Just a short story

   Legend goes that a child once fell from a ship in the Aegean Sea and his spirit haunts the ships that cross the area where he drowned.

     I was travelling by ship towards  the island of Paros with some friends, and because it was during the night, we had booked a cabin. We were all sleeping, when something knocked hard on the small window; however the window was overlooking the sea, and there was no deck underneath it. We were awoken by it, but dismissed it quickly as nothing of importance.

    One of my friends glanced at the window, and instantly turned pale; we tried to talk to him, but he didn't respond, nor did he seem to even acknowledge our presence. After a few minutes, and with my friend still unresponsive, we heard people running and talking loudly. I opened the door of the cabin, and was met with several nervous and confused passengers, as well as the sound of breaking plates. At about the same time our bags fell from the top bunk-bed upon which we had placed them; despite the sea being calm.

    No one seemed to know what was going on, but everybody was growing more and more nervous with each passing moment; however the captain apparently remained oblivious to the turmoil, considering that the ship never stopped. It took about an hour for everybody to calm down, and for my friend to start responding again.

    And it was then he told us about the young face he saw on the window; the face of a young boy with algae instead of hair, and with piercing eyes that, according to him, could see one's soul. And I heard the same story, and the exact same description, from at least ten more passengers who were in neighboring cabins.

    We never learned what really happened, although one crew member told us that the occurrence wasn't something new for the specific route.

   

Lonely, miserable, rewarding: writing horror (or anything else for that matters) (part 2 of probably 3)

   Writing isn't a social occupation. As a writer, you have to spend countless hours in front of a computer screen, or a typewriter, typing countless words, then erasing them, then typing them again, maybe in a different order. No matter what however, you have to be alone. When you want to write a story, be it a short one or a novel, you need your privacy; you can't have friends or family interrupting you with small talk or tempting you with a night out in town.
  Hence, anyone who aspires to become a writer, must be willing to face endless days, and nights, in solitude. Personally, I have no idea how many times I had begun writing in the early afternoon, while drinking coffee, and finally stopped when I saw the sun rising again; this is also why I can't use my computer for entertainment. When I don't write, I have to get away from it.
   And spending hours upon hours in front of a computer, all alone, is cruel. Sometimes I'll just type non-stop, and thus won't realize how much time has passed, but other times, I'll just sit there, staring at the screen, trying hard to think of what is to happen next in the story.
    And this is the worst part, when you know you have to write, when you feel the need inside you, and yet, you don't know what to write. And it's also when all temptations come to play; you'll start wanting to surf the internet, just to kill some time until inspiration strikes, or you'll just feel like giving up.
   And indulging to these temptations may ruin your chances of writing anything, on that day. Because you'll soon find yourself promising that in five minutes you'll start working, but these five minutes can easily turn into five hours.
   This is also the worst part, when you realize you wanted to continue your story, and instead you wasted your time. And it's also what makes being a writer so hard, for it's when you don't know what exactly to write, and simply stare at a screen, that you realize how lonely and cruel it can be.
   However when you finish a story, and you simply read it through, it's when all this misery you've went through really pays off. When you look at what you wrote, and can say to yourself that you did it, that you spent the hours to create something.
    Of course the big reward comes when your work is published, which means that people, strangers to you, can read it, and that someone thought your work was good enough to be printed. And suddenly you forget all about the miserable process of writing it, and feel proud, and go on working on your next story.
    And this is also why I can't stop writing; because, no matter how hard and dissapointing it sometimes is, I know that at the end I'll feel the same euphoria, when I see my story completed.

 I realize now that in the end of part 1 of this "series", I gave promises of writing about something else entirely. Well, I guess these promises will have to wait for part 3 to be fulfilled.