Foster High School recently hosted its scary story contest for the third year.
The English Department along with the school librarian came up with the idea three years ago and now it is a tradition, said Aracelis Urbina, Foster High English Language Arts and Spanish teacher.
Teachers assign students the task of writing a scary story incorporating narrative techniques, Urbina said. While others assign this as a creative writing assignment, she added.
More than 70 entires get narrowed down to eight finalists. To select the winners, the entire school reads the stories in their English class and vote for their top four.
Winners
• 1st Place: “The Creeper” by Faisal Sulayman
• 2nd Place: “Unsea of Trees” by Sophia Curry
• 3rd Place: “The Obsession” by Erykah Landreth & Paulina Fuerte
• Honorable Mention: “Found Out” by Monica Hniang Dawt Chin
Honorable Mention: “Found Out”
by Monica Hniang Dawt Chin
Growing up, Joseph moved around a lot. They are wealthy in a large mansion filled with a number of rooms. Joseph mother didn’t really like the place. Something seemed off to her. The feeling still hadn’t gone away after even after a couple month of living there. Joseph was told not to use any other room of the house except his room. One night he was watching television in his room and notice that canvas picture with a old women was in the corner of the room. It appeared to be staring at him. He continued to watch his show, but couldn’t get out of his feeling that the canvas picture with an old woman was following him around with its eyes. He flipped the canvas backward in an effort to make himself feel more comfortable. He even ask his parents if he could move to another room of the house because he so freaked about the canvas.
His father’s schedule was shifted and he was placed night duty. The first night Joseph Mother was alone in the room she had a horrible anxiety attack. Something bad was around her, she could just feel it. She call her friend and had her stay the night. Before Joseph dad left for work the next night, his mother embarrassed placed a large pair of sharp sewing sheers under her pillow. She said she felt embarrassed because it was all just her imagination. She had considered a knife but figure that it was too silly. Still she wanted something just to make her feel more comfortable when she went to bed.
The dream was very intense it the kind of where you have no idea it even a dream. His mother said the dream she got was her going to the bathroom. As she was on her way back to the bedroom the dream suddenly started to feel a sensation all over her. Then she couldn’t breath. In her dream it was clam but her breathing wasn’t coming out. She tried swallowing and felt a hard pressure against her throat, a hand pushing and not letting go. The pleasure was all over the jawline, squeezing so that her whole neck was collapsing. She fell to her knees. She was suddenly aware that she was making splash sounds. For some reason she said it feels like she wanted to reach out for her tongue just so she could get some air in. She being crawling along the hall on her knees, moving herself along by her elbows. Still choking and gasping. The carpet burned against her skin. Finally she made it into the bedroom. She try to calm herself down, her heart was beating hard. Her neck make to the point where she like she going to die. She push her arm up onto the bed and grabbed under the pillow and that’s when she woke up.
The sun was out and there a fresh light in the room. She was sock in sweat and lay in the bed. She finally get up and swung her legs out under the blanket. She looked down on the worst carpet burns she ever had seen. Layers of skin peeled off. It was only after she slowly made her way around the bed and toward the door she found out what had happened to the swing sheers. They were stuck three inches deep into the cheaply made wall. She packed her stuff and moved in with her sister Angela before his dad even got home.
Joseph dad was surprised when the landlord give him a get out that barely coast his parents anything. “I guess you finally found out,” the landlord said. “Found out what?” said his dad.
It turned out that about four years earlier a woman had been found dead in the house. The coroner ruled it a homicide saying that she had been strangled.
