Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-29661282-20160817020616/@comment-26444017-20160818043832

I went ahead and wrote up a major overhaul of the story. this version has all of the grammar errors corrected, and has a severe change in word usage and sentence structure that I think contributes well to the tale. That being said, I did not change the stroy proper in any way. The core elements of the original story are all there, and I reccomend expanding on the story from here in order to meet quality standards and differentiate your story from the others on the site.

When I was 12 years old, I used to spend a lot of time at my friend, Tony's, house. Tony wasn't very popular at school, and would get picked on all the time by the other kids. I felt bad for him, especially since he was actually a pretty cool guy. Anyway, one day when I went to Tony's house to spend the night, we were playing video games and watching t.v., and got bored. It was starting to get late, so in an effort to stay up a little longer, I asked if he wanted to play truth or dare. He said he did, and we both picked truth for the first couple turns. Then Tony picked dare.

Tony's house was right in front of a large forest, which had grown very dark after the sun went down.  So I dared him to go into the forest alone for half an hour with just a flashlight and a watch. He was never one to chicken out when it came to stuff like that, so he took a flashlight from his closet and I gave him the watch I was wearing. He went into the woods, and after about ten minutes I got bored and started to play on my phone. I checked Facebook and played some Temple Run for almost half an hour. When I closed out of it, I noticed Tony was still gone, even though it had been a little more than 30 minutes, and started to feel a bit worried. I decided to wait a couple more minutes before going to check on him. When he still didn't return, I guessed that he had gotten lost, so I used my phone as a flashlight and went out to find him.

I called out for him, “TONY! TONY!” No response. After a couple minutes of walking, I found a trail of footsteps. I followed them but they stopped at the trunk of a tree. The ground was moist, even though it hadn't rained for days. I pointed my phone at the dirt around the tree, only to find... blood. This was more than a little concerning because, to my knowledge, there were no animals in those woods worth hunting, nor were there any real predators. I looked up, and what I saw haunts my dreams to this day. Tony was hanging in the tree. His arms and legs had been brutally ripped from his body. Sinew and muscle dangled from the remaining stumps. His clothes were drenched with blood, and his eyes.. his eyes were gone, gouged out of his head. A crooked smile had been carefully carved out from his lips, which still held a visage of terror from whatever had done this to him.

I ran as fast as I could back to the house. Behind me, I could hear pounding footsteps growing louder and louder. I looked over my shoulder, and saw a towering, faceless monster thrusting itself between the trees. It was moving with blinding speed that humans aren't capable of. It was pure luck that I made it through the back door before the creature caught me. I locked the door behing me, collapsing in fear and bawling my eyes out. My best friend was dead. And that thing...

His parents apparently heard me crying, and got up to find out what was wrong. I told them everything. I told them about their son, and the monster, how it was so fast, how it chased me. They didn't cry, they weren't angry... They weren't even scared. Tony's dad just stood there, shaking his head. He quietly uttered two words that chilled me to the bone.

"It's back."

I never went back to that house, and when I came of age, I left that town for good. I don't think I will ever go into the woods again.