This is just the lengthy first draft of the first chapter for this shitass Jeff the Killer parody. Posted for my delightful beta readers. Please look over this with a critical eye, but bear in mind the goal is to come off as a shitposty 2015 creepypasta fangirl not to write peak fiction.
"Gay son or thot daughter?"
"Coke or Pepsi?"
"Is Patrixxx or Evil Patrixxx stronger?"
Hypotheticals, though they may seem inconsequential, are an important corner of abstract thought. It keeps you sharp like the knife. "Butterfly knife, or switchblade?"
I stare into space on the way to the bus stop. It's a cold and misty, December morning; The sun was still very low in the sky.
"Would you rather walk through opaque fog, or pitch black darkness?" I thought to myself.
By the time the bus arrived, the sun was shining a little more. A few more students had gathered at the stop, but I didn't talk to them. I never did. It wasn't worth the time.
All they ever did was stare at the weird, sick, girl.
The school bus was loud. It always was. I pulled my headphones on, pushing back my ashen locks. I was dead tired like always. The rings around my eyes never went away, I could never sleep long enough for that.
"Would you rather always be awake, or dream forever?"
That's a rhetorical one, they're the same. I know that fact personally. When I start to drift off, I hear the switchblade click.
I feel... like the M.C Escher stairs. Not like I'm trying to traverse them, like the stairs themselves. Isn't it strange, to relate to a piece of architecture? If I was a building, who would I be? Probably something rickety. With withered posts and faded siding. Somewhere where the attic had holes, and the floors were ready to give way at any moment.
I'm brought back to earth by a composition book flying inches from my head. A pencil flew out like secret weapon, scratching me across the face drawing blood. I yelped.
Even through all the chaos, they figured out which direction to stare in.
"What the fuck are you yelling for?!" A girl in a ponytail ironically yelled back.
"S-Something cut me!" I swiped a crimson bead off my cheek. "Who the hell is throwing books?"
"Who cares?" Some jock shut down my questions.
Dumb fucking jocks. Do they ever think about anything? Are they even capable of asking if they did? These fucking dent heads are always hurting me. Which isn't to say they pay enough mind to target me, I'm always just collateral. Invisible. I wish they'd all drop dead. I wish I was alone.
When the bus finally arrived at school, I ran to the bathroom to check the cut on my face. It wasn't deep. Thankfully. The blood had already stopped. The rest of my face was worse for wear. Anemic pale, with thin eyebrows framing dull eyes. Reddish dark circles traced the edges of my eyelids as if my tears were rusting my eye sockets.
Maybe I'd be pretty if I lived a different life. If I was someone healthier who grew up in a cleaner house. If I was someone who didn't see nightmares in daylight.
The school day passed by as uneventfully as it could.
Lunch was disgusting. Plastic pizza with boiled mixed vegetables served alongside chocolate milk in it's twilight years. I choked it down as best as I could manage. Free lunch is free lunch. Much better than no lunch at all, especially when I'm going to have cereal for dinner again tonight.
I tried to take a nap in Independent Studies. The scraping sounds grew closer and closer. They were like metal on concrete. Or maybe rust, or wrought iron? Something rough and dangerous. I couldn't see at all, it was like something was over my head, letting in tiny leaks of light. Red light like fire. I'm scared and the twisted feeling was coming back with the proximity of whatever was making that noise.
"Would I rather fight the exhaustion, or confront my nightmares?"
Another rhetorical. I can't make that choice. I run circles around my mind. If I chase my tail long enough, maybe I can keep the negative thoughts at bay.
Eventually the school day was over. I survived the bus home, and was walking the last stretch when one of my bullies, Kaylee, intercepted me.
"Oh look Guys! I found Stick Bug!"
Two other girls rounded the corner after her. I was about to get jumped. Again.
Before the first blow could land, my whole body lurched to the side dodging the punch. That was probably the most agile thing I had ever done in my life. Unfortunately, I didn't pay attention to what was next to me and hit a wall back first. I was heaving and struggling to cover my head while they swung and kicked at me.
Kaylee was a human wall, and I'd be tempted to say she hadn't exercised since she was crawling, but I knew better because beating someone black and blue is actually pretty good cardio. She was also wearing a blue hoodie which made her look like the girl from Willy Wonka.
The other two girls were more normal, but normal was still a lot stronger than me.
All the torment was making my mind shatter into pieces. That "feeling" tore through me, worse than it had before, and I saw red. Then I saw black.
When I came to, they were running away. They didn't look injured, so I don't think I magically whooped their asses or anything. I probably just started tweaking out, and they didn't want to be around for whatever was wrong with me.
I finally dragged myself home, and was immediately greeted with an interrogation.
"Where have you bee-" My mom froze when she saw me. "What the hell happened? Was it those girls again? And who the hell cut your face?"
"I don't want to talk about it right now." I evaded her and went straight to my room, burying myself under the covers.
Even when I couldn't sleep, I still always felt better in my own bed. It was probably the cleanest place in the house, since I took extra care of my room.
The rest of the house had random bullshit stacked against the walls where mice would hide. I don't remember the last time Mom mopped. Thankfully my little brother was far past his eating things off the floor phase.
His name way Ray, and he was only 8. 5 years younger than I was.
He was still in school for another half hour, so I tried to take the time to recuperate before I went back out to walk him home from the bus stop.
"should I read, or should I find a snack?"
"No, I don't want to go back downstairs until I have to. I'll read." I answered my own questions.
"Goosebumps, or Nancy Drew?"
"I'm too tired for anything complicated."
I was so, so tired... Suddenly, I can't see again.
Someone is whispering close to my ear, "Stay in dreams, Ashley." and caressing my mousey hair with something that sounded sharp between the tresses.
I jolt awake.
What time was it? I throw the comforter off of me and grab my alarm clock. 40 minutes passed by. Ray is probably wondering where I am. If it weren't for the circumstances I'd be grateful for a 40 minute nap, but of course it had to be at the worst possible time. I pulled my boots on and rushed out the house.
I'm out of breath by the time I reach the elementary school bus stop. It wasn't as far as mine's was, but Keynes isn't the type of place where an 8 year old can walk home by himself. Especially not after Kevin disappeared on his way to the corner store. He was about my brother's age. It's been less than a week and they still haven't seen him at all.
Luckily, Ray's still at the bus stop waiting for me, but he's leaning against a 94' Honda Civic talking to the driver with half his body through the window.
"RAY!" I shouted. "Get your ass over here!" My voice was still hoarse from earlier.
He leapt back at the sound of my voice, and the car pulled off.
"Ray, who was that??"
"A neighbor." He answers a moment too fast. "What happened to your fac-"
"Don't worry about it," I cut him off. "Why are you talking to that person? You know better than to talk to random people!"
I took him by the hand and marched him home.
My little brother wasn't very bright, even for an 8 year old, so he's not allowed to do anything outside without a chaperone. Even if we lived in a fancy neighborhood, he'd find a way to fall into a ditch or get hit by a parked car. With everything else going on right now, I don't need Ray going 'missing' too.
It's bad enough that I'm going to get chewed out when we get home.
...Or so I thought.
We crept in through the side door leading into the kitchen, expecting our mother to be in the living room watching the news. The house is nearly silent. There's no way the house could be this quiet if she was still home. Maybe she went to the store? I don't want to waste the silence, so I don't bother trying to get him to do his homework right away.
I went back to my room. The window has a view directly into the backyard and further beyond to the woods nearby. It's not a forest. Just small trees and shrubs over an outcrop of what used to be a basement.
That's actually another reason why Ray can't go out by himself. During the summer he fell into it and managed to twist his ankle.
We didn't even know a house used to be there. It must've been a long time ago though, houses aren't allowed to be built that close to each other anymore due to zoning laws. I'm not sure how demolitions work, but I'm guessing they don't leave big pits in the ground when they're done, so it must have burned down, and then the lot was left abandoned.
Sometimes I think about what it might have looked like and I always imagine a window directly across from me. Sometimes the person who lives there makes eye contact with me. I can't see it though. Their back is facing the light. I'm sure I look like a ghost staring out the window like this, but there's no one to see me from this side.
I step back when I hear clicking downstairs. It sounds little like the stove burner. Mom must have came home. She's going to ask a million questions, and I really don't feel like talking anymore today. I kick off my boots and lie face down on my gothic styled bed.
Click. The burner wouldn't still be going.
Click. Click. That's not mom downstairs.
I go downstairs to check, and its nothing at all. I guess I just imagined it. Ray is eating cereal in the living room, and Mom's not home yet.
That strange feeling washes over me again. As if I walked into another world. My vision seems thin at the edges; not dark, but like what you see out of your right eye when your right eye is closed. Something out of sight crawls on my leg. I swat it away and run back upstairs. I slam the door behind me and stuff a blanket under the crack in the door. I hate bugs. I hate this house.
I slide down with my back to the door, and my head in my hands. Then I hear the scraping again. This I know isn't coming from downstairs, it's from outside, across from me. The sound is faint but I still hear it.
Could someone be down there? Dragging a shovel? Burying someone?
I look out the window and for a moment I think I see a man carrying something, and in an instant he's gone. I guess it was in my head. Humans don't move that fast.
"Is the fastest animal that ever lived faster than the fastest animal of today?"
Does it matter? None of them could outrun their environment. They'll all die anonymously, like any member of their species.
Through the power of invention, man created vehicle, the only means of outrunning the life you were born into, and yet, that vehicle is made to traverse predetermined paths also made by man. We make the means, and we make the walls.
Something catches my eye and makes me space back in. There's something shiny past the trees that wasn't there before. Is it smart to go chasing unknown objects? I guess it's not too stupid if it's in your own backyard.
I stuffed my feet into some crocs. I didn't feel like lacing my boots again before trekking through the house and into the backyard. Backyard was a vanity title. The strip of balding, shrubby driveway was only just thick enough to share parking with the neighbors, and creep a small one through the center.
Past the deep rooted outline of weeds I saw something metallic. It was... a saw.
It was crude. It was roughly cut from some hardware store sheet metal; the handle was made of painter's tape wrapped around a peninsula of sheet metal. There was almost no rust, save for some crusting the rough edges. It looked like an internet artist anthropomorphized tetanus into a saw.
This couldn't be a left over from the demolition. They don't sell shoddy shit like this in stores, and it'd be rusted completely if it was that old. And it has to be new, or Ray would've dug it up and cut himself already.
"Did somebody toss this here while we were still at school?"
I walk around the object, careful not to slip on some gravel and fall into the basement looming under cover. The grass was still green underneath it. Looking at it gave me the creeps... and a headache, which was probably just my anxiety.
It was weird, but ultimately it's just a saw. It was an object. So why is it so unnerving? That house, or what used to be a house, wasn't right. There was something wrong about that basement. I sped walked back to the house. I didn't want to be out there or anywhere near that saw anymore.
It was at that moment that my mother came home. She was at the post office. We reached the front door at pretty much the same time, and she already had that look like she was getting ready to chew me out.
"I told you two to stay away from that property!"
"You said that to Ray, and he's inside!"
"Did he do his homework?"
"Idk, not yet probably."
She went in ahead of me to go convince Ray to do his homework. I stared at the plot for an extra second before entering myself.
Now that you've read through...
- does the prose feel period accruate?
- are the sentences too clunky?
- is it easy to read?
- is it too long for a chapter?
- do the plot set ups make enough sense?
If you have other critiques / ideas, please tell me. :)
