Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20170225222847

This is the first story I weote, from 2013. I still really like the plot, but even after heavy revising from a couple of months ago I'm jnhappy with how it's written. I've looked at it, but I could really ise some help with making it better. Any tips and suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

The Journal of Sullivan Jones

PART I

August 12, 1992

Just found this old composition book, and I've decided that I should write down some of my feelings, just to get them out, you know? I start eighth grade next week, and I guess that's alright. I just don't want what happened last year to end up happening again this year.

August 15, 1992

I didn't quite write down everything that I wanted to the other night, but as with the previous years of school, ever since I started living with my dad in the fifth grade, I've started to "space out". And I don't just mean here and there; I mean I literally turn into a different person whenever I'm with other kids. I become loud, obnoxious, and a total fucking weirdo. It was the worst when I first came to live with my dad in the fifth grade, but it's slowly gotten better over the past three years. It's a shame, because I kind of like the 'real me', you know? I suppose that on the inside I'm quiet and reserved, pretty much the opposite of that version of myself I turn into when I "space out".

Another thing that sucks about this stupid shit is that I can't really remember much about anything. When I'm not present, everything's just a fucking blur. And I'm almost NEVER present when I'm at school. Man, this is fucking depressing. Nobody ever actually ever SEES the real me, you know? I'm always just that weird kid with no self-control. But the thing is, I can't stop it. It just happens. Sometimes I worry that my soul will just die and I'll become an empty shell of a human being if this shit keeps going on like this.

September 11, 1992

Oh, GOD I feel fucking sick. It feels like--

September 19, 1992

I'm getting a bit better, but that's a bit of a relative way of putting it. I'm not spewing up blood and shit every two seconds, but I still feel like I was hit by a fucking train. Before I got sick, though, I started spacing out again, but instead of it being somewhat better than last year, it's just getting progressively worse. The last bit at school I remembered is just sitting at a desk, but after that it's just a blank until I got home. That was the day before I got sick. How the hell am I supposed to learn anything in school? Or even PASS, much less? I don't fucking know.

September 28, 1992

I seriously can't remember the past week at all, except for when I'm at home, which is such a blur I might as well not be able to remember that, either. My grades are fucking horrible. I literally cannot do the work because I can't remember the school day whatsoever. In fact, the only reason at all I know I'm even going to school is because of the new homework I get in my backpack at night.

October 11, 1992

Yesterday was my friend Colton's fourteenth birthday. He had me and some other guys over there last night, and we sat around a campfire next to a creek in his side yard. It was pretty cool, and I can actually remember the night clearly, for once. But... Something was off. I kept seeing something move in the shadows, and I couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't watching US, but me specifically. It was always out of the corner of my eye, though. I couldn't look directly at it. I told the others, but we couldn't find anything. I suppose it was just my imagination.

As far as school goes, it's been pretty much the same as far as what I wrote in that last entry. My parents are pissed about my grades, of course, and I tried to explain to them what's been going on, but they just won't listen to me. And I haven't told my therapist, either, because I don't want to be sent to the Funny Farm. So I guess I just can't trust anybody.

October 31, 1992

I'd be out with friends tonight, but I don't trust myself. The other night, I was just sitting at home, minding my own business, when everything went blank. Then the next thing I knew, I was three miles away in a tunnel under a highway beating the living shit out of a ten-year-old. I was wearing a ski mask (which I never even owned before) so I don't think the kid'll know who it was that beat him up. I called 911 on a pay phone nearby, and ran the fuck home. God, what if I'd killed him?

November 16, 1992

I can barely remember anything at all now, whether I'm at school or not. I'm writing this during one of the few lucid periods I have. None of my friends want anything to do with me anymore. They say that I'm violent and cruel. How, I don't know. They won't stay on the phone long enough to elaborate. And I'm grounded at home for being "unruly". Why? Why is this happening? It isn't my fault. Nobody wants anything to do with me anymore. What did I do to deserve this?

December 2, 1992

HA! TORMENT ON YOUR BEHALF!

December 3, 1992

I don't remember writing that last entry. It's not even my handwriting. The letters are too angry and deep. God, what the hell is wrong with me?

December 6, 1992

YOU MUST LISTEN TO THE PROPHET.

December 16, 1992

Again, that fucking handwriting. It's not me. It's the Prophet. I know it. I just do.

January 1, 1993

The Prophet speaks to me now. In my head. It tells me to do things, things like kill people. But I don't want to. No! I won't!

I can't help but wonder what I'm like most of the time. I don't remember Christmas at all. Happy fucking New Year.

January 7, 1993

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God! I can't take any more of this. I just can't take any fucking more. I just can't. I wish I could stop crying. Fuck that, I wish I could just fucking die. But I can't. I fucking can't. The Prophet says I can't, and I just know it's right. I can't die. Not yet. It's not through with me yet, it says.

I found myself in a field a few hours ago, around midnight. I was covered in blood with half-eaten organs around me. On the ground around me were at least ten mutilated cow carcasses. I never meant to! I swear, I didn't! I love animals! I would never want to hurt an animal, but I did. I wish I knew where my dad's shotgun was. I know some people who deserve to die for my sins.

January 23, 1993

I keep seeing it out of the corner of my eye. But everyone I try to look at it, it's gone.

Just like that.

"Poof bang WAT!" Said the cat.

February 10, 1993

THE END IS FAR BUT NEAR.

February 15, 1993

I keep seeing that goddamn handwriting. Not just in my journal, but everywhere I go. On the walls, on the ground, everywhere.

February 21, 1993

That thing's been visiting me at night, but I can't really tell what it looks like in the dark.

Funny, I can't really remember anything at all now. The only times I'm lucid are when I see that thing out of the corner of my eyes, when it watches me at night, and the few random times I'm lucid enough to write in this journal. I can almost look directly at it, but it just scuttles away, its movement quick and unnatural.

March 4, 1993

Everyday my handwriting is getting more and more like the prophet's. I just need to carve those letters into somebody’s FUCKING forehead. More more more more more more more more more. EVERY FUCKING DAY!!!

March 7, 1993

I've been dreading writing about this, but there've been more instances like the one at the cow pasture. But this last one... oh, God, it was people.

But the Prophet says that I did good and that he loves me. I'm proud.

March 16, 1993

YOU WILL BE FOUND OUT.

March 17, 1993

They've found me. The Prophet tells me so. They're on their way right now. I finally found my dad's shotgun. I'M SORRY! No, not you, Dad! Go to fucking Hell!

It's clattering down the hallway. Maybe it will--

PART II

August 12, 2002

I found this composition book in the bathroom at school today. It was all ratty and waterlogged, but I took it anyway. I didn't read it until it dried this afternoon, though. I guess... It's some kind of horror story. I wish there was a name on it, though, so I could give it back to whoever wrote it.

Why did I write this as a new entry? Whatever.

August 15, 2002

Found out who the author of this is. At the very bottom of the back cover, written in tiny black letters on top of black is my name. It literally reads: "PROPERTY OF SULLIVAN JONES". Not very many people have "Sullivan" as a first name, much less with my last name too. The thing is, I don't remember writing any of this. This is just a story, right? The whole name thing is seriously freaking me the fuck out.

September 11, 2002

This past week has been a blur. At school, at least. Everything's normal at home. Shit, what was my homework for History? It's my last period, I should remember this. Fuck it. I don't care. I never do my homework anyway.

So seeing as this is the third entry I've made in here, I guess I'll just go ahead and use this thing as my journal. Just get shit out, you know? I'm feeling kind of sick. I should probably go get some rest.

September 19, 2002

It's coming back. Memories of eighth grade year. But not from last year like it should be. No, it's from ten years ago. But I was just a little kid then. How can I have memories of being fourteen ten years ago when I just turned fifteen in July? It doesn't make any sense. Those memories can't be real. But...they aren't fully developed memories, they're more like snapshots, if that makes any sense. I just remember being terrified of something. This Prophet thing, probably. It's all still a haze. Why is it called "the Prophet", anyways? Prophets are supposed to predict the future, but this thing, whatever it is, only does that once at the end when it says "YOU WILL BE FOUND OUT". None of this makes any sense, no fucking sense whatsoever.

September 28, 2002

The more clear the past becomes, the more of a blur the present is. I can't really remember the past week at all.

October 11, 2002

It's my friend Colton's fifteenth birthday today, and I was supposed to go to his house for the party, but I got in a fight at school, so Mom won't let me. I don't even remember what it was about. In fact, that fight is the only thing I remember from this past week at school.

October 31, 2002

Shit, I fucked up. Oh, shit I fucked up! I woke up today... in a field... With blood on my shirt. But it wasn't cow blood like it was ten years ago. Remember Colton? Yeah, well I must have killed him, because his dead body was on the ground in front of me. I hid it in an abandoned barn nearby.

God, I killed my friend....

November 16, 2002 Christ, I can't even remember life at home anymore. It used to just be at school or when I was with my friends that was completely blank. What's even the point of living anymore, when I'm only alive for a few minutes every once in awhile?

December 2, 2002

HA! TORMENT ON YOUR BEHALF!

December 3, 2002

Jesus, it's that handwriting all over again. And to think that ten years ago I thought I could actually escape this nightmare. Ha! What a laugh! There is no escape from this thing. Maybe suicide would have worked, if it had let me. But it's never once, in the past one hundred years, allowed me to die by any hand other than its own. I can remember, now. 1992 wasn't the first year that I experienced this nightmare. No, it was 1902 when it first happened. I was five years old. Then, in 1903, it ate me. And that happened again in 1912... 1922... 1932.... Every ten years it happens again, only except I'm one year older than I was the previous time. But… if this is some sort of sick, twisted reincarnation cycle, then how is it that right now I’m fifteen years old, but ten years ago I was five and fourteen years old at the same time? Is this curse just dumped onto some new kid named Sullivan Jones every ten years? Is that it? Or… or is it somehow possible to be alive in two bodies at the same time? Can a soul be in two places at once? Can it be divided into two souls and then rejoined? Or maybe it constantly flickers between the two bodies until one body dies. I don’t know. I don’t understand, I just don’t. But it seems that by this thing, this Prophet, eating me, it is then able to put me into a new cycle later, which leads me to believe that it deposits my cursed soul into a new body. But if that’s the case, then what happens to the soul of the new body? Does it die? Does that Prophet thing eat it for food? Or does it become fused into the new one? Is my soul just some sort of Frankenstein conglomeration of other souls?

If it’s true that this ten-year cycle is perpetrated by being eaten by that thing, then it seems that the only way to end this is to either kill myself or kill it.

December 6, 2002

YOU MUST LISTEN TO THE PROPHET.

December 16, 2002

For some reason, after seeing that last entry, an idea occurred to me. The reason it’s called the Prophet isn’t because it predicts the future, but because it makes the future. And the Prophet tells me I’m right.

January 1, 2003

I can’t remember Christmas at all. The Prophet says happy New Year, love.

January 7, 2003

Oh, Christ, it happened again. A-fucking-gain. I should have seen this coming. God, how could I not have seen this coming?

I woke up in a cow pasture a few hours ago, around midnight, with slaughtered cows all around me. It must have been the Prophet, I know it, because how the hell could I rip open ten cows with my bare hands? But… I did eat some of their organs. I was eating a liver when I became lucid, and there were other half-eaten organs around me. And for that, the Prophet tells me that I did GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD! OH, GOD, PLEASE KILL ME NOW!

January 23, 2003

I can almost see the Prophet now, just out of the corner of my eye. But then it’s gone. Gone with the wind!

February 10, 2003

THE END IS FAR BUT NEAR.

February 15, 2003

That handwriting. I see that handwriting. I see that handwriting everywhere. Everyyyyyywherrrrrre….

February 21, 2003

It visits me at night, now, hiding in the shadows. The only memories I have of daily existence now are the times that I see it. But I can’t see it clearly, though. It’s either hidden in the shadows, or I see it out of the corner of my eye. If it isn’t hidden, then it just scuttles away. The movement it makes just looks so goddamn gross.

March 4, 2003

My letters take after the PROPHET now. I JUST NEED TO CARVE THOSE LETTERS INTO SOMEBODY’S FUCKNG FACE! The PROPHET tells me so!

March 7, 2003

The PROPHET, no me, no the PROPHET, no me NO THE PROPHET, NO ME, NO THE PROPHET, US, US, US, US, USSS, USSSSSS! We’ve been killing people. Oh, God, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME!?

March 16, 2003

I’m going to die. I am going to fucking die. I know it. I just fucking know it. My dad took me fishing last night near his father’s house. I didn’t fish, because I think it’s cruel to the fish, but as I was sitting there in the darkness, gloriously bored out of my mind, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching me. So I eventually grabbed a flashlight and looked behind me into the black woods behind me. I didn’t see anything, so I just dismissed it as nothing. This repeated itself for several hours.

Around midnight, I had to use the bathroom, so I went into the woods to relieve myself. And as I was relieving myself, I thought I saw something moving in the shadows, but I just told myself it was a deer. (Oh, how idiotic that was of me!) I walked back to my chair, and again became victim to that feeling of being watched. So I turned on the flashlight and looked behind me, but, again, I saw nothing and dismissed it as my nerves getting the better of me. By this point, I was becoming seriously annoyed, so I tried ignoring it. It took about thirty seconds before I couldn't stand it anymore. And when I shone that bright, beaming light behind me, I saw it, the PROPHET, clearly for the first time. I don't think I'll ever be able to get that picture out of my head, NO I WON'T, BABY!

It was some sort of monster; yes, definitely some sort of fucking monster. Or maybe a ghost, but can ghosts kill you, mutilate you, and eat you? If so, then I suppose it could have once been the ghost of a human, maybe, just maybe, my children.

It appeared to be naked, but I could see no sexual giveaways. It crawled on all fours, but its limbs… it's limbs were about three times as long as they should have been, with the elbows pointed inwards. Its hands were were long and slender, a foot long, at least, with huge sharp talons all the better to tear you with! It's skin was pale and slimy, with bulbous, oozing growths all over it. And there’s no way it should have able to hold its head up, for its neck was like a long pale stick jutting out from its narrow shoulders. It's eyes… They seem to have been torn out at some point, for there were just bloody holes where they should have been. And it's long, gaping, extended mouth was full of long, rotting fangs and had blood trickling down its chin. I think it might’ve had hair, long, black, and oily, but I can't remember.

And as I sat there, frozen in horror at its grotesque beauty, it shrieked at me. Oh, by golly it shrieked. It shrieked a high, grating, unnatural shriek. And it was at this point that my despicable father bolted into the woods, abandoning me to whatever fate the DIVINES may have bestowed upon me. Fortunately for me, it scurried that quick, painful scuttle after him, gutted him with a single swipe of its claws, and commenced to gorge itself upon his intestines. I saw my chance, and, feeling no sense of remorse or responsibility towards my screaming father, I sprinted as fast as I could into the woods.

The next thing I remember is hiding in someone's garage, trying to hang myself with an extension cord, when the police burst in. Then, just about, oh, half an hour ago, I'd say, I suddenly found myself in a holding cell with my journal and a pencil on the bench next to me.

Somehow, I don't think an officer put it there.

Date Unknown, 2003

Somehow I've found myself in a padded cell with a straight jacket unfastened on the ground. HAHAHA! And guess what? I still have this fucking journal! Well, FUCK ME SIDEWAYS! I’M OFFICIALLY INSANE! ALL THANKS TO MY GOOD FRIEND, THE ONE AND ONLY PROPHET! HAHAHA! HARDY-HAR-FUCKIN’-HAR! And you know what the best part is? I have no way to kill myself! I'm just a sitting duck for when the Prophet wants to kill me, and I know it’s soon, I just know it! 