UNDER MY SKIN - A short story about insanity and pain by MrNature72

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    Five minutes.

    Go.

    Let me tell you what insanity is like; It's like sitting there in your chair. You watch the teacher talk and talk, but you feel them under your skin.

    You go to eat. You talk to a nice girl. You think you really like her, so you ask her on a date. She says yes. You feel them under your skin.

    You do your homework. You plug the numbers in. You write the papers. You make sure the teacher will be happy tomorrow. You feel them under your skin.

    You lay down in bed. You pull the sheets over your body. You start to feel warm. You fall into the grasp of sleep.

    And then they come out to play.

    Your internal demons; the maggots that crawl inside your brain and eat at your stability. They chew at your soul within your brain. They make you scream and writhe as they come out from under your skin. They make you cry. They make you moan. They make you want nothing less than death but the thought of tomorrow drives you through.

    They remind you of your sins. They whisper words of what you've done wrong into your ear. They let you feel no peace, remind you what special kind of hell you burn in. They make sure you can find no rest when your mind wanders.

    They torture you internally. They remind you of all the pain. All the horror. All the terrible things that have been committed to you, and they offer no retribution, no revenge. There is only torture, and the only options are to endure long enough to die peacefully, or to succumb to the madness and chaos that festers in the pustles and boils that errupt along your spiritual body.

    And then you wake up.

    Then you go to school.

    Then you go on the date.

    Then you do more homework.

    But you can always feel them there, writhing, nibbling away at you, waiting for another chance to rise to the surface and remind you they are still there. That they are always there.

    Always there, under your skin.



    I had five minutes to try and get my understanding of pain out in a small story. A little crusade of trying to express how I feel. Night terrors, sleep paralysis, the forced amnesia, the lucid dreaming, the horrible episodes of insanity that threaten to take over peoples mind.
     
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    It\'s part of what I do to keep up my writing ability. Part of the reason I am fairly good at writing is because it is an expression of emotions and the creation of events; Event\'s rely on a persons imagination. However, emotions, while they can be presented purely through psychological knowledge, are better written if the writer has experience.

    For myself, I have a lot of emotional experience with the more psychologically taxing issues of life. While, to be honest, my perception of action and violence was gained through reading and videogames, my understanding of the human mind has come from nearly 20 years of experience and 10 years of constantly noting on how people react to stimuli. I\'m always observing the people around me.

    Combining both of those allow me to portray the chaotic and grim sides of the human psych with unerring accuracy. I, personally, enjoy embracing the complications of revenge, destruction, loss, chaos, and the degrading psychology and struggling will of any man.

    However, to keep up my writing ability, I occasionally do 5 minute drills, trying to express an emotion, a scene, or anything, really. I was writing a drill on insanity and psychological horror, one of my favorite subjects, and I thought you guys might like to read it.
     
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    Perhaps a little clichéd, but a decent read. My only real criticism (of your writing in general, not necessarily this piece in particular) is your misuse of apostrophes. Call me a grammar Nazi but that really grinds on me.

    But yeah, not bad. I probably couldn\'t do better. I\'m more used to analysing Wordsworth and writing short film scripts; creative narrative isn\'t something I\'ve attempted.