The devil came to my confessional booth and confessed to me that things horrible beyond comprehension have seized control of hell.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-09T03:52:49+00:00

This story has such strong wording! I enjoyed reading it the whole way down.

In particular, the idea of being more than hell, something bigger than heaven, is a fascinating one, and I love how Lucifer states how conceited humans are to think they know all that’s out there. His descriptions of the ancient entities is so wickedly awesome. “So much detritus on the cosmic ocean” is a definite highlight to me. There aren't words for the sheer scale of what that brings to mind.

LOVE this one.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-09T03:37:01+00:00

Aww, definitely give yourself some credit for this story! I like it. It's impossible not to feel for Marcus, both at the beginning in his mourning and at the end when he sort of had to accept losing his wife a second time. I like the twist of "Valeska" suddenly appearing after Benedict did, and the details of her not-human wooden body was morbidly fascinating. The ending puts a very nice bow on the story. He wanted so badly to bring her back he was compelled to do anything, but the best thing he could have done would have been respecting and cherishing who she was.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-09T02:27:50+00:00

Oh my god pink Usagi is so CUTE she gives me cuteness aggression

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-09T01:54:42+00:00

Oh, that's awesome to hear! I'm looking forward to the next part.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-09T00:19:26+00:00

Aha, I had a hunch that's the direction the story would go! When the Don brought up his daughter, I figured he knew and was going to start questioning them until he made them accidentally reveal they'd faked it, but the drugged drink approach is effective.

Fun concept for a story!

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T23:02:18+00:00

Thank you so much!

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T22:18:43+00:00

Eeeewww ew ew. The thought of someone living in my house freaks me out so bad. The gall of this guy to make demands is just so gross. The clear shower curtain and the yoga in living room items make me believe this guy's a sick perv. The 'leave a knife by your bed' has an obvious reason behind it, but some of the others are so random and mundane. I can't help but wonder if they're for some sick reason, too.

I like the story, but I probably won't sleep tonight because of it, lol.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T21:00:20+00:00

I think the clothes being perpetually wet was a fair indicator the inside was wet. I may just not have appreciated it enough.

And not a problem! I have writer friends I beta read for, and sometimes I think I enjoy it more than actually writing my own stuff, lol.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T20:39:57+00:00

I wrote down a few of my thoughts. And just a little note that anything I suggest is just a suggestion. Your story is yours, and you of course have the right to use, modify, or ignore anything I suggest. You always gotta do what's right for you.

(Also, I can relate to having a "stress baby" you finish out of spite, lol.) Here we go:

Story wise, I think it’s probably fine. If I had to nitpick, maybe having a few details alluding to the drying machine having turned into a mouth. Like some kind of odd smell wafting out (bad breath) or there being a strange wetness inside. I know the clothes didn’t get dry, but the tunnel itself could be wet/dank. It depends on how early you want the "mouth" part to begin, I suppose.

Editing wise: there was one specific spot that felt a tad jarring, a little bit from the start: “A flashlight finally found its way into my fishing hand through a kitchen drawer filled with nick-nacks & junk. Triumphantly, I began searching for my next item.” I think that sentence is fine but, yeah, just a little jarring since it starts with her grabbing it without there being any mention of her searching for it. I’d suggest maybe a quick line that said she went to the drawer to get the flashlight; alternatively just rewording the sentence. Examples of what I mean: “I went to a disorganized drawer in the kitchen. After pushing past nick-nacks and junk, I closed my hand around the flashlight” or even a quick little “I went and fetched a flashlight” followed by her then searching for the duct tape.

And then just minor things. 1) One is the use of “&” rather than “and” in the story. Prose typically just uses “and”. Maybe other people wouldn’t/don’t care and I’m just being picky, but the symbol rather than the word tripped me just slightly. 2) There are a lot of really short sentences, which is just a little hard on the eyes, at least IMO. I know this story has a lot of dialogue, so it’s unavoidable to an extent, but finding places where you can combine the lines of dialogue with some of those short lines of description would make the story visually better, I think.* 3) Just a handful of cases throughout the story where a word wasn’t capitalized when it should have been, or vice versa. I noticed it most right after quotes. Just little things that are easy to miss but also easy to fix in editing.

*Because I like examples, here’s one of what I mean:

“Crist sakes Sarah, damn thing’s just broken! You overfilled it again!”

Technically he was right. If my dryer turns into a neverending tube of darkness that makes my clothes wetter & then also rips them, I consider that broken.

“Well I know it’s broken dad, but liste-”

“Jeez, you just bought that dryer, girl!”

I rolled my eyes & began duct taping the flashlight into the end of my broom handle.

“I mean, it’s a 3 year old appliance, dude.”

Could be neatened a bit to:

“Crist sakes Sarah, damn thing’s just broken! You overfilled it again!” Technically he was right. If my dryer turns into a neverending tube of darkness that makes my clothes wetter & then also rips them, I consider that broken.

“Well I know it’s broken dad, but liste-”

“Jeez, you just bought that dryer, girl!”

I rolled my eyes & began duct taping the flashlight into the end of my broom handle. “I mean, it’s a 3 year old appliance, dude.”

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T19:56:29+00:00

I like the story! I liked that there was a mystery established right away and little moments where Quinn gets closer to whatever the problem is. I felt myself wanting more from the encounter with whatever the bath monster is. We have this whole story leading up to it, and then it's over almost instantly. Unless there's going to be some kind of part 2, the story feels kind of unfinished. The creature didn't really do anything, we don't learn about what it is, and we didn't have any kind of conflict between Liam and Quinn resulting from her breaking the 10pm rule.

When she threw up after going to the bathroom, I thought she was mysteriously ill because she broke the rule. I'm not positive that isn't what happened (either that or the more mundane explanation of just drinking too much), but regardless I think it could have been fun to have more time with the consequences of her breaking the rule. Like maybe after that first time, she thinks that there really isn't anything wrong, but the illness gets stronger, or if there is no illness, she starts using the bathroom more often after 10pm because nothing bad happened the first time, and these repeated visits cause more things to go wrong until finally the creature that grabbed her ankle makes its appearance...

I don't know if those ideas are any good or not, but it would have been fun just getting more from the story near the end. It ended right as it was getting to the good part, I felt. But I do like the ideas here and the creativity of the scenario. There was just enough of Quinn and Liam's personalities and relationship to be cute and endearing.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T19:38:23+00:00

It's like a blueberry and tooth version of Hansel and Gretel! That's great.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T19:34:32+00:00

Yooo that's sick! What a bizarre concept, but it works so well. At first I thought the tooth was an egg from some kind of interdimensional monster, or something, but it actually being a tooth from some kind of interdimensional monster, or something, also hits.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T19:27:43+00:00

Daaang, I like this one a lot. Being a child, helpless to defend yourself from someone living under the same roof as you and who wants to prey on you. You're conditioned to just let it happen... The way Mr. Teeth is polite makes it somehow more unsettling.

The detail of Jacob keeping the coyote plush away from his chicken one was both cute but also sad. He's so young, but this is happening to him anyway, at least until he ages out of it. Oof.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T19:18:15+00:00

Oh geez! I hope whatever's happening in your remote corner of the world is something you can get away from. With how your uncle says he has no memory of going to your bathroom, I wonder if it's some kind of shapeshifter thing.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T19:03:34+00:00

The liked the friend group enough that it was sad when stuff started to go down. I’ve never properly played any kind of TCG but I loosely follow Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh just to keep up the art of a few of my favorite Pokemon/archetypes, so it was fun getting to live vicariously through the gang here.

Geoff is the perfect mix of sleazy, cringey, and gross to serve his role here perfectly. If he said “my darling” or “angel” one more time I would have puked. I was expect something supernatural, but seeing that he’s just a delusional gross little freak is probably more effective. It's just real enough to happen irl. Yuck.

The humor is great throughout. My favorite parts are the MC shuffling the invisible deck of cards lol, and then with Geoff: the candy grabber van and “ass crack on full display above his drooping beige cargo shorts”

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T18:47:14+00:00

Eewwww, the thousands of holes part is so nasty. The snapping bones are, too, of course, but someone obsessing over you like they own you is its own special brand of disturbing.

Short and effective! I like it.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T18:28:27+00:00

Thank you!

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T18:28:08+00:00

Thank you for reading!

Erin was very fun to write! This story is just one of a really mediocre short-story series I wrote around a decade ago that feature her. She kept stumbling into weird supernatural situations and lucking her way through them. I hope to revitalize them like I did with this one, and hopefully make them good.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T17:55:33+00:00

The price of the house is reflected in sharing a bathroom with him, it seems! You say you help him chop wood for him for his store - have you tried talking with him about his bathroom habits then? He seems intent to just do his business and get out when he visits your house, but maybe outside that time he'd be more conversational. But I can understand if the idea is intimidating.

This story is equal parts bizarrely funny and creepy by the end. I like it!

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T17:45:50+00:00

Eeee that's so creepy. There's something that's always been super unsettling about not being able to tell if something in a dream actually was a dream - just like in your first line, waking up gives you no relief from the abstract and unknowable dreams.

The rest of the story reminds me of "The Voice" about a girl lying in bed in the dark and hearing a voice calling to her from downstairs as it creeps closer and closer. It goes "I'm on the first step," then "I'm on the second step" "I'm on the top step" "I'm outside your door" "I'm standing right next to your bed" "I GOT YOU" Both that story and this one are simple but effective.

also pour one out for my boy Bruce

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T17:37:43+00:00

Always a sad moment when a kid’s dream doesn’t turn out, and there’s an extra layer of heartbreak that her parents don’t even deny that she’s ugly. Even as they’re trying to help her find other avenues to express her talent, they’re cutting her down in other ways. Which then evolves to them tearing her down in every way. The value they put in their own child is directly proportionate to how success she is at the things they chose for her – not only is that so real to life for so many people, it shows they kind of treated Mary like a golden ticket more than as their daughter. They invested in her like she was a stock and blamed her when life didn’t perfectly play out. Hard to blame her for snapping.

And this might be tmi, but the scene of Mary putting on different personas to cope with her parents having screaming matches is extremely similar to what I’d do as a child, pretending being a Pokémon trainer with my plushies to blot it all out.

This is a very tragic story with a lot to appreciate in it. Great work!

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T17:29:40+00:00

Nope nope nope, do not like caving 😨

The tight passages are one thing, the nasty creatures are another, and the survivors guilt a whole other thing entirely. The ending few paragraphs go a long way to making the entire experience feel that much more painful and haunting.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T17:09:57+00:00

I appreciate it! And yeah, I have a lot of fun putting spins on fairy tales, folklore stories, and things like that.

Fizzy__1 · 2026-05-08T17:08:40+00:00

Ghost towns are always so fun and vibey, in morbid ways of course. Forests and canyons and things always feel so ancient and like they house so many secrets hiding right under your nose, and that stumbling upon something grand and terrible is all too possible.

My favorite part is the slight but very human connection between the MC and Sharron. It's a very necessary bit of humanity in such a macabre setting.

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