He looked down the hall. Lit up by nothing but a single flickering light bulb, leaving him in moments of complete darkness. But he couldn't tell, because its speed was beyond him to notice. He took a single step, cautiously trying not to set off a trap or disturb something that shouldn't be disturbed. To his relief, it only gave an eerie creak, a lot less than what he had imagined. What he had imagined was a buckling wooden plank followed by the collapsing of the entire floor, of course it didn't help to think of it. After all he had only advanced a single step. He analyzed the peeling strands of paint hanging loosely on the wall being blown by an outside wind, perhaps some wind blowing from under the wooden door across from him. The door leaned awkwardly on a single rusty hinge at the bottom as the top hinge hung on a single bolt through the bottom hole. He watched the door for a moment, and turned his gaze back to his feet as he readied himself for another step. He felt his sweat turn cold from the wind, hesitating for a moment on his next step. He felt a presence behind him, temptations of turning became overwhelming but he knew that the second he did there would be nothing there. He wiped his sweat with the sleeve of his sweater. He wanted to get out, and fast. He started to feel light headed, he felt the wall, the ceiling, all caving in on him. His jeans felt tight and uncomfortable, his shoes pinched his toes together. He felt the world's weight, and all of its entirety draw into a single point. And then there was nothing, and before him was nothing. Not air, not even space. He could not move his body into view of it being viable of existence. His mind was blank, but calm. No feelings, emotions, all of the world and what he knew escaped him. Even if he had tried to retrieve them from his memory, like a robot his brain would reply, “file not found.” Everything simply did not exist. All that existed was the mind, not even thought, or dreams, or memories, or even the definition of a mind. Just merely a thing that existed without meaning, not in context, not in words, to just exist. A place of no colors, not black, not white, colorless. It wasn't an unwritten page, an empty canvas, it was nothing. This nothing, was beautiful.
So, first impressions. This isn't bad. It's a little vague at times, and I'm left wondering what's going on. For example, how did he come to be in the hall in the first place? There are endless possiblities, but without having any reason to be there, the story kind of loses its setting. I mean, I liked the tension. The descriptions were nice but it's all a little confusing.
Who is the boy? Does he live there? Has he broken into the building? We need some background. At the moment, this is more like a piece of flash fiction. There's not really any plot or any development. There's just a boy in a hall, he's scared and then something happens which makes him lose his mind, so he's left with nothing. All in all, it's a little confusing.
It was a little hard to read because of the formatting. I'd suggest breaking it up into much smaller, easier to read chunks. Sometimes readers can be put off when they're faced with a huge block of text.
The ending seemed kind of repetitive with all the references to nothingness and thoughts and minds. I wasn't really sure what was going on and, without any background to where he is and who he is, I'm struggling to find a reason to make sense of it all.
Yeah, I'm sorry if this isn't much help, but I'm not sure what it was about so I'm unable to really give you any kind of over all view.
xDudettex
'Stop wishing for the sunshine. Start living in the rain.' - Kids In Glass Houses.
'Would you destroy something perfect in order to make it beautiful?' - MCR artwork.
Kind of reminds me of the Big Crush theory, what with your reference to singularity endpoint and everything closing in on the boy. I wonder if this was your basis? I guess the walls of the hallway could be referencing the walls of the universe - but then, why a hallway, and not a room? It's an intriguing parallelism, I suppose.
Clearly this is all metaphorical. I won't attempt to piece it together, because translations for a piece this are very open-ended. There is an underlying feeling of being trapped, but I'm unable to contextualize it with what you give me.
Everything simply did not exist. All that existed was the mind
The latter half is full to bursting with contradictions, but this was the most overt example: if nothing exists, then how could the mind exist, for isn't the mind something? Anyway.
You also ramble on about the nothingness of the situation for an unbalanced amount of time. It becomes distracting in relation to the main point of the story.
Now. As this is a metaphorical story, its moral lies also with the metaphor. Metaphors should, as a rule, be focused, not vague; vagueness leads to misinterpretation, confusion, etc. They can be open-ended, but attempts to sharpen it must be fitting with the story, must be masked, assimilated.
He felt a presence behind him, temptations of turning became overwhelming but he knew that the second he did there would be nothing there.
This is grossly obvious, a fleeting reference to an inference the reader won't arrive at anyway, an interruption. If it's unimportant, leave it out; if it's important, inflate it; don't leave it lying there naked.
On a final note, I'd separate this into two or three separate paragraphs. I think that would make it less intimidating for the reader, and perhaps allow it to be more explorative in the concepts it describes.
I love the reviews! I need to improve a lot as a writer, this is just one of the random pieces where I write as much as I can about anything I can within a time limit. Whatever comes out, comes out and well, here it is! These reviews will help me refine this piece of work and many more to come! Thanks!
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