Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27094307-20160217064847

I recently wrote this story. Please give me your thoughts on it and your advice if you can. I am also happy to answer any questions if it does not make sense. Also, any ideas for a title would be much appreciated as I cannot think of anything original or intriguing enough to make a legitimate title.

UNTITLED

There is a common misconception that monsters do not exist.

I like how everyone is so oblivious to that; how they instantaneously believe that no form of pure evil walks this earth until they encounter it first-hand. The way they dismiss horror films, the way they laugh at and share scary stories around a campfire disgusts me. At the time they think how absurd it is, how it is ‘impossible’ for a monster to exist. The funny thing is how everyone at some point fears a monster of some kind, even if it is for a second when a friend jumps out and scares them or it might even be a long lasting feeling of dread when you are alone in your own house. You know this feeling, this irrational fear of a monster - and in that moment you are reduced to what you have previously called weak or childish. There is a feeling of fear engraved into our very minds because of the simple fact that fear is not an irrational feeling, it is a natural and primal emotion that every living organism is programmed to encounter. That fear is derived from the simple fact that we fear our own safety, even when we are alone and not in immediate danger, because subconsciously we know that monsters exist.

And I know for a fact that monsters exist.

I know this particular monster very well, because in order to survive something like this you must know it. ‘Know your enemy’ is the phrase you would know, and it is the phrase I follow. Too many times has this monster come so close to devouring me, and I am constantly running from it.

I had been evading the monster for years now, trying to hide from it, giving it numerous red herrings and such with the hopes its coming would be deterred in some way. Only, the beast became stronger, and what I now sat in was the ravaged remains of my wife… The monster had taken her. But this story will make little sense unless I tell it from the beginning. I will recount the night’s events but please continue with caution; this story is not tame in any way.



I got home from work early, before my wife had finished work. I was tired, being a park ranger was a tiring and monotonous job – and I went straight home to have a hot shower and coffee. I didn’t think about picking up my son, or calling my wife to let her know I would be home early as I had my mind on other things.

Before my family returned I decided to read the newspaper on the kitchen counter. A specific story grabbed my attention. It read; “Monster in the Woods”. It detailed the grisly murders that had been committed by a… My heart sank, and it was now that I realised the monster had found it’s medium to me. Usually it found its way through television or computer, primarily horror movies or those creepypastas on the net. Sometimes it was through my interactions with the family of their deceased victims, but today it was through the article, which described in detail the monsters latest kill; A ritualistic dismemberment with the eyes torn from the skull and the body parts, including entrails and limbs, fashioned into an indistinguishable shape. The police were stuck trying to identify a pattern for the kills, or a meaning behind the placement of the body parts. Only I knew the truth. There was no pattern, and there was no shape. It was random, and the victims had no connection to the monster whatsoever other than they were around to cure its sick, insatiable appetite to kill. But I was the real target to this menacing force and now that I had opened the medium I could feel it coming for me. I had to run from it.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">At first I was terrified. I resorted to my basic instincts and without thought I locked myself in the bathroom. Bad idea. The monster had many means of capturing me but mirrors were its most reliable. I felt its presence in the pitch black of the room, its menacing feeling of dread engulfed me and as I switched the light on.. I saw it.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif"> “Fuck off!” I screamed. I punched the mirror, shattering it. The glass fell to the ground, each individual piece landing around me artistically, although the way they fell was random. Much like the crime scenes the ‘monster’ left behind. Its face stared at me from every individual piece of the shattered glass, it’s empty eyes looking right into mine. Emotionless. Remorseless. One piece of mirror stuck out to me though, it did not bear the face on it. In fear and desperation, I grabbed this piece, for my own protection, and for the protection of my family.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">I heard the floorboards creak just outside of the bathroom. The silence was deafening. ‘It must be the monster’ I told myself. It liked to mess with me, make me scared, confused and defenceless against its grasp.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">Again, the floor creaked, albeit much louder this time.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">It was coming towards me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">I looked down at my makeshift weapon, and the monster stared up at me. Smiling. Like an insane clown or an innocent child would. It was happy with me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">I no longer felt scared. Was this what I had to do? Accept the monster and then all the fear, all the running would go away?

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">No. I wasn’t going to be fooled.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">In an instant, I swung open the door and slashed at the figure with the piece of mirror. But all my crude weapon hit were shadows. Nothing was there. The house was silent.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">A terrible stench was spreading through the house. It smelt like literal shit, or vomit. Maybe it was both. Sick of running from and evading this monster, I decided to confront it. But every step I took towards the kitchen grew harder and harder, putting not only physical strain on my body, as if something was holding me back, but it tore me apart mentally. Flashing images of blood and violence began to ricochet from my mind, from some dark recess they became clearer and clearer until I seen my wife’s corpse.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">I finally understood the images, they were memories…

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">And suddenly the most recent ‘memory’ struck me, took a hold of me despite my efforts and no matter how hard I tried to forget it…

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">A fight – my wife telling me not to leave. “Don’t do this to me!” she screamed as I made my way to the door, She didn’t know I was trying to escape from the monster, but how could I tell her? She would never understand.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">“You are fucking someone else aren’t you? Is that what this is?” I was too flustered to answer, too scared, too focused on trying to make sure she didn’t see the monster. But in my rush I did not see her coming towards me, a knife in her hands. She slashed at me, cutting along the side of my face with such speed that the cut did not begin to bleed for a good ten seconds.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">The monster must have possessed her.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">In my anger and self-defence, I disarmed the knife from her using simple krav-maga, snapping her wrist as I transferred the knife from her hands to my own, and in one swift movement I slit her throat.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">She fell to her knees, wheezing through her own blood, unaware of why I had done what I did. Her beautiful blue eyes stared into mine, confused, lifeless, and in their reflection I could see the monster smiling at me.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">In a rage I tore the eyes from her, gouging with my thumbs and forefingers violently until they became separate from her head. Her body began convulsing on the ground, shaking violently. I know now that it was probably her nerves, or maybe she wasn’t fully dead yet and she tried to fight her way out of what was to come, but at the time I thought the monster was possessing her. I stabbed at her throat, blood and gore spilling from the body.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">I kept stabbing. My kitchen cutlery severing all the arteries and tendons in her neck.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">I kept stabbing, tearing through flesh and spraying blood all throughout the room.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">I kept stabbing. Until the point her body became separate from her head.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">But it was not enough, again I repeated the action on each of her limbs, sawing at flesh and using my brute strength to snap her petite bones that I had once complimented her on. When that was done I gutted her, much like a fish, cutting from the sternum down to the anus. I removed each intestine and vital organ I could, almost surgically, until the torso was nothing but an empty carcass of blood, bone skin and fat.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">My son had fainted on the opposite end of the room, convulsing on the floor and choking on his own vomit. He had seen everything. I wouldn’t save him. It was a mercy letting him die after what he had just seen.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">And I finally understood the monster, and what it was.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">At first I was terrified. I resorted to my basic instincts and without thought I locked myself in the bathroom.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">And it was at this point I accepted the monster and it’s true nature, despite the horror I just now realised it inflicted.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">And I know for a fact that monsters exist.

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:16.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; line-height:107%;font-family:"AgencyFB",sans-serif">Because I am the monster. <ac_metadata title="Be a Critic for Me"> </ac_metadata>