A Little Story

Hello!

I decided today was another day to take a risk and post a snippet of a short story I wrote. This was a task we were once given in a seminar, but it's not only been very expanded from its original hundred-word-long version since then, it's also been completely redrafted and changed.

Let me know what you think (in the nicest way possible) and I'm completely open to constructive criticism!

(I posted a short story I'd written last month, too, if you're interested, just click HERE)

Quick warning - it's not explicit but some people might consider it a little scary towards the end...

The Boy

It’s not slippery like a slide should be; it just feels like I’m walking on normal ground, but I’m not. I’m walking straight down the glowing, red helter skelter, my feet barely touching it. It’s what I imagine walking on air to be like… or clouds, but Jane and Tom say that’s not possible; they’re my foster parents, not my real parents. Everybody thinks I’m being silly when I tell them I can walk on anything, anything, but I can. Even the lady at the bottom of the slide told me to stop telling fibs and that’s why I’m up here; to show her that I’m not telling fibs. Mummy and daddy are gone now but they would have believed me, I know they would have. Daddy always used to tell me that nothing is impossible. He wouldn’t have called me mean names. Tom sometimes calls me nasty things, like “freak”, or sometimes worse… A lot of the time they’re worse.

I’m half way down the slide now, just on the curve in sight of the bottom. The lady in the yellow shirt at the bottom is staring at me with her mouth wide open. Now she has to believe me; I’m not lying. Her bright red hair stands out as she shakes her head and looks back at me but I just carry on with my even-paced walk down, eager to talk to her… If she’s still there, that is.

When I reach the bottom she comes running towards me. The rest of the park is nearly empty with just a few people dotted around in odd places, but I know none of them have noticed me. I’m good at reading people. Apart from this lady; I don’t know what she’s thinking. I think that’s maybe why I chose to show her what I can do; she might be special like me and maybe that’s why I can’t tell what she thinks.

“Kid, how’d you do that?!” She still looks shocked and I can see the strain in her forehead as she tries to figure it all out, figure me out.

I try to make words come out of my mouth but nothing happens. I don’t talk much normally. I don’t ever talk, actually. Jane and Tom don’t like to hear what I have to say, so I don’t ever say anything. In fact, nobody really likes anything I have to say. Mummy and daddy would have listened to me. They used to love to listen to my stories.

“Come on Kid, you’ve got to tell me how you did that.” She stares at me, her gold-y, brown eyes looking me up and down every few seconds. “At least give me your name, Kid.”

The lady kneels down so that she’s roughly the same height as me. She wears a name badge that says “Elle” on it, obviously her name. I know I can’t tell her so instead, I grab both sides of her head, pressing my fingertips into her hair. She jerks before falling completely still as I let my story seep into her brain.

When I move my hands back to my sides she falls to the floor, staring at me.

“What’s wrong with you?” She whispers, shaking as she slowly starts creeping away.

Turns out she’s not like me. It’s a shame, really. I would have liked a friend. My hands move back to her hair and move down to press the blue line on the side of her neck until she goes limp. There’s nothing wrong with me.