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A Touch of Heatstroke



Estimated reading time — 9 minutes

Geoff lived in London. He had always considered himself to be one of the most average people on the planet. He was of medium height, medium build, had no talents whatsoever and worked in ASDA. His life was normal to the point of boredom, and every day followed the same routine.

Geoff’s average day did not include going to the shops, but, if memory served, he was short of a few item, bread and suchlike. It was convenient to pick these things up just after work, and he could go back home without disrupting his usual program of events. As he was walking down the freezer aisle, Geoff shivered violently. How he hated this part of supermarkets. As he walked past quickly, he saw a small girl sitting on a container of frozen peas. Her skin was white as snow, and as Geoff brushed past her, her skinny arm was like ice! Her head was bent, and a shock of black hair covered her body down to her waist, but Geoff could clearly see that all she was wearing was a flimsy summer dress. Looking back over his shoulder as he turned away, the girl was still sitting there, unmoving. He shivered, and walked away.

It wasn’t until a week later that Geoff saw the girl again. This time, she was sitting at a bus stop, her feet hanging far off the ground. She was in the same position she had been in before, and once again, there were no parents to be seen. A street waif, though Geoff, pitying this poor girl. Such a hard life on the streets of London. He hurried by, and didn’t see her again. As he passed, the girl looked up. Unseen, she watched him as he unlocked the door of his house, and went in.

As he closed the door, Geoff noticed a slight chill about the house, Shivering, he made himself a cup of tea. He yawned, and shivered again. It was getting late, and he had forgotten to turn the central heating up. Checking the boiler, Geoff did a double take. The boiler was on, and yet the building was cold, and goose pimples were coming up on Geoff’s arms. He stared at the gauge, uncomprehending. Then it came to him. It must be broken. Of course it was. Admittedly it had been working beautifully the day before, but all these modern gadgets broke at a moment’s notice! Geoff decided to ring the company and get them to fix it. He turned it up all the ways, and while he waited for it to take effect, he lit a fire in the unused grate in his living room, and settled down on his favourite comfy armchair. Picking up a book, he began to read.

Geoff woke up a few hours later with a start. The book was lying on his chest; open on the same page he had started reading at. As he returned it to a position he could continue reading at, he saw a white face looking in at the window. He looked up sharply. The night was dark, but the moon shone in with enough light for him to see that there was nothing there. He shuddered, and tossed another log onto the dying fire. It blazed up instantly, but no heat came off it. He read for another thirty minutes without turning a page, then put the book down, and went up to bed. As he opened the door, he cried out in shock and fear. A small figure was seated on the end of his bed, a young girl in a faded, floral-print dress. Her skin was white as alabaster, translucent as if made of paper, and her hair as dark as sin. In place of her eyes were sunken hollows, and under a sharp nose and caved-in cheeks, her mouth was a thin line of red. Geoff slammed the door shut and leaned against it, still shaking. On the count of three, he told himself. One. He could almost hear his heart race. Two. His hallway swam in front of his eyes, and his head spun. Three. He swung the door open fearfully, and peered in. The room was empty, his bed untouched. He edged slowly in, and patted the spot where the demon-child had sat, but there was nothing there, not even the small indent in the blankets where even the slightest weight would have left a mark. He got slowly into bed, and shut his eyes as tightly as he could. He didn’t open them again until morning.

It was six a.m. when Geoff awoke. Three hours before he usually got up. He had slept a fitful night, tossing and turning until the covers had been shoved right off the bed, and after that, he shivered and quaked without them, to retrieve them. He opened one eye carefully, scanning the room over and over again. The demon-child was waiting in a corner, he was sure. Yet, the room was empty, the only sound being his own ragged breathing. He opened the other eye, and swung one leg out of bed. He waited for a hand to grab his ankle, but none came. In fact, as the morning wore on, he became more and more certain that it had just been a dream- a trick of the light, perhaps. Maybe even a hallucination, and although he had never had one before, there was a first time for everything. He went about his day as normal, although there were some aspects of it that brought the previous night’s happenings to the fore of his mind. For one thing, the heat fluctuated erratically. One minute he would be red-faced and sweating, the next, shivering and chilled to the bone. For a few hours during lunch, the feeling of dread he had experienced the day before rose rapidly in his gut. He dismissed this as the heating acting up again, and the seafood he had eaten- it must have been off. Obviously this must be true, as he hadn’t bothered to check the packet before throwing it in the bin. Geoff shivered again, and turned the central heating off. He took his coat from the stand and left the house. A bit of fresh air would do him good.

He visited a local park on his walk, and was surprised to see that although there were many people there, he was the only one wearing a winter coat. True, the sun was bright and the sky cloudless, but the air was bitterly cold. He looked around in a wide arc, desperately searching for someone who shared this point of view. But there was none. He tried again, but this time, his gaze became riveted on a nearby tree. Try as he might, he could not drag his eyes away. A small figure stepped out from behind it. It was a young girl in a summer dress printed with faded flowers. Unusually, though, for all the supposed heat, her skin was white like snow, unlike the sun-browned complexions of all around her. There was something about this girl he knew, Geoff realised. An unwanted memory tugged at his thoughts, but he pushed it away. He looked away for a moment, and then looked back. She was gone. Walking up to the tree, Geoff could see no sign that there had ever been anyone there. The grass was in no way flattened and trampled, and from whatever angle he stared at it from, he could see no indication of anyone ever having stood in that spot. Again, something tugged at his mind, and again he pushed it away. A sick feeling rose in his stomach, and he backed off. Definitely time to leave, he thought. A touch of heat stroke, perhaps. He’d ring the doctor when he got home.

Upon reaching his front door, Geoff suddenly stopped. It’s all in your head, he told himself. It’s all in your head. Every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to run away, anywhere. He shoved them aside, and turned the key. The hallway was freezing cold, and an odd smell invaded his nostrils. He closed the door as quietly as he could, and looked around. Thankfully, the hall was empty. As he passed the mirror by the stairs, however, he glimpsed a small, dark-headed form in the reflection. He looked again, more closely. There was nobody there, only his own too-bright eyes staring him in the face. Then, he saw something small and dark, and almost cried in relief at his own stupidity. It was only his umbrella, leaning up against the wall. He turned the boiler on again, and sat down on his bed with his head in his hands. Gradually, so gradually Geoff almost didn’t notice, the heat crept up, and returned to normal. Feeling better now, he heated up a pizza for supper. It was only until he was in his pyjamas and cleaning his teeth, that things took a turn for the worse. Looking over into the full-length mirror beside the sink, he saw it instantly. A young child stood behind him, her faded dress blowing as if in a gale. Her arm was outstretched as she lunged for him, and her eye sockets blazed red. In his terror, Geoff saw her arm in new clarity, and his shriek was one of pure fear, for her arm was little more than bone- only her face and neck had skin of a kind, her legs too were bone. He fell to the floor, and huddled in a corner with his arms over his head. He remained in this position for some time, waiting for a blow that never came. Slowly, he uncurled and opened his eyes. She was gone. Even the rug she had kicked aside in her lunge for him was back in its place. Geoff did not sleep that night.

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The next morning, when he rose from his bed, he had a new, purposeful step. His eyes gleamed with intent, and a spark of insane determination glowed behind his over-large pupils. He put on his coat and hat again, and seemed not to notice the blazingly hot day. For the first time in his life, he visited the public library nearby, and loaned a laptop. He began typing feverishly, and every now and then, would scribble something down on a scrap of paper he had with him. A smile curved his thin lips upwards, and by the time he handed the computer back, a demented grin contorted his features wildly. As he made his way home, passers-by would cross to the other side of the road before he reached them.

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Inspector Shrew was a man of logic and science. He was not, by any standards, clever, but he was down-to-earth, and could tell a madman when he saw one. He had just finished a complicated case about a dog, a stolen necklace and a car door, and was feeling pretty pleased with himself. Less pleased, perhaps, when a call came in to investigate strange noises coming from an apparently abandoned house. The man who had lived there last, a man who went by the name of (here a careless tea stain had rendered the text illegible), had inexplicably vanished a month before. Although there was clearly no point, Shrew knocked politely on the neglected door. As expected, there was no reply. Why would there be? He pushed the door, and to his surprise, it not only opened, but also fell off its hinges entirely, shattering the quiet with a loud bang. Shrew stepped over the threshold, and a curious sense of dread mounted in the pit of his stomach. He loosened his belt a bit, and looked around. The foul stench of decay hit him, and he almost lost his balance. But no- it would not do to fall over in front of everyone! Shrew took a step forward. How odd! There was certainly no one there, but all the same, there was an unnerving feeling of being watched by many. Shrew banished all thoughts of that sort from his mind, and told himself not to be stupid. Of course no one was watching, he said to himself firmly. He made his way up the stairs, and along the upstairs hallway. Then, halfway down, he stopped. At about shoulder height, there were three, long, perfectly parallel gashes, as if a wild animal had been in. Shrew shivered, and for the first time in his life, fear made an unwelcome entrance. Making his way forward again, he stopped again, this time at a door. Thumps and bangs could be heard from inside, and Shrew backed away. His foot slipped on a shard of glass from the smashed mirror behind him, and he froze. The bangs stopped, and a shadow under the door ceased moving too, as if listening. Gathering all the witless courage he possessed, Shrew strode over to the door and flung it open. There was no one in there. Shrew breathed a sigh of relief, and took a moment to examine the walls. There were runes and sigils scratched into the
walls, as if by claws, and words.

Protect me from her
HELP ME
Always watching and underneath: No eyes
Don’t look or it takes you
Can’t run
Leave me alone
HELP ME
WAKE UP, PLEASE WAKE UP
Always Watching

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And most disturbing of all:
TAKE ME, DEMON-CHILD

Shrew was now shaking so violently he nearly dropped his torch. He tracked the smell to where it was strongest, and flung open the cupboard doors. A body fell on top of him, maggots crawling in the empty eye sockets. The corpse’s features were, on the whole, average to the point that they would simply pass out of one’s mind as if they were never there, and even the height and build of the body were so normal, it was hard to believe there had ever been a more stereotypical human. An ASDA employee’s badge fell out of one hand, the nails so long they looked like claws. A young girl’s giggle echoed around the house. By now, Shrew had had enough. He ran out of the house as fast as the rotting stairs would let him. Upon reaching his house, he fell into his favourite armchair by the fire. The strange thing was, that although the fire was white-hot at its heart, the room was cold. Shrew made himself a cup of tea, and walked on shaking legs to his bedroom. There was a girl sitting on his bed, in a faded, floral-print dress. Her skin was white as alabaster, translucent as if made of paper, and her hair as dark as sin. In place of her eyes were sunken hollows, and under a sharp nose and caved-in cheeks, her mouth was a thin line of red. Shrew collapsed, his skin the colour of snow. When he awoke, the girl was gone, and what’s more, there was no sign that anyone had ever been in.

Credit To – Poppy Thwaites

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27 thoughts on “A Touch of Heatstroke”

  1. I thought this one was alright but when some of the things scratched into the wall were the notes from Slender that really took me out of it.

  2. How To Write A Cliché Pasta:

    Step 1: Have an exceptionally ordinary protagonist that we all relate to.
    Step 2: Make ordinary protagonist perform an arbitrary task. (Grocery shopping, staying home alone, move to a new neighborhood, let their dog out at night, etc.)
    Step 3: On an ordinary day, while an ordinary man performs an ordinary task, Mr. Ordinary comes across a paranormal being – seemingly harmless, but gives him shivers nonetheless.
    Step 4: Have Mr. Ordinary leave creepy place and go home, feeling safe within the confines of his ordinary bedroom.
    Step 5: See paranormal creature again, in a different location – complete with creepy grin or laugh (little girl laugh or rumbling sinister chuckle, either one will work), pale skin, entirely black or entirely white eyes (sometimes red) and methodically placed claw marks or death note.
    Step 6: Run in terror or hold your ground, hoping to defeat said monster.
    Step 7: Either die or live happily ever after in a different location, never to see monster again. Mr. Ordinary is no more, or continues his ordinary life.
    Step 8: Plot Twist

    And there you are! Every scary story ever written. Do I get a gold star?

  3. You had mentioned at one point in the story that Geoff had thought the little girl had looked familiar- or sparked some distant memory in his mind. I would have loved to hear the back story on this, maybe as to why the girl was haunting him? I was left with a lot of questions and felt that the ending was a great let down.

  4. When the narrator narrates (that souds funny) in the third person, he is objective and does not get emtionally involved in the action. When he narrates in the first person, he is subjectiv and he feels the action, participates in the action, showing off his feelings and emotions. So, when you narrate in the first person, you are far more personal. Remind that!

  5. very creepy… I’m a ghost hunter, and it normally takes alot to scare me, but THIS shook me to the core… loved the references to the slenderman notes. would certainly NOT like to see that child sitting at the bottom of MY bed, great work.
    keep it up :)

  6. Faith:
    I really did not like this pasta. It was so clichéd, the sudden cold, the ‘demon’ child, hollow eyes, white skin, translucent skin, long black hair and caved-in cheeks. The ‘spirit’ or ‘demon’ is never explained, nor is the reason behind why she chose this average guy. The author went way too far in describing the ‘demonic’ girl and the ‘oh-so average’ guy. The writing was choppy and awkward at times. At different points I really didn’t understand why it was written this way. Then, the waaaay overdone ‘twist ending’ of it suddenly being a police report and this guy suddenly typing everything up. Which, I suppose, is supposed to be what we are reading rightnow? But then where does the police come in?

    *sigh* Anyway, this was really too clichéd to creep me out at all. Your writing was a bit off, but definitely not terrible. I think with a more original idea you can do wonderfully. Good luck!

    ^^ That practically explains my feelings perfectly, I especially didn’t like the part with the words carved in the wall, they were practically the exact same as the notes on Slenderman

  7. I don’t want to repeat everything that’s already been said, so I’ll just point out the bit that bugged me the most. There’s a specific live mentioning an “unwanted memory” and that he pushes it out of his mind. And then we never hear about it again. You said in a comment that he was basically chosen at random. So why mention the memory? That line made me think the twist would be that he was somehow responsible for her demise and she was coming for revenge.

    1. The memory was of every time he’d seen her before. He’d done this thing that I can’t explain, but it does happen. He’d made himself forget about her, and didn’t want to remember. There is going to be another Waif story, BTW, which will hopefully clear up a few points. It’s not a sequel or anything, it’s just another Waif. I hope that clears things up for you :-)

  8. I’ve found the comments on here to be sensible and well thought-out. Now I’ve read the story again, I can see all the little things people have complained about, thanks everyone for the help!
    And, The Old King Critic, English horror was what I was trying to get across, thanks again!

  9. A nice change of pace to read a pasta written in third person. The antagonist was creepy and well detailed as was the whole of the story, but that seems to be the story’s biggest flaw. It seems like you substituted too much description for feeling so that I as the reader was never able to connect and therefore care for your characters. This is a common problem when penning a tale from other viewpoints other than your own when writing in 3rd person: too much chronicling, not enough expression. Adding some dialogue between your characters (some verbal dealings to help the reader feel more correlated with the characters) would help alleviate the one-sided perception of your story by bringing your characters to life.

  10. The Old King Critic

    I find I rather liked this pasta something about it just screamed English horror. Cliched as it was it wasn’t really a bad use of cliche kind of made me smile a bit. The change over to the inspector could of been done better, but for the most part solid. The writing style almost reminded me of the Stanley Parable (Half-Life 2 mod now its own game) in the fact that it’s basic narration. There could be a bit more complexity to your language though. Of course you don’t want it to be to flowery and just a boiled bunch of bland word pasta. So all in all I’d say this pasta is about average, good story, meh presentation, not so good writing (as far as complexity goes). So i award you with a 7.3 out of 10!

  11. The story is a bit clichè, but this is not a great problem, since it is written nicely and it was easy enough to go over it. However, you lost me in the transition between the first and second character.
    What Geoff discovered in his search is never explained or even hinted at. We know afterwards that he disappeared, but apparently, even though his disappearance is known to the police, nobody ever looked for him (hard to explain why they didn’t find the body earlier, otherwise). We have no way to know how he died or why (the girl seemed creepy, but never actually dangerous, in the first part), and no explanation about what the girl actually is and wants.
    The inspector doing to investigate and somehow taking the curse on him is clichè too, but not bad, however I wonder if it is normal for an inspector to be sent to check noised in an abandoned house. Wouldn’t a simple uniform be enough?

  12. The Story wasn’t bad, but I would like more details about why the “demon-child” chose him to torture, why she attached to him, why she was in the frozen food section of the grocery store to start with? I was expecting a twist of him being a pedo or serial killer to explain it but no explanation came and that was disappointing.

  13. Hello Darkness…..or Poppy Thwaites! I felt a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, it’s written well and has a relatively nice flow (overall) to it, but on the other it falls a bit short in originality. Like Faith said, the imagery of the child is a bit too classic, and I felt the description was repeated too many times. It just began to feel laborious reading the same kind of description time and again. I also was hoping for more infomration about the girl. I got very hopeful when you mentioned “an unwanted memory tugged at his thoughts, but he pushed it away,” expecting there to be some reveal, some reason behind this girl following him, but that fizzled out. If I had to make one suggestion, cut the last portion of the pasta and pursue this angle instead. Tell us why the girl followed him, why she is so pale and carrying a deathly chill. I understand that she could be pale and cold because, duh, she’s dead, but I was hopeful that there would be a more unique reason.

    Where the pacing fell apart for me was in the sudden transition to the police officer, the room, the corpse, and the sudden repetition of the same description. I’ve already addressed how I would handle it, but you may also consider lengthening this portion, without repeating the same scenes, so that it fits more snugly into the extant narrative.

    Not to say there were not things I enjoyed. I found this relatively typo free (though I remembering noting a couple, I cannot find them now). That alone does not make it good, but it does speak to the care you have as a writer. I also enjoyed the discussion of the cold, how unnatural and clinging it was. I think those scenes were really well executed and fleshed out. That is where I would focus to make this story really shine. The character’s seem logical enough, which I like. I hate it when the character begins to freak out with barely any provocation, or if they blatantly deny the reality right that. You balanced these two extremes well, making it believable. I liked the description of the average guy, because it set him up as a great Everyman.

    I’m sorry for writing so long. This is one of my first opportunities to comment in a few weeks, so I’m rambling. Overall, I think this showed promise. You have an interesting voice, one that might be improved with more sentence variety (there were a lot of short, choppy sentences that could be combined), but a good head for storytelling. I would enjoy reading more from you, but with a more original topic. Thanks for an enjoyable read, and happy writing!

  14. This pasta had so much potential, except for one thing: you NEVER EVER *EVER* WRITE A CREEPY PASTA IN THIRD PERSON. Excuse me if I’m getting too passionate, it’s just more terrifying and personal if you write it in first person because it feels like it’s affecting the reader. The idea was good, but first person is key when it comes to writing pastas.

  15. I really did not like this pasta. It was so clichéd, the sudden cold, the ‘demon’ child, hollow eyes, white skin, translucent skin, long black hair and caved-in cheeks. The ‘spirit’ or ‘demon’ is never explained, nor is the reason behind why she chose this average guy. The author went way too far in describing the ‘demonic’ girl and the ‘oh-so average’ guy. The writing was choppy and awkward at times. At different points I really didn’t understand why it was written this way. Then, the waaaay overdone ‘twist ending’ of it suddenly being a police report and this guy suddenly typing everything up. Which, I suppose, is supposed to be what we are reading right now? But then where does the police come in?

    *sigh* Anyway, this was really too clichéd to creep me out at all. Your writing was a bit off, but definitely not terrible. I think with a more original idea you can do wonderfully. Good luck!

    1. Sorry, where did you see anyone typing up anything? It’s all simple narration, there are no police reports involved as far as I can see. :-?

    2. Thanks for the criticism, I’ll try and take it on board. She chose him because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, not because it was HIM specifically. It was in no way an original idea, I saw this thing that gave tips on writing creepypasta, and it said that if your character saw a girl with no eyes sitting on their bed, then maybe that’s not such a good idea. So I decided to write a story about a girl with no eyes sitting on someone’s bed. Thanks anyway!

  16. This is pretty creepy, maybe the only part that could be creepier is your writing style, I often like the stories in first person better. However, that is my opinion, it is still a great story.

    1. Michelle Hampton

      I think the switch from the average man to the police officer was too sudden. I liked the idea behind but I think there should have been a bit more detail. Such as why and how she chooses her victims. is it only based on location or if they have been in the place where one of her victims died or is it half random. I really liked this pasta but I think it could have used a bit more. it felt a bit abrupt and incomplete but had a sound idea. so just keep working on stories and keep improving your skills!

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