Creative Writing – project

„Call of the Void“

The soft sound of a bell could be heard as the elevator stopped at the 39th floor. That‘s as far as it could go. A man got out and took the stairs to the roof. 

At first upon opening the door he felt as if he was still on the ground. The smell was the same and the sounds of the city were only slightly distorted after bouncing of the sides of the skyscrapers all around him.

It was only when he reached the edge of the roof that he felt the difference. The things he was hearing happened very far below him. The roof was dark at night but beyond the edge was a river of light consisting of cars, street lights and store fronts. 

The man looked at his smartphone, he had another fifteen minutes to spare.

He continued looking over the city habitually dismissing the inexplicable urge to jump down. 

As he turned away from the drop a dark shape churned just beyond it and reached out to grab him.

Undisturbed silence enveloped the roof.

The idea for my short story came from an impulse called “call of the void”. It mean that a person can feel the urge to jump from a great height despite having no desire to die. It is commonly experienced by everyone. In my story I wanted to combine this term with a supernatural element thereby giving the title a double meaning. I was careful to strike a balance between the descriptions of the events and the surroundings to make sure the reader constantly a had a full image in their head.