Lemex

For the last few weeks i've been writing a short story named The Cell, about a man who becomes trapped within his own imagenery world after a suicide attempt (I know it sounds dark, I'm an aspiring Pychological Horror writer.)
And have lataly finnished the 3rd and final part of it, the problem is, i'm not happy with it. Somthing about it is making me have a second thought about posting it on Fictionpress.com (Where i post all my work) And I really need some help on how to improve it.

Here is the first draft.

He has excaped his imagenery world and came out of his coma.

Part 3

I opened my eyes and looked around. I was in a small room, my parents where at my bedside and happy to see me finally awake. A huge feeling of relief flowed through my body; I was no longer in that place. Tiffany was standing with her new boyfriend beside me; she was smiling at me warmly. I was free. I lifted my head and swung my head around, but I didn’t take in any of the scenery. It passed in a blur as my head fell and hit the pillow once again.

“Danny, thank god you’re alright!” a voice muttered. I couldn’t tell who it was.

“Yea…” I growled, trying to find some strength. “How long was I out?”

“Three mouths… out cold for three mouths” the voice of my father had said. I had never been so comforted by his voice in my entire life. I growled again, I must have sounded like a Zombie.

“Danny, you must have had one hell of a nightmare! I got a call from the Hospital one night last week, they said you where kicking and screaming and… and calling out my name” Tiffany said. I looked at her in utter disbelieve.

“I was doing what?” I asked sheepishly.

“Kicking and screaming,” Her boyfriend had to say, “The doctors had to hold your legs down to stop you hitting the equipment.”

“Jesus!” I said, burying myself deeper into my bed.

My mother leaned over my bed “What happened to you?”

In a world where strange Aeons lie. Everything, even death its self, may die.

That was written on that coffin. Why the hell did that come back to me? And… what does it mean? I felt I had heard that before, but from where I really couldn’t say. I tried to get up but was pushed and pulled back down by the innumerable arms of my friends. “No,” a voice called out once again “Danny, you need your rest”

“I’ve just slept for three mouths” I laughed, closing my eyes, “Why in hell do I need more sleep?”

“Why did you try and kill your self Danny?” My mother called out. “Don’t you care about us?”

“What where you thinking!?!” My father’s voice now. “I thought I brought you up better than being so damn soft”

“Oh like that’ll help!” It was a voice, I didn’t recognise it.

“You keep out of it!” my father’s voice bellowed.

“Kill myself?” a voice sounded, I recognised it as my own. “No… I’d never kill myself… not anymore”

Nothing was said after that, I kept my eyes shut and must have drifted into a sleep as the next thing that I was aware of was that I was standing in a long, dark corridor. It was flawlessly white, but it looked dully grey in the darkness. The moon shone a ghostly light on the room making it look like a spectre could be hiding in some ghastly shadow. Though a window on my left I could see a small runway, the moon in the sky was large, omnipresent and dominating. An old hanger was standing alone in the dark of night; a single plane was sitting inside it. Looked like a private plane.

Something rattled ahead of me and my eyes darted around to see what had happened.

I was stunned. My environment had changed. The corridor was full of old and broken equipment. The air was misty and thick with dust. The walls where stained black with dirt and decay. A rusted tired old bike was hanging helplessly into the air just ahead of me. Its fount wheel was spinning around, it made a screeching sound and I could hear the screams of the ancients in every bone tingling second the sound lasted, but soon it stopped completely and the world was at peace once again.

I walked forward; trying my best not to disturb anything but was having a hard time doing it. I passed a large stop sign and police barrier with yellow and black tape rapped around them.

A large door appeared to my side. I stopped and looked at. I was not actually thinking, more just blankly looking at it. I felt like a monkey, dumb and clueless. I decided to move and open it. Pushing it open wasn’t easy with the amount of stuff lying around. But using enough force I managed to pull it open. Inside was a large hanger, like an airplane hanger. A large private jet was standing proudly in the middle of the hall. It was an impressive sight. Everything else was dishevelled, rotting and wasting away into the ground and even the roof was having problems keeping its self-up. Large holes where punched into it and through one just above my head I could see the glaring moon staring down at me.

But this was wrong! The moon should be behind me… right?

I turned around to look out the window but the room had changed again. The windows where boarded up with wood and not a single drop of light passed though it. The walls where coated thick with blood and I began to hear something muffled and bleak in the distance. I couldn’t make out what it was and I wasn’t even sure it had a rhythm. My face was pulled from side to side, looking down both directions. it was the same thing, a corridor leading into darkness. The red walls made this place look like Hell it’s self.

I wondered down one of the pathways, hoping to find the end. The red walls began to move and twist; some times, it would even shot out and form a small mouth, biting the air with an inhuman force then melt back into the wall. The sound was becoming louder and louder. It was the sound of a human heart. An insane screaming sound ran around my body and made close shut my eyes with fear.

What is this place?

I opened my eyes again and seen nothing but darkness. I was aware my legs where no longer moving and I had became motionless once again. I was also on my side, lying down. I was back in the hospital. “Oh man” I uttered “What a dream” I sat up and looked over at my bedside table. A book had been place there when I was asleep, a large black book, I picked it up and eyed it. The word ‘Memories’ was printed in gold embroidery on the cover.

I sat up against the soft light that was filtering in though a broken blind in the window beside me and opened the book. It was covered in pictures, mostly of my teen years. School photos, sports days, friends, birthdays. I felt a smile come to my face and I began to feel like a teenager once again, happy and completely free of responsibility. I turned the page and looked down, baby pictures, all of me. The chubby little child in these old pictures used to be me. Now it was no more a picture in a book, no longer alive. Looking over the page a single picture caught my eye.

I lifted it up to the moon light to see it clearly. It was a young boy.

It was the young boy from that place… from the Cell. I recognised him immediately. I looked at the place where the photo was. The label said ‘Danny aged 9’ I looked away from it, it all now made sense now. That ‘Cell’ was not Just a dream, it was a part of my mind. I had made all that, I made my own nightmare.

I looked away. Life was now relevant to me; I had the will to live in. However, my mind had also expanded, it had become more powerful, and that thought made me shiver with a cold fear. The mind, it seams, is truly a powerful force.

The End

Any thoughts on how I can improve this?
Thanks in advance.

ladylaughalot

Overall I'd say it's because you've closed with a happy ending. Really good psychological horror should leave the reader clutching their head and silently screaming. Not thinking, oh well isn't that nice, "Life now has meaning". It was also rather abrupt in the sense that throughout this scene we have the main character doing a Dorothy style wake up "oh it was all just a dream" so they don't have to face the consequences of their actions in that regard. Then we have a minor confrontation with the family in which the character, again doesn't really have to face the consequences of their actions. Then you have another dream and wake up sequence, which is even more unfulfilling the second time around. Then you have a paragraph in which the main character finally realises what he has done, but in a weird "it was all in my head" way and somehow after all that, inexplicably, it is a picture of his nine year old self that makes him realise that life is worthwhile.

Now it is highly possible that my interpretation of this is way off the mark, as I have only read the last part of it. But I sincerely believe that this story, from what I can gather, would be far more powerful with a really warped ending in which the character realises, after it's too late, that life was really great after all but now he is stuck in a hell of his own making and choosing. Alternatively if you do want to save this character and do the wake up thing, do it in a true Dorothy style and have the people who welcome him back to the land of the living help him to realise that it really is a wonderful life. Though from what you said at the begining there and from what I can glean of your stye I think option 1 is your best bet, option 2 would just seem contrived however you write it.

__________________
Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lemex

Thank you so much for that.
I can't tell you how much that means to me.