Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25089712-20140621173512

'''I hope for this to be a creepypasta one day. But for now I am uploading it here for critiques. I really would appreciate any grammatical, plot, or character related help. Let me know whatever you are thinking, if something isn't clear to you, if you'd like something to be explained better or a certain paragraph to be edited. I still have no title for this and I do think the ending is rushed, but maybe I am being hard on myself? Any suggestions will be appreciated, but please be nice also. I am still a human and I have worked really hard on this piece. Thank you! ''' Alice lived in a small town on the border of a st ate up north. It was surrounded by a thick pine forest and on one side a lake. The town next to that one was right across the lake and also surrounded by trees that were so tall the tops faded off into the clouds. She used to be a normal teenage girl who would have loved a little adventure but now all she wanted was a boring life. Anything was better than how it was now. She barely slept anymore, she couldn't, not when she woke up every night howling and thrashing because of the same nightmare. Nothing stopped it or made it better. Her eyes had dark rings around them and her black hair that once curled perfectly around her face hung limply behind her ears. She had abandoned her friends months ago. Her time at school was spent staring outside instead of thinking about the boy whose locker was next to hers or actually learning. She didn't even bring a book bag to school anymore. Eventually she was switched to a fifth psychiatrist, one who was in the next town over, across the lake. This woman was named Hera, she had blue eyes, brown hair that she always kept up. She also wore a long white doctor's coat which made Alice think of her being more like some test subject than a patient. This Hera woman, although young, seemed to know what she was doing. She gave Alice her phone number, in case of emergency though it still didn't make her feel any safer.

A month later she woke up in the middle of the night, as usual. But this time she did not recall having her recurring nightmare and she was not panicky or scared. She had just woken up, right out of a dead sleep. For the first time in a long time she felt awake. Not drowsy or sleepy at all. Of course she should have known something was wrong but she was so caught up in feeling alive and well she didn't care about the dark hallway or muffled noises coming from the closet at the end of said hallway. And when the door began to creak open she really couldn't believe it and her heart hurt too much for her to be scared. She finally felt normal again but she still wasn't safe. A tall man crept out from the doorway, back hunched, as if he was a snake coiled up and ready to defend himself. He wore a black jacket that looked like it was made from heavy and tough material. His hair was the same shade as the jacket. It was so dark she wasn't sure if it was even hair under that hood at first. But the most chilling thing was the gas mask that covered his entire face. It reminded her of war and the world ending, destruction and loneliness, her greatest fear. He was beginning to approach, at least she thought, until he stopped beside the window. Now in the soft glow of the moonlight his appearance was more noticeable. The only skin that was visible was on his forehead. It looked sickly and pale like hers. But even in the light she couldn't see past the lenses over his eyes. Fear, finally, got the better of her and she mindlessly turned away sprinting faster than she ever had into her room. She successfully escaped the intruder and as soon as the door was locked she went onto the other side of her bed and dropped to the floor. Her parents were out of town and her sister was staying with a friend. All she could think to do was call the police as the man pounded relentlessly at the door. The light of her phone barely illuminated the corner of her room as she listened for the ring. The dispatcher immediately picked up.

"Please help, someone is in my house!"

But the woman never heard what she said. All that came through was static and then the sound of wood splitting.

"Hello? Is someone there?"

The phone disconnected and the dial tone was all that was left. The next morning police had traced the call and showed up at the house. No one was home and several people from the neighborhood gathered about to see what was going on. Just as the law enforcement were about to leave Alice began to walk up the driveway with a bloody nose and mouth.

"Excuse me, miss, do you live here?"

She nodded.

"We got a call late last night from this house, do you know anything about that?"

She held up a finger as if to tell him to wait a minute and she spit a mouthful of blood onto the lawn. He looked concerned.

"Are you alright, miss?"

"No. I am not alright and I did not make a call last night"

"Then who did?"

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">"Maybe it was a ghost," she wiggled her fingers and made moaning noises.

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">"This is not a joke"

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">"I didn't say it was, now get off of my property," she turned and limped into the house.

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">"Or what?"

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">"I'll blog about your harassment of a mentally ill minor on the internet, Mr. Rogers," she slammed the door shut.

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">Things were getting bad. After her parents got home and heard what happened they demanded Hera prescribe her stronger medicine. Alice was not Alice anymore and if there ever were a time that she might do something she, or someone else, might regret it would be now. The thing she saw in her dreams was following her everywhere and now the freak in the gas mask had joined the party too. The shitty medicine worked as well as everything else she had tried. Hera said she was a "Paranoid Schizophrenic". Hera was wrong. These things she saw were real, she was 100% convinced of that. But everyone told her they just seemed real. They told her it was her illness that made her think they were real and if she took her medicine they would go away. It wasn't working, it wasn't working, nothing was working! How could she stand idly by as she was being stalked, hunted, and broken down by whatever those things were? The scariest part about it all was her amnesia. She was waking up in strange places more and more and losing many hours at a time. Now it was 3 A.M. and she wasn't sleeping, even though she had school in the morning. She ceased her endless pacing to wash her face in the bathroom. She flicked on the light and dipped her face into the cool water. It felt kind of nice. Finally she dried her face and looked up. The man stood behind her in the mirror. Turning around she expected him to be there but he wasn't.

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">"Stop it, stop it!"

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">She walked into her room slapping her head. But looking up into the mirror on the wall farthest from her she saw him again. When she turned around nothing was there. Curious, she walked towards the mirror and touched it. Her hand slipped through the glass, or whatever it was. She didn't expect to actually go through it and so she had leaned all of her weight onto the mirror. The whole world turned upside down and her lungs filled up with icy water. The hallucinations had never been so bad, they had never invaded all of her senses at once. The masked man was still in front of her, in the water, and she reached out towards him as the world began to tip again. She fell onto the ground coughing and sputtering. Looking up, she saw it. The thing from her nightmares. Tall with long limbs and no face. Beside her was the same person, with the gas mask over his face, again. She tried to get up but she tripped and fell backwards. When she next opened her eyes the sky was light and pale. Colorful leaves fell all around her and the bare trees reached up towards the sky like bony fingers. The area around her mouth and nose felt damp again and she tasted blood in her mouth. She felt something over her eyes, lifting her hand up she pulled at whatever was on her face. They were goggles? She had never seen these in her life, why was she wearing them? Why did she need them? She sat up and noticed the presence of that man again. He just stared.

<span style="color:rgb(44,54,53);font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19.5px;">"W-what do you want," she let out a shaky breath. He walked to her slowly, hands at his sides. Alice stood up, preparing to defend herself. But he stopped and looked at her, not moving, almost waiting for something. She decided to reach her hands up towards the mask and push it back from his face. Grey eyes looked past her, blankly, her grey eyes. He was her age too, she realized, his height just made him look older. His face was so similar to hers. It was boyish, yes, but all she could think was that this was her, her skin and hair and eyes. He turned his head to the side and she followed the movement. The mask hit the ground with a thud. Before her were several lifeless bodies. Looking down at her hands Alice noticed the blood on her gloves and clothes and on his too. She fell to the floor as well. What had she done? <ac_metadata title="Story Reviews and Suggestions - Help is Greatly Appreciated!"> </ac_metadata>