Short Story: Nyctophobia

  So I said in my last post that I would be giving sneak peeks into the stories we're writing for our short story collection. Here's the first one. This is one of my stories that is the first to reach it's almost-final draft (meaning I need a final beta reader to give me fresh insight). So here we go.

  Everyone is afraid of the dark. At least to some extent. As a kid I remember whenever I shut the light off in my room in the evenings, I would run out of my room before the monsters could eat me. Or when I'd finally go to bed, I would beg my mom to turn the nightlight on. I wouldn't be able to sleep without that little bit of light.

  These are the opening lines of the story. This short tale surrounds a young man, age 24, as a police officer investigating a potential meth lab. He struggles severely with being afraid of the dark (hence the name of the story), as well as with the physical and mental abuse of his father and older brother from childhood.

  Themes of this story include fear of the dark, damaged relationships, madness, un-forgiveness, and confronting your fears.

  This is one of the slightly darker stories I've written for this collection. The story started off as a writing exercise from one of my creative writing college classes. It was about building tension in a short period of time. Eventually it turned into a story about a young man who wants to do the right thing and be a good cop, but because of the psychological scars he has from childhood, he goes a bit insane.

  Most of the stories I write are more fantastical than this, but this one was actually a lot of fun to write as I explored exactly what it would take to realistically knock this character off his rocker.

  Again, let me know if you have question, comments, or are interested in beta reading.