English – Descriptive Writing Task (Year 10)

Right, once again, I feel our substitute teacher, Miss. Allan (no idea which way her
name was spelt), messed us around a fair bit with the work. She originally gave us
the task of writing a descriptive writing of exploring an unfamiliar, dark, place. You
know, like a forest, or an abandoned/ haunted house, or a train station or something.
Someplace dark and most probably scary.

Well, I decided I was going to try a spaceship of some sort, but instead I had the idea
of describing my (imaginary) room, but making it seem dark (lights out) and scary (by
making stuff up).... However, I got so far into it and our teacher told us we were
actually writing a story and not just describing a scene, so I had to radically change
my ideas around a bit, editing some of my previous work and planning out the
general direction of the story.

Then I decided that this was the teacher that had already made half of us repeat the
same coursework and, as it was only a few weeks before Work Experience (which
basically meant the end of school lessons), I decided that I’d have some fun
instead..... This is what happens when I get bored in English and decide to write
whatever enters my mind first.......

(I should say that I got so carried away that I decided to start a new chapter,
breaking the rules given to us of being in an unfamiliar/dark/scary place and writing
only in 1st person.

---
 Chapter One.

I slowly edged out of unconsciousness and tried peering past the darkness, but my
eyes had not yet adjusted to the lack of light. I reached out to the growing darkness
and tried feeling my way through the layers of doubts and fears that flowed in front of
me.

I stopped. No sooner had I stood up, a faint whirring noise was heard from the far
right corner. The damned noise grew louder. Louder still. Soon, it became so loud
that I couldn’t think straight. This nuisance was now more than a nuisance. It was
already indoctrinating me... making me go insane... to listen to its will... to bow down
to it... wanting me to do crazy things... to perform for it.

But my will was strong. A blinding (not that it changed my current situation of
darkness much, I thought) fury took control and I dashed for that far corner.

A trap! My short time under the influence of rage had briefly heightened my senses. I
could smell something burning from beyond the floorboards below, a strange, but
vaguely familiar, smell emanated from the large metallic structure, stretched out like
a bed in front of me. I could now see what the noise was coming from. A small, black
box with many wires coming and going from it to the wall and the other large, but
silver, box. A circle of light shone up on the first box. After being green, three
quarters, or quadrants, of the circle shone red, while the top-right of the circle turned
off.

The red lights started blinking incessantly.

Forget it! This certainly wasn’t the room I was looking for. Not that I was really
looking for any particular room. I just wanted to know things, the mysteries of life, the
mysteries of love, women. The mysteries of why no one seems to like James
Blunt.... Oh, and where was I.

I reached deep down into the pockets of my joggers. It seemed like a lifetime, but, in
reality, I had only been fumbling around in my pockets for no longer than five minutes
(God, it was dark and damp down there!).

I pulled it out at last and, as I looked down at it, held tightly in my sweaty hands, a
great sigh of relief escaped my otherwise-breathless lips. I caressed it in my hand
and, although it was no brighter than a glow-in-the-dark pyjama top in the day, it
shone brightly for me. A warm but powerful glow, which gave me the strength to stay
on task, while past memories of using it flooded to the foreground of my mind.

But it wasn’t powerful enough, charged up enough, to deliver that same warmth and
comfort as it would usually endeavour to serve me.

Hesitantly and reluctantly, I slipped it back into its home, patting it twice lightly to
comfort myself that it was still there – if I felt the urge to whip it out later.... In a real
time of need!

I moved towards the doorway through which I had entered. As I felt around for the
door handle, my flying palm connected with a light-pull. Now, I don’t need to tell you
what great idea I had for that! In a moment of hope, I tugged down on it with the full
weight of my body and desperation dragging it down.

But it was all in vain. The storm must have done something to the power... Maybe a
tree or something had knocked down a pylon or post, cutting off my power.

But there was no way I was going to go outside, and anyway, there was one easy
way to check.

I knelt on the floor and on all-fours, started grasping and clutching at the carpet. I laid
down on the carpet and pulled myself under the bed. Something silky and strong met
me under there as it touched my forehead, Its owner then jumped onto my nose,
leaving a cold, sticky (and itchy, I couldn’t help but be reminded) spot after I swatted
the “Friendly Neighbourhood Spiderspider” back to where it came from.

Reaching out still, my hands clasped around my slippers and I threw them out from
underneath the bed. Slipping them on, I saw the spider return, attempting to scuttle
its way under the cupboard. I intercepted and crushed it with my heel. As I stood,
scraping my slipper against the carpet, removing what was now probably better
known as the “Friendly Neighbourhood Spider”, I whispered to myself, “The Stronger
must prevail, and the Weaker get left behind”.

Before grabbing the handle, something inside of me instinctively stopped my hand,

pulling it far back.

Something was seriously wrong here. I knew there was a storm outside, yet I could
neither see or hear anything from outside these four walls. The other thing, which
had very strangely, somehow only just occurred to me, was that I didn’t even know
anything about myself, my present situation, or even anything beyond the past few
minutes since collecting my slippers. Beyond that – nothing.
 Chapter Two – The Start of Something New

Footsteps were heard, echoing down the long corridor. Although if most of you
looked straight down the hallway, you’d probably not see a thing. – But the sound
was still there, getting louder, and so was its creator.

The man walked along the corridor, reflecting on why he was called in at four in the
morning. As he walked past room 1608, he heard a sound not unlike thunder. His
query no longer begged an answer – now all he needed was details and a schedule.

From one of the rooms on his left, a rather tall man, around 7ft, with a scraggily
beard and a “Sherriff” moustache, knelt down to leave his office. He was lost in his
own thought, as was the man, but when “Bigfoot-Blackbeard” saw the man, he
instantly stood to full height (whacking his head on the doorframe. Twice), his arms
by his side and his side aligned with his feet, straight and close together. Just how
these two men liked it.

Bigfoot would stay in that position until the man left the room. Not even moving to
“catch” a cough or a sneeze.

The man, despite respecting and thoroughly enjoying the undisputed respect and
admiration of his staff, always had a nagging feeling in the back of his head that his
father had ordered them to show this sign of reverence.

You see, this deeply bothered the man for two main reasons:

One, this meant that his men had more respect for his father (or that was at least
how he saw it), God bless him, than him, making them seem less reliable, also
meaning his father still has power and influence in places. At least that was one
reason, based on nothing more than doubts and fears.

Secondly, his father might not have asked this of them in order to give his son the
impression of authority and power, but as a lasting sign of mockery. You see, this
man was not like other men – Men who were considered “normal”.

The man had been born with a syndrome, a syndrome that his affected his entire life.
In school, the kids had bullied him, while the teachers always talked down to him,
patronising him to the unexisting-bones in his toenails from the ears on the side of
his head. His abnormally giant ears, which were always purple and sore as a
teenager when his mother would drag him through the house, up the stairs, down the
loft-ladder, off the toilet, by them, her blood-red nails creating red-blooded strains
over the collar of his shirts and down his shoulders and back.... His only source of
warmth from his family.

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***** TO BE CONTINUED... ... SOME DAY! *****