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Best Friends



Estimated reading time — 5 minutes

When I was a kid, my family and I lived in a modest house in West Virginia. As I said, it was quite small and there was a large forest behind my house. I was pretty curious, as any small child is and so I’d always find myself asking to go into the woods. My parents would consent but I was never allowed to go near the river that was located deep in the forest. At first, I was slightly disappointed but I never gave it a second thought and decided not to question what they said. Being an only child at 8-years-old, things could get pretty lonely. I was a recluse of sorts but had a big imagination so I always created a multitude of friends to play with me in the woods but they never left the wilderness so I ended up going back home to discuss the adventures I had with my parents over dinner.

One day, after my dad left for his classes at the seminary (he wanted to be a pastor at our local church), I decided to go on a short walk in the woods considering it was an Act 80 Day and I was off from school. I put on my jacket and found my shoes with the help of my mom and quickly rushed out into my imaginary kingdom within the confines of the forest. When I reached the point of the woods that I never went past, my mind became particularly curious. I got tired of limiting myself to just having a small amount woods to play in so I slowly made my way past gnarled tree roots and low hanging branches, thorny underbrush and overgrown weeds until I finally ended up finding the oh-so-infamous river my parents told me to stay away from. It had a strong current. Looked like pretty rough waters. I peered across the river to where the forest seemed to thicken substantially. Through the thin trunks and massive amount of branches, I saw something moving. A shadow of some sort? Whatever it was seemed to be advancing closer and closer to the other side of the river until finally, the shadow came out into the clearing. It was a man. Emaciated, lanky, and over 6 feet tall, he silently watched me from across the river. Being a lonely little girl, my first thought was that he could be a friend. I smiled and waved but I got no reaction. On closer inspection, I realized that the man had a small grin on his face. For some reason, the grin scared me a little but I was intrigued so I decided to leave. The next day after school, I went back. Then it became a daily thing. I didn’t mind his grin after a while. I thought it was cute. He never crossed the river but we still found a way to play and somehow, we created a bond with each other. One day my father asked me what I actually did in the woods. I mean, I guess it did seem a little weird; a little girl going into the woods by herself on a daily basis…there can’t be that much to do. I told him I had made a friend. He laughed.

“Oh, really? What’s his name?”

“Well, he can’t talk. Or, at least I don’t think he can.”

Thinking nothing of it, he let it go and I visited my friend everyday, per usual.

One day, he finally told me his name.

I ran to the river, smiling out of anticipation. It was like any other day; he was on the other side of the river but instead of his normal half grin, he was smiling. Teeth showing. It wouldn’t seem like that big of a deal except for the fact that his teeth were pointed. All of them. Every once in a while, a forked tongue would sniff the air through his slimy yellow fangs. I gasped. My friend once again became a figure of slight terror. I wanted to turn and run but my feet were stuck. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t avert my eyes. After I collected myself a little, I turned to run. As soon as I took my first step back however, he spoke for the first time.

“What is your name, child?”

“…C-cassie. My name is..my name is Cassie Littman.”

His smile widened.

“My name is Levi.”

I ran. The way he said it. His voice. I knew I never wanted to visit him ever again. It was awful. It was like he was whispering in my ear even though the river was crashing loudly against itself and even though he was standing across the river. It wasn’t like any voice I’ve ever heard before. It was unearthly. As I turned and started to run I heard him call to me.

“Please don’t leave me, Cassie.”

But I couldn’t stay. I had to get out of there. I think I might’ve been crying. I can’t remember. I ran home and practically attacked my father.

“Gosh, sweetheart. What’s the matter?”

“My friend. My friend in the woods, he has pointy teeth! He’s scary!”

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“Oh sweetie, it’s just your imagination. Don’t get too worked up over it. If your “friend” bothers you that much, don’t go in the woods anymore.”

It made sense. And I never wanted to see that…thing again. So I didn’t go back for months. I actually became kind of a recluse. I was scared to leave my house. I felt like he’d be there…waiting for me.

I was sleeping when I heard it. Crying. I jumped a little and tiptoed to my window. I got a clear view of the woods but I didn’t see anything. I heard someone speak through the tears but I couldn’t put a face to the muffled, contorted voice and I didn’t know where the voice was coming from so I went downstairs to try to get away from it but it just got louder.

“I miss you. Please come to me Cassie. I love you. I miss you so much.”

I didn’t want to follow the voice. I really didn’t. But something told me to follow it. Something in me told me to console whatever or whoever was in pain because of me. So I went outside. I didn’t know where I was going but I knew exactly where to go. I headed toward the woods. I walked a while until I got to the river and then everything clicked. I panicked. I started to cry and I looked around watching out for Levithis or whatever the hell his name was. I heard rustling. The talking was now replaced with horrid, inhuman screams of agony and pain.

I couldn’t see him but I heard him speak.

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME. I NEEDED YOU. YOU WERE MY ONLY FRIEND AND YOU ABANDONED ME.”

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He appeared at the other side of the river a few minutes later. I was too terrified to speak. He wiped his tears away.

“I’m sorry Cassie. I just love you so much. You’re my only friend. Please come play with me across the river. Please, cross the river for me.”

I considered it. He was lonely…like me.

Then I remembered what my mother had told me during the months that I wouldn’t leave the house.

“I can’t say I’m happy with the fact that you don’t go outside anymore but I am glad that you’re steering clear of the woods. That river has a notorious reputation. So many children have drown. It’s…odd.”

I made the connection. I screamed. I wouldn’t let him into my head. I had to get out. I told him I had to go but he kept coaxing me. He promised me happiness and games and fruit and a nice long life forever, with him. All I had to do was cross the river. All I had to do was take the plunge.

Despite what my mother had said, I took a step closer. I was so incredibly lonely. I just wanted a friend…

In June of 2004, Cassie Littman’s body was found lying gutted on the far side of the Shaver’s Fork River. There were bite marks covering almost every inch of her body.

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42 thoughts on “Best Friends”

  1. to be honest i didnt see that ending coming but the story was great a few error’s but over all 8 out of 10

  2. Why do they run?

    I liked this one, but that girl was increadably stupid. I mean unless she fell victim to some sort of passive mind controll there was absolutly no reason to have done anything that she did. In short good story stupid girl. 7/10

  3. Nicole:
    What’s the big deal with the first person writing? Hasn’t anyone ever read “The Lovely Bones”? I think it makes the story so much more personal to have it written in first person.

    There’s no general problem with first person, just that it doesnmt make much sense if the person dies at the end of the story.
    The idea of first person is someone telling their story of an event in their life, but how can one tell his/her story when they end up dead in the end?

    1. It seems that you have, in fact, not read The Lovely Bones. SPOILER ALERT: Susie dies in the beginning, and the whole book is written in her perspective from beyond death. She tells the story of her life, what lead to her murder, and how she feels about death and the continuation of life for those around her. This story was a little like that; the first person perspective from beyond death makes it all more personal, because you know details and feelings that you couldn’t know if it was written any other way.

  4. What’s the big deal with the first person writing? Hasn’t anyone ever read “The Lovely Bones”? I think it makes the story so much more personal to have it written in first person.

  5. The general idea of this is valid, although there are at least two things that ruin it. First and foremost, the not-so-convinced attitude of the monster, who first scares off Cassie (it’s hard to believe he doesn’t know that showing her his pointed teeth would do just that), than resorts to a pretty childish trick to have her go back (even though, apparently, he could just have her go back against her will) and then risks to scare her off again by shouting at her like that. Seems like he’s stuck in a line of work that’s not really for him.
    The second thing is the drowned children coming out of the blue. How come Cassie’s mother remembers to warn her about that only after she stopped going to the woods (when the warning has become quite useless) and never mentions the fact when she’s there all the time?

  6. Grumble. I really liked this in the beginning, but as others have already stated it makes no sense the way this little girl dies with other children drowning. It just doesn’t make any sense. The writing is very choppy and the ending feels rushed. Like you didn’t think it through and just kind of threw in the quote from the mother.

    Now, since I’ve said that I’ll say this, Mr. or Ms. Author, you are obviously talented, I would love to see more work from you in the future or even a rewrite of this story using our suggestions.

  7. I feel that the author could have worked what her mom said about the drownings earlier into the story. Use simpler words for the daughter to understand. Maybe say hurt instead of drowned so that the condition of her corpse isn’t conflicting with the mother’s words.

    And the ‘it’s… Odd.” Part really took me out of the story. Maybe the mom could have reinforced the earlier ‘no river rule’ somehow.

    Cassie also contradicted what she wanted to do. People don’t usually think one thing, than do the exact opposite without knowing why. They need an incentive are good reason. Like if Cassie dropped her doll by the river and returned to get it, or she got grounded for some reason and decided to run away to the river to see the friend she was scared of, but never betrayed her before. Sorry about that run-on sentence.

    Also when Levi spoke to her when she was in the house, and his voice got louder when she went downstairs, I was terrified that he was in the house with her. Than she opened the door and went into the woods even though she didn’t want to. And it was by choice. Which I didn’t particularly like.

  8. I like the concept, but overall I couldn’t say I enjoyed this pasta. The grammar is distracting, it’s overly flowery and choppy. Too many run on sentences. If you write from the point of view of a little girl, it needs to sound like a little girl. This sounded like someone went a little overboard with the thesaurus.

    It seemed so rushed, going from mystery friend, to so many kids drowning. Although I feel like it has potential, it really could use to be reworked.

  9. I really feel like you rushed the ending.
    ********************
    Then I remembered what my mother had told me during the months that I wouldn’t leave the house.

    “I can’t say I’m happy with the fact that you don’t go outside anymore but I am glad that you’re steering clear of the woods. That river has a notorious reputation. So many children have drown. It’s…odd.”
    ********************
    These two paragraphs ruined the flow of the story for me.
    The first paragraph was poorly phrased and hard to follow, even though it was only one sentence long.
    The second paragraph was a train wreck. You opened with a compound sentence and forgot to add a comma. Then, you had a mother using the words “notorious” and “reputation” with her eight year old daughter. I don’t know any eight year olds who can define notorious. To finnish your paragraph you wrote this sad little sentence, “So many children have drown. It’s…odd”.

    I find it difficult to enjoy the climax of the story when it is filled with mistakes like this. While the rest of the story was decent, and the ending was unexpected, I can’t give the pasta more then a 6/10.

  10. Why do people write in the first person, then kill the main character? If your writing in the first person the girl would have had to have been writing this right before she fell in the rivier. It’s a small thing but it kinda ruins a story for me. If you write in the first person, make it an account of a terrifying story from the past, or make it like a journal. Interesting story otherwise.

  11. Another thing to add to the list of complaints: the legend said that a bunch of kids drowned near that river. Not a bunch of kids were found “gutted with bite marks over every inch of their bodies”. At the very least that would start a manhunt after occurring a few times and that Levi character would have been found. Perhaps he has magical powers and only appears when it wants to but if that were the case the sumbitch could probably appear on the other side of the river. So that along with your self contradictory statements gave me trouble getting into the story and suspending my disbelief

    1. From what I read, there was no “legend” of children drowning. There was only a mother telling her daughter that children had died in that river. If I had an eight year old daughter, I would probably not tell her that children had been “gutted” at the river. I would tell her that children had drowned at the river.

      1. I wouldn’t have said drowned. My words would have been “Many children have gotten hurt very badly playing near the river” Although it isn’t that great to keep them away, saying kids have drowned would probably make my kid want to go to some extent. Bragging they didn’t drown or to prove they can swim, I don’t know. But they would be more likely to trust people near the river I think. I think they would, but I’m not sure if it’s for sure

      2. If I had a daughter and I knew of people having been gutted near that river, I wouldn’t care much about the wording, I just wouldn’t let my daughter go even close to those woods, let alone the riverbanks.

  12. There are some obvious plot holes and a few grammar errors that take away from this one, but it’s actually not bad. It needs to be cleaned up and edited a little, but I liked it.

  13. Alfred Frederick Dinglebottom

    The ending ruined this story. You shouldn’t have written it in first person.

    Otherwise it was excellent, well described and nice to see an original (perhaps slightly clichéd) monster.

    1. I don’t really see a problem with it being in first person. I think you’re just upset because you expected the little girl to run home.

      1. No he’s right. The entire took place from one perspective, Cassie’s. Then at the end it took changed to a news story.

  14. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. In the beginning the narrator is “cassie” the girl who died. How can she write a story when she’s dead.

  15. This straight-laced pasta had some interesting ideas with regards to the villain; I think the author aimed to have a sort of friend-or-foe tension going on: the protagonist’s loneliness conflicting with her self-preservation, the monster never revealing its true nature until it’s too late. IMO this piece didn’t quite manage to pull this off; mainly because the plot felt very contrived.

    The pasta starts on good footing: the first-person voice is genial, leading up to a quite good intro (which could’ve been better parsed). Unfortunately, the characterization doesn’t continue from there: the reader isn’t really shown the extent of Cassie’s loneliness, nor the other parts of her personality, making her feel shallow.

    This stumble contributed Cassie’s (from the reader’s POV) increasingly bizzare and inconsistent actions: she was intrigued so she decided to leave? She decided to follow the voice despite not wanting to? This IMO added to the feel of plot artificiality: Cassie acts that way because the plot needs her to.

    The villain was also too outwardly evil to maintain believable friend-or-foe tension. His sharp teeth, his tongue and even his name gave off warning signs that even the most innocent could pick up.

    The tension IMO could’ve been maintained, even after plot contrivances, had the author described how the friendship developed instead of skipping it, or described more intimately Cassie’s internal conflict instead of ‘she wanted to do X. She did Y instead. She didn’t know why‘. The ending also struck me as a deus ex machina, her mother’s warning coming from nowhere.

    Overall, an interesting concept but a very flawed execution. 6.3/10

    1. I kind of felt bad for him, which makes it even worse, because when she died I didn’t quite know how to react.

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