Vantablack

After months of psychological torment at the hands of a mysterious locked door, Renee finally has her hands on the key... [I wrote this for one of my classes this past year. Figured I would share]

With some apprehension, Renee reached into the jewelery box and grabbed the key. A sound from outside the room made her head whip around to the open bedroom door; she momentarily thought she had been caught.

After waiting the space of a few heartbeats, she turned her attention back to the key clutched tightly in her shaking hands. It was fairly heavy, made of wrought iron and marked with otherworldly symbols. It also seemed to vibrate as she held it. This had to be it�"the key to the door that had been tormenting her for months.

Of course the old bat that Renee rented her room from had been hiding the damn thing away in some creepy jewelery box. Ms. Gabler brushed her off every time she asked about that door.

“My house, my business!” as she would put it, often jabbing her with a frighteningly cold finger. Renee could always feel the old woman’s glare even through the dark sunglasses Ms. Gabler always wore; she was never seen without them.

She hated that she had to stick around the place, living with a secretive woman who did nothing but shout at her and mumble to herself. But, the room was cheap and close to the bus stop that took Renee to her dull data-entry job. She had learned to live with everything for convenience’s sake; everything except that freaking door.

The area around it was always cold; deathly cold. The wooden frame had crude markings etched into it�"not unlike the symbols on the key. Sometimes, Renee swore she could hear a low, droning hum emanating from it and the wood seemed to pulse with the sound. Normally, people would stay away from such a thing, which Renee had elected to do at first. Soon, she discovered that she could not.

Some force drew her to the door, a part of her conscience sometimes went mad with the feeling. She found herself pausing by it, checking it for cracks that she could see through or wildly jiggling the doorknob to see if it had been left unlocked. On a few occasions, she had awoken in the middle of the night curled up outside it with no memory of leaving her bed to do so. Those nights, she’d find her fingertips were torn and that a few new scratch marks had been left in the wood.

With the key finally in hand, Renee stood before the door. The low hum had been replaced by whispering�"cool tendrils of the sound seemed to lap at her ears. In her right mind she might have been concerned, but any inkling of worry was dismissed under the excuse of the troublesome radio in the kitchen simply giving off static. The key clicked into the lock and the door opened on its own, dragging her into the room with it. 

            She paused. The dimly-lit room was empty aside from a single object�"a floating, black orb. It made no movement at Renee’s entrance. It was just there, suspended five feet above the hardwood floor. Despite its stasis, it was terrifying. It was the deepest black Renee had ever seen; darker than a starless night sky, than a room void of windows at midnight. The only reason she knew it was an orb at all was because it curved backwards the same way on all sides when she cautiously circled it; otherwise she would have thought it was a hole punctured in reality. It looked like it shouldn’t even exist.

It hurt to look at it�"it really hurt. The sheer incomprehensibility of it seemed to gouge her eyes which dripped cold liquid down her cheeks. She reached up to wipe away at the tears and startled when her hand came away stained black. Then the retching started; dark ooze flowed freely from her mouth, slapping to the ground in viscous puddles.

The humming returned to join the whispering and she tried to scream. Nothing came out. She couldn’t breathe let alone call for help. Her feet started moving on their own, drawing her further towards the orb. Renee tried to fight it, coughing up more and more filth from her rapidly filling lungs.

Suddenly, she was unconsciously reaching for the orb. Her hands and arms slowly began to absorb into it�"the thing was eating her. There was a noise behind her and, with massive difficulty, she turned her head. Ms. Gabler haunted the doorway, still holding a brown shopping bag in her stiff grasp. Renee wanted to shout at her, to beg for help.

The old witch merely stood where she was and slowly removed her sunglasses, revealing impossibly black eyes.

“A little earlier than I intended... but, this will do just fine. Feed away, my dear.”

Author's Note

This has already been through the wringer during an in-class workshop, but any other bits of constructive criticism would be appreciated.

Reviews

[aj milton]

It is a good little story and I wanted to keep reading. Many of your descriptions are interesting and powerful and you explore the senses.

But here and there I felt you missed an opportunity to 'show' instead of 'tell'. One example might be the first three words.

Instead of saying "With some apprehension...." you might have said something like: "Her heart was beating wildly. With a quivering hand...."

But I enjoyed it. And as a lover of all types of fantasy, please do continue to explore and create!

[Franky]

Holy crap. There are some slight errors in punctuation etc. But this story is ripe with life. Damn. I got chills.

[Sir Drift & Mr. Pulse]

Its an interesting writing, though I feel like if it was going to be a thriller or mystery it oculd use a little more element of surprised, perhaps not detail the witch in the beginning of the story, to not draw much attention, unless that is your intent of course. I believe it was interesting to find something behind the door.

Here are a few things I found, just my opinion:

"but any inkling of worry was dismissed under the excuse of the troublesome radio in the kitchen simply giving off static."

I think this sentence can be rephrased somehow, it seems too long to read, it diverts the reader from direction.

"darker than a starless night sky, than a room void of windows at midnight"

I think one of those is fine, not both, just a thought