[3086] Van Winkle's Nursing Home

Van Winkle's Nursing Home

Hello! This is another horror piece that I'd like to post on the Nosleep subreddit and submit for an audio adaptation. This time, I focused on tension and building it throughout the story. I'm scared by the prospect of growing up, and I tried to capture that in this piece. I also like to include bits of humor and brevity. What I'm looking for:

How did I do with the above goals? Is it scary? How do you feel about the antagonist, and the setting? What do you want more or less of?

General critique. Specifically thoughts on the characters, dialogue, tone, and general story cohesion/build-up. Did you find the characters likable or funny? What did you feel/think? What didn't you like or didn't connect with you? Changes that you would make? Stuff to cut?

Line edits. I'm happy to hear your thoughts about specific sentence structure/word choice, as that's something I'm looking to improve on.

I'm not super stoked about the title, so feel free to shoot me a suggestion.

Many thanks! I'll be posting a revised draft on the Nosleep subreddit sometime soon after this, so be sure to check my profile if you're interested. Hope you're all doing well.

I critiqued Hospital poetry will never pay hospital bills(63), The Still Blade(2477), and Cannibal excerpt(1034).