Hard Restart

HARD RESTART

 

---

 

Basking in the warmth of sunlight, he slowly made his way towards the terrace’s edge. A whole set of emotions, a myriad of chaotic ones, permeated his consciousness, but his actions were firm. Slowly, he put his left leg over the railing, then his other one.

 

The morning wind was chilly enough to elicit goosebumps across his skin, but the view from this 20-story building numbed his mind to such simple thoughts like ‘cold’. The dots on the ground, the toy-like buildings, the eternally-close clouds… These were new sensations and sights to him, yet he was simply afraid. Afraid of what his brain would make his body do in the next moment.

 

Just a flash of doubt streaked across his heart, whispering to and goading him to return to the warmth of his soft bed, and hide himself into the coziness of his blankets. Again.

 

But then, the chaotic emotions from before came back, none of which were simple, abstract concepts like ‘love’, ‘hate’, ‘fear’, or ‘jealousy’. Only now did he have the clarity of mind to see them as what they truly were: memories. Pure images, completely the opposite of the grainy ones very popular in his beloved horror films, clicked steadily through the back of his eyes, casting a scene he likely wouldn’t have forgotten for very a long time.

 

Naturally, there were the painful ones which were annoyingly difficult to delete; thus, his current situation.

 

He was only left with one option to remove said memories: a hard restart.

 

Inhaling softly, enjoying what could’ve been his last good breath in his life for as long as he could, he jumped.

 

The wind… No, the weight of air his body was pushing aside felt much more intense than he thought, almost literally strong enough to tear flesh clean off his face. Again, another new sensation he could enjoy, but gravity was a harsh mistress. There was no way she’d let him get the last laugh as she dragged him far faster to his destination than he would’ve liked. Greyish hue flickered past his vision one after another, obviously too fast for him to make anything of it. Besides, the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes would’ve obscured pretty much anything right by then, so worrying about it was useless.

 

He half-expected red to fill his vision first when his head finally collided with a solid object (likely the ground), but it seemed nothing was really going the way he thought it would.

 

It was just black.

 

---

 

“AAAAAHHHH!!!”

 

Gasping for air, Shivam reflexively threw his arms in front of his face to shield it from the oncoming impact and pain. However, his fear soon subsided as he found himself sitting on a couch, surrounded by cradles of newborn babies covered with tiny blue blankets.

 

‘Is this… a child care clinic?’ He thought, extending his body to get up.

 

However, suddenly, a tremendous shot of pain raced through his body, forcing him to grasp the nearest cradle to stabilize himself and not fall over. “W-What is this pain?! It’s… S**t, it’s getting worse…”

 

Looking around the brightly-lit space, he was in a random corridor, with ‘Room 105’ written across him, yet not a soul was present despite the amount of babies around him. Logically, there should’ve been a lot more visitors, or at least patrolling nurses to look after the infants, yet, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sense any presence apart from himself.

 

With this level of pain, he instinctively decided powering through it and walking around would be a very bad idea. Fortunately, there was a wheelchair nearby, and he promptly plodded himself into it. It was awkward at first, as the higher-than-normal armrest pressed painfully into his upper arms when they reached over to wheel it, but to his relief, it indeed eased the pain.

 

Yet his hopes of finding help, or at least a companion to talk to, was quickly dashed.

 

‘How f*****g big is this hospital?!’ He pushed harder and harder, faster and faster, as panic began to replace the adrenaline coursing through his arms and creating several small cramps. ‘It’s been f*****g 20 minutes… and no one’s here…’

 

He expected some windows which could give him a glimpse of what’s happening outside, but only pristine walls lined the perimeter of the compound, or at least the corridor he’s in.

 

Just like a prison.

 

Looking to his left and right, a name plate caused all blood to drain from his face.

 

Room 105.

 

He’s been going around in circles the whole damn time.

 

“Okay. Deep breaths… deep breaths…” He murmured to himself, desperate to achieve some kind of calmness, yet it’s barely working. For one, there’s a few conclusions which could be drawn from that name plate alone. He could be in the 1^st floor of a clinic, but where’s ‘Room 101’ and others? Or, worse, there were literally 105 rooms in this place, yet some phenomena were confining him to this one spot.

 

‘Is this a dream?’ Right after thinking that, he bit his forefinger hard enough to draw some blood. Yet, nothing changed. ‘No. It’s… real…’

 

So what was this damn place?!

 

“Uuu… Ugh…”

 

He almost jumped out of his wheelchair, as a soft sob came from behind the closed door of ‘Room 105’.

 

Should he go in? Or ignore it and try to find another place to go? Or, just maybe, he’s simply too stressed out to notice a well-hidden elevator which would lead him straight out of this place, mysterious loop or not. Maybe that dream of his, of jumping off a building, was taking its toll on him.

 

But something in him made him touch the handle of the door.

 

Gulping audibly, he pushed it open.

 

As the sobs got clearer and louder, the silhouette of a crouching woman, shoulders trembling with grief, formed in front of his eyes.

 

She didn’t show any signs of registering the door being opened, much less his own presence, so he spoke loudly, “Ma’am? Excuse me… but do you know a way out of here? I’m a bit lost.” He knew he was being insensitive, asking such a question to a crying woman, but he forced his guilt down and asked again when he didn’t receive any answer other than a louder and longer sob. “Ma’am? Are you alright? You… You can talk to me about your problems, you know?”

 

He knew he was being hypocritical. This kindness was just a way to get an answer out of her; if she did provide him with a way out, he’d abandon her in an instant to escape from this place. There was nothing haunting or life-threatening about the clinic, yet his instincts had been screaming at him to get out.

 

“G-Guh!”

 

A pain, proportionate to the one half-crippling him from earlier, now hammered his head. The person in front of him-

 

‘The hair… The mole at the back of her neck…’

 

There was something simply wrong about her. Was it familiarity? Was it foreboding? As he tried to figure it out while cautiously approaching the woman, the pain in his head began to nearly tear his brain in half.

 

‘That cradle…’

 

As he came closer, he could see one of her hand was clutching the edge of one of the baby cradles hard enough to turn her knuckles pure white. ‘Don’t,’ his mind was warning him, yet curiosity won out over the pain and wariness.

 

He peered over the edge of the cradle, and promptly fell over his wheelchair, heaving dry vomit into the ground.

 

There was a dead baby inside.

 

Now he knew the source of his uneasiness about this whole place. It wasn’t the absence of people, either from relatives or medical authorities. It wasn’t the endlessly looping corridor, which forced him into this room. No, the reason was…

 

It was too quiet.

 

A room full of seemingly-sleeping babies were never silent. A baby would always wake up at an inopportune moment, either cooing playfully or screaming in need. Modern clinic, with better incubators, generally could prevent said baby’s cries from affecting other babies, but a mature adult would pick up on any strange sounds immediately.

 

Yet, there was only silence.

 

However, that wasn’t nearly enough to make him instantly retch and groveling on the floor.

 

The baby… was mangled. Blood covered its tiny face, with flesh peeling apart in some places and revealing white bone underneath it. One of its eyes was gouged out, and its right hand was twisted and turned so horribly Shivam couldn’t determine whether it’s more or less than 180° either way. The smell �" oh, the smell �" pierced his lungs, likely not just coming from this one corpse in front of him, but also all the babies in this area.

 

He didn’t have the courage to check on the other cradles.

 

Before he could gain his composure back, a pair of thin, yet surprisingly strong arms grabbed his collar and forced him to look at the woman dead in the eyes.

 

“What… What have you gained from this?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?!” The woman wailed on him, gritting her teeth in-between breaths.

 

“W-What the hell are you talking about?” Despite his clear size advantage, he couldn’t help but tremble at her manic voice. “M-Ma’am, I have no idea what…”

 

“OF COURSE YOU DID!!! You knew precisely how much time it took me to raise him! 20 years! 20! F*****G! YEARS!” Slowly, strength leaked off from her grip along with her voice, now barely above a whisper. “20 years of hell I endured, raising him, praying each night only to see him grew up well! All I wanted was to see him by my side when I took my last breath, both of us smiling contently, but now…”

 

20 years. Shivam’s exact age.

 

He couldn’t speak. How could he? The air around the woman, while weak at first, was now suffocating him right down to his heart. Tears unwittingly gathered around the corners of his eyes, not due to grief, but solely of disgust.

 

At whom, no one knws.

 

“WHAT RIGHT DID YOU HAVE?!!!” She screamed with what seemed like the last vestiges of her strength, shaking her disarrayed hair and revealing a face just as grotesque as ‘her’ baby. Burnt and charcoal-black, with shards of bone protruding from her cheek, along with mucus and other bodily fluids dripping down the exposed muscles and ligaments of her collarbone and throat.

 

Originally, Shivam wasn’t a person who’s strong in situations like this. He tried to weakly scramble away, with some success, though the pain from earlier was beginning to act up again. Either due to mental trauma or actual physical impediment, his vision blurred. Perhaps with tears, or something else…

 

--- Crack.

 

Or the fact the woman’s hands now clutched the sides of his neck strongly, before snapping it clean.

 

---

 

Shivam woke up with a gasp once again, but found himself in a bed. It’s double-sized, with the perfect balance between firmness and softness which reminded him of a busty girl’s breasts.

 

‘What the f**k was all those dreams about?’

 

He couldn’t remember every detail of it, but the underlying concepts and strong emotions carried through to this waking world. The fear, the unease, the pain, everything didn’t make sense. Was he beginning to lose his mind? ‘Should I see a psychiatrist?’

 

Shaking his head, he begun to question himself with a more important matter at hand: Where in reality was this? Looking around for clues, the room was very well-maintained, barring the mess he had made with his rough awakening, and carried feminine hues all around. Pink table… probably a girl’s. So that ruled out most of his friends, since what little amount of female friends he had would definitely not allow him to sleep in their bed. In fact, they’d rather taser him and hand him to the police themselves.

 

A lit computer was on the pink table, so he decided to check it. However, right before his feet touched the ground beside the bed, an irrational fear of the thunder-like pain from his dream made him hesitate. Once again, he shook his head to dismiss that thought; lo and behold, he was fine and standing without issue. Still, the jitters were there, as the dreams felt a little too real.

 

Depositing himself on the chair in front of the pink desk, which in fact matched the latter’s color with its edges, he stared at the screen in disbelief.

 

Because on there, there was a picture of two people, and one of them was very familiar: It was his own face, framed by a pair of gentle arms of a girl behind him. The contact between the two was obviously full of affection, as if they’re the missing jigsaw pieces in their lives for each other.

 

But he didn’t recognize the girl. Or did he simply… forget?

 

“No… No-no-no-no-no-no-no…”

 

Was he amnesiac? Did something happen to his head, to make him forget this seemingly-important woman?

 

“Uuu… Ugh…”

 

He almost jumped again while feeling a little bit of déjà vu when he heard a continuous sobbing sound. The confusion from before disappeared, replaced by the chill forcing the hair on his arms to stay erect. It felt like he’s… heard the noise before…

 

‘But no… It should be a dream…’

 

There were slight differences to the two noises he had in mind, as this one was filled with more pain rather than grief; one so painful it birthed a sense of vengeance from it. Almost, almost, Shivam nearly went to look for the nearest gun to shoot himself, just to rid his mind from this sorrowful cries.

 

Once again, despite his basic instincts, he went to the door and opened it, going outside. Oh, definitely, he was frightened, yet in a familiar twist of emotions, he let his own curiosity got the better of him. Looking for the source of the sobbing, he determined it’s coming from the hall.

 

“G-Guh!”

 

He involuntarily winced and palmed his forehead, as what felt like hot knives were piercing their way into his brain. The fading wallpaper framing the hall. The slightly-ever-crooked pictures hanging beside him. The secret pile of trash deposited into one corner because someone was too lazy to throw them away…

 

Then he was greeted by a funeral.

 

By then, the pain was excruciating, yet he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight. There were 20 or so white-clad people, mourning as hard as their uniforms would allow. The person at the center was similarly dressed in white, though not quite in the same style, and parts of him were covered in ceremonial items as an elderly priest chanted some nonsensical hymns towards the… dead body. It looked masculine, though his face was covered by a white cloth.

 

The sobbing came from a wailing woman kneeling beside the altar which held the body, bawling her face into the overflowing linen covering. Another man was beside her, grieving as much as his dignity and the surroundings expected to, though it’s obvious he’s holding his tears and screams back, while letting the woman pour out her heart. The two people created such a dark image Shivam was prompted to walk over to them and pat their shoulders, whispering, “Hey, you two, it’s all right… It’s not the end of the wo-”

 

His words were caught in his throat as he saw an object laying there with the dead body.

 

One of the corpse’s ring finger was out of order. Catching his eye, Shivam dutifully wanted to correct it, to at least give the deceased some form of honor and respect.

 

There was a golden ring circling it, intricately grafted with a familiar design.

 

‘Anya.’

 

Anya. Anya. Anya.

 

“This is for you.” The girl smiled beautifully at the words spoken by a man.

 

There was nothing.

 

He quickly put the ring finger back in order, worried one of the people in the room might scold him for it, but they all maintained the same stoic expression. No, it looked more like… they didn’t even see him do it…? Or did they even not see him?

 

As he looked down to check on the corpse, now curious of his identity… he was already somewhere else.

 

Only the golden ring… No, only the girl was left, lying still, as she succumbed into Death’s embrace.

 

A large cut ripped through her wrist, spurting out small fountains of crimson blood, splattering themselves onto his face.

 

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

 

Shivam screamed, scrambling towards the bathroom and scrubbing his face hard with the sink.

 

As he looked up into the mirror to check his work, the girl was there behind him.

 

“So my death really did scare you.”

 

“Wh-!”

 

He whipped around, yet no one was there. A filled bathtub took her place a few feet in front of him, spilling endlessly towards the floor.

 

“I thought you said you ‘didn’t give a f**k’. But your reaction really soothed me. It showed you cared. Or were you just… afraid?”

 

Once again, no one was around him, even as he whirled a few more times to check his surroundings. No, it’s more like… the sound was coming from the bathtub…? That’s impossible, surely?

 

Against his better judgement, he peered into the water, revealing thin black veins running through it, not quite dissolving in the liquid and swaying hypnotically, beckoning him to come closer.

 

“Don’t be afraid. I know you’re not afraid. For those who didn’t fear Death itself… shouldn’t be afraid of the dead, no? Especially… if they’re dead because of you!”

 

Before he could reel back, a pair of arms shot around his neck, yanking him into the water. From behind a fog of panic, Shivam could only observe a corrugated blade sticking out of one of the hands, clearly feminine in nature, while the other… was the same one circling over his own self inside the computer.

 

He looked to the front, and was greeted with a demon’s smile.

 

“Grhh… Blub…!”

 

The force fueling the arms was large enough to bang his head into the bottom of the bathtub, smashing his skull into pieces.

 

---

 

“GUAHHH!!!”

 

Shivam struggled for breath against the water covering his face, only breaking the surface when he woke up. Panting, it took him a few minutes to reorganize his thoughts, before he closed his eyes in frustration.

 

‘So they’re not dreams, after all… Or am I still in one?’

 

He was far too tired to question and query his surroundings again. Was all his life a lie? Was he already dead, and this was Hell? Was that it? Some sort of sick punishment for his sins, and his fate until the end of times?

 

This time, he would listen to his own instincts, and not let his base desires got the better of him. He wanted to lay down and give up, just… rest, really. All of this crap was too much for his simple mind.

 

And then he looked down, and froze.

 

The water was reflecting back an image of a man with a familiar face, but he had sticthes running across his head with a broken nose.

 

“No… No-no-no-no-no-no-no…”

 

He hurriedly got out, the water making his clothes cling annoyingly to his skin, sapping whatever crucial warmth he needed. Scrambling out on slippery feet on even slipperier floor, he busted through a green door, not really minding what’s possibly behind it.

 

He half-expected some more images of corpses, his dead bodies, or other macabre image. But, as if fate wasn’t satisfied in playing with his mind, it was just… black. It seemed like an unlit corridor at first, but as he walked further inwards and the green door swinging close automatically behind him like a cheap B-class horror films, it was much larger than a simple ‘corridor’.

 

He walked aimlessly, with nothing colliding with him if he was still hypothetically inside a house, a funeral, or a clinic. It’s just endless blackness.

 

‘F**k this thing again.’ He was tired, and with a shattered will to live.

 

With every step, he could feel his body fading away, like ghostly apparitions in old photographs. Bit by bit, grain by grain, cell by cell, parts of him flew into the empty space. He simply wanted to stop; just fall from the exhaustion, and it’d all be over.

 

Suddenly, without any foreshadowing, a strange red light began to shine up ahead.

 

It was very close, and he reached it in no time at all. Or, rather, he was sucked into it, before a column of multicolored light engulfed him and his surroundings.

 

Again, his perspective was wrong, and he re-evaluated the light; it was no mass of photons, but a continuous wall of images. There was a younger him, still a kid, with the woman from ‘Room 105’. There was a younger him, now a young adult, grinning stupidly at a girl who’s playfully showing her back to him. There were many more of himself in this form, always with the same girl, and his smile in these images even managed to elicit a bitter laugh from the current him.

 

The girl was the same one with slit wrist, who dragged him into the bathtub and killed him.

 

He… They were happy.

 

Finally, the image of a desperate him, one arm stretched out, as he futilely reached out towards her ever-smaller back.

 

The images formed an uninterrupted wall of light, swirling around him, teasing him with these happy memories, his memories. Then, without warning, they crashed into each other, releasing flashes of bright but sickening color which nearly made him vomit and drove him insane.

 

He didn’t even realize his body hadn’t stopped deteriorating during this event.

 

A familiar sight of pure black greeted him, for the umpteenth time.

 

---

 

“Hmm… he seems to be responding positively to the medication, although this guy’s chance of survival was the slim-to-none, in my humble experience.” The doctor said to his apprentice, who nodded, as they begun an unethical and inappropriate discussion regarding the dying people they’re treating.

 

“Doctor! Doctor!”

 

Shivam opened his eyes, and was greeted by the ‘Room 105’ woman yelling towards the exiting doctor and assistant. This was the very same woman who’s crying for her dead baby… no, his dead body.

 

Weakly, he caught one of her hands with his scrawny one, trying to silently convey his thoughts towards the woman.

 

‘I… won’t ever do that again, Mom. I promise…’

 

As the doctor and assistant hurriedly approached, his mother’s phone rang, but the loud ringtone failed to rouse him from the ever-encroaching sleepiness.

 

---

 

“Tsk… Did Mother-in-Law slept in the hospital again?”

 

As Anya’s three calls went unanswered, she locked her phone in annoyance, before starting her late office s**t to cover her husband’s current comatose condition, and the bills which came with it.

 

“Hah… Why don’t you just wake up already, Shivam…?”

Author's Note

This is my first time writing a psychological thriller and I would like to get reviews regarding whether I am capable of writing such kind of fiction or not?

Reviews

[JayG]

The first problem that jumped out at me is that you're transcribing yourself telling the story, as if the reader can hear the emotion in your voice, and see your performance. But they can't. So while you can hear the emotion in the "voice" of the narrator, the reader gets only the emotion the punctuation suggests. Have your computer read it aloud and you'll hear how different what the reader gets is from what you hoped for.

In short: the tricks of verbal storytelling don't translate to telling a story on the page. That requires a set of writing skills mandated by the strengths and weaknesses of our medium—skills not even mentioned as existing in our school years. But it is a problem that can be fixed with a bit of research and study. It's also a problem you share with pretty much every hopeful writer, so while it is a problem, it's no big deal, just part of becoming a writer.

Look at the opening as a reader views it:

• He slowly basked in the warmth of sunlight, as he made his way towards the edge of the terrace.

You come to this line with a knowledge of where we are in time and space, who we are, and what's going on. But from a reader's viewpoint:

1. "He? How can there be a "he" when we have no idea of the things I mentioned above.

2. How can he "slowly bask?" The sunlight comes at the speed it comes. It can't be speeded up or slowed.

3. "The edge of the terrace? What terrace? You've not placed the character into a setting meaningful to a reader, so the "edge" could be a foot away or a hundred yards—ten steps or an hour's stroll. Without a sense of scale, this can bring no picture to the reader's mind.

In short: You're talking about what's happening within the picture you hold in YOUR mind. But till you give the reader that picture, along with why it matters, they have no context. And words without context are meaningless as they are read. Remember, the reader is not seeking information and detail. They're seeking to be entertained.

It's not a matter of good or bad writing, it's that you're missing the tricks of the trade unique to our medium and mission, and so, falling back on what you do know, which are the tricks of nonfiction writing we're given in school, and, those of verbal storytelling. Neither work in our medium, so some time spent in the fiction-writing section of the library, digging them out and making them as intuitive as your current skills, is time well spent.

Not good news, I know. And I wish there were some easier way to tell you. But the good news is that if you are meant to be a writer you'll find the learning fun.

But whatever you do, hang in there and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Shubham Sharma]

Thanks. Such criticisms are a blessing in disguise. I am writing just short stories nowadays to make my writing better. But I guess it'll come slow.

[JayG]

If you can, pick up a copy of either Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling writer, or Debra Dixon's, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict.

Swain's book is not easy reading, but it is the best I've found. Dixon's is more of an overview, but is a warm easy read. Both cover the nuts-and-bolts issues of constructing a story, scene-by-scene.

[barleygirl]

What you do well is to create unusual scenes with weird descriptions that straddle the line between seeming logical & yet also being very strange & weird. Good imagination for the details of describing people & places in ways that feel like a scary story. The first problem that Jay describes (review below) is true -- you refer to a bunch of generic emotions in the opening scene, but we do not really know what these emotions are . . . you need to take us inside your head & show us what this feels like.

For me, these are the things that can be improved . . .
1. You begin the "thriller" & never stop . . . you do not establish a story line that we become interested in, you don't introduce your characters & weave them into a story so we become involved in everything, so we care what happens to your situations.
2. You keep this at a "thriller" high pitch . . . it's better to have the drama & excitement go in waves. It's too tiring to read something that is constantly in a high state of chase & fear. It never gives us a chance to get a feel for your characters under normal circumstances, becuz it's all thriller, all the time.
3. You write with a sense of run-on sentences & run-on paragraphs that go on & on with constant thriller action. Maybe this is what happens on the movie screen with constant special effects, but this is not how a thriller goes in a written story. We need to have moments of rest, moments of connection, moments of pondering, moments of suspense. Your story stays at a fairly constant level of fear & threatening things happening.

We need to have some everyday storytelling about the characters so that we can grow to know them & become attached to them, so we care what happens -- this is how you draw in your readers. I can't even tell one character from another, becuz you do not name most of these characters & they come & go in your story like ghosts that don't really matter, so we don't get very involved or attached to your story line.

Overall, this is a huge thing to tackle & you are brave & creative to get as far as you do. You mix it up with storytelling & dialogue, you have included many tricks of the writing trade. I am only being specific about the things that need to be improved. Just keep practicing. You'll get better & better! (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[Shubham Sharma]

Thanks for the constructive review with your genuine sweet words as you always do. I wanted to write a novel on this plot but I feel suffocated in writing short stories but an editor friend of mine told me that my writing grasps somebody's attention with a very high note but then they get bored, so he told me to experience writing short stories to improve my writing. He told me I have a very creative vision and imagination like no other ( These were really his words) but it feels like I am writing just to satisfy me not others.

[barleygirl]

I agree, it's better to practice on short stories before you try a book-length thriller. Don't be afraid to write the same story in different ways. As the years go by, I have written the same story differently becuz my point of view changes. Practice is the best thing . . .