Storytellers discussion

This is a place where I [JazzKatt], will post my writing. I usually write somewhat depressing fictional stories that are just about any length you could imagine. I've finished two short stories so far. I have difficulties focusing, so- Two. Working on a novel [or six]. :P

Mk. It's based on insanity, soo- It has a nice ending, tho. :)
(view spoiler)[Breathing heavily, I turn the corner, using the building next to me to avoid a loss of momentum. As I make the turn, I take the opportunity to send a glance over my shoulder. Terror is creeping into my mind, digging it’s cold claws into my consciousness. It’s been my constant companion for what feels like ages now.
My feet hit the pavement at a speed just a little short of a jog, completely eliminating the casual look I was trying to maintain. I feel my eyes go just that sliver wider, pupils dilating to allow me to make good use of the little light there is from the broken street lamps and lights in the cracked windows lining the street I’m now running down at full speed.
My rapid breathing sends puffs of steam rising into the cool evening air. The sound of my pounding footsteps echoes off the buildings on either side to reverberate in my ears. Terror continues to follow me, pushing me to go faster, faster, faster.
Don’t look back!
The temptation to check how close my pursuers are is awful. But if I look back, I slow down. Simple. Your body, your momentum will follow your head. There’s no way to combat it.
Horrible sounds fill my ears, and I close my eyes momentarily. The black clouding my sight hides the world from me. But I can still hear.
I can still feel the hand that catches the back of my sweater.
A small sound escapes me, a squeak that sends Terror into a frenzy. It thrashes and tightens its hold on me, making my eyes pop open and my brain shut down. Turning me into less than an animal.
I thrash and fight and scratch with my fingernails, reacting the same way Terror does. No matter how I fight, I’m trapped. The hand pulls me backwards, shadowed, an attacker I can’t even see, let alone defend against.
There’s a gentle noise in my ear, but Terror has such a hold on me that my brain doesn’t process what is surely some kind of communication. I can’t even tell where it comes from. Surely not the owner of the hand that drags me towards the shadowy area away from the lights.
Terror wraps around me, anything but a soothing presence. Freezing, I force my brain to process. This is my reality.
I close my eyes, and breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Terror crawls over my skin, raising goosebumps on my arms, and wrapping its tail around my neck like a constrictor. Strangling me. But I can still breathe. If I focus, I can just barely feel something other than Terror consuming me.
My eyes slowly open, and for a split second, I see something different. A sterile, white room directly contrasting the dark, gritty street. And faces, three of them. Two children and an adult. I recognise them.
Then I notice the tight jacket pinning my arms crossed over my chest, and Terror takes hold of me once again. Dragging me back into my living nightmare. Deep. But I can still see the white room.
The three faces.
And somewhere in my broken mind, I hold on to that image. That other reality. And Terror doesn’t seem so real. Even as I look into its cold, glassy eyes, even as I feel its sharp claws digging into my skin, it’s not as real.
(hide spoiler)]

It's very short.

I have another short story... :)

The people who break are often the ones that look as if they’re okay…

Leah breathes in deeply through her nose, eyes closed. Keeping them shut, she lets the calming breath out slowly through her nose, fighting the tears she can feel welling up in the corners of her eyes. Rubbing a hand over her eyes, she pushes herself up off the floor, using the wall of the bathroom stall for support.
Wrinkling her nose, she moves shakily to the sink to wash her mouth out. When she looks up, her gaze catches that of another girl. Leah looks quickly away, concealing the shame she’s sure must be evident on her face. Slowly, she pulls up her hood, shoving her hands in her pockets. Avoiding the curious stare of the other girl, she shoulders open the door.

Looking back, the signs are all there. They didn’t look important before, but now they’re blown up in my mind until they fill my vision. Monstrous…

Katie watches the girl leave. The smell of vomit lingers in the air. Momentarily, she considers telling someone about the strange meeting, then decides not to. After all, she would be embarrassed if someone found her puking in the bathroom.
By her estimate, the girl with the dark hair and dark eyes had to have been around the age of fourteen. A freshman or sophomore, if she wasn’t mistaken. Pushing it from her mind, she washes her hands quickly, and pushes through the door. Unable to help herself, she glances around the hall for evidence of the other girl.
She’s nowhere to be seen.

Eventually, you get really good at hiding what’s running through your brain…

Leah walks down the dirty hallway of the public school building, smiling, waving at all the right people. The secret to blending in is to be just another face in the crowd. People notice you not only if you’re super popular, but also if you sulk in the back.
Concealing the terror that sends her blood pounding through her veins, she moves closer and closer to a pocket of dark shadow. In the final few seconds, she shuts down. It’ll only be worse if she fails to fight the urge to run. Sending out one last pasted-on smile, she steps into the dark, feeling a calloused hand wrap around her forearm.
The fingers that belong to that hand tighten, digging into her flesh, pressing on the already existing bruises. Blindly, Leah lets that hand tug her roughly from the hall, outside.

She always looked as if she loved him…

Walt watches warily as he spots Liam pull the girl outside. They both look happy, but she’s so young. Just a kid. He sighs, walking to his locker, and putting in his combination. Tugging his Math book and notebook from the mess inside, he shoves them into his backpack. His brain is already moving on, beginning to work through the first homework problem.
If he works on the bus, he can be done in time to get home and hop online.

Digging through her garbage the next day, we found her notebook…

After, Leah goes quickly back to the bathrooms. Once she’s through the doors, she throws herself into a stall. She nearly doesn’t make it. By this point, she doesn’t have anything left in her stomach but acid, and that soon finds itself hurled violently from her trembling body. After a second, she pushes herself carefully to her feet, wiping her mouth. Staring blankly, she watches the discolored water swirl and disappear.
For the second time that day, she washes out her mouth, then shoulders through the door of the bathroom. A sudden numbness fills her, protecting her.

Dear diary, I can’t stand this. Not anymore…

Daria glances at the girl in the second row. She was too quiet. Usually, that girl- she couldn’t remember her name for the life of her- was chatting quietly, exchanging inside jokes with a secret smile. Now, though, she’s silent. She keeps her head down, her eyes on her paper.
Unusual, but not something to waste too much time on. Going back to her own work, Daria chews on the end of her pencil, trying to figure out what to write down in answer to the question that had been passed to her from the boy on the other side of the room.

Dear Diary, it hurts so bad…

The following day, Leah finds herself heading for the dark area again. In her pocket, her hand wraps tightly around the handle of the knife she had taken from the kitchen that morning. She takes a shaky breath, and enters the shadowy doorway.
Seconds later, a grunt and a thud are heard by the students walking by. Then a second thud is heard. A dark puddle seeps from the corner.

Dear Diary, I don’t want to live anymore.

Not every story has a happy ending… I don’t want to wait for mine, only to be disappointed. I want to end this. I have a plan. I won’t include details in this notebook, in case someone finds it, but I wanted to write it down.
He hasn’t stopped. I don’t feel safe anymore. Not after he ambushed me after school. Anyways, I just wanted to say goodbye. Bye.

Trigger Warning: Suicide

Jaxon stared unseeing out the window of the bus, watching the shadowy shapes dance in the rain drops scattered on the surface of the glass. Noticing that something heavy and cold had found its way into the palm of his right hand, he glanced down. He already knew what it was before he did. A little charm, in the shape of a two-dimensional brain. It dangles on a silver chain, but he isn’t wearing what’s obviously supposed to be a necklace.
Key had given it to him. Now that he was gone, it didn’t seem right to wear it. But Jax couldn’t bear to throw it away.
In a trance-like state, he stares blankly at the little charm, though he sees a different scene in his head. Jax being slowly lowered into the ground, his own necklace around his neck. His little charm is in the shape of a heart.
“Here, Jax. I got you something.” A sheepish grin. “I have one too. You’re the brains of this operation, and I’m the heart. One can’t work without the other.”
Two days later, his heart had stopped beating. And Jax’s heart died with him.
Key’s parents had refused to attend the funeral. Or have any part of it. Driving by their house a couple of days later, Jaxon had caught sight of something that should have enraged him. Without his heart, however, he had only been able to stare, as a family dug through all of Key’s stuff, which was sitting in a pile on the sidewalk.
Even after they had done what they did, they didn’t want any part of their child’s life. Or his death. They refused to talk to Jax. It was fine by him, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
So Jaxon and his family had arranged the funeral. They had bought the headstone for the grave, and they planned everything.
“In memory of Kieth Andrew Grey: Son, Brother, Friend. April 2001-September 2018”
The only member of the Grey family to show up was Lillith, Kieth’s eight year old sister. She was almost deprived of the chance to see her brother one last time, but she climbed out the window of her room, and caught a ride with a friend who had been waiting in front of her house. Her parents hadn’t noticed, because they couldn’t see past the pile of Key’s stuff.
In Jax’s dazed, blank mind, he’s entirely certain of one thing: Key hasn’t been Keith since before high school. Keith is the perfect little straight boy that his parents had convinced him he was. Key was Jaxon’s best friend. And his boyfriend.
A small sound escaped Jaxon’s lips, his eyes fluttering closed. He couldn’t even manage to summon anger anymore. Key had died, because of small-minded people. You see, he had come out to his parents when he got home after giving Jax the necklace. It hadn’t gone well.
The day after, he went missing. The day after that, he was found. Or what was left of him. His broken body, dangling from a tree by the neck. Eyes glassy, limbs limp. Not even a glimmer of the life that had previously filled this husk of a person that was left behind in the aftermath.
And because of the sight of that broken body in the coffin, Jax had become a husk as well. Like two dominoes, one falls after the other. Jax closed his hand tighter around the shard of glass in his palm, savoring the sharp pain that tells him he can still feel. After school, he wouldn’t be coming home. Soon, he wouldn’t have to hurt anymore.

I have another story. It's really short.

“Drop dead.”

Two words. Whispered. Designed to break. Avadya curled onto her side, pulling the cool blankets up around her. Tight. She stared out into the darkness, the pitch-black nothingness surrounding her. Behind her eyes, however, she saw an entirely different scene.
A cold, grey concrete floor. A white-painted brick wall. His skin, dark against her own. Her blood, pooling on the ground. Ava didn’t even know where the blood was coming from. It was smeared on his face, on his hands.
It hurt.
God, it hurt so bad.

“You are worthless.”

Three words. Shouted. Destructive. Seconds, minutes, hours later. Ava crawled into the corner of the room, pulling her knees up tight to her chest. Phantom tears stained her cheeks, but when she went to wipe them away, they seemed to disappear.
So much noise. So. Much. Noise. In the middle of all the yelling, the cursing, the kicking, the punching, four more words were uttered. Just as sharp edged, just as broken as the others.

“I want to die.”

Avadya popped open her mom’s container of pain and sleeping meds. After a careful analysis, Ava had decided that this was the best way to go. She took them, one by one. And as she descended into the dark, a smile ghosted her lips, the phantom tears replaced by calm.

“Rest in peace, Avadya Rose.”

Five more words, to end it all.

Part One of my new story! I've been writing a lot of sad stories lately... but this one I want to give a happy ending. I hope to continue it for a longer period of time, as well.
Well, here it is:

Some days there’s nothing to do but sit, and hurt. Some days the depression, the anxiety eat you alive, from the inside, until you’re sure everyone around you should hear you screaming. Should hear you suffering. Should hear you when you say you want to die.
Some days, it’s hard to breathe.
Today is one of those days. Those days where you can’t sleep, and you can’t eat, and you can’t speak, and it feels like you’re going to implode, like the silence is going to crush, smash, break you into a million pieces until you can’t be put back together.
Those days where you’re just broken, and you don’t know what to do about it.
Today is Valentine’s day. And it feels as if I’m the only one alone. Alone with my demons, with the thoughts that tear me apart. It’s days like this, when the monsters find me.

Zia curled into herself on the bed, her eyes shut tight against the bright light suddenly flooding her room. Time to get up. Time to move.
She cradled her left arm to her chest, opening her eyes to stare at the cream-colored wall. Just stare. She couldn’t even cry. Couldn’t even bring herself to be upset that she had begun to rely on her old, unhealthy coping mechanism, the one she had thought she had left behind when she had finished middle school. The cutting.
She shifted her bloodshot gaze to her forearm.
WEAK
The letters burned into her vision, the dark red of her dried blood familiar, almost comforting. Weak.
She was weak. Too weak to handle the pressure, and too broken to care. Worthless.
WORTHLESS
The word was cut into her skin, multiple times. Some old, some new. Some were scars. People say that scars fade. Physically, that may be true. But the invisible scars, the ones that hurt the most? They will always be there. Reminding her. Worthless. Weak. Broken. Stupid. Alone.
Those five destructive words, scrawled across her body, wherever she could be sure that no one would see them. She couldn’t afford to forget. Couldn’t afford to hope. That hope could hurt her more than the knives. More than the burns. More than the frostbite.
Z pushed herself up onto her knees, studying the bruises, the cuts, the self-inflicted injuries. She then pulled back the blankets on her bed, and sighed. Blood stained the sheets. Her cuts must have reopened in the middle of the night. She would have to wait until the rest of her family went out, then wash them. She couldn’t chance them noticing the stains.
Rubbing a hand over her face, she forced herself to get to her feet, and dress for the day. She didn’t bother to run a brush through her hair. She moved sluggishly into the bathroom, bracing her hands on the counter in front of the mirror. Head tilted, she studied her slim form in the mirror.
She was almost skeletal. Dark shadows colored the skin under her eyes. She ran a hand through her hair, closing her eyes. She knew better than to look in the mirror.
She shrugged on her jacket, a baggy black hoodie, that concealed her stick-figure body. That hid the cuts on her arms, on the upper skin of her chest, on her stomach. She pulled on her typical jeans, the ones without holes, which covered the cuts on her thighs. Her boots, which she had adjusted so that there was a shallow hole on the inside, where she could stash the blades she collected. Every part of her appearance was carefully calculated to hide the scars, the habit she simply couldn’t shake.
Even her makeup hid her lack of sleep. Heavy concealer under her eyes covered the shadows. And on every visible scar, from when she hadn’t been as careful, she covered with the makeup as well. A couple on her jaw. On her neck.
Even then, when she had been considering death more seriously than recently, she had stayed away from major arteries and such. She had taken a health elective in early middle school, because she knew she had to learn about her anatomy. What she could afford to cut, and what she couldn’t.
Every mannerism, every breath, carefully calculated to hide the brokenness. The pain.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed away from the sink, the tile frigid against her palms. Then, a look of determination on her face, she pulled up her hood, and made her way to the doorway, where her hackpack was. For a moment, she just looked at it. It seemed to get heavier every day. With every pound she lost, it was as if it went straight to her bag.
With a soft grunt, she shouldered it, and went to stand at the bus stop.

Eyes scanning the inside of the bus, Zia looked across all of the somewhat familiar faces. For a moment, she was deaf… then all the noise filtered through her ears in an explosion of murmuring, and whispering, and cursing. So many people breathing, so many hearts beating. Moving, shuffling, talking.
Z jumped as a closer voice broke through the noise. “Did you hear me? You have a new assigned seat. Number fifteen.”
She ducked her head, muttering a small ‘sorry’ as she made her way to the middle of the bus. She should have remembered. There had been an incident on the bus last week, one that had made the driver rearrange where people were sitting. She hadn’t been involved, but the horrifying, nauseating noises that were coming from the back of the bus told her exactly what was happening.
She gazed at the numbers above the seats through the hair that hung in front of her eyes. Fifteen…
When she reached the booth she was looking for, her head snapped up, eyes wide as she beheld the person she would be sharing the seat with, horrified. This cannot be happening!
In front of her, smirking, was Drake. Her seventh grade crush, bad-boy, and all around asshole. A soft frown on her otherwise expressionless face, Zia sank into the seat next to him, staying as far away from him as she could without falling off her seat. Then, with sharp motions, she put her headphones in, and turned on her music. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and closed her eyes.
It took a moment, but slowly, she relaxed, resting her head on her knees, facing away from He Who Must Not Be Named. She smiled internally at the Harry Potter reference. It had been one of her first young adult novels, and she had enjoyed it immensely. She was a Slyther-Claw, with a specialty for potions and poisons.
Or so her quiz results said.
She turned her head so that her forehead was pressed against her knees, allowing the music to take her to another place, a safe-
She flinched, hand going up instinctively to catch Drax’s wrist a moment before he reached her right earbud. Eyes narrowed, she met his gaze, and using her other hand, pulled the earbud free. “What are you doing?”
It was more a demand than a question.