Previously: “One Million Viewer.”
Memoirs are tricky things. Or, perhaps more accurately, the act of writing a memoir is a tricky thing. How do you know your life’s story is something others would want to read about? Unless you’re truly, indisputably extraordinary in some way, shape, or form, is it not at least somewhat egotistical to think that your story, above all others, is worth the audience? That’s what the creepypasta “The Black Quill” gets at — although it’s perhaps less about extraordinariness as a measure of worthiness and more about what it means to have a life well-lived.
Published to the Creepypasta Wiki in November of 2012 by user Denalicain, this one is short and sweet. It also falls into a category or subgenre that was arguably at its height at the time: Creepypastas about weird objects. This one isn’t quite in the style of, say, the Holders series or the 200 Phenomena In The City Of Calgary, but it’s sort of in that same vein — and honestly, I’ll always have a soft spot for this variety of story. I think it has something to do with the inherent unknowability of the object in question; I love not knowing all the answers to the questions a story raises.
[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]
Find an excerpt below, and read the full story over at the Creepypasta Wiki.
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When one writes an autobiography, a part of them is left on the paper. In the 1800s, many people of critical acclaim were writing autobiographies. Most of the people were shallow, placing the highest value not on friends or family, but on wealth and possessions. Because they had so much, the only thing left to do at the end of their life was to preserve it. They falsely held their own lives in such high regard. When in reality, they had just succumbed to an existence devoted to selfishness and greed.
If an autobiographer wanted to preserve their life as memorably as possible, they would use the Black Quill when writing their autobiography. This quill seemed to have magic properties, and was fabled to enable the writer to craft his or her story to perfection. However, this quill was in every way a feather, with one exception: it was made completely out of obsidian. It also bore an inscription, “He who lives for no one but himself, has not lived at all.” Only people who have lived prosperous lives had the connections required to track down the Black Quill. The quill is controlled by one man named simply, The Decider.
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Follow The Ghost In My Machine on Bluesky @GhostMachine13.bsky.social, Twitter @GhostMachine13, and Facebook @TheGhostInMyMachine. And for more games, don’t forget to check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available now from Chronicle Books!
[Photo via Pexels/Pixabay]
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