Well, I sort of promised Coppertop I'd post this, so here it is: the suspense story I had to write for English class last year. Before I post it, there is a sort of backstory to it, which was required for the assignment.

My english teacher, Mr. Marshall, knows of some mansion in town where scary things are known to happen. Mr. Marshall, being a millionare, promises a million dollar reward to anyone who can stay at the house for a night. That's where my story comes in (each student was supposed to write a different version of what happened). It would be longer (and better, of course), but there was a 2 page limit, so this is all you get. Here it is. In my opinion it's kind of lame, but oh well. Read on, dear JCF members.

From the outside, the mansion didn’t look too scary. “So, all I have to do to earn the million dollars is spend a night in this place?” I asked. “That’s right,” Mr. Marshall said, “but let me warn you that there have been reports of odd things happening in that old house”. I wasn’t exactly terrified, so I quickly replied, “No problem. This will be the easiest money I ever make”. “Excellent,” said Mr. Marshall, “then the place is yours for the night. Assuming you’re still here in the morning, I’ll be here to personally congratulate you and award you with your prize money. Have a good night”. Mr. Marshall got in his fancy Italian sports car and, after saying all the appropriate good-byes, drove away.

After standing outside for a minute, I turned around and walked towards the mansion. After opening the door, it didn’t take long for me to figure out why Mr. Marshall was awarding money to anyone who could spend a night here – the place was a wreck! Ordinarily, the two-story mansion with marble floors and beautiful, hand-made wooden staircases would have been a wonderful place to be. However, something about it simply felt wrong. There was no other way to describe it. I wasn’t particularly bothered by the somewhat heavy layer of dust over most the furniture – it was something else. It seemed that time stood still in this place. I inexplicably felt as though I was lost in the mansion forever, even though the door was only a few feet away from me.

After standing still for what seemed like hours, I decided to head to the kitchen and prepare dinner. For food, I had brought along nothing more than a simple can of chicken noodle soup. As I walked towards the kitchen to prepare it, I noticed that although there was an echo in the old house, all sound seemed muffled. I tried to yell out “Hello,” and although I could hear myself (several times, actually, due to the echo), it seemed that my voice simply hit the wall and crumbled into nothingness. Quite eerily, the echo sounded slightly distorted. Although it was very close to my voice, it sounded much lower in pitch. In order to prevent myself from having a meltdown, I decided that I would have a look around the place whilst my soup was cooking. That would only give me a small amount of exploration time, but I decided that would be all I’d need to convince myself there was nothing ‘scary’ about the mansion.

After exiting the kitchen, I found that there were two other rooms on the lower level, not including the main lobby. I walked first to what Mr. Marshall had described as the home’s living room. The east wall had on it an enormous bookshelf, covered with hundreds, if not thousands, of books. To the west side, there was a fireplace and a comfortable-looking couch. Upon seeing the couch, I realized how tired I was. I would sit down on the couch until my meal was done cooking, and then I’d look around some more. However, before I could sit down, I heard a voice. Whether I actually heard it or it was just in my head, I may never be sure. The voice sounded remarkably similar to my own. But something was different. This voice sounded painful – almost as if someone was being tortured into speaking. The words the voice uttered were all too clear. “Get out,” it said, “Get out or you may suffer a terrible fate. This will be your only warning”. I immediately turned around, and I saw what looked like the figure of a human walking out the door. I ran at full speed towards it. I am not sure exactly how to describe what happened next, but what I do know is that the “person” disappeared right before my eyes, and left behind a rotting skeleton. Whether this is coincidence or not, I don’t know, but the skeleton was very similar in proportion to my own.

I walked very cautiously back to the kitchen to see if my water had come to a boil yet. Although something in the pan was boiling, it wasn’t water – it was blood. I carefully picked up the pot and dumped it in the sink. Unfortunately for me, not all of the blood went down the drain. The blood that somehow remained started moving, apparently by itself. It moved slowly until it finally formed the words “Too Late.” I took a step back from the sink and tripped on something. As I fell backwards, I saw towering above me a mangled face. As I hit the ground, I knew I would be unconscious. The last thing I remembered seeing was the malevolent figure starting to bend down towards me. At that same time, the grandfather clock in the lobby chimed midnight.

I woke up at 7:30 AM to the doorbell ringing. I had the worst headache of my life, but I managed to slowly get up and stumble over to the door. I opened it to find a smiling Mr. Marshall.

“Congratulations,” he said, “but what exactly happened to you?” I found that although I had the will to speak, I was simply unable to, for lack of any appropriate words to say. Mr. Marshall somewhat reluctantly handed me a suitcase. “Here is the money,” he said, “all one million dollars. Your ride home is waiting for you outside”. I managed to utter the word “Thanks”. But something was different about my voice. It sounded much like my regular voice, but somehow different. It seemed like I had heard that same voice somewhere else recently. As I walked towards my car, Mr. Marshall said “Interesting tattoo, by the way”. I had no idea what he meant, but I said thank you regardless. Before getting in my car, I looked back at the mansion one last time. Through the second-story window, I saw someone standing and staring at me. I came to the shocking realization that they looked exactly like me.

Wanting to simply get away from this entire horrifying scenario, I got in my car and sat down. I adjusted my rearview mirror and noticed my face was covered with scars and dried blood. I also noticed some letters spelled out on my forehead. They spelled the word “FATE.”

Hm. Almost seems unfinished in a way.

Interesting. It certainly is different; the kind of story that goes around with braided hair and a bright T-shirt.

Originally Posted by Coppertop

Hm. Almost seems unfinished in a way.

It's kind of supposed to give that feeling. You don't know what happened exactly, and you never find out.

Ah. I wondered. My one complaint is that a lot of the events - the blood, the voice, etc. seems a little cliched. The ending is unusual though, he actually made it out.

I agree that some of the events feel sort of cliched. I just tried to make a story that would leave a sort of eerie feeling in the readers' mind afterwards. I think I did a decent job.

Oh, I remember this. I think the problem is that the ending just suddenly happens without too much warning.