Below are two versions of a short story that I wrote ages ago for English. Version 2 was edited to exclude certain scenes or extra bits of information that either was a bit inappropriate, or made the short story too long to submit to the teacher. There will also be a Reflection paragraph at the end of the chapter, briefly explaining my inspiration for the story as well as the reason for making the story shorter (the Reflection was a required component for the writing task).

What comes next after the story has been left to interpretation, unless I decide to write a book based on it in the future.

~~~

"Picture Perfect"

Version 1-

   "Seventy-eight percent? How come you only got seventy-eight?! This is not good enough!" Jacob's mother, Mara, throws his test papers back at him.
   "You were doing so well in school," scoffing and muttering to herself in her drunken stupor, she picks up the bottle again and takes another swig. Mara drinks often to forget her rich husband's infidelity, and takes comfort in the money he provides for the family.
   "Boy, I can't settle for just seventy-eight percent. Next time you better work harder and get at least ninety-five percent. Top marks mean top jobs, which means more money. Money can buy you happiness," Mara mumbles the last sentence to herself. She said this to her son because she didn't try in school, resulting her in obtaining a minimal amount of education. She was lucky in the sense that she was able to attract the attention of a rich man and marry him. Doing this had solved all her financial problems.
   She then says to her son, "You'll understand when you're older," stumbling to her room, bottle in hand, and shuts the door. Jacob walks over to the kitchen to drops his test paper in the bin and sighs. He felt frustrated and disappointed in his mother. He thought her to be pathetic and unsupportive. Being pressured all the time with responsibilities and expectations by his parents to be the best in everything was taking a toll on his mind. Deciding to leave the house he pulled on his 'IK Leather' black leather biker jacket and headed outside. As he was walking out the door, he could faintly hear the 1961 song by Patsy Cline "Crazy" playing upstairs from which he assumed to be his mother's room.

~~~

   The pill Jacob had taken half an hour upon entering the club had begun to take effect, leaving him in a state of euphoria and bliss, making him completely forget about the responsibilities, the expectations, and concentrate only on the bodies dancing around him and the drink in his hand. The pounding music, the drinks, the drugs and the people of the rave mob were a part of this strange, distorted paradise he revisited constantly.
   Both women and occasionally men would make passes at him. More often than not when he wasn't so off his face that he couldn't see his hand if he held it up in front of his face, he would go with them to experience moments of enhanced pleasure due to the drug, and go back to meet up with everyone else. There, the process would repeat itself until he was passed out on the ground with an empty bottle in his hand, not returning home until he woke up and arrived back home that night or early the next morning.

~~~

   Two sisters, aged nine and eleven, were playing with precious miniature porcelain dolls that were part of a set, using the large expensive dollhouse in the room they shared. Averie asks her older sister,
   "Aimee, where do you think Jacob went? He left earlier this evening and hasn't come back." The older sister, not wanting to taint her younger sister's image of their older brother says, "He just went out with some friends for dinner. He won't be back until we're both already asleep." Averie sighs in disappointment.
   Their brother frequently goes out all night with friends and doesn't come back home until late at night or early morning. Their mother who was drunk most of the time was unable to appropriately carry out the duties a mother should. In her father's case, he was quite distant with them, demanding that they call him Liam or Mr Wryte (never dad or father) and he was rarely home at all, spending most of his time either at work or visited the house of one of his mistresses. The younger sister gets bullied a lot at school for being different and not participating in the same things that the other kids did, making her older sister the only companion she had in life. If not for her sister, Averie would be completely alone.
   "Aimee, you're my only friend. Everyone else at school is mean to me, but that's ok. I don't need them because I have you." The older sister smiles and says, "You don't know how happy that makes me."
   "I'm glad," the younger sister replies. "But I want you to promise me something. Will you stay with me? Promise that you will stay with me, 'til the very end?" Averie asks earnestly.
   "I promise. Until the very end."

~~~

   It's the next morning and the maid of the house was halfway through preparing the family's breakfast. The father was already downstairs, dressed and ready for work drinking a cup of coffee. The mother slowly walked down the stairs with one hand on the rail and the other on her head nursing the throbbing headache she woke up with. Averie realised that her older brother wasn't at the dining table and went upstairs to see if he was there to tell him that breakfast was ready. When she arrived she slowly opened the door and saw him lying face down on his bed. Happy and relieved that he came back home she excitedly skipped into his room and tapped him awake.
   "Jake, breakfast's ready!" she told him. Jacob turned over to look at her and glared.
   "I don't care. Just let me sleep you annoying little twit."
   "But everyone else is downstairs. Mum will be calling you down soon anyway." Jacob cursed and grumbled that he wanted to sleep for longer before he eventually decided to get out of bed and made his way downstairs with his sister.
After everyone had sat down at the table, Averie noticed that there was no breakfast set out for Aimee and asked the maid if she could make some for her sister. The maid apologised and went back to the kitchen to cook Aimee breakfast.
After the maid set out to make Aimee's breakfast, Mara addressed her family and began telling her children about the family photo-shoot that they were to get ready for.
   "The photos that are to be taken today will be published both in the paper and on the internet. We are upstanding members of the community and so we must play the part of the perfect family that everyone believes us to be. I want you all on your best behaviour and looking respectable. Do you understand?" When everyone nodded she smiled and replied.
   "Good. Now, everyone hurry up have a shower and get changed into nice clean clothes so that you'll look presentable for the photos."

~~~

   After arriving at the photoshoot, the photographer's assistants had directed each of the family members to the change-rooms and were told that once they were finished to go to the makeup studio. The only one who had done this was the mother. The father had been swept away by a busty brunette and the son had sneaked off outside where he met up with a couple of his friends that he called earlier and smoked a blunt with them.
   Mara had been waiting for ten minutes and no one had returned. Waiting for another half-an-hour, she saw her son walk into the room. She was relieved that at least one of her children had returned. She scrutinised his face when she saw that he was giggling to himself and that was when she could smell the marijuana wafting from him.
   "Jesus Christ. Why now Jacob? We're about to have our photo taken and you're as high as a bloody rocket!"
   "Ma, just... shhhh. It's cool. The makeup people can put some of that stuff on my face or whatever and I could wear contacts or something for my eyes." Jacob wore a goofy grin on his face, one that his mother hadn't seen in a long time which made her cave.
   "Alright, fine. Just-just sit over there on the seats so they can fix up your appearance while I go look for your sister."

~~~

   "You can't catch me!" yells Averie as she runs away from her older sister through the halls. Something bumps into her and she falls over.
   "Gotch'ya!"
   "Hey, that's not fair," sulks Averie.
   "Yes it is. I won fair and square." Aimee cheers herself on. She looked down at her younger sister still on the floor and sees how disheartened she was about not winning the chasing game and comes up with an idea.
   "Hey, Averie. How about we play a game called 'Hide 'n' Seek'? That way you're almost guaranteed to win." The younger sister lightens up and agrees to play.
   "Ok. You're it, so I'm going to hide. You count to ten and then come find me," Aimee smiles at her younger sister before running somewhere to hide. Not long after Averie counts to ten and begins her search for her older sister her mother finds her.
   "Averie! Come here! What on earth are you doing? We're supposed to be having our photo taken now!"
   "I was playing Hide 'n' Seek with Aimee." Her mother was frustrated and under a lot of stress, saying what she would later regret.
   "I'm done pretending that Aimee is still around. She dead. She died three years ago, don't you remember? She had committed suicide, downing her entire bottle of sleeping pills and overdosed." Not only was Averie shocked and horrified, she was in denial. Her only friend in the entire world was dead, and what she had been seeing was just a figment of her imagination? No. It couldn't be.
   "Enough with the games. We're already late enough as it is for the photos. Maybe if we hurry up, the photographer won't charge us extra for wasting his time." Mara grabs hold of her daughter's hand and drags her along until they arrive in a room with a bunch of photography equipment. Upon arrival, the photographer notices their presence.
   "Oh good, you're here. Just take a seat over there and I should be over there with you guys shortly." Still holding Averie's hand, Mara sat on the seat between her husband and son then told her daughter to sit on the seat next to her brother. The mother looked at her husband on her right and saw a dark pink lipstick mark on the side of his neck, slightly smudged and almost completely covered by the collar of his shirt. She discreetly pulled out a flask from her purse and gulped some of the alcohol inside, crying on the inside.
   "Mara, put that away," Liam scorned his wife.
   "You reek of that stuff and I'm getting sick and tired of waking up every morning to you complaining about a headache all the time." Mara immediately put the flask back in her purse in her lap and apologised.
   "Yes dear, I'm sorry." Dissatisfied with his wife's response but not bothered enough to say anything about it he simply ignored her. Sometime later, the photographer stood in front of them and got their attention.
   "Alright, now that we're all ready, including myself, I will ask you to please follow me to this area here with the sky blue backdrop. Ok, time to get into your places. Mr Wryte, would you please stand on the little 'x' marked on the ground behind the white line and following you will be your son on your left. Now Averie, and then Mrs Wryte." Once everyone was standing in place the photographer smiled and stood behind the large camera.
   "Now children, it's time. I'm going to count down from three, and when I get to zero I want everyone to smile for the picture, ok? Three, two, one, zero. Smile!"
   The photographer looked at the laptop on his right after taking a few shots and was amazed at the results.The family smiled and appeared in a way that made them seem happy, like their lives were perfect. But when he looked for a while longer checking each detail of the images he realised that they looked almost too perfect, like they were life-size replicas of dolls and was a little creeped out. While they had smiles on there faces, they were expressionless at the same time.
   It is said that eyes are the windows to the soul, but their's seemed like they were blocked by curtains which they hoped no one would ever open.

Version 2-

   "Seventy-eight percent? How come you only got seventy-eight?! This is not good enough!" Jacob's mother, Mara, throws his test papers back at him. In her drunken stupor, she picks up the bottle again and takes another swig. Mara drinks often to forget her rich husband's infidelity, and takes comfort in the money he provides for the family.
   "Boy, I can't settle for just seventy-eight percent. Next time you better work harder and get top marks. Top marks mean top jobs, which means more money. Money can buy you happiness," Mara mumbles the last sentence to herself. She said this to her son because she didn't try in school, resulting her in obtaining a minimal amount of education. She was lucky in the sense that she was able to attract the attention of a rich man and marry him. Doing this had solved all her financial problems.
   Mara stumbled to her room, bottle in hand, and shut the door. Jacob dropped his test paper in the bin and sighs. He felt frustrated being pressured all the time with responsibilities and expectations by his parents to be the best in everything. It was beginning to take a toll on his mind. Before pulling on his black leather jacket and leaving the house, Jacob could faintly hear the 1961 song by Patsy Cline "Crazy" playing upstairs from his mother's room.

~~~

   The pill Jacob had taken half an hour upon entering the club had begun to take effect, leaving him in a state of euphoria and bliss, making him completely forget about the responsibilities, the expectations, and concentrate only on the bodies dancing around him and the drink in his hand. The pounding music, the drinks, the drugs and the people of the rave mob were a part of this strange, distorted paradise he revisited constantly.
   These nights of partying would continue until he was passed out on the ground with an empty bottle in his hand, not returning home until he woke up and arrived back that night or early the next morning.

~~~

   Two sisters (Averie- age nine, and Aimee- age eleven) were playing with dolls in the room they shared when Averie asked her sister,
   "Aimee, where do you think Jacob went?" Not wanting to taint her younger sister's image of their older brother, Aimee replies, "He just went out with some friends for dinner. He won't be back until we're both already asleep." Averie sighs in disappointment.
   Their brother goes out all night with friends and their mother who was drunk most of the time was unable to appropriately carry out the duties a mother should. In her father's case, he was quite distant as he spent most of his time either at work or visiting the house of one of his mistresses. The younger sister gets bullied a lot for being different. If not for her sister being the only companion she had in life, Averie would be completely alone.
   "Aimee, everyone else at school is mean to me, but that's ok. I don't need them because I have you." The older sister smiles and says, "You don't know how happy that makes me."
   "I'm glad," the younger sister replies. "But I want you to promise me something. Will you stay with me? Promise that you will stay with me, 'til the very end?" Averie asks earnestly.
   "I promise. Until the very end."

~~~

   It's the next morning and the maid of the house was halfway through preparing the family's breakfast. Their father was already downstairs drinking a cup of coffee when their mother slowly walked down the stairs with one hand on her head, nursing the throbbing headache she woke up with. Averie realised that her older brother wasn't at the dining table and went upstairs to see if he was there to tell him that breakfast was ready. Happy and relieved that he came back home she excitedly skipped into his room and tapped him awake.
   "Jake, breakfast's ready!" she told him. Jacob turned over to look at her and glared.
   "Everyone else is downstairs. Mum will be calling you down soon anyway." Jacob grumbled that he wanted to sleep for longer before he eventually got out of bed and made his way downstairs with his sister to the dining table.
Averie noticed that there was no breakfast set out for Aimee and asked the maid if she could make some for her sister. After the maid apologised and set out to make Aimee's breakfast, Mara addressed her family, telling her children about the family photo-shoot that they were to get ready for.
   "The photos that are to be taken today will be published both in the paper and on the internet. We are upstanding members of the community and so we must play the part of the perfect family that everyone believes us to be. I want you all on your best behaviour, do you understand?" When everyone nodded, she smiled and replied.
   "Good. Now, everyone hurry up, pack a bag with nice clean clothes to get changed into so that you'll look presentable for the photos."

~~~

   After arriving at the photoshoot, each of the family members had been directed to change-rooms and were told that once they were finished to follow the signs to the photography room. The only one who had done this was the mother. Neither Averie or her father could be found, and the son had snuck outside where he met up with a couple of his friends to smoke a blunt with them.
   Mara had been waiting for half-an-hour on her own when she saw her son walk into the room. She was relieved that at least one of her children had returned until she could smell the marijuana wafting from him.
   "Jesus Christ. Why now Jacob? We're about to have our photo taken and you're bloody high!"
   "Ma, it's cool. Nobody will notice."
   "Alright, fine. Just sit over there on the seats so they can fix up your appearance while I go look for Averie."

~~~

   "Hey, Averie. How about we play a game called 'Hide 'n' Seek'?" The younger sister lightens up and agrees to play.
   "Ok. You're it, so I'm going to hide. You count to ten and then come find me," Aimee smiles at her younger sister before running somewhere to hide. Not long after Averie counts to ten and begins her search for her older sister her mother finds her.
   "Averie! Come here! What on earth are you doing? We're supposed to be having our photo taken now!"
   "I was playing Hide 'n' Seek with Aimee." Her mother was frustrated and under a lot of stress, saying what she would later regret.
   "I'm done pretending that Aimee is still around. She dead. She died three years ago, don't you remember? She committed suicide, downing her entire bottle of sleeping pills and overdosed." Not only was Averie shocked and horrified, she was in denial. Her only friend in the entire world was dead, and what she had been seeing was just a figment of her imagination? No. It couldn't be.
   "Enough with the games. We're already late enough as it is for the photos. Maybe if we hurry up, the photographer won't charge us extra for wasting his time." Mara grabs hold of her daughter's hand and drags her along until they arrive in a room with a bunch of photography equipment. Upon arrival, the photographer noticed their presence.
  "Oh good, you're here. Just take a seat over there and I should be with you guys shortly." Still holding Averie's hand, Mara sat on the seat between her husband and son then told her daughter to sit on the seat next to her brother. The mother looked at her husband on her right and saw a dark pink lipstick mark on the side of his neck, almost completely covered by the collar of his shirt. She pulled out a flask from her purse and gulped some of the alcohol, crying on the inside.
   "Mara, put that away," Liam scorned his wife. Mara immediately put the flask back in her purse in her lap and apologised.
   "Yes dear, I'm sorry." Dissatisfied with his wife's response but not bothered enough to say anything about it he simply ignored her. Sometime later, the photographer stood in front of them and got their attention.
   "Alright, now that the equipment has finished being set up, I will ask you to please follow me to this area here with the sky blue backdrop. Ok, time to get into your places. Mr Wryte, would you please stand on the little 'x' marked on the ground behind the white line? Following you will be your son on your left. Then Averie, and last, Mrs Wryte." Once everyone was standing in place, the photographer smiled and stood behind the large camera.
   "Now children, it's time. I'm going to count down from three, and when I get to zero I want everyone to smile for the picture, ok? Three, two, one, zero. Smile!"
   The photographer looked at the laptop on his right after taking a few shots and was amazed at the results.The family smiled in the photos in a way that made them seem happy, like their lives were perfect. But looking for a while longer at each of the images he realised that they looked almost too perfect, as if each family member were life-size dolls, and was a little creeped out. Whilst they had smiles on there faces, they were expressionless at the same time.
   It is said that eyes are the windows to the soul, but their's seemed to be blocked by curtains, which they hoped no one would ever open.

Reflection
When writing the short story, I used a few different text types as inspiration. This includes the following: the T.V. show 'SUPERNATURAL' Season 2 Episode 16 "Playthings", and Melanie Martinez's original song "Dollhouse" (I used the music video as a visual reference to help with writing a couple of scenes). During one of the first drafts, I had intended to take a more intense horror-themed route. This changed, however, along with a few other ideas that I was planning to have in the story because I was already over the word limit for the assignment. I decided to take out parts that even though I felt had some importance, it wasn't as necessary to have those specific scenes in the short story. While I didn't feel as though I learnt anything new this term, working through the unit was beneficial because it helped me with putting the draft process into practice.

~xxxmistress