A Writer's Nightmare

A Writer's Nightmare Part 1

The End.

.....No, too cliche.

I sigh as I stare at my computer screen. How long have I been sitting here? It feels like days.

Days and days of nothing but typing, revising, and more typing. Only to read it over and hate it all, with the exception of that one clever pun.

I turn away from the electronic box of misery to glance at the clock.

2:38 P.M.

I've only been writing for an hour and a half. Dear god, how does time move so slowly...?

I put a hand to my chin and glance at the computer.

Should I keep writing or take a break?

It's pretty easy to decide.

I sit down in front of my stupidly tiny television, on my exceptionally old grayish-pink couch. It creaks. Like always.

Slowly grabbing the remote, I turn on the TV, to a news channel.

Most of the time, the news is boring or horribly depressing, but it can be interesting sometimes.

At the moment, though, it's looking boring. Some political something-or-other.

I lean back, relaxing and not really paying attention...

Until they start talking about something else.

I don't quite hear all the words at first, but my eyes pop open and I sit up upon hearing one word.

Nightmare.

"What about him, Jim?"

"Well, according to this piece of paper that totally doesn't have my lines on it, he's been caught!"

CAUGHT?!, I think, now paying rapt attention.

The news woman echoes my thoughts.

"Caught?! Him?"

"Yes indeed! Just twelve hours ago, he was cornered in an abandoned building on Main Street, by a SWAT team and just about every policeman in the city. He is currently in custody..."

I stop really paying attention at that point. My mind has simply been blown.

I just stare blankly at the TV screen, slack-jawed in amazement.

Then they bring up a picture. My gaze focuses on it, taking in every detail.

It's him.

The infamous serial killer, known only as 'Nightmare', who has killed sixty people in the past year, fifty of them children. I examine his features carefully.

He looks bored. He stares at the camera as if he couldn't care less.

His deep black, scruffy hair is oddly like my own, not too short, but not too long. His skin is pale, looking like it hasn't seen sunlight in years.

But what really gets me are his eyes...and the bowtie.

His eyes are red, a piercing, bright, blood red. They don't look natural... they don't look human. I can't help but imagine them gleaming out of the darkness, late at night, focused like a wolf on his next victim...

I shudder.

And the bowtie, it's just...odd. It's a bright, cheery yellow, a strange contrast to the rest of his appearance.

Once the picture is off screen, I turn the television off. The news reporters had moved on, anyways.

I just sit on my couch, completely still, while my brain runs at about a million miles per hour.

I recount everything I know about him and his crimes.

Him? Almost nothing.

His crimes? A whole lot.

'Nightmare' was known for his creativity, and his habit of going after kids, often between five and fourteen.

People would go missing, and then be found, anywhere from a day to two weeks later, dead. And they weren't always...in one piece, per say.

There was only one victim of his that hadn't been found dead. A ten-year-old boy named Jeremy Scott had been missing for three days, before he'd been found in an alleyway on 3rd Street.

He was barely conscious, bleeding from multiple stab wounds to his shoulders, chest, and stomach, as well as having quite a few broken bones and what seemed to be acid burns.

Jeremy died in the hospital, unfortunately, and all he would say until that point was one word.

Nightmare.

I shudder again.

Thank god he's behind bars, I think.

At almost the exact moment I think that, the phone rings.

     Hope you enjoy the story! Also, 683 words! That may seem short, but they just get longer and longer. I think the last one has over 2,000 words.

~~~T.S.