The Role You Play

Chapter One: The Art of Creation

The desk is layered in dust, a cup of tea sits cold and bitter, my nails are chipped and unclean, and the laptop hums quietly beneath my fingers.

My name is Juno, and I am a writer-or at least, I like to believe I am. No one really knows, though, since I hide behind an anonymous username on a shadowed corner of the internet, a little subreddit called StoryVerse. It's the only place my words see the light, words I'd never dare let anyone trace back to me. My thoughts are too dark, too raw. Some things, I've decided, are safer left unsaid with a name attached.

I am not sick. And my writing isn't born of some twisted fantasy. It's as simple as this: dark, unsettling subjects and psychological tragedies flow naturally onto the pages for me. Topics like abuse, sexual assault, and heavy gore are often avoided in literature, almost forbidden. That taboo, that sense of the unspeakable, doesn't excite me-it challenges me. It drives me to explore the depths of language, to find new words, new ways of crafting scenarios that others shy away from. For me, these aren't just stories; they're ways to voice the shadowed corners of human experience, not to thrill, but to understand.

I adjusted my glasses on my pale face and brushed my long brunette hair out of my eyes, the dark circles beneath them a testament to sleepless nights spent staring at the glow of the screen. Taking a deep breath, I finally finished chapter 10 of what I believed to be my most brilliant story yet. A rush of excitement surged through me, and I bit my bottom lip, unable to contain the thrill. My legs fidgeted restlessly beneath me, and I couldn't help but fan my work, like an artist gazing in awe at their masterpiece. The story centered on Liz—short for Elizabeth—and her dark, twisted "romance" with a boy named Simon. I'm not sure it's accurate to call it romance, though; maybe it's better described as a case of Stockholm Syndrome. I chose to make the narrator female deliberately, aiming to challenge the stereotype that all abusers and kidnappers are men. She was a bubbly, almost cutesy character, with bouncy blonde hair and a bright, innocent smile. Simon, on the other hand, was timid and skittish, his thin frame and sunken cheeks framed by dark hair and narrow eyes. Or maybe the anxious boy we see in the story isn't truly who he is, but rather a reflection of the dark situation he's trapped in.

I leaned back in my chair, letting my fingers hover over the keyboard as the scene I'd just written replayed in my mind. Liz's laughter, Simon's silence—it all felt so vivid, so real. Sometimes, I wondered if my characters were extensions of myself, fragments of my subconscious spilling onto the page. Was I Liz, hiding a darkness behind a sunny facade? Or was I Simon, quietly suffocating under the weight of something I couldn't escape? Maybe I was both. Maybe that's why their story felt so personal, so intimate.

The glowing cursor on the screen seemed to mock me, blinking insistently, urging me to keep going. My mind wandered to the comments section of StoryVerse, where readers dissected every line of my work, turning my carefully crafted chaos into their own theories and interpretations. They didn't know who I was—just a username with no face, no history. And yet, they devoured my words like they were desperate to understand me. The irony wasn't lost on me; they were searching for answers in the dark, just like I was.

As I scrolled back to the beginning, my eyes lingered on the title: Beneath the Surface. It wasn't something I'd planned—it had just emerged, much like Liz's obsession with Simon. She was sinking deeper, consumed by something she called love but felt more like possession, while Simon remained caught in the currents, a victim struggling to stay afloat. The title felt right, as if it had been waiting for me to uncover it, just like Liz's true nature.