This is my second attempt at my first story, "Taphephobia." I am just 16, and I failed English twice, so don't be too critical. I had fun writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading what I wrote.
Dirt
Lucy felt a distant calm envelope what she thought to be the world. Her hands eased from around the rough steering wheel, and the desert cold seemed to seep into her very bones. It was a dark, starless Nevada night and the highway appeared to stretched into infinity. The road’s vague boundlessness pleased Lucy immensely. She gained a dull peacefulness at the thought of perpetual, directionless travel. As long as she was movings, she told herself, she would be safe.
As Lucy drove further along the endless highway, the desert scenery began grow stale, and bare. Plantlife became sparse, and before long all signs life vanished entirely. However, the dark, cracked asphalt of the roadway remained like a kind of laceration in the ceaseless ocean of textureless sand. Lucy, despite her bleak surroundings, remained perfectly at ease. As long as she could tell that she was moving, Lucy had no qualm with the static ambience of her surroundings.
The the passing streaks on the highway’s center divide soon entranced Lucy. She had no need to look elsewhere for an indication of her movement, so she didn’t. The fleeting yellow stripes, were to Lucy, the stitches that held her journey together. They simply sewed the vast roadway across this empty desert, and she was grateful to have such dependable escape route. As long as she was moving, Lucy repeated, she would be safe.
Suddenly, as the glow of Lucy’s headlights interrogated the darkness ahead, the dashed, yellow patches of paint on the road began to shake and shimmer violently. It was as the if brightness from her headlights had awoken these fiery streaks from an impermanent stillness.
Lucy began to panic, she hoped desperately for the strange display to be nothing more than a hallucination. However a familiar, hideous fear began to invade her every thought. Soon the comfort she found in constant motion had dissipated completely. Lucy fumbled around the car’s dashboard and turned off the headlights, hoping to dim the blazing activity. Within that instant the bright flickering on the road ceased and darkness coughed out a lethargic numbness upon all that surrounded Lucy.
The darkness was so thick that Lucy’s attempts to open her eyes did no good. She was dazed, but definitely certain that she was no longer driving down that highway. There was a hard ragged surface pressing against Lucy’s spine, and the distinct musty smell of upturned soil was all around her. Quickly Lucy began to move about, frantically searching for anything of substance. She flailed her arms violently around her, but suddenly she froze. Lucy’s fists thumped against the rugged wooden surface that loomed above her, a nearly identical surface to the one beneath her. Then as she remembered where she was, only one word came to mind… “Coffin...”
An empty hopelessness soon plunged Lucy into an icy despair. She screamed, and screamed for what seemed to be hours, and then came a silence…At the moment Lucy noticed the bitter taste of blood in her mouth, she knew she would die.
Good read... Post more...
Thanks! Be sure to check out my other writing. :)
Good job! A little advice from a 71 year old writer...stick to words you're familiar with, or use a thesaurus. Headlights don't interrogate. Really, that's the only criticism I have. Good job painting the picture...I got the imagery. A few comma errors (even at 71, I make them too). I see you're fond of ellipses, I like to use them too. My overall advice...keep writing, you have a knack for it. The more you write, the better you get. And don't take failing English too hard, better writers than either one of us have been in the same predicament.
Thanks for the advice, but I meant what I said. You as a writer should know the abstract use of words like "interrogate." Most words have some leeway with regard to creative freedom. I used the word to emphasize the hardiness of the darkness as well as the brightness of the headlights. Interrogate packs more of a punch than pierce or something else. It really implies that the darkness isn't making it easy for the headlights. Although, this is all more or less up to interpretation, so you do have a good point. Anyway, yeah you should check out my other work, it's mainly poetry. This was my first attempt in like a year or two to write something non-poetry. It was a quick write after all, probably a 2-3 hour job. Thanks for your comments!
My constant poetry explains the occasional comma misuse, you know, because grammar is less of a priority with poetry.