Am I Justice?[]
I’m Alec, a 23 year old car crash victim and medical school graduate whose only interest is making the earth cleaner, not in the traditional sense though. I throw away the rotten humans on this earth who make it filthy. No one knows of this aside from the trash I’ve already taken care of, as society would rule me evil for the things I’ve done. How did I get to this point? Well let me tell you. It all began on the day my family was betrayed by everyone. It was 5 years ago on Christmas I was visiting my parents and we decided to pay my uncle a visit. My mother, father, older brother and younger sister were all crammed in my mother’s small car, going to see my father’s side of the family. It was a quick car ride, we were almost at our destination before our mother who was driving let a semi truck full of metal poles in front of our car. She then proceeded to joke about the possibility of us all dying like in the final destination movies. My younger sister shouted at her saying she’s going to jinx us all. It was then we heard a loud crashing noise from the truck before they slammed on the brakes, leaving us to crash into the back of the giant truck, metal poles crashes through the windshield impaling both my parents through the chest, the same poles that killed my parents stabbed through the car seats and eventually into my siblings, but one lone pole stabbed right through my head, permanently changing the world for me. The truck then took off, never for anyone to catch them. Someone else using the road called the ambulance but the only one able to be saved was me… why me. I had to spend a long 8 months in the hospital as they tried to repair all the damage done to my brain. I spent all the time I was awake wondering what ever happened to the truck driver, what I would do to him, how he would wish he never even learnt to drive. And during that stay I realized the suffering that all families must go through when a killer isn’t caught. As soon as I was released I began my hunt. I heard of a corpse that was found recently, a young girl tortured before being shot and left by the train tracks close to my house. I searched and searched around the area where the body was found until I was certain I found the killer. I lured him into a lonely alley with a wallet I placed on the floor. While he was crouched picking the wallet up, I hit him over the back with a crowbar, knocking him down before I knocked him out by kicking his head. I carried his limp body to my house and into my basement and bound him to a metal chair. I get my tools ready as he wakes up, I tell him that I’m going to kill him, before pointing a pistol in between his eyes while he cries and pleads for his life, the same way the girl must’ve done. It was then I lowered the gun, deciding i should use all the same torture methods to this man. I leave him in the basement as I go out to the nearby hardware store to buy more tools. When I return the man seems to have given up trying to scream, so to remind him of the terror he has to experience, I heat up the metal chair he’s in with a blowtorch, cooking his flesh slowly. I then broke all his toes and fingers with a pair of pliers and repeatedly stomped on them worsening the pain. I degloved parts of his body and poured salt and lemon juice onto him. I then unbound him from the chair to see him try to escape, he slowly got up as pieces of his skin peeled off onto the chair and he fell down again and again due to his bloody and broken feet. This was the most pathetic thing I had ever seen so with a bit of pity for the monster, I decided to shoot him in the back of his head. To dispose of his sad corpse I left him on the same train tracks where he left the girl's body just a week prior. I watch through the bush as his body is quickly obliterated and turned to a bloody mist. This was the beginning of my path as a hero. 4 months later I disposed of 9 more pieces of filth in various ways. And 12 months after that I lost count. I continued on getting rid of these monsters making them suffer as much as possible. After 3 years I decided to find the one who killed my family who did nothing wrong. I bought a metal pole and sharpened it around the edges. I staked out the side of the road hoping that he still wasted his life riding around in a machine of death and then I saw a familiar sight, the same truck from 4 years ago. I quickly pull out my pistol which I used to kill my first prey. The truck tried to turn and barrel rolled a few times. I rushed over and took his unconscious body from the wreck and used my medical knowledge to try and resuscitate him and bring him to my basement room, It was here I stabbed him once each day and made the wounds worse and worse everyday and I interrogated him, asking if he’s ever killed 4 people in a car and took off and got away with it, I constantly interrogated him until now, the present. After several months of torture and interrogation I’ve come to the conclusion that the man I have in my basement is innocent and I, I’m guilty. The only fair thing to do now is to inflict all the pain I’ve done to my victims to myself. So I am writing this now, to let you all know that what I have done is wrong and I’m to subject myself to the most inhumane treatment imaginable. So long.
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Issues with tone, details and progression.William See (talk) 20:43, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[]
There is one major thing I liked about this draft, but you should read through the review beforehand as it is necessary to understand it fully. The first major issue I should point out is that this whole thing is a wall of text. Indent it where you need to.
The second set of issues is the progression of the story. In terms of major arcs, it goes "Introduction --> Entire family dies --> protagonist decides to start punishing 'evil doers', etc." You see how fast this sequence of events occurs, within roughly the first paragraph or so? There's no time to deliberate on the motivations or events of the characters or setting; so much so, that there aren't any good supporting details aside from describing torture methods needlessly. Its very hard to relate or immerse yourself in a story where the action all sort of falls into your lap right away. The family exists solely to die in the very beginning.
There's also some quirks with the plausibility of certain things, like a medical student suddenly knowing how to torture/kidnap/track a killer. This might have made sense if he spent the 8 months hospitalized learning forensic studies, torture methods, or studying physiology/psychology, but the story does not detail that. Not to mention, the fact that he had an rod shoved through his head which did not leave any adverse effects is very unbelievable within the framework of the story - and yes, I am aware medical anomalies like this have happened, but the story does not do anything with this detail. You could have said he simply broke both his legs and the story would not have changed. If the intent is to play with the idea that trauma awakens an Anti-Hero quality in the narrator, you could even have him develop some bizarre ability that lets him perform his duty easier while still being injured (since I'm not sure having cranial trauma would only be 8 months recovery period). Also, as a nitpick, corpses don't get atomized when ran over by a train. They get severed.
Tonal problems sort of go hand in hand with the details and progression. The tone is very dry and doesn't convey the narrator's anger quite enough. For example, "The truck then took off, never for anyone to catch them. Someone else using the road called the ambulance but the only one able to be saved was me…why me." Full stop, it is a neutral statement with no emotion to it. Try actually putting yourself in the shoes of someone who's family was murdered, and linger on it rather than skipping to the revenge fantasy. Feel their pain, imagine YOU'RE the one immobilized for almost a year. Same with this: "This was the most pathetic thing I had ever seen so with a bit of pity for the monster, I decided to shoot him in the back of his head."
As for the concept, here is what I particularly thought was good. The concept of flipping guilt and vengeance on it's head at the end was well done: in conjunction with the title being a play on "I am Justice", it helps sell the idea the protagonist doubts his own actions (although more emphasis on the 'doubt' portion is needed, as per Tone). I'm not sure why the narrator would wait 3 whole years to find his original criminal if he so desperately hated them, but having the truck driver be innocent is a neat twist and you can use that to better exploit his intention to end himself to justify his own twisted sense of morality.
So to summarize, here's a grid for improving the flow:
-Focus less on the gory details, more on the raw emotions and processes of the narrator.
-Characterize the characters more. They shouldn't be blank faces with titles attached to them (the killer, the truck driver, the mom, etc).
-Take your time reaching the climax and horror of the story. Rushing to go kill off a character(s) makes the horror and trauma less savory. Don't bite down immediately, savor it like you would chocolate.
Good luck.