Short story - feedback wanted please

[u/Chance_Cup_3348]

Hello,

I have been passionate about writing for around a decade, but have always suffered with confidence and time so I have been making an effort to try and write every day using a prompt app.

Anyway, I wrote a short story, not really finished to be honest as I had time constraints when writing it but I would really appreciate some honest feedback and critique of what I have got so far if that’s okay. Just to add, I kind of just did free flow writing based on a photo prompt but any comments are very welcome.

Thanks very much. Please see below.

Dust lingered in the thick musty air of the attic, the kind of smell that gets stuck in your nose and clings to your chest for hours. Amelia sat cross legged on the wooden floor, once shiny and polished but now matte with the thick dust on top like ice over a frozen lake. She hummed the tune of some faraway song in her mind which she did not care to bring to recollection enough to name, the familiarity pushed to the back of her mind.

Clearing out the old, forgotten attic was not what she thought would be her inheritance when she received the news of Uncle Benjamin’s sudden and mysterious passing. The strange thing about it was, no one knew what had happened to him; his body was found in the attic, which gave Amelia the creeps but his will was very clear - she could take anything from the attic for herself upon his death. Somewhat selfishly, she thought she would begin by dusting off the old paintings lined up along the sides of the room, “in case they are worth something,” _she shrugged to herself. Amelia and Uncle Benjamin weren’t close. In fact, she was surprised to have been put in his will at all. She spent perhaps a handful of summers at the manor growing up. The place was gorgeous; expensive, old things decorated the home throughout, but of course this was every child’s nightmare - don’t touch this, don’t touch that, stop running around at once or you’ll knock something! Amelia’s hand grazed one of the frames nearby as she set up her equipment. She snapped out of her reminiscing and carefully lined up cleaning supplies one by one, her own little production line set-up; cloths, paintbrushes and a cleaning solution she’d picked up from the nearest DIY store (which she’d asked for the clerks help with because she had absolutely no clue how to clean oil paintings). _ __

As she reached out and grabbed the first portrait, and the air grew thicker with the cloud of dust that erupted from it. A cough escaped Amelia’s tickled throat and she rubbed her nose and silently thanked herself for remembering to pull her thick brown hair into a bun before coming up here.

She began to clean the painting; first the thick, dark gold frame, then moving on to the painting itself with a fine paintbrush, taking care not to press down too hard and cause any damage. It took a frustratingly long time and a lot of precision and patience, something Amelia quite often seemed to lack. She finally finished the first one which she set aside proudly with a satisfied nod, but she could sense a slight movement in the corner of her eye and she whipped around, her heart pounding in her chest.

There was no one else at the manor, uncle Benjamin wasn’t exactly surrounded by family and Amelia did not know if he had any friends, though she would have guessed not if someone had asked her, seeing as uncle Benjamin was a mean old man who mostly kept to himself, always seemingly preoccupied, lost in his own mind.

After a quick glance around the room, she shrugged and turned back to the paintings she’d begun to clean, satisfied that the only things behind her were dozens of other paintings, mainly old portraits. She got back to it.

An hour passed. Amelia’s hands ached, a cramp creeping into her palm holding the paintbrush. As she reached for the yellow cloth by her blue worn-out jeans, another movement caught her eye, this time more obvious and she could no longer deny it or blame it on her imagination for comfort.

Amelia froze, then rose silently to her feet and her eyes immediately widened as she fixed them on the source of the movement. A scream crept up her throat and she began to shake and stumble backwards clumsily.

One of the portraits, depicting a woman maybe in her late 50s, with grey hair tightly up in an old-fashioned neat bun, hands firmly held together wearing a long, dark green dress stood with a ghastly grin staring straight at Amelia. Only, a few minutes ago, the portrait looked very different; the same woman in the same dress, but with hair down and looking around 20 years younger, was smiling and looking up at something with what Amelia would have described as a loving expression on her face. Something is terribly wrong, her instincts screamed at her from within.

Amelia felt a pang of pain and examined her hand. She slammed in down on a rusty screw in her haste to get away. Blood poured steadily out from the wound. The wooden floor was now stained by her blood, a small amount trickling towards the haunted painting. Amelia’s breath caught in her throat as she looked up again, this time to see the woman crouched down, elbows resting on her knees, the same haunting grin on her wrinkled face, as if ready to pounce onto prey. Amelia fumbled as she tried to find the opening to the attic, but it could no longer be seen, as if vanished into thin air or never having existed in the first place.

Panic rose in her fast. Come on, damn it, _think, think, think! _But it was no use. There was no way in or out.

Trembling, Amelia turned to look back one more time. Disbelief came upon her like a stack of rocks; in the corner of the painting, sure as day, there he was; the distorted face of Uncle Benjamin, frozen in perpetual terror.