Excerpt

The Train
The sound of the train turning around a corner abruptly woke me. I felt my body being slightly rocked by the turn. As I opened my eyes the train was going through a tunnel. Everything went darker. It seemed to be night. I still felt drunk. The section I was in came out of the tunnel. I was sitting by the window. I looked out the window and didn’t recognize the town we were going through. To be honest, I had no idea how I got on the train. Oh man, I can feel the hangover coming on. I sat there in partial agony, trying to comprehend the situation I was in. I am on a train.
By Kohl Younger3 years ago in Fiction
The Consequences of Oxygen Deprivation and the Existential Crises that Occur After Being Adrift in Space for Far Too Long
Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. What am I talking about? I know that nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space - I'm in the vacuum of space and I have been screaming for what feels like enough time for the universe to implode and then explode back out again. Big bang, number two. That would be fantastic right now, really. Just my luck if the universe came to a halt with its incessant expanding and began the process all over again.
By Jaimie3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 10
After her head was broken, Leila went out proudly with her head wrapped in a bandage. If someone asked her, she would untie the bandage and show them the black scar, which was a little red around the edges and stuck out from her hairline. Eventually, she forgot about it, and if someone stared at her, at the white scar left on her skin, she would make a vicious gesture, meaning: What are you looking at! None of your business! She said nothing to me and never thanked me for handing her stones and using the edge of my apron to wipe the blood that came out of her. From that time on, we began to compare our guts, which had nothing to do with school anymore.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 7
According to Leila's brother, Reno, Leila learned to read when she was about three years old, looking at the pictures and letters in his literacy textbook. He did his homework in the kitchen and his sister always sat next to him, learning faster and more than he did.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 6
Like I said before, Ms. Oliviero fell off the podium that day and her cheekbone hit the corner of the table, and I thought she was dead, just like my grandfather or Melina's husband, who died at work. I thought Leila was responsible, that she would be sentenced to death. After a while - I can't say for how long - nothing happened, just both people disappeared, the teacher and the student disappeared from our lives.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 9
The fight between her and Enzo that morning is a very important thing in our long story. Since that time, Leila has shown some attitudes that are hard to describe. For example, it was clear to me: that Leila could control the use of her talents on her own. That's how she treated Don Achille's son. Not only did she not want to defeat him, but she also calculated the timing of her silences and answers so that she would not be defeated by him. We weren't friends at the time, and I couldn't ask her why she did that. There was no need to ask at all, I could have guessed why, she, like me, knew not only not to offend Don Achille, but also his family.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 8
It's also possible that this was my way of coping with jealousy and hatred and suppressing those emotions, or that it was a disguise for my low self-esteem and perceived charm. Of course, I easily put up with Leila's dominance and her bullying.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 5
I don't miss our childhood at all, because our childhood was full of violence. All kinds of things happened to us, at home, outside, every day. But I remember that I never felt bad about the life we encountered then, life was like that, it was normal. One of the responsibilities we learned growing up was that we had to make life harder for others before it made it harder for us.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 4
Blood, as a rule, comes out of wounds only after heated arguments and dirty insults, and things always follow this order. My father - I think he was a good man, but he also cursed when confronted with people who, in his words, "did not deserve to live in this world," especially Don Achille, for whom my father always found a reason. Sometimes, I put my hands over my ears to avoid hearing those unpleasant words. When my father spoke to my mother about Don Achille, he would call him "your cousin," and my mother would immediately deny the relationship (they were distant cousins) and join my father in his curses. Their anger scared me, and what scared me the most was that Don Achille might have heard him cursing from far away, and I was afraid he would come and kill my parents.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 3
Lila came into my life when I was in first grade, and she soon made a very strong impression on me: she was bad. All the girls in that class were kind of bad, but we didn't get naughty in front of Ms. Oliviero, and she was the same in front of everyone. Once she tore toilet paper into pieces, stuffed it into an ink bottle, then fished it out with the tip of a pen and flung it at us. I got hit by her twice, once with my hair and once with my white collar. The teacher screamed, as usual, sounding like a pinprick, and we were all terrified. The teacher told Lila to stand behind the blackboard, but Lila didn't listen, she didn't look scared at all and continued to fling ink-stained paper at people.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
Chapter 2
That was her fault. Not so long ago - it could have been ten days, it could have been a month ago, no one knows, we didn't pay much attention to time then - she took my rag doll and suddenly threw it into the cellar. Now we walked upward toward the person we feared; but when she threw the doll into the cellar, we had to go downward, running hastily into the unknown. Whether upward or downward, we feel that we are moving toward fear. Even though these fears existed before we were born, they were always waiting for us. At the time, we hadn't been in the world long enough to figure out what was a disaster and what was the source of it, and probably didn't feel the need to know about it. What about the adults? They were looking forward to "tomorrow", to the "now", to a "yesterday" before the "now", or "The day before yesterday", or at most a week ago, and they don't want to think about the rest. Children don't understand the meaning of "yesterday", nor "the day before" or "tomorrow", everything is in the "present": the street is here, the gate is here, and the door is there. Everything is in the "present": the street is here, the gate is there; these are the stairs; this is mommy, that is daddy; this is the day, that is night. When I was a child, my rag doll probably knew more than I did, and when I talked to her, she talked to me. Her face was celluloid, her hair and eyes were celluloid, and she was wearing a sky blue dress that my mother had sewn, a rare pleasure she had, and my dolls were beautiful. And Leila's doll was put together with torn pieces of cloth, with so many rips in it, and I thought that doll was ugly and dirty. The two dolls peeked at each other, sizing each other up as if they would be ready to run away from us if it thundered and rained if a tall, strong, sharp-toothed man tried to tear them apart.
By EliasCarr3 years ago in Fiction
How to write a good villain. Top Story - August 2022.
When we read novels or watch movies and television works, we often feel that the villain is more impressive than the main character, and even has a kind of indescribable charm, so how to make these "childhood shadow" or "dark horse prince" like villain in our own works become "both lovely and hateful"?
By Liston Flowers3 years ago in Fiction