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Uncertainty
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Author:
elphie2007
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| Created: February 05, 2012 at 04:25 pm |
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Entry Type:
Short Story, A (18+)
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| Category: Horror | Death | Dark |
| Entry Stats: 5 Stars by 2 users with 3 comments 93 views |
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Uncertainty 
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And the two of them held her right there where she lay. One holding her knees, clutching them, sitting on top of her feet and ankles as she struggled to break free. She heard the click and hiss of the butane torch of the third man getting it ready. Her stomach lurched and her wrists burned and ached from where she was restrained and being pushed down on, still she thought, she should fight.
The first touch of the torch on her pale freckled stomach almost felt like an icy slice from a frozen rusty box cutter. He went in a circle, over and over again, leaving a bulls eye of untouched flesh in the center. He wondered how the skin, fat, muscle down to gut would look and react as he went deeper and longer with the blue and orange flame. She writhed and buckled, all the while having no idea on how long he was planning on keeping her alive. What power he had over her. All she knew was that she was going to die and he was going to be the one to kill her.
Again the pain surprised her as she heard her fat boiling from the heat, popping up and onto her chest further burning her and reinforcing the thought to break free. Her knees finally broke, which was inevitable with the little guy leaning on her raised knees. The crunch and screeching slide of bone mashing against bone with cartilage in between in places scraped on the inside of the four of their skulls. The little one lost it and left to go be sick, but she wasn’t going anywhere right now.
The circle continued as she burbled up some of her hot insides mixed with blood. Warmer than her face it filled her mouth and choked her. She didn’t know why she was fighting so hard, her everything it looked and felt like, was gone. It looked like a cannon ball had ripped through her. Maybe as a joke, she didn’t know, spite felt right, she thought, “Ha! I’m still alive!”
She should have succumbed sooner though, he liked his victims to stay awake and look at his calm controlled face while he failed to speak a syllable. She passed out finally, and he tipped her so the blood could pour out of the crater, the stomach flap of untouched skin floated out like a raft. He cut through the intestines and gut making a horrible stench, and at that she died.
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Comments & Reviews ( X 3) |
JEdwardNolan
February 05, 2012
Helpful:
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My opinion.
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Your fucking story sucks. Juuust kidding, kohai. I thought I'd kick this shindig off with a bang, so let's get down to brass tacks, and kick back shall we?
You begin your story with "and" which means, even though this is a flash fiction piece, it is the continuity of something greater (obviously, because she had to somehow end up in this predicament to begin with). My suggestion, for a good point of impact would be:
"...and the two of them held her right there where she lay. One holding her knees, clutching them, sitting on..."
let's lower the capitalization of the opening sentence, and add everyone's favorite "..." in front. This means this has been going on a while, and it implies it to your reader.
"One holding her knees, clutching them, sitting on top of her feet and ankles as she struggled to break free." Outright, there's nothing wrong with this sentence, however you may want to consider the anatomy of the situation; if someone's sitting on your feet AND ankles, maybe you want to show the situation, more than you want to tell it? Perhaps you may consider: "One, clutching her knees, the weight of his body a contrasting pain on her feet, and ankles..."
OR something, anything, or nothing to that effect. That sort of technique can be applied to a number of points in most first draft, second draft, fiftieth draft stories. Readers like seeing just as much as they like to hear it; show, and tell, I say.
"She heard the click and hiss of the butane torch of the third man getting it ready." This is outstanding imagery, though I might offer a suggestion here, too. Unless she's a welder, or a handyman type, chances are she may not know what sort of fuel the torch is using. Maybe she just hears the click of a primer, and the familiar hiss of a torch/blow torch/etc. The sentence needs little revision, but sometimes there is such a thing as over descriptive.
Maintaining your POV is important too. When you switch from one person, to the next, try to start a new paragraph for that person. If he's wondering anything, have him do it on a new line, so when she wonders something, we'll know they don't have a psychic connection. Unless they do. In this tense, I think not.
"She writhed and buckled, all the while having no idea on how long he was planning on keeping her alive."
Tenses. She writhed, and buckled, all the while she had no idea how long he planned to keep her alive.
If it begins one way, it should end that way too. This rule isn't true of every situation, but in this one, absolutely. If it is present tense, it would be: She writhes, and buckles, all the while wondering how long they'll keep her alive.
In present tense, you're almost seeing it through one of the bad guys' eyes, and its a little macabre.
"What power he had over her. All she knew was that she was going to die and he was going to be the one to kill her."
Such power he had over her; she was going to die, and he was going to kill her. It was all she knew. (OR, It was the only thing she knew).
"The pain surprised her again. She could hear her fat boiling from the heat, popping up onto her chest, burning her, and reinforcing her struggle to break free."
"Her knees finally broke, which was inevitable with the little guy leaning on her raised knees. The crunch and screeching slide of bone mashing against bone with cartilage in between in places scraped on the inside of the four of their skulls"
"No longer able to bear the weight, her knees buckled with the wet crack of broken bones, and tendons, torn muscle, and cartilage creaking between bone, on bone. The muffled grinding bore into their ears, echoing in their skulls."
The smallest vomited before he could flee the sound, his weakness spilling past his lips before he could flee.
I think it's important that he vomits now, rather than later. If her torturer can't handle her torture, then it's horror even HE has never seen. Just a thought, Kohai.
"It looked like a cannon ball had ripped through her. Maybe as a joke, she didn’t know, spite felt right, she thought, “Ha! I’m still alive!”"
Let's avoid too much passive sentences, which by the way my critique is rife with. Instead of saying "I looked like so and so had done whatever" just say "So and so did it"
IE It looked like a cannon ball ripped through her.
Rather than slow the pace with maybe, or spite, let's take into context the situation. She's been tortured, no sedatives, no pain killers; she's gone into, or is going into shock. At this point, her vision is mostly black and white (color is one of the first things to drain when you're dying, your body in an attempt to survive will shut down things that are secondary necessities).
So maybe its not humor, or spite. Maybe it's shock. Maybe, she's staring at the blurry silhouettes of her murderers, and she thinks vaguely "Still alive". Maybe, she coughs up a blood gurgled laugh, sputtering her blood in the face of her killers. At this point, she KNOWS she's dead, even if she doesn't accept it.
"She should have succumbed sooner though, he liked his victims to stay awake and look at his calm controlled face while he failed to speak a syllable"
What about also, "She wished the numbness of death consumed her sooner, but her killers kept their victims alive with cold efficiency. There was a calm certainty in his face, and in the silence he kept as he continued to kill her."
or something like that.
"She passed out finally, and he tipped her so the blood could pour out of the crater, the stomach flap of untouched skin floated out like a raft. He cut through the intestines and gut making a horrible stench, and at that she died. "
"She welcomed numb darkness with a faint, and fading smile.
He tipped her limp body, the blood spilling over embers of burnt skin, a circular flap of skin floating out like a fleshy raft. Satisfied, he reached into the gaping maw of her gut, and rend her intestines in a single, stinking cut.
Finally, she died.
I think that it is important to underscore her death as its own paragraph, or at least, its own line, for dramatic effect. She's already out cold, so she doesn't even know she's dead. You could use; finally, she died, or Unawares, she died.
Alrighty, Kohai. Your story is awesome, it does need some polishing, but I have the utmost faith in your abilities. You're a grand artist, and your writing is descriptive, and compelling.
Congratulations on your first piece of Flash Fiction, and Welcome to the Writers-Network.
- Senpai |
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