarification.]''' could tell. The hospital didn't want to let me go. There's nothing I can do now. It's out of my hands. All I can do is try to keep myself awake through coffee and sheer willpower, but I know it won't be long until I begin to hallucinate. When that time comes, I know the girl in green will be waiting for me. Before, I think she was just hungry. Now I know she's more than that.

Now I know she's mad.

Okay, so for general thoughts, I feel like you've got a really solid concept and first draft with this. I think it could use a bit more detail. Don't be worried about how long it is; it's better to have a long good story than a short okay story. Let us see his relationship with the girl in green before she reveals herself to be a hungry creature. Let us see how she courts him and lures him and mystifies him. Keep the reveal at the end, and definitely keep the last line exactly how it is. Just include a bit more build up so the twist really catches us off guard.

I feel like much of the more 'real world' details were solid, though adding more description never hurts. I will say that I'm unsure if the hospital discharged him at the end of the story or not, but I would say don't do that. I've had it noted to me many times that hospitals and similar institutions don't just cast people out if they clearly need help, and it's a tough work around if you try to go that route. So, yeah, just a heads up for ya.

But, like I said, I really like how simple this all is, how the monster isn't overdone or overcomplicated. It's basically a human praying mantis that only the protag can see, either because she isn't real or because she's from another world. You explained his exclusive knowledge of this woman well, and the description of her sudden transformation was on point. Solid work so far. I'd love to see this fleshed out a bit more so we can get it up as a permanent story.