Zombie's Story Dump (All in Need of Critique/Suggestions)
 

I wrote this in a fit of boredom and I kind of like it, but it needs work. Like, a lot of work.

At the moment, I really need help coming up names for my two characters. I also need help on the general writing and idea of this piece. If my use of language is awkward in any way, please don't hesitate to tell me. If you think my idea is cliché, don't hesitate to tell me. Just tell me in a constructive way, and I'll be much obliged.

Without further ado...

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She slept curved up like a wild animal in its burrow, though she slept on top of the covers. She pulled her knees up towards her chest and pulled her arms in against her ribcage and she bowed her head towards her hands, which were curled into tiny, white fists. Her feet pointed like a ballet dancer’s while her long legs and white nightgown mercifully obscured Sachael’s view of anything too fleshy. This position gave him the impression that the girl, who he had been told was named Oriana, was a world unto herself while in the world as well. A world, he thought, which contained many other, smaller worlds. Her thoughts were a world and her heart was a world. Sometimes their orbits crossed close but other times they were light-years apart, he imagined, drawing on what little knowledge he had of the emotions and thoughts of young women. The soft garden-moon, lush with potential, of the girl’s womb remained uninhabited and unexplored; It was the sort of celestial body that was so far off that it would appear as a speck to even the strongest telescope. Oriana’s dreams and nightmares had their own separate dimensions, for they were very large indeed, and they overlapped all of her worlds. All the worlds in her moved and did what they always had and changed while she slept, all at different paces but all in sync with the universe that contained them.

This was how Sachael perceived Oriana to be, at least. He saw her as something vast and foreign, though her body was small and nothing uncommon. It could have just been that she was a pretty girl, and not too much younger than himself.

Her damp, inkblot-wild hair was spread all around her pillow. It covered her eyes. A lock clung to her dark lips. It moved in and out as she breathed. Oriana’s breathing and occasional murmuring were the only true signs that she lived, looking pale and mortal as she did. If she was dreaming, the girl showed no signs of it. She did not fidget. She did not make any noise but the murmurs, which were only the sounds of sleep.

Sachael watched Oriana from the chair in the corner of her room. He had been there all night awake for most of the time. Once or twice he had dozed off. This was a test, he was convinced. They were testing his self-control, or his integrity. Sachael was supposed to watch for Oriana’s nightmares. He was supposed to catch them and kill them, because that was what his kind excelled at and that was what he was hired to do. Her parents claimed the girl often woke screaming or sobbing in the middle of the night. But so far she had not shown any signs of being haunted by night terrors of any sort. Oriana seemed remarkably peaceful for someone who was supposed to have been, at this hour, twisting in imagined agony. It was only two more hours until dawn.

Sachael drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. It was an arrhythmic drumming rather than the precise meter he tended to use. He was trying all he could not to get up and walk over to the girl, lie down on her bed and curl up around her. He imagined her hair would smell like whatever she had washed it with, which, in his mind, was something that smelled like green tea and mint. Oriana looked like the kind of person who would wash her hair with shampoo like that. If he curled around her to sleep, the man rationalized, perhaps she would no longer have nightmares. Perhaps his very presence in the girl’s room had already cured her.

Oriana rolled onto her stomach in her sleep. Her hair covered her face almost completely, except for where her closed eyes peeked out, and the tip of her nose poked through that black, damp curtain. Without meaning to, she bit her hair. She murmured more coherently now than she had before, though he still could not make out any of what she had said. Her voice was even and monotone at first, like a chant, and just barely audible. Then it grew louder, more scattered. Almost frantic. Oriana’s shoulders tightened, her back went rigid, and her legs straightened to a painfully stiff position. She moaned, and her voice sounded strangled.

Sachael was disappointed to learn that his presence was no remedy for nightmares. It would have made his work that much easier. He stood up from the chair and approached the bedside. He reached out his hand to touch the Oriana’s shoulder. She whimpered, and he drew his hand back, biting his lower lip. He tapped his long fingers against his jawbone for a moment. “Hm,� groaned the young man. He noticed there was a candle on her night-stand; dark blue, a good sleep-color. He reached into his pocket and produced a box of matches. He struck one on the side of the box and lit the candle.

The firelight cast a spectral glow on the Oriana’s skin, moist with sweat. She was breathing fast. A nightmare had overtaken her. If Sachael knew his nightmares, and being what he was, he did, the one that tormented her was a very strong terror. He had never had a nightmare before and wondered what could frighten her so much. Oriana’s kind were always having nightmares, it seemed. Most especially girls. He suspected most men were too ashamed to admit they had dreams that frightened them. But girls...

Oriana whimpered. Moaned. Sobbed. He was surprised she didn’t wake herself up.

Gathering his courage, Sachael reached out and touched the girl on the spine, right between her shoulder-blades. He was aware of the skin beneath the white cotton, but more aware of the muscle beneath the skin. It was strained. Oriana was going to hurt herself if he couldn’t make her relax. With his thumb, he rubbed circles over one of the girl’s vertebra. There was a spasm beneath his hand, and he couldn’t properly judge if he was helping or only making things worse. Sachael pulled his hand back, held one hand with the other, rubbed his palm with the opposite thumb, and observed the girl for a moment more.

Oriana rolled back onto her side, and then onto her back. Her eyelids fluttered, barely open, in a way that disturbed him. It reminded him of the time he saw a little girl have an epileptic fit. Still she murmured, and still her muscles were taut. She convulsed once. Twice. Something about her movements seemed indecent. Sachael’s heart hammered in his chest. He had seen bad cases before, but this was the worst. Oriana had been so calm only a few minutes ago.

“Shhh…� Sachael crooned. He was surprised at how calm he had made himself sound. “You’re okay.� He placed his hand on her, fingers spread under her ribcage. He pressed downward, slowly at first. Then sharply. Oriana gasped. Sachael leaned in and put his mouth to hers and breathed in, sucking the nightmare from her body while resisting the urge to explore her mouth with his tongue. He tasted cinnamon and blood on her breath. She had bitten the inside of her lip.

When his mouth was filled with her nightmare, Sachael drew back and swallowed it down, coughing and sputtering as he did. He was mostly immune to the effects of nighttime terrors, but they burnt his throat when he swallowed them. The man looked down at Oriana, who now seemed to be sleeping peacefully. There was little movement behind her eyelids. Her lips parted and she had returned to her original curled-up position. Once again, Sachael wanted nothing more than to curl his own body around her smaller one. He wanted to share her peace as he had already shared her pain. Oriana seemed almost tranquil now. It was as if she had never had the nightmares in the first place.

Something about this bothered Sachael. Sometimes people forgot that they ever had bad dreams once they were cured. It had happened to a young woman about Oriana’s age when he had helped her. When Sachael talked to her in the morning, she couldn’t remember why he had been there. He explained “Dream-eaters are just fairy tales!� she laughed. “They’re like sidhe or swamp-lights. Everyone knows that.�

He watched Oriana and hoped she would not be like the other girl. He hoped she would remember that he had cured her. Sachael didn’t want to lose that connection, though losing a connection had never really mattered to him before. Oriana wasn’t the same.

This piece is really just a bunch of short, first person character sketches thrown together. It's probably not done and it's still pretty rough. Critique would be awesome.

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1. This is my strongest memory.

The darkness in the room was the kind you can't deny. It was not the kind of darkness that isn't so bad if you just close your eyes. It wasn't the kind of darkness that eyes can get used to after a while. There were sounds everywhere, and because it was dark. I couldn't tell where they were coming from or what they were. The noise was scratching. It was buzzing. I screamed my throat raw, but I didn't hear a single scream. Only the noise. The darkness was bad enough by itself. The noise was bad enough by itself. Combined, they were enough to make me scream and cry and writhe. But they weren't content assaulting only two senses, sight and sound.

They also attacked my sense of feeling. Touch.

Sometimes when I lay in bed at night, unable to sleep, I can still feel it on my legs. The sharp, slow sucking. It wasn't ever enough to bleed me dry. They would never be that cruel, though I remember wishing they would have been on many occasions. They weren't trying to hurt me, that was what they said. The leeches were only there to scare me. Struggling against my bonds made my wrists bleed, made them as raw as my throat. If I could have just gotten an arm free, I could have torn the leeches from my legs. But they knew how to tie knots that young women, girls, really, couldn't undo.

They left me there for a long time, I think, but a minute would have seemed like a long time. Then they turned off the sound. My ears rang. After all that sound, the silence of the darkness was worse. They left me in the silent dark for a long time, too, still with the leech sucking at my thigh. Then I remember feeling a latex-gloved hand tear the leech from my flesh. They left me still in the dark for a long time.

Then they turned on the light. My eyes burned. I did not make any noise. I laid a long time in the room, curled up on my side, until they took me out and tucked me into bed. Before I was allowed to turn out the light (which I didn't) and sleep (which I didn't), they told me what a fine job I had done that day. One of them, a man, ruffled my sweat-drenched hair. The other, a woman, kissed my cheek. I stared at the ceiling until I was too tired to keep my eyes open.

This is why I cannot sleep at night.

xxx

2. I realized for the first time that my mind was not like water, my body even less. *You drop a stone into the water, it makes ripples on the surface.* It sinks.* It vanishes, and it never becomes part of the water. *The water runs over it. *Its course is, essentially, uninterrupted. *The stone may stay for a long time, but that doesn't matter. *Eventually it will erode and become nothing. *Thanks to the tireless ebb and flow. *And water cannot be cut or scarred or burnt. *You can never remove a part of it. *You can take bucketfuls of water from a lake, but it is still the same lake. *The water just fills a new shape.

I realized for the first time that my mind was like the earth, my body even more. *You bury a stone in the ground, it may be hidden, but it is always there inside. *The earth does not run over the stone like the water would. *It was there, always, disrupting even as it is slowly forgotten or hastily covered. *The earth can be mangled or broken or charred, and the disfigurement stays. *Maybe a little while, maybe a long time. *And when pieces of the earth are removed, it is not the same earth. *There is something missing. *The edges of the hole will collapse inward to fill the gap. *But it may never fill, and even if it does fill, it won't be in the same way.
*
I realized this as I stared at my ceiling and felt the mattress conforming to the shape of my body. *Because it was like earth and not water, my body did not simply flow over the mattress and take its flat shape. *Earth is more forceful; it shapes the things around it even as it is shaped and built and gouged. *My body held its shape when things were taken from it. *I ran my fingers over the scar that ran parallel to my hipbone, and pressed gently. *My skin did not cave as if there was nothing beneath it. But there wasn't anything beneath it. *Not what should have been there. *I was hollow there, like the water never could be. *Hollowness causes deficiency and lack and disability. *Hollowness causes emptiness, because the two are not the same. *"Hollow" in the dictionary means "without significance" for one definition. *I have read it many times. *In one definition of "empty," it means "containing nothing; not filled or occupied." *These are my definitions. *I feel as though I am without significance, and so I am not filled or occupied. *I feel as though I am hollow, and so I am empty.

If my mind and my body were like water, it would not matter. *I could flow however I wanted, and I would always fall into the shape I needed to be. *But my mind and my body are like earth, and when something is taken from the earth it is gone. *It may be replaced, but not the same way. *I was once full of something, and that was taken from me, and I was hollow and thus empty. *I could be filled with something else. *It wouldn't be the same. *I will never fall into shape after a moment, and because of this, I will always be vulnerable to hollowness and thus emptiness. *I will always be vulnerable to everything.

Something about this realization made me want to cry and laugh at the same time.

xxx

3. I walked past a ragged woman on the street. I gathered my coat against my body to shield myself from the wind that chilled my hands raw. The woman watched me as I passed by. I did not watch her. Then, when I was a little way ahead, I heard her call a name. One I recognized. It was her name. Her cursed, wretched name. Her name, the one that used to be mine. I didn't know how the woman recognized her in me. I don't. I don't. Somehow she did, and she called that name again. She ran to catch up with me. She tugged at my arm, and I turned and looked her in the face. Again, that name. I didn't know how. I don't. I looked her in the eyes. They were my eyes. I felt sick in the throat and the stomach, and especially between the hips, in a place this woman would know well in herself, but a place that was foreign to me. On the skin above that strange place, and to the side, my scar began to tingle. The hair on the back of my neck rose. How? How?

"I'm sorry, ma'am. You must be thinking of someone different." She must have been.

But she wasn't. She was thinking of her, who I was before, who she ought to know very closely. But I am not who I was before, and so I didn't know how that woman recognized her in me. I walked away, because it was the only thing I could do at that time. I was trembling. My breath rattled a long time in my chest, and then I was home.

Mother.

I slammed the door.

Mother.

I threw my coat to the ground.

Mother.

I wanted to know how she had the nerve to address me, well, who I used to be. My mother was the one who broke me. My mother gave me away, and we should have been closer than anything. I, the girl I used to be, was her youngest. I was her last. She should have clung to me no matter what, because we should have been the closest. A good mother would have done things differently.

A good mother would have at least made sure her daughter went somewhere without leeches and metal and men with syringes and women with cold, bony hands. A good mother would have at least made sure her daughter went somewhere safe.

I went into the bathroom. I turned on the shower. I stepped in. I did not take off my clothes. I banged my head against the tile. I bled a little.

And I wept.

xxx

4. I have never loved one person for long; I've never had the chance to. They all passed me by as if I was a ghost or a broken doll. There was always something wrong with the people I fell in love with. Maybe I was attracted to people like that because they were like me: downtrodden, defeated, hollow. Wanting something so strongly it hurt them. Some of the men I fell in love with had been addicts before. Some still were when I met them. Some were depressed. Some were manic-depressive. Some were prone to fits of violence, others fits of the kind of laughter that can make a girl uneasy. One of the men I had been in love with was gay. I think I knew it at the time, too. In a sense, these were all the same person, this archetypal madman, just as I am this archetypal mad girl. None of them were right in the head, and none of them ever touched me. Very few ever even noticed me.

I fell in love for the first time in a bar. I didn't drink alcohol, but I liked to watch people. My eyes were drawn to one man from the moment I entered the room. He was tall, but not too tall, with dark hair, and blue eyes impaling me through the heart like icicles. He sat next to me at the bar. His jacket smelled like leather and clove cigarettes and vodka. Something else, too; It was an unfamiliar, risqué sort of something, I thought, the kind of thing you wouldn't talk about in polite company.

He said hello to me.

I must have looked confused. He asked me if I was okay. I said yes, but I wasn't sure if what I was feeling in the very core of me was okay. I ached there. I burned and froze by turns. And then he left.

I still have not figured out if that feeling is right or not.