Midnight Darkness Chapter 1 (PG-13)

Well, here is chapter one if you guys are interested!

Chapter One: What Scares Me Most

I sighed, knowing that Mr. Doug was going to be angry with me for not doing it…again. I set down my paper and pencil and looked at what I had written across the top:

Landon Maxfield
Period 5

What Scares Me Most Essay

Now what? What scares me most? I glanced around my room, trying to find a book or something that had something scary in its contents. I spotted the book Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan over by my bedpost. Was that scary? What did that have in it? Vampires? Nah, I’m not afraid of Vampires.

And then I knew. I suddenly remembered it from that night on Halloween, eight years ago. I remembered what I had seen. It was that big dog like thing. It was that werewolf.

I laughed. I knew that my mind had just been playing tricks on me. Werewolves weren’t real. Were they? I looked over at the alarm clock, over on my bedpost, beside my books. 11:32. Ugh! Mom said I had to get to bed in a couple minutes.

Halloween was approaching. Maybe I could write about Halloween. Well, what freaks me out most about that holiday? The darkness? My fear of claustrophobia? The costumes? No…nothing was scary to a fourteen-year-old boy anymore. Nothing.

My mind flashed back to my sixth Halloween, and the werewolf. I remember cuddling up with my blankets, and watching it enter from the window. I remember it coming closer to me, inch by inch and then…it was just my mom. There was no werewolf. Werewolves aren’t real.

I looked up at the clock again: 11:45. “Oh!” I muttered, and picked up my pencil. So, what scares me most? I opened my binder and ripped another piece of collaged ruled paper out. I put the numbers one through five on it. “Alright, so what scares me most?”

On the first number, I put Vampires. I thought for a moment more, and then put blood. That’s good. Two down, three to go. Now, what else?
My mind kept turning towards that werewolf, but I shouted in
frustration, “I’m not afraid of a werewolf that never really was there!”

I sighed and suddenly, my door opened and my sister walked in. Her long blonde hair was braided, with little beads hanging down from her perfect hair.

“Oh…hey Celeste.” I muttered. She put her sixteen-year-old body down on my bed and looked at me with her eyebrows raised.

“So, whatcha doing?” she asked. I sighed again. This is not what I needed, an older sister to bug me while I was trying to finish my report! I turned in my chair and looked at her brown eyes. “Celeste, what scares you? I mean, well, I have to write a report on what scares me, and I really don’t know.”

Celeste burst out laughing. “Oh my gosh! How could you not know what scares you the most?” She laughed more and then wiped her eyes. “You are always screaming, ‘Don’t get me werewolf! Don’t get me!’”

I froze. How could she have known that I hate werewolves? I never told her. “I never did that,” I said as I turned around in my seat. I picked up my pencil and looked at my essay which read:

Landon Maxfield
Period 5

What Scares Me Most Essay

She started jabbering as she always does, but I paid no further attention. I knew what I was going to write about. So, Mr. Werewolf, what can I say about you? Well, I know that you are mean and bloodthirsty, so why not put that down?

I put my pencil on the paper, and then stopped. Celeste had just said something.

I spun around with my eyes wide open, my mouth gaping,

“I do not!”

She smiled and said, “Yes you do! I have proof also!” She grabbed something behind my pillowcase and pulled it out. I gasped. It was my journal!

“No!” I cried, and I launched myself out of my chair. The chair spun, rotating on its axel. I put my hands out and snatched the journal, but Celeste, laughing of course as she always does, yanked it out of my hands.

“Celeste! Give it to me!” I roared, but she opened up the journal and read aloud, “Today I finally had the nerve to go up and ask Courtney out. When I got there, my knees were shaking like no other, and –”

“Celeste! No!” I begged her to continue no more. It was too hard on me.

“But, like every other girl,” Celeste continued, “she refused instantly. I felt empty and heartbroken, and I went to the bathroom and cried my heart out. She was the girl of my dreams, and the princess of my –what? Of my ‘fairy tales?’”

Celeste laughed so hard, that I was able to rip my journal out of her hands and she clutched her stomach. Tears rolled out of her eyes and she jumped on my bed, roaring with laughter.

“Princess….of….my…” she laughed.

I glared at her and shoved her off of my bed. She landed on her feet and laughed her way out of my room.

“I hate Celeste,” I told myself when I got back in my seat, with my blank paper and pencil. That was so like her to embarrass me like that. She always does it, and every time it gets on my nerves.

I looked down blankly at my paper. I shook my head and started to write.

I looked at my alarm clock, my eyes felt like they weighed a ton. I yawned and looked back at my paper. “Almost done…” I said to myself.

I wrote one last remaining line: The Vampires were preparing for the final battle.

Quickly, I examined my essay and thought that it was good enough to turn in tomorrow. I threw off my jeans and slid off my shirt. I looked pretty good, not too chubby, but not super skinny. I would say I was the perfect size, but that’s just me. I grabbed some red sweats and threw them on. I slipped into bed, and into a dreamless sleep.

That journal entry that Celeste had read had been written two nights ago. That day after I had written it, I was so terrified of going to school and being made fun of by Courtney’s friends and stuff like that, that I almost sluffed, but I’m not like that.

When I got to school the day I was supposed to hand in the report, I saw Courtney standing at the flagpole, waiting. “Oh, no,” I thought, “Please don’t be waiting for me!”

I grimaced as I walked out of the bus, hoping that she wouldn’t come running towards me, and luckily for me, she didn’t. I hurried inside and headed to my locker.

English would have to be my least favorite class, mostly because Mr. Doug is my least favorite teacher. He absolutely loves everyone in his class but me. I don’t know why, he just does. He is nice to everyone but – you guessed it – me.

The fifth period bell rang, just as I walked into the class. Mr. Doug was standing at the front of the room, with his big beard and mustache as normal. He was wearing this really ugly sweater made of black wool. He looked at me, more like pierced me, with his blue eyes and said, “Again, Landon, you make a grand tardy entrance for the,” Mr. Doug looked at his attendance list, “Fourth time this week? Landon, there are only five days in a school week!”

I ignored him and walked to my seat, passing Courtney on the way, who seemed highly interested in the pen she was holding as I passed her. I shook my head and slumped into my seat. Mr. Doug glared at me for another moment and then said, “When you finish with the starter on the board, bring your essays to my desk for me to grade.”

He tapped the white board that had the starter written on it in blue maker. Then Mr. Doug looked at me once again and walked to his oak desk, with papers scattered all over.

I sighed and took out my starter notebook and copied it down.

Halloween is coming up, so what are you going to do?

I made my short one sentence reply of; I am going to go trick or treating. I knew of course, that my mom would object, saying, “Landon, you are too old! Go roam the neighborhood and hang out with your friends or something.”

I quickly took out my essay paper and smiled. This was the first essay that I had written that was actually kind of fun. Who knew that writing about werewolves could be such a fun essay?

I walked up to Mr. Doug’s desk and put the paper down. He glanced at it and then gasped. I turned around and looked at Mr. Doug, expecting him to critique my work and say that it sucked or something.

He quickly grabbed the paper and read it. It was kind of awkward, because Mr. Doug had never been so interested in my work other than to give it a zero.

“What?” I asked. He didn’t answer, and I didn’t expect him to. Mr. Doug gulped and his eyes flashed to me.

“Did you write this?”

“Well, duh!” I said, getting annoyed. What was so interesting?

“What I mean, Landon, is did you write this on your own or did you copy someone else’s?” He said. Oh, now I get where he is going. He can’t believe that I can write that good of a paper, huh?

“I made it up. You know, in my head! I do have one!” I was beginning to get extremely annoyed. He looked at me, and it was the oddest look I had ever been given. Mr. Doug looked like he actually…feared me or something. It was weird, because he always just glares at me.

“Go sit down, Landon.” He said, surprisingly calm.

I looked at him as if he were crazy, which he is, mind you. Then I turned around and went back to my seat.

Mr. Doug read over my paper one more time, not even bothering with the other papers that were piling on his desk by students.

Werewolves are real. They live in this world today. They are out there, waiting. Some of them are hiding, because of their fear, but they rest, they are out there.

First of all, lets get our facts straight: werewolves are ruthless killers. They get immense pleasure out of a simple kill, such as their mortal enemies, the Vampires. It is fascinating to see how far these beats would go to get their bloody claws all over the Vampires.

Ever since Ferdinand Wolfgang became the leader of the pack, werewolves have been ferociously hunting and killing vampires. But, before Wolfgang, there was peace between the two races.

The wars broke out, and the female Vampires refused to fight. They thought that all Vampires should flee to another distant land. The male Vampires anonymously disagreed, and the woman left them. They were outcasts, and called themselves Hags, or more commonly called the Witches.

The wars raged around them, and no one, not even the terrible werewolves could feel safe.

About a century ago, the werewolves were becoming scarce. Vampires began to take over all of their major cities, such as Tumbaka. Werewolves retreated father and farther back into the Alberta Mountains, in Canada. Once there, Wolfgang established Fort Wolfgang: a refuge for any living werewolves. There they lived safely for a century.

So, what can the Vampires do? They use the legendary silver bullet to kill their enemies. Myriad amounts of silver have been shipped to various places throughout the world, and it could only mean one thing. The Vampires were preparing for the final battle.

Mr. Doug thought that none of this could be true. How could a little fourteen-year-old boy know all of this? He couldn’t! He was sure that no one knew of Fort Wolfgang. Only the werewolves. So, how did this boy know?

Mr. Doug looked back at Landon and glared. “Was this boy a traitor? Was he a Vampire?” Instantly, Payton Doug disregarded this thought. The boy would be dead if he were a vampire; the sun would kill him.

Then how did Landon know?

*

Thanks again for reading this!

Hiya! I just spotted this...

dog like

Put a dash between them; 'dog-like'.

“I’m not afraid of a werewolf that never really was there!”

I would rearrange like so: 'that was never really there!'

She put her sixteen-year-old body

I don't describe people's bodies as '16-year-old'. Maybe you do I would just say you should chop it off. I am sure you can think of a better way to put her age down.

sluffed

Erm... What?! I don't know what it means, and it is difficult to tell from context. Did you spell it right?

Fourth time

Italicize 'Fourth'.

First of all, lets get our

'let's'


Wow, that was a fun story! That was a great idea and brilliant continuation to the story. It was funny how the teacher was in on it all. Very clever and I thoguht this was great for a 'quantity not quality' novel.

Keep Writing!

~Mark~

Once again, I hope you don't mind me giving you a all-out critique.

I sighed, knowing that Mr. Doug was going to be angry with me for not doing it <<would change this to 'not completing the assigment'>>…again. I set down my paper and pencil and looked at what I had written across the top:

Landon Maxfield
Period 5

What Scares Me Most Essay

Now what? What scares me most? I glanced around my room, trying to find a book or something that had something scary in its contents. I spotted the book Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan over by my bedpost. Was that scary? What did that have in it? Vampires? Nah, I’m not afraid of Vampires.

And then I knew. I suddenly remembered it from that night on Halloween, eight years ago. I remembered what I had seen. It was that big dog-like thing. It was that werewolf.

I laughed. I knew that my mind had just been playing tricks on me. Werewolves weren’t real....<<the ellipses show Landon's hesitation>>Were they? I looked over at the alarm clock, over on my bedpost, beside my books. 11:32. Ugh! Mom said I had to get to bed in a couple minutes.

Halloween was approaching. Maybe I could write about Halloween. Well, what freaks me out most about that holiday? The darkness? My fear of claustrophobia?\<<does this mean he's afraid of getting claustrophobic, or he is claustrophobic? Might want to change to 'My claustrphobia?'>> The costumes? No…nothing was scary to a fourteen-year-old boy anymore. Nothing. <<This is a good bit of characterization here; it shows the arrogance that comes with being a male teenager>>

My mind flashed back to my sixth Halloween, and the werewolf. I remember cuddling up with my blankets, and watching it enter from the window. I remember it coming closer to me, inch by inch and then…it was just my mom. There was no werewolf. Werewolves aren’t real.

I looked up at the clock again: 11:45. “Oh!” I muttered, and picked up my pencil. So, what scares me most? I opened my binder and ripped another piece of collaged ruled paper out. I put the numbers one through five on it. “Alright, so what scares me most?”

On the first number, I put Vampires. I thought for a moment more, and then put blood. That’s good. Two down, three to go. Now, what else?

My mind kept turning towards that werewolf, but I shouted in frustration, “I’m not afraid of a werewolf that never really was there!”

I sighed and suddenly, my door opened and my sister walked in. Her long blonde hair was braided, with little beads hanging down from her perfect hair.

“Oh…hey Celeste,” I muttered. She put her sixteen-year-old body <<not sure what this means>> down on my bed and looked at me with her eyebrows raised.

“So, whatcha doing?” she asked. I sighed again. This is not what I needed, an older sister to bug me while I was trying to finish my report<<change to essay; reports usually don't entail personal fears...unless some one is doing a study of fears...I'm getting off subject, aren't I?>>! I turned in my chair and looked at her brown eyes. “Celeste, what scares you? I mean, well, I have to write a report on what scares me, and I really don’t know.”

Celeste burst out laughing. “Oh my gosh! How could you not know what scares you the most?” She laughed more and then wiped her eyes.<<I don't think she'd be laughing quite hard enough to be crying tears of mirth>> “You are always screaming, ‘Don’t get me werewolf! Don’t get me!’”

I froze. How could she have known that I hate werewolves? I never told her. “I never did that,” I said as I turned around in my seat. I picked up my pencil and looked at my essay which read:

Landon Maxfield
Period 5

What Scares Me Most Essay

She started jabbering as she always does, but I paid no further attention. I knew what I was going to write about. So, Mr. Werewolf, what can I say about you? Well, I know that you are mean and bloodthirsty, so why not put that down? <<Might consider putting this in italics>>

I put my pencil on the paper, and then stopped. Celeste had just said something. <<This whole part right here doesn't quite make sense. What did she say? He wouldn't have reacted like that if he didn't know what she said.>>

I spun around with my eyes wide open, my mouth gaping,

“I do not!”

She smiled and said, “Yes you do! I have proof also!” <<Teenagers don't say 'also' very often. 'Too,' maybe?>> She grabbed something behind my pillowcase and pulled it out. I gasped. It was my journal!

“No!” I cried, and I launched myself out of my chair. The chair spun, rotating on its axel. I put my hands out and snatched the journal, but Celeste, laughing of course as she always does, yanked it out of my hands.

“Celeste! Give it to me!” I roared, but she opened up the journal and read aloud, “Today I finally had the nerve to go up and ask Courtney out. When I got there, my knees were shaking like no other, and –”

“Celeste! No!” I begged her to continue no more. It was too hard on me.

“But, like every other girl,” Celeste continued, “she refused instantly. I felt empty and heartbroken, and I went to the bathroom and cried my heart out. She was the girl of my dreams, and the princess of my –what? Of my ‘fairy tales?’” <<This is another good bit of characterization; it gives Landon a sensitive side.>>

Celeste laughed so hard, that I was able to rip my journal out of her hands and she clutched her stomach. Tears rolled out of her eyes and she jumped on my bed, roaring with laughter.

“Princess….of….my…” she laughed.

I glared at her and shoved her off of my bed. She landed on her feet and laughed her way out of my room.

“I hate Celeste,” I told myself when I got back in my seat, with my blank paper and pencil. That was so like her to embarrass me like that. She always does it, and every time it gets on my nerves. <<Maybe move everytime to the end of the sentence, it flows better.>>

I looked down blankly at my paper. I shook my head and started to write.

I looked at my alarm clock; my eyes felt like they weighed a ton. I yawned and looked back at my paper. “Almost done…” I said to myself.

I wrote one last remaining line: The Vampires were preparing for the final battle.

Quickly, I examined my essay and thought <<switch to decided>> that it was good enough to turn in tomorrow. I threw off my jeans and slid off my shirt. I looked pretty good, not too chubby, but not super skinny. <<This is kind of random; maybe say that he looked in a mirror on the back of his closet door>> I would say I was the perfect size, but that’s just me. I grabbed some red sweats and threw them on. I slipped into bed, and into a dreamless sleep.

That journal entry that Celeste had read had been written two nights ago. That day after I had written it, I was so terrified of going to school and being made fun of by Courtney’s friends and stuff like that, that I almost sluffed << >>, but I’m not like that.

When I got to school the day I was supposed to hand in the report, I saw Courtney standing at the flagpole, waiting. “Oh, no,” I thought, “Please don’t be waiting for me!”

I grimaced as I walked out of the bus, hoping that she wouldn’t come running towards me, and luckily for me, she didn’t. I hurried inside and headed to my locker.

English would have to be my least favorite class, mostly because Mr. Doug is my least favorite teacher. He absolutely loves everyone in his class but me. I don’t know why, he just does. He is nice to everyone but – you guessed it – me.

The fifth period bell rang, just as I walked into the class. Mr. Doug was standing at the front of the room, with his big beard and mustache as normal. He was wearing this <<substitue a for this>> really ugly sweater made of black wool. He looked at me, more like pierced me, with his blue eyes and said, “Again, Landon, you make a grand tardy entrance for the,” Mr. Doug looked at his attendance list, “Fourth time this week? Landon, there are only five days in a school week!”

I ignored him and walked to my seat, passing Courtney on the way, who seemed highly interested in the pen she was holding as I passed her.<< Love this!>> I shook my head and slumped into my seat. Mr. Doug glared at me for another moment and then said, “When you finish with the starter on the board, bring your essays to my desk for me to grade.”

He tapped the white board that had the starter written on it in blue maker. Then Mr. Doug looked at me once again and walked to his oak desk, with papers scattered all over.

I sighed and took out my starter notebook and copied it down.

Halloween is coming up, so what are you going to do?

I made my short one sentence reply of: I am going to go trick or treating. I knew of course, that my mom would object, saying, “Landon, you are too old! Go roam the neighborhood and hang out with your friends or something.”

I quickly took out my essay paper and smiled. This was the first essay that I had written that was actually kind of fun. Who knew that writing about werewolves could be such a fun essay?

I walked up to Mr. Doug’s desk and put the paper down. He glanced at it and then gasped. I turned around and looked at Mr. Doug, expecting him to critique my work and say that it sucked or something.

He quickly grabbed the paper and read it. It was kind of awkward, because Mr. Doug had never been so interested in my work other than to give it a zero.

“What?” I asked. He didn’t answer, and I didn’t expect him to. Mr. Doug gulped and his eyes flashed to me.

“Did you write this?”

“Well, duh!” I said, getting annoyed. What was so interesting? <<I really don't think that this is the attitude he should be treating the teacher with, even though he hates him.>>

“What I mean, Landon, is did you write this on your own or did you copy someone else’s?” He said. Oh, now I get where he is going. He can’t believe that I can write that good of a paper, huh?

“I made it up. You know, in my head! I do have one!” <<see above ^>> I was beginning to get extremely annoyed. He looked at me, and it was the oddest look I had ever been given. Mr. Doug looked like he actually…feared me or something. It was weird, because he always just glares at me.

“Go sit down, Landon.” He said, surprisingly calm.

I looked at him as if he were crazy, which he is, mind you. Then I turned around and went back to my seat.

Mr. Doug read over my paper one more time, not even bothering with the other papers that were piling on his desk by students.

Werewolves are real. They live in this world today. They are out there, waiting. Some of them are hiding, because of their fear, but they rest, they are out there.

First of all, lets get our facts straight: werewolves are ruthless killers. They get immense pleasure out of a simple kill, such as their mortal enemies, the Vampires. It is fascinating to see how far these beats would go to get their bloody claws all over the Vampires.

Ever since Ferdinand Wolfgang became the leader of the pack, werewolves have been ferociously hunting and killing vampires. But, before Wolfgang, there was peace between the two races.

The wars broke out, and the female Vampires refused to fight. They thought that all Vampires should flee to another distant land. The male Vampires anonymously disagreed, and the woman left them. They were outcasts, and called themselves Hags, or more commonly called the Witches.

The wars raged around them, and no one, not even the terrible werewolves could feel safe.

About a century ago, the werewolves were becoming scarce. Vampires began to take over all of their major cities, such as Tumbaka. Werewolves retreated father and farther back into the Alberta Mountains, in Canada. Once there, Wolfgang established Fort Wolfgang: a refuge for any living werewolves. There they lived safely for a century.

So, what can the Vampires do? They use the legendary silver bullet to kill their enemies. Myriad amounts of silver have been shipped to various places throughout the world, and it could only mean one thing. The Vampires were preparing for the final battle.

Mr. Doug thought that none of this could be true. How could a little fourteen-year-old boy know all of this? He couldn’t! He was sure that no one knew of Fort Wolfgang. Only the werewolves. So, how did this boy know?

Mr. Doug looked back at Landon and glared. “Was this boy a traitor? Was he a Vampire?” Instantly, Payton Doug disregarded this thought. The boy would be dead if he were a vampire; the sun would kill him.

Then how did Landon know?

Dun, dun duhn! LOL, very good first chapter. I like the age skip from 6 to 14, very well handled. (I'm getting annoyed cuz I'm having trouble typing today ) I like where this is heading, you just need to work on sentence structure and a few grammar problems here and there. Your characterization is coming along very well, can't wait to see where this is headed!