Okay, I've decided to post on this board because I figure that the subject matter of this story will be along the lines of what most people here would find interesting. I understand that I won't get very many posts since I'm a new member and really, who wants to read random bits of a story from someone they've never heard of. Not actually that exciting, is it?
Anyway, if you do end up reading this, I would be endlessly thankful for your feedback. Criticism is VERY welcome - especially if you can point out something specific that I need to fix or that I'm doing wrong. I just want to know from unbiased sources if this train is worth following, and what things I need to add/take away from my writing to help it work. Suggestions for titles would be great too. I'll return the favor in any way possible - Thanks in advance.
This is a sample scene from somewhere around the mid-beginning of the story. My main character is Gillian Grey, and she reveals her big secret to one of her school friends.
Gillian pulled Carly into one of the stacks rooms at the back of the school library, locked the door, and sat Carly down at a study table. She sat down across from Carly, got back up, sat down next to her, re-adjusted her glasses, got back up, and started pacing back and forth in front of the table.
“Look, Gillian, if you really don’t want to tell me–”
“No. Nonononono, I really, really do, it’s just, y-you know, I’ve never . . . I-I’ve never told anyone about this, ever. Not my parents, nobody.”
“What, are you gay? ‘Cause, y’know, I’m totally cool with that, I have a cousin–”
“What? No, I’m not gay. I just, I have this friend, and she . . . I mean . . .”
“You have mad monkey sex?”
“No! Oh my God, no, no, no, never. Just . . . Oh God, no.” Gillian thought about her and Laila for a moment. “Oh my God. No.”
“Hey, what’s so bad about lesbians?”
“Nothing! It’s just my friend is – it’s not that she’s a girl – it’s not about lesbians! This has nothing to do with lesbians. Nothing. I don’t know why we’re talking about it.”
“Okay, then tell me about your special lady friend.”
Gillian glared balefully at the younger girl before opting to forge ahead. She took a steadying breath and began. “Okay. When . . . when you were little, did you have an imaginary friend?”
“Sure, why?”
“Well, so did I, as early as I could remember. H-her name was Laila, and she was . . . well she was older than me, but younger than my parents. She had black hair, blue eyes, and really sharp teeth. Sometimes she had wings.” Gillian couldn’t help the smile as sifted through old memories. “She used to do magic tricks for me. Not like, card tricks or pulling rabbits out of hats, but she would make fire out of nowhere, or turn scarves into roses and then into birds and things like that. You know those paper cut outs that they teach you to make at school? The ones that, y’know, they hold hands? Well, she used to make them come alive and dance.”
“Dude, you had way better imaginary friends than me. I had this little parrot named Checky. He looked like Woodstock from that cartoon, Peanuts, only with a black checkerboard pattern.”
Taking a deep breath, Gillian continued, running her hands through her short russet hair. “But Checky went away eventually right?”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
“Of course,” Gillian repeated, resuming her pacing. “I . . . I though it was normal, when I was little, you know? But then I got older, and my parents started getting concerned about me, because I’d still talk about Laila. They - they finally sat me down and explained to me that Laila wasn’t real, and that I was making her up. I couldn’t understand that, and I . . .” Gillian hesitated and closed her eyes. “I stopped talking about Laila, and I tried to make her go away. But she wouldn’t go. She wouldn’t leave.”
“Wait, wait.” Carly put out her hands, as if to physically stop Gillian from talking. “What do you mean, she wouldn’t leave?”
“I mean I stopped talking about her, and I stopped having my mom set her a place at the dinner table, but I still saw her. Every day. She would wake me up every morning and sing my to sleep every night. Well . . . until I decided I was too old for lullabies anymore. Then she would tell me stories.”
There was a heavy silence where neither of the two girls spoke. “O-okay, Gilly? Gillian? You’re kinda starting to freak me out. How does your imaginary friend actually wake you up in the morning?”
“An imaginary friend? They can’t. I finally figured it out when I was about ten or eleven. Laila was never imaginary.” She took a deep breath “Laila is a demon.”
There was silence.
“You’re shitting me.”
“Trust me, I wish.”
“Okay, say you’re right. Your imaginary friend is a demon. Why can’t anyone else see her?”
“She doesn’t have enough power, not without someone to ground her to the physical world from the netherrealm. I have to do some special preparations first if I want her to be able to be seen here, but it’s possible, and I’ve already done them, so if you can just hang on for a second–”
“Laila . . .” Carly walked towards Gillian and spoke as if Gillian was about to go crazy and swing a lightstand at her. “Gilly, demons aren’t real.”
“Oooh – ho – ho – ho, honeybunch, now that’s just rude.” Gillian groaned as Carly whirled around to the sight of Laila leaning back against a bookcase, arms crossed over her leather duster, floating a good four feet off the ground for extra flair. The open-mouthed stare on the face of Gillian’s friend only served to further delight the demon, who rewarded them with a half-grin that exposed her needle-sharp fangs. “I don’t go around saying you don’t exist, now do I?” She flashed the toothy grin Gillian’s way. “What do you think Gilly, dramatic enough?”
“Laila,” Gillian muttered as she pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers, “sometimes I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“I know, babe,” Laila vanished in a quick swirl of black smoke and reappeared directly behind Gillian, settling her chin on the shorter girl’s shoulder and wrapping her arms around Gillian’s middle. “But you luuuuuuv me anyway!” She sing-songed.
“Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“Don’t blaspheme, honey.”
Carly looked back and forth between her new friend and the demon currently wrapped around her like an enthusiastic monkey.
“Hey, Gillian?” She asked, her expression inexplicable.
Gillian, for her part, feared the worst. Despite her carefree attitude, Laila hugged her a little tighter in reassurance. “Yeah?”
Carly gave a weak smile. “Sure you’re not gay?”
“Oh, God.”
“Blaspheming, baby.”
Again, any kind of help is more than welcome.