Content Warning: death, light violence, indirect mentions of abortion, sensitive subject matters This is not a writing competition entry :) Full screen recommended! ~ Our Name Was Lilith Once // February Short Story (2283 words) Press space, left/right arrows, or left/right edge of the screen to progress through slides. Forum version: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/post/7864742/ Note if you're gauging how long it'll take you to read this, there are a total of 28 slides ---------- General info: This is the second of twelve short stories I've challenged myself to write every month! I know I'm late, but I saved my February short story to be written at the beginning of March so I could use it for words in SWC. Hopefully, I can get my writing competition entry and my March short story done in time xD. I planned the entire story and outline in February though. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this short story! I've been focusing on a different genre every month, and February's genre was horror (which was more difficult than you think xD). ---------- Author's Note: I definitely stepped out of my comfort zone when it came to writing this short story. Horror is an extremely difficult genre to write well, and I didn't want to rely on gore, gruesome depictions, or cliche horror tropes for my short story. While I'm not entirely satisfied with some of the elements in this short story, I'm still quite proud of it! The idea for this short story was pulled from my list of ideas in the Notes app on my phone. I took the idea of writing in the first person collective (hence, the "we" pronouns) as well as the idea of "people-watching outside of a hospital." This led to the idea of writing from the perspective of Death (a nod to all you Book Thief fans out there!), and I wanted to reveal Death's identity at the very end of the story. In typical Zai fashion, there's a lot of symbolism that's meant to represent foreshadowing here. The crows, the ravens, the cats, the wordplay, the shoelace noose, etc. -- it's all hinting at the inevitable reveal of death. I didn't get anyone to critique this short story, unfortunately. If you're down to critique my future monthly short stories, let me know! ---------- Credits: Canva for slides Piano cover of You're Somebody Else - flora cash by me (you can subscribe to my YouTube channel of piano covers here! https://www.youtube.com/ ) Me for everything else :)
