Awakening

Miles Lockett finds himself waking up in the middle of a forest, with no memory of where he is or what he has been doing. It is up to him to uncover the mystery.

Awakening

A Short Story Written By Braxton Hay

As Miles Lockett picked himself up from the cold, hard, dirt ground he had passed out in, he briefly wondered how dirty his clothes had gotten before realizing he had no idea where he was. As Miles stood up, he quickly began surveying the landscape. He was in a forest and the sky looked about evening, but a quick check of his watch said otherwise. In truth, it was midday, although the sky was so overcast and the clouds so dark, it looked like night was about to come. The great big oak trees surrounding him were so tall they looked as if they were touching the sky, and they had quite a bit of fog surrounding the bottoms of them. Fog at midday is odd, very odd, Miles thought as he slowly made his way down the dirt path he had awoken on. While he was walking, Miles checked his clothes. The loose, grey sweatshirt he was wearing had spots of dirt and grass stains all over it, which looked as if he had been dragged. His light blue, denim skinny jeans were in the same condition, and his black and white converse were covered in mud. He angrily grunted and ran his hands through his dark brown, rather long hair and kept pushing on down the hard dirt path.

After roughly fifteen minutes of uneventful walking, he came upon a clearing with a house in the middle. A very large house, which Miles quickly determined was three stories tall by how the windows were placed, in three long horizontal rows. The house looked like it hadn’t been lived in in years, as he could see that some windows were broken along with a few steps that led up to a set of large, wooden double doors. Masses of white paint were splattered in large blotches on certain points of the house, as if it had once been painted but the elements had worn it down. At this point, Miles had made the decision to go in. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? He thought to himself. I’m lost anyways, so it wouldn’t hurt to check if there was a phone, or some mode of transportation. 

Miles carefully climbed the wooden steps up to the double doors, the steps squeaking and creaking as he climbed. Upon approaching the doors, Miles gave them a hard knock. No answer. He knocked once more, and once again. No answer. At this point, Miles tried the door handles, but found them locked. I have to find another way inside. He thought to himself. There’s gotta be another way inside. He then took a step back and surveyed the house. There is a broken second floor window above the awning that’s above the door. I might be able to get on top of the awning, and enter the house through the window! Miles thought to himself. It took him three tries to grab onto the edge of the awning, but he finally did, and after pulling himself up, he entered through the window. 

He found himself in a small, but cozy, study. Three huge bookshelves covered the wall to his right, and a wooden, and very dusty desk sat to his left. An open doorway stood directly in front of him. After inspecting the books on the shelves, he found something very… unnerving. Every book was bound in a brown leather, and every book was blank, with the only words being the name of the supposed author on the cover. Every book, no matter what size or shape, said “By David Green” on the front cover. After discovering this, Miles decided he did not like this room one bit, and continued on through the open door way. 

He found himself in a hallway of astonishing length and width, with pictures covering the yellowed, red and white striped wallpaper. Portraits of all shapes and sizes were crammed into wherever they could be. From the ceiling to the floor, the paintings sat and contained nothing on their canvases but a vague, black outline of a person, and on the bottom of every picture frame was the name “David M. Green”  on a small metal rectangle. Whoever this David guy was, he seems like quite the…. interesting individual. Miles thought to himself, as he walked toward the stair case at the end of the hall, passing many closed, wood doors along the way. 

When he was halfway down the hall, he began to hear something. A soft thumping coming up the stair case that was getting louder by the second. Miles stood there, watching. Frozen like a deer in headlights, he listened as the noise got louder. Ba dum….. ba dum….. badum…. BA DUM.. That was when he saw her. Or it. Or whatever this monstrosity was. It appeared to be a woman. She wore a long gown that looked as if it was once white, but was now so dirty you could hardly tell. Her hair was long, black, and stringy. It sat just below her shoulders in a greasy mess. Her face was slender and delicate. It looked as if she used to be very pretty, but had completely gave up on personal hygiene. Not to mention the thing that bothered Miles the most as he looked upon her horrid face. The thing that let him know this was no longer a normal human being. In the upper left side of her face, was a gaping hole, which revealed all the gore inside of her head, and it even went so deep that a bit of her skull was revealed. The wound also resulted in her missing her left eye. In her right hand, she dragged an axe. She let it scrape across the floor behind her, as if it was too heavy for her to hold. What on earth…. Miles thought as the monstrosity stared at him, and gave a low whine before charging at him in a rather hurried manner. All the while dragging the single-bladed woodcutting axe behind her. 

Filled with a fear that crawled around in his stomach like worms, Miles turned and ran as fast as his legs could carry him back to the other end of the hall of portraits near a very large glass window that lead to the outside. When he got to the window he stopped and turned to look at the monstrosity. She was a good minute length away from him, at her speed. Miles was faced with the decision of suffering a two story drop and a face full of glass, or an axe wielding maniac.  As she got closer, Miles made up his mind. A bit of a broken leg is better than being killed by some ungodly thing, he thought as he backed up, and ran full speed at the window. Before he knew it, glass shards were everywhere and he was falling, falling faster and faster before he hit the ground below.

The pain was excruciating. He screamed, louder than he ever had before as he felt the glass shards inside his body, and his right leg snap in half. Despite his efforts to escape, she was still coming, groaning as she moved relentlessly toward the shattered window. I have to get up…. he thought. She will be on me any moment now, and if I don't move, I will die. This will have been for nothing except a more painful death. Miles forced himself to stand on his left leg, his right leg limp. As he dragged himself around to the right side of the house, where he would be out of sight, he howled at the intense pain of his broken right leg. Miles then stood and waited around the right side of the house. A few moments later, he heard the slap of flesh hitting dirt. Unbelievably, Miles then heard a groan as she got up, and began to come around the right side of the house. As fast as he could, Miles lifted a rock the size of his head out of the ground that was in front of him, and waited. As she came around the corner, he leapt on her, knocking her fragile body to the ground. With the adrenaline rushing through his body, he sat on her torso, straddling her squirming body the best he could with one leg broken. He then lifted the rock high above his head, and brought it down on hers several times, until she stopped grunting and her head had been flattened. The blood and gore from her cranium was everywhere, and just as he was about to scream with triumph, the world went dark and Miles Lockett passed out.

When he awoke, he found himself in a small, white, rather squishy room. In front of him lay the body of a woman sprawled out face up on the white floor. Her white, usually spotless standard issue nurse outfit was covered in blood. The small white hat she had been wearing had been flung to the other side of the room. Next to the poor woman’s body was a hard, metal lunch tray. Food had been flung everywhere in the struggle of her death and the tray had a huge dent in the middle of it, which looked like it had been used to very violently hit something. To the right side of her body, he found a brown clipboard with a white document clipped to it that he picked up and began to read. The document read:

Mt. Lockett Mental Hospital - Patient Information

Patient Name:  David Green

Patient Number:  226

Checked In For: Vivid hallucinations, in which patient 226 will go into several stages of severe emotion. 

1st Stage:  Loss of thoughts and memories. 

2nd Stage:  Fear.

3rd Stage:  Anger, hate, and rage. 

Patient 226 will also take on a new identity with every hallucination. Danger rating during these stages are still pending.

Author's Note

What do you guys think of the action and suspense sequences?

Reviews

[Gary Stringer]

The action is strong and I like getting inside the character's head as he decides what to do. An internal monologue when a dialogue is not possible. In general I was mostly enjoying it...until the ending.
I can see that you were going for the surprising plot twist, the big reveal that all is not as it seems. But there are some very unfortunate implications. The things we create do not exist in a vacuum, and demonising people with mental health in fiction can be just as damaging as doing it in real life. Thankfully, it's actually a trigger for me, personally, but I know it would be for others.

I've sat on this review for a couple of days, because I didn't want to come over too harshly, but in the end I couldn't get it out of my mind so I had to say something. As I say, what you wrote was mostly fine, but that ending, for me was a definite 'No, thank you.'

It's a minefield, writing. We can get so caught up in our fictional worlds that we can lose sight of the unintended real world implications. I hope you take this as constructive and don't feel too offended.

[BraxtonHay]

First off, thank you for taking the time to review my piece! I really appreciate it, and I found your review to be great. I understand where you are coming from, but I would like to counter that by saying that this is writing. This is a piece of fiction, not something from real life and I personally do not think that this does any "demonizing" of anyone, although I do see your point. I think this is an example of something that is more and more consistent in the sad world we live in, that being that everyone is too sensitive. This is not based on anything real, and I do not see how this would hurt anybody if one might be even basically able to tell what is fiction (movie, book, video game etc.) and what is real life. I don't know about you, but I know when I'm reading a book or watching a fictional movie as opposed to seeing something in real life.

[p]

I have to say that theres nothing wrong with your premise, but there were a fair few things i would change,

The main character's inner monologue didn't quite sound like something someone would think to themselves. I would've left most of it to the narrator.

All in all the grammar could use some tidying up, many of the statements were redundant, i.e. mentioning that he'd passed out in the cold, hard, dirt floor in the middle of the woods.

Overall it's not bad, but it's a bit rough around the edges, which isn't uncommon. Most writer's writing starts like this until they find an editor to clean it up, but since this is the amateur circle, most of us have to be our own editors. What I'd recommend you do is revise revise revise until you feel comfortable that it's exactly what you wanted out of it.

[BraxtonHay]

Thank you for the time you've taken to read and review my piece. I agree on almost everything you've said. The inner monologue was definitely something I regret, and one of the main things about the piece that I wish I would have changed when I was writing this. Plus, this wasn't exactly anything I was super serious about, and rather just a small piece I did for fun. Thanks again!

[spaekona]

That's a really well-written piece! Nice twist at the end too, not something I saw coming. The only thing I would change is I would try to use Miles name a little less since there's only one he in the story, and at the end when he's killing her you use he a lot. All of the descriptions and sequences up to that were well-done and had a solid flow. Like "With the the adrenaline rushing through his body, he sat on her torso, straddling her squirming body the best he could with one leg broken. He then lifted the rock high above his head, and brought it down on hers several times, until she stopped grunting and her head had been flattened. The blood and gore from her cranium was everywhere, and just as he was about to scream with triumph, the world went dark and Miles Lockett passed out."

Definitely not badly written, but with this being the climax of your character's fear and fight, I'd go for something more along the lines of "Adrenaline coursing through his body he straddled her, hardly noticing the pain in his leg as he looked upon the squirming horror beneath him. Her face haunted him even as his arms lifted and dropped the rock high countless times, until the grunting stopped and it was flattened beyond recognition. A scream of triumph nearly tore from his throat, but suddenly he was gripped with a strange peace. The world went dark, and Miles Lockett went with it."

It's a really good story, and very cleverly written. The build up sucked me in, so I'd just work on making a nice strong ending that gives it a lasting creepiness. Definitely would be better written in your own words as I'm sure I don't sound like your character. Just a suggestion on how the sequence would flow nicer. Keep writing!

[BraxtonHay]

Thank you, appreciate it! I definitely agree with some of the criticisms you have, and that revised portion that you have written does work a lot better. Thanks for the information again!