Where's Glen Close when you need her?? Sorry, couldn't resist.

I'd like a dollar for every rusty vacancy sign I've seen rattling in the breeze in this OWC, and ditto every neon vacancy sign with a letter missing. Mind you, something to be said for cliches.

A few thoughts re this one:
The free room seemed a bit off to me... hmm, maybe I'll buy it, he's a priest after all.
A tree fell on the parish? Surely some mistake, there?
The Emergency Warnings just didn't sound entirely convincing to me.

The main thing for me with this overall, contrary to other opinions, is that I just found it a bit lacking in tension.

To sum up, some of writing here is good, but some of it lets it down - ditto the dialogue. But there's definitely potential here with a rewrite.

Good job.

Agree with Blonde that he should have killed him at the end. It would sure make it more interesting.

I liked the story here, it had a nice vibe to it that some of the other OWC entries lacked. I liked how Amir was so feeble and dreaded the darkness because of the incident. It was really strong story telling and characterization.

My problem here lies with the ending though. It's... average and average just doesn't cut it any more. Something to wrap up the story. Like suggested, maybe he does kill him and after Amir finds out that the priest was innocent. That would have been a lot more fulfilling to the reader.

It's hard to rate this one, I like it but at the same time I dont? My grade: C+/B- but take that lightly.

I was really into this and then it ended. Without the constraints of 12 pages this could have made for a more detailed ending. Hopefully will see more to this when the challenge ends.

Liked where the story was going, liked the characters, but needs more.

Good job.

I sorta liked this one. What got confusing was reading others' reviews of it and seeing their interpretation of the 'exorcism.' For me, I wasn't really aware an exorcism had occurred at any point. I kept expecting something demonic to happen eventually, but it never seemed to. Then, Amir breaks in, only to find out he's overreacting to what he's heard next door and runs off, never to be seen again. All of that seemed awkward, but I liked the twist. I just don't think it was plotted out as clearly as it could have been.

I think you got it right, Dan. It was nothing demonic that was being exorcised. The monkey on one's back does not have to be a demon. It can be drug addiction, or some other issue, like cutting.

Mark was right, this is not supernatural, but the fact that it created that impression until the end makes it close enough, I think, to hit the requirement.

Oh now this was my normal 'dark' drama piece. It was rushed of course. Spent a few hours tops on it...so it needs a good broom and mop also!

But this one had a deeper meaning ...deep charaters. Many did not understand.

Amir was a 'cutter'..someone who cuts themself to release emotional pain. He had been abused by a priest in his past childhood. So he was dealing with demons at night(real demons to him) but not to anyone else of course.

Father was taking care of Destiny, a meth head(which I thought was obvious from the description of her actions and her look/face). It wasn't clear though.

The twist at the end was that Destiny woke thinking Father was doing something dirty to her while she was sleeping 'it off'...but he was only washing the vomit off her shirt.

Parallel veins-- The Damages from the storm. The damaged from past events. The damages from drugs. And the damages from internal demons.

I'm sorry this was hard to grasp. It was rushed and this one I will clean up and make much better in the next week

Appreciate the hell out of the good advice and reviews with this short!!! Yall Rock!

I actually voted for this one.  I thought it was very well written and if you pulled this together in a few hours my hat is off to you, Dena.

Well done.

Thank you kindly Jeff This is the genre I'm most familiar with in shorts thusfar.