lil BIG

By Laziran Willis

You may enjoy a more upgraded version of children's horror in lil BIG. The story follows a nameless lil boy in white as he is thrown from the ocean into a mysterious world of odd territories filled with BIG, dangerous, and monstrous creatures. He stumbles upon a castle of white-sheeted children where his story nearly comes to an end until he is saved by a strange lil girl in red. Thus begins a never-ending chase as the world around them is seemingly obsessed with keeping the two from ever crossing paths again…or finding a way home.

Join in on a story of childhood to the corruption of adulthood. The book is perfect for children ages 8-12 who may enjoy a book with a deep-rooted horror element but adults may enjoy the deeper meaning the book has in its theming and symbolism.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laziran Willis
• Release date: Jul 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201405182

Book preview

Prologue

The Drowned Town

Drip...

Drip...

Drip...

The sound of water droplets turns into a trickle and then quickly merges into a flow of rushing water echoing down a dark and damp underground pipe. It twists and turns like a water park slide only you don’t know if there's a large pool at the bottom that it spits you into. The tidal wave in the pipe now comes to the end of its momentum as it pours out violently, crashing into the flooded city below. Nothing can be heard but the metronome-like drips that create subtle ripples in the water. Reflected on the water’s surface are the engulfed houses, vehicles, and roads of perhaps a once inhabited city, now waterlogged, long abandoned, and overrun with algae. What could have caused its damnation?

Poke...

Poke...

Poke...

That was the only sound to break the monotonous echoes of water. The disinterested poke of a stick held by a lil girl in red as she prodded at the soggy corpse of a young child no older than her.

Iheld the algae-ridden stick lazily, careful not to let the green slime touch my hand. I poked the dead body with little thought going through my brain. The body was a girl I hadn’t seen around before. Maybe she was new, or maybe I was simply indifferent to her. She wore a dirty white nightdress with faded purple flowers and a purple uniform blazer, but she didn’t have shoes. Her face was pale, and she didn’t smell. She must have died just before I arrived. She could have been easily mistaken for someone floating atop the water relaxingly on a hot summer’s day.

My memory has faded during my time here, but the girl reminded me of the beggar children I once stood beside on dusty roads and dirty streets. Pleading, crying, selling small trifles for less than nothing. She had the perfect face for such a thing, a small head, large sweet innocent blue eyes, flushed rosy cheeks, and pouting lips to gain sympathy and convince a passerby to fall for such a charade and empty their pockets. She had long blonde hair, not longer than mine, but it was done up into two neat bleached blond twin tails and adorned with a single white bow.

I felt slightly annoyed, knowing there must have been two white bows, but she may have lost the other one before or during her trip down the pipe. Looking up at the pipe from above, it was a large drop into the water from such a steep height. Had the water not been there to catch her fall, her body would be looking a lot differently. I sighed in acceptance and scavenged the single white bow left in her hair. She’ll have no use for it now.

It was still very wet and dirty, but I clipped it into my hair anyway, along with the countless other accessories I’ve found. It will be cleaned, that I can promise. I was happy for a moment, my lips threatening to smile as I looked at my reflection as best I could as I squinted down at the water. I ran a hand through my long dark locks giving it a flick as I looked myself over. 

Rummaging around in the girl’s blazer pockets next, I was curious to feel my hand touch something hard and round but disgustingly sticky. To my surprise, she had candy, but it had been ruined by the water. Given their state, I didn’t want to risk eating them and tossed them to be finished off by the water.

Plop!

Looking down and unraveling the stuck-together paper, I peeled it back, careful not to rip it so I could glance over what was inside but it was so soaked with a mixture of water and candy that whatever was written on it was an inky mess now, not that I could read it anyway. However, what was wrapped in the paper was a very shiny golden compass. I brushed my thumb against the smooth gold metal. It was connected to the girl’s blazer pocket by a long chain that I unhooked from it. Opening it up, it was like a mirror, and I eagerly looked at my reflection within it as I held it close to my eyes.

I peered at the many lines, letters, and numbers within it with a noticeable red marker that the arrow pointed to, which meant that it was pointed North. That was where my compass knowledge ended. The device was very simple to use. Oddly, when I turned my body slightly, the compass arrow didn't move. Maybe it was broken?

Closing it and turning it over, I saw that it had some words engraved into it that I couldn’t read, so I didn’t bother with them. The compass looked brand new and was designed in a way I hadn’t seen before. I was tempted to toss it—as I already knew my way around this world like the back of my hand—but it was pretty and caught my eye. So I clipped the chain on a hook above the compass to make it into a necklace before tucking it away inside my poncho.

I turned my attention to the other white bow I greatly desired. Looking for the other bow was out of the question, even if it had fallen into the water beneath me. I glanced at the other bodies of other victims that floated gently along with the light flow of the water. Fools.

Those bodies would get in the way and stink something foul. But I was used to it now. The overwhelming buzzing of flies didn’t exactly make this place welcoming nor hygienic either. I recall similar bodies. What year was that? Around those times, a plague of something fierce hit the city and drowned it in corpses like the ones floating by me now. Just thinking about it made my skin itch, and I felt dirty like a mongering street rat. What a disgusting existence.

I had another task at hand, so I shook those gross thoughts from my head. I used the wooden mahogany door as a makeshift raft. The stick I had was long enough to use against the roads below to direct myself across the near flooded city. Even with all this death, the water was still crystal clear. You could practically see the roads below with little effort. However, I still couldn’t spot anything useful beneath the water with my poor eyes as I glided above.

The strong reflection of the moonlight’s glow wasn’t doing much to help either. I squinted, trying to do away with the blurriness and splotches of color in my vision with no success. Going farther away from the flooded city, the water became too deep for my stick to be of further use, so I cast it aside.

Because of how the city was built, there were many hooks and worn statues of mysterious creatures that I could grapple my hair onto to pull myself and my raft closer to an edge to exit the city. The statues themselves could tell a terrible tale. Some were figures built around hideous, monstrous creatures of nightmares. Others were long eroded and missing various pieces from smashed faces and missing limbs. Someone could have taken a hammer to them, and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between that and nature itself. Perhaps it was a blessing that one couldn’t witness this city's joke of something statue-worthy. 

The city, however, was quiet, quiet like death and peaceful in a morose sort of way. It was a city that, on the surface, looked beautiful but was more like a pitfall plant in disguise.

Rope Knot outline

After leaving the city, I figured it was a slow night. No luck finding anything useful, but my thoughts were soon interrupted by the rumble of my hungry tummy. I hated finding food the most. There was never really much to eat around here except for maybe candy if you could scrounge some up, but I was sick of sugar, and so were my teeth.

Finding food was not only near impossible, but it was dangerous. There are too many monsters around to steal anything good. But what to eat, what to eat? I pondered desperately as my legs wandered about themselves, accustomed to constant movement. I scratched at the heel of my feet with my toe when my hair tickled it while I was in thought. It wasn’t until I had considered something that my hunger was distracted by a familiar sound. The sound of something bad currently taking place.

Out of curiosity, I followed the commotion to the nearby settlement of those Blanket Fort Ghost Kids. They were in a large group like goblins dressed in bedsheets, ready to murder or shakedown some new arrival. Some boy in white. I observed from my perch, but the Moonlight cast a very large shadow over them. They took heed.

The fort kids looked up at a moment's notice, and upon seeing me, they stopped their attack and scattered immediately. Kind of like cockroaches in a dark room before someone suddenly comes in or shines a bright light upon them. I didn’t care much for who they were attacking. That was just their way of living, and that was just the way things are here.

However, the boy below stared at me with emotion in his eye I couldn’t make out. We stared at each other for only a moment before I turned my back to him and fled to deal with my own affairs. I heard him call out to me but couldn’t make out what that was, or perhaps I didn’t care to try. He was quick but not nearly as quick as I. I heard his footsteps behind me but never looked back when they faded. I already knew he had lost track of me, and I lost track of him.

Chapter One

The lil boy in white

Bloop...

Bloop...

Bloop...

The sound of water echoes in the deep. There wasn’t even the faintest sign of a current as I floated still in a watery limbo. My eyes were heavy, yet somehow my body also felt fully rested. I was warmed by the Sun’s rays reaching me far into the deep.

Was I having that dream again? The one where I’m drowning? Usually, I’d wake up right before a shark or some Lovecraftian beast dragged me into the depths below, never to be seen again, or would I simply sink for eternity? I wasn’t sure which was worse.

A large bubble floated in front of my fluttering eyes, and the warm bath-like water surrounded my skin. My confusion turned into fear. I knew this was all too real and far worse than a dream.

I drew a large breath, and water rushed quickly into my lungs, burning them. My throat and nose felt like fire as I gripped myself. I heaved and scratched violently at the water around me that slipped past my fingers.

Kicking my legs in a frantic panic, I desperately found myself using every ounce of energy in my body to push myself to swim upwards to the surface. Still, it seemed no matter how hard I tried, I was