Sitting in a freezing classroom during her last school period, feeling the blasting AC hitting her back, adjusting her sleeves, her hands trembling, tapping her pencil with annoyance at the freezing AC blasting, letting the phone calls, she feels vibrating from her back pocket go to voicemail. She knows who's calling, but does not want to pick them up. These past weeks, she has been seeing shadows lurking, not wanting to notice them because she knows if she notices them, they become real, but the shadow keeps looking for her. It has gone from lurking shadows to knocking at her house window, but yesterday was the first skin-crawling phone call she received. She doesn't know who the voice from the other side of the phone is; all she hears is an animated, low voice saying her name repeatedly.
*Sarah answers unaware
Sarah: Hello?
Phone (a static sound overpowering the phone): Hello.
Sarah (feeling more aware): Who is this?
(no response)
Sarah (feeling annoyed, masking her fear): Who… is this! Who’s messing with me?
*Not getting a response hangs up the phone call
Sarah dropped the phone onto the desk, trembling in fear, trying to hide her fear from her friend, forcing a smile at first, “ anonymous phone number… it's probably nothing, don’t worry,” she tells her friend, so she won't scare her.
The phone starts to ring once again
Sarah now answers the phone warily, even though she knows she shouldn't
Sarah: H-hello? (hearing her nervousness through the phone.)
The phone with no warning began to scream her name repeatedly: SARAH,SARAH,SARAH,SARAH,SARAH,!!!!!!!!!
Feeling scared, she hangs up the phone.
After that unsettling phone call, she's been getting non stop calls from that number, no matter how much she blocks it. Telling herself, “if I don't answer, maybe the calls will stop, maybe whatever that was calling me will leave me alone,” knowing it was a lie.
One day, while sitting in her bed finishing some homework that was due the next day, she hears a book fall off her bookcase, frowning, whispering under her breath, “That's weird… it was wedged in there,” but then she hears her notebook, which she had in her bed, fall off.
Now she is really weirded out as she is walking back to her bed the lights start to flicker, now she really starts to panic she runs out the room down the stairs, she feels a negative aura surrounding her, the lights in the living room start to flicker the dining room chairs begin to fall the kitchen cabinets start to open and close she doesn't know what to do or what's happening she is just full of fear as she is screaming her eye sight goes black and the last thing she sees is a black figure in front of her.
She later wakes up to the pungent smell of rubbing alcohol and bright white lights as she hears a beeping sound, in which she realizes she is in the hospital. She is connected to an oxygen machine and has an IV connected to her. Her mind is fuzzy, and she can't exactly remember what happened after she passed out, but she is at the hospital.
As she is trying to put all her thoughts together, her parents come in with the doctor. They ran to her, hugging her, telling her, “We are so grateful you are okay, you had us really scared, we just saw you laying on the floor unconscious.” Sarah's mom smothered her hair back and whispered, "You're ice cold like a popsicle”.
The doctor said she had a panic attack, but they don't know what caused it, so they asked Sarah what happened for her to pass out. She doesn't know how to explain, but chooses to tell her parents the truth so they can be safe, risking them thinking she has gone crazy.
A little skeptical about what Sarah is telling them until Sarah notices a burn on her arm as if someone had gripped her arm and marked her. Her parents, once they saw the burn, believed her.
As soon as she was discharged from the hospital, her parents took her to their every Sunday Catholic church in which they asked the father what was coming after her daughter the father told her that an evil spirit was on a hunt for her daughter's soul, and the only way to banish this spirit from Sarah's life was to do a full body cleanse.
Later that day, the priest did a full body cleanse, confessed her, and took the body of Christ and told her she was free of evil spirits, but the priest told her, “Your curiosity almost opened the wrong door, but your faith closed it.”
As she was walking out of the church, she thought to herself, “God really is true and just saved my soul”.
I started to write this Character Sketch on how I was feeling that day in English class. I was freezing due to the AC blasting while my phone kept buzzing with calls from my dad. Ms. Ntoso told us to write “About how you were feeling, write about anything,” so I wrote about how I was feeling. After that, I got the idea to write about suspense, which I have never written about, so it was a big risk. I do think it's harder to get the characters personally through when it's a scary/suspenseful story. I was struggling to show Sarah's fear without stating she was scared. Suspense drew me because I love to watch horror movies, and something about the fear of people somehow makes them reach for God in times of despair. Even though it was challenging writing a suspense story, it taught me how important details like body language, setting, and dialogue are in making us character personally show and tell us who the character is.
In my story, it shows themes like good VS evil, the struggles of Sarah between good and darkness. Sarah encounters dark evil spirits following her around, lurking in her shadows, surrounding her, and following her to her home. The priest is symbolizing good, faith, and protection, and how good overcomes evil. Sarah, by going to the priest, is also showing the theme of faith and salvation. How Sarah's faith and her family's become a great importance to her safety and freedom from evil, and how we have to turn to something bigger and greater for strength and salvation, like God. My story reflects human fear,curiosity, and faith on how people go through hardships and darkness, literally or mentally, and how we must search for faith in God during times of need.
One of my choices in terms was setting, placing Sarah in a freezing classroom when all the suspense began. Describing the AC blazing and hitting her back, her hands trembling, the tapping of her pencil in annoyance, which is normal discomfort, but later foreshadows the fear she gets from the phone calls and paranormal activity. These specific details in characterization help make the story realistic, making Sarah’s paranormal activity more real and believable. I also placed her in a cold setting, so it symbolizes vulnerability on how fear usually starts off and snowballs into a fear so overwhelming, leading Sarah into the hospital. I started in a very ordinary way, here in class, and how an ordinary day can change into darkness. How humans should search for faith and God when faced with things beyond their power.
My writing for this story was very basic and simple about how I was feeling in English class that day. Something about a cold classroom gave me inspiration to write a suspense story, and it also pushed me to write in a new direction, something I have never written before. I didn't exactly use a mentor text, but I just got inspiration from scary movies and suspenseful films I saw before. And how the films often start with a very ordinary setting and build up the tension as the story plots darken. The biggest challenge was characterization, making Sarah sound and act like a real person, giving her personal traits, and not just a victim in a scary story. I tried to build her character by adding body language and sensory details like her trembling hands, the lights flickering, and forcing a smile on her face. For revision, I would like to make the story with more suspense, also adding inner thoughts and emotional reaction, making Sarah's fear more real and alive. Also, I should’ve given Sarah and her family more background on them personally and their family dynamic.
In one particular scene, when Sarah answers the anonymous phone call, hearing only static, and then, randomly, her name is screamed repeatedly, showing how I made narrative pacing, distance, and voice. I used fast pacing in this scene with all the short lines and abrupt actions, like Sarah hanging up the phone and feeling fear. For narrative distance, I described Sarah's trembling, nervous voice and forced smile so the reader can read her fear. The narrative voice is direct and urgent, mainly on what Sarah hears and feels in the moment, instead of long descriptions, which makes the reader actually feel her fear. These choices let readers understand Sarah's perspective and her struggle, and her trying to mask it from her friends and family, making her fear more personal and believable.
For me, working on this story showed me how important it is to use detail, pacing, and emotion to bring the character to real life. Writing a story about suspense is new to me, but building fear is not just about describing scary things; it's about creating an atmosphere with the setting, body language, and the character's thoughts. Characterization is greatly used in suspense stories, as in any other type of story, because we, the readers, are supposed to feel the fear the character is feeling. Writing this story took me out of my comfort zone and experimented with experiences and emotions like being in a freezing classroom or being weirded out by an anonymous phone call, which can connect to universal themes like evil Vs good or faith and salvation.