silentbeauty

It was a dark, dismal, dreary night. The streets were desolate and the only sound to be heard was the howling wind sweeping through the back streets of London. Claire was on her way back late from work. She decided to go through an alley way to return home in order to be home quicker. She trudged through the thick sleet on the ground, watching her every step. Suddenly she heard rustling in the nearby bushes and then she heard footsteps as if someone was behind her. She started to increase the pace of her footsteps trying not to look behind her. As she continued to walk her heart rate beat at a rapid pace.

A few minutes later she felt a hand on her shoulder, the shock sent a cold shiver running down her spine. The hand belonging to her follower strived to turn her round. As she eventually turned around the figure had disappeared and in its place on the ground lay a glistening diamond. Claire stood and stared at the diamond waiting to see if the figure would re-appear. However, no figure re- appeared. She decided to take it home and show it to her uncle who was an expert with diamonds. She quickly slipped it in her pocket and returned hastily; little did she know that this was no ordinary diamond.

Claire opened the door to her warm, welcoming, house and immediately kindled a fire in the fireplace and sat admiring the diamond which was glistening in the flickering light. She decided to phone her uncle there and then and explain that she had found a diamond. He told her from her description that it could be worth a lot of money and it would be better for her to sell it rather than keep it. Claire had something to eat and then settled down to read before turning the lights off and going to sleep.

Claire fell into a deep sleep and had a peculiar, petrifying dream. She dreamt that she was at the alley way alone and the diamond was on the ground in front of her. She then reached down to pick it up. However, there were several ghostly figures surrounding her and trying to push the diamond out of her hand. The ghostly figures were whispering to her ‘leave the diamond, it brings with it a curse’ they constantly repeated this same line. Claire instantaneously woke up trembling with fear; she wanted to look at it only as a dream. However she knew it must be some sort of warning for her. She rose out of bed and went through the lounge to the kitchen to have a drink to calm her tension.

As she staggered through the lounge, she saw dazzling light shining into her flat. She was horrified to see that there was a dazzling white light shining directly onto the diamond. As Claire moved towards the window she could not see anyone. The light slowly dimmed and then went off. Claire did not think anything of it and went back to sleep.

In the morning the alarm went off and Claire got ready as usual for work. Although she was still a bit traumatized from the night before, she made sure all the windows were securely locked and she placed the diamond in a tin for safe keeping and hid it in a cupboard. Claire then left for work making sure the door was firmly locked behind her. Claire found it exceedingly hard to concentrate at work. All sorts of questions were running through her head; who was the person in the alley way? Who did the diamond belong to? Was it stolen? Claire had continuous flashbacks of when she was in the alley way and her biggest worry was who was in the alley way and where did the person vanish to? She had no idea who grabbed her shoulder and this is what frightened her the most. She was working herself into a state and decided to go home early since she had a foreboding feeling about the diamond. She thought that perhaps the person in the alley way needed her help. Claire returned to her home only to find a devastating scene.

She found her house had been broken into. Her front door was ajar and as she fought through the papers and shattered glass on the floor, she found that cabinets were smashed and there were splinters of wood and glass everywhere. Claire came to the conclusion that the intruder must have been searching for something as all the drawers had been emptied and all the contents were strewn over the floor. Claire assumed that the intruder had come for the diamond and then found the tin in which she previously placed the diamond in. She opened it only to find that the diamond was missing! Claire froze in shock, and then she looked at her hands and found they were partially covered in dry blood. When she looked at the tin there were blood-stained hand prints which must have been from the intruder. As Claire looked around her flat she could see blood stained hand prints everywhere. She knew something was terribly wrong and she knew she had to sort it out.

Claire was immensely frightened. The only thing she considered doing was to go back to the alley way and to explore as well as to see if the man returns. The sky slowly darkened as the day drew to a close. Claire hurriedly grabbed her coat and went out hastily so that she would be back before it got too dark. As she walked the clouds grew darker and it felt as though a storm was imminent. As she walked towards the alley way a strong wind was pushing her back, as if it was a warning for her not to go any further. However, she carried on walking fighting against the gusts. As she approached the neck of the alley way she stopped and took a deep breath and walked to the spot where she was last night.

To her utter surprise, the diamond was in its exact same spot; however, it was not alone. Beside it was a man lying on the ground with a knife in his back. Claire was shaking like a leaf. There was a rush of adrenaline flowing rapidly through her. As she was about to leave the scene, she saw a scrunched up piece of paper in the man’s hand. Shaking with fear, she opened the paper and read the devastating words:

Whoever finds this compilation of diamonds must beware,

You too will suffer our fate,

We are the founders of the White diamond.

After reading this Claire felt a strange piercing feeling in her hands. As she looked at her wrists she saw two small slits appear. She thought nothing of it as she was too worried about the diamond. However, as the seconds passed she noticed large drops of blood slowly dripping onto her boots and the slits in her wrists started to widen until blood was pouring out of her them and the pain became excruciating for her and she fell to the ground next to the diamond. Claire came to the awful realisation that it was her turn to follow in the footsteps of the diamond’s founders and for her to face her destiny. The only noise to be heard that evening in those dirty back streets of London was the shrill agonising cry coming from the five founders of the white diamonds.



silentbeauty

TheUberManlyMan

Let's get the party started!

I really like the idea of this story, and the last paragraph was especially well-crafted. However, there are some technical things that I think should be fixed.

This part's rather dry. I'm sure you could do much better with a panicky description here.

A few minutes? That's a pretty darn long time. And also considering that she was scared for the whole time, you should either shorten this time or elaborate it.

This is very repetitive. Word choice and diction are glorious things .

I don't really think you need to say this. It's pretty obvious that it isn't ordinary due to the bizarre way she got it. Plus, it in effect reveals the coming plot, which I don't think is a good thing to do.

I'm pretty sure the actual expression is "then and there," but I wouldn't recommend using that, either. It's a tad informal for this sort of writing, methinks.

Claire did think something of it, because you said a few lines earlier that she was horrified when she saw the light. You could state her reason for not doing anything better. Like, she assumed it was just the moonlight shining in through the window, or something like that.

I'm trying not to go into grammatical details, but I felt like I ought to mention this one because it stuck out the most. "Her most prevalent fears concerned who she saw in the alleyway and where that person vanished to" is my suggestion.

Gimme some oomph! The only thing exciting about this sentence is the exclamation mark, and I'm sure you can do better.

I was really confused about the origin of the diamond. "compilation of diamonds" suggests that there's a bunch of them, but they call themselves "the founders of the White diamond" (singular). Also, is the White diamond a cult-like organization? If it's just an object, I think "creators" would work better than "founders."

The last paragraph was great, except for two sentences:

I think that if my wrists opened up for no reason, I'd think something of it. Since the next sentence jumps right into the blood seeping out, I'm almost tempted to tell you to get rid of this sentence altogether.

This one confused me, too. So... the five founders are there? Why are they screaming? You should definately clear this up.

__________________
"And that's all I have to say about that"
- Forrest Gump

dannyboy

There is a story there and I think the TUMman has brilliantly worked through some of the problems. I agree with everything he wrote (hope you don't mind that TUMman).

I think the story also needs a bit more tweaking. If it is to remain a short story then we need to make a bigger connection with the main character - we need to feel for her. We need to be bothered.

I think also that the plot is not fully realized. Re-write it a few times, polish it, cut it, get the exact feeling you are after. There are some nice points but too many things are glossed over.

dannyboy

Just been thinking a bit more about this and I think I know what bothered me, and it may be about my prejudice as about anything else. I try to write short stories that are complete.

Yes they make you think of other things, possibilities, questions etc, but the story itself doesn't resonate as if there is more to tell if only the wrieter could be btohered.

Your story is much larger I think than a short story.

Just as there is not much enjoyable about a story too long, so too, a story too short can be a pain... at leats to me.

oh one more thing - this in no way implies I am successful when writing a short story (I posted one as an example of what I am trying to do - I thought it only fair) just that it is what I try to do when writing...

Go on tell us the whole story of the white diamond.



you know you want to....

silentbeauty

Thank you for the comments; will work on this a bit more. Wanted the right critiques to give me the push I needed, hopefully in the right direction.