text: Hello! I'm a young writer looking for feedback on a short story I wrote a year ago in the spirit of Halloween. Any input would be greatly appreciated, especially with word choice. Thank you! &#x200B; The little girl’s lemonade stand was set up in her driveway. The house behind her was covered in ivy and was losing its shutters. The girl in question? Well, she too seemed to be rather in bad shape. Her hair was splitting at the ends and could probably use a good wash. Her skin was a pale, pasty white. The dress she was wearing appeared to be made of an old bedsheet. A sign laid out in front of the table read, “Lemonade 15 cents.” “Hello,” Henry said to her. “How are you this morning?” The girl said nothing. “I’ll take a glass of lemonade,” he continued. The poor girl seemed in need of a morale boost, and what better way to do that than to buy her product? The girl still said nothing. She grasped the handle of the pitcher and dumped a small amount of the contents into a plastic cup. Henry passed her a dime and a nickel. She fingered the dime and held it up to her wide eyes. It was a strange sight. 15 cents couldn’t even buy her a gumball. He shook the thought away and grabbed his cup. The lemonade in the cup was a light yellow with a tint of pink. He swallowed. There wasn’t any food coloring around. There also was not a pepper shaker or an opium bottle, he thought to himself. It’s certainly safe. It must be. Henry took a nice, deep sip. It was the most delicious lemonade he had tasted in years. “Not bad,” he said aloud. The girl smiled. It was a noticably sad smile. It made him even more apprehensive to finishing the glass, but he was so thirsty, and the lemonade was quite good. What was the worst that could happen? He thumbed through his wallet. How could it be that he only had dollar bills? He sighed. Oh well. He passed the girl a dollar bill and told her, “This is all I have. Can you make change?” The girl shook her head. “I’ll take whatever that can buy.” It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be. Did he? He tried to think back to his daily calendar reading. He couldn’t recall anything on it. What would it hurt to stay a bit longer? The girl’s face lit up once more. She counted a little on her fingers and removed seven cups from the stack. Henry placed his hand on hers. It was surprisingly cold. “I don’t need the 7th cup. I can deal with just the 6.” The girl shook her head. “Free,” she muttered, filling the cups one by one. He downed the cups as she poured them. They were once again delicious, and the girl’s smile only grew wider as he continued to drink. He finished the seventh cup and licked his lips. “This is delicious,” he told the girl. She nodded. “More?” He shrugged. Passing over his wallet, he said, “Take what you want,” his words slurring. She nodded, emtying the wallet. She grabbed another stack of cups and another pitcher. She filled a cup, which he then drank, then the process repeated itself. He watched as she poured the last drops of the second pitcher into one of the cups. She looked up at him. “Follow me.” He cocked his head. Her blurry little face stared at him sadly. “What?” “Need to make more,” she whispered. He nodded. “Okay.” She made her way to the door, Henry, dizzy and confused, following close behind. As they got inside, the door swung closed behind them. He jumped. Something was wrong. Why would he be so scared of a sound he heard every day, likely more than once? The girl grabbed his arm and pulled him up to the kitchen. She made her way up to the counter. He watched as she prepared more lemonade. There was one difference, however. The pink color was gone. He looked at her. “Put the pink in!”, he told her, his words stringing together and slurring once more. She looked at him, thinking, and passed him the pitcher. She then turned back to a small door in the back of the room. She pulled on the doorknob and looked inside. She grinned. She led him up to the entrance. “Pantry?”, he guessed. She shook her head. “Look?” He nodded. “Sure.” She swung the door open wider. He looked inside and saw nothing but darkness. Before he could say anything, the girl shoved him in with force that he could scarcely believe had come from her. The door slammed shut behind him. Blinding bright stadium lights shot on on either side of him. He looked down at the pitcher. It had sprung several small leaks on the side, causing some of it to spill out onto the floor. He gasped and placed his hands to the holes, desperate to save the delicious substance. He lapped up some of the lemonade on the floor. It was not, however, the same as it had been before, it seemed. The heavenly flavor was replaced by the inherent sourness of pure lemon juice. He spat it out. The pink, he thought to himself. It had never been added. What could it have been to disuise the bitter, acidic taste that now lingered in his mouth? He suddenly heard a moan from the other side of the room. He stood up and ventured over to the source of the sound. More lights shot on as he moved into darkness. When he reached the wall, he saw a young woman facing towards the wall, banging on the metal surface. She turned to him. He shrieked. The skin on her face had started to dissolve and fall off. She moaned again and grabbed his leg. He felt a burning sensation there and looked down to see her hand, dripping with acid, removing itself from a patch of melting skin. “Don’t drink the lemonade,” she forced, her voice raspy, like her throat was dissolving too. He screamed and ran back to the door where he had been thrown in from, the skin on his leg peeling down. He banged on the door. He shouted for help, the same raspy sound echoing back to him. He felt like he had swallowed several razor blades. He reached for his neck, swallowing. As he removed his hand, he saw the same acid dripping from both his hand and his throat. He sat down. The pink was some sort of drug, he thought to himself. It must have been. The lemonade was, what? Just pure acid? Some chemical cocktail? He shuddered. Glancing back at his reflection, he saw what he had seen on the woman’s face. Instead of screaming, he got to his feet. He stumbled into a crawling position and once again made his way across the room. The young woman sat in the same position, wailing for help in her raspy, strangled voice. She noticed his reflection beside hers and murmured, “You drank the lemonade, didn’t you?” He nodded. “It was delicious until I got in here.” She coughed. “Acid.” So he had been correct. “What happens now?” She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, she started another coughing fit. After a few seconds of racuous coughing, she spat out a large mass of blood and thick chunks of tissue, all of which were melting into puddles. Her eyes glazed over. Henry swallowed. It had become clear what was going to happen to him. The woman’s body collapsed onto him, spreading the acid along his legs and stomach. He yelped in shock and pain. That was the next step. Death. What was there to do but wait? The sound of a door opening and slamming shut shook him out of his fancy. He looked back to see a boy about the girl’s age fall into the room. Henry screamed to alert him that he was not alone. His pitcher had also cracked, but he was wise enough to leave it there. He ventured out to the middle of the room, taking up all of his aching body’s strength. The boy too had set out to find the source of the noise. He stopped, seeing the mass of Henry’s body in the dark. As he took another step, the lights shot on, revealing the grotesque view that Henry had seen on the woman’s face. He screamed, louder and louder still as the last of the skin on Henry’s neck began to dribble off. Only a small amount of skin remained on his face. The boy turned and screeched louder than Henry had heard in anything in his life. He banged on the wall, desperate to get away from the pile of Henry. Forcing out the words, Henry rasped, “How much did you have?” The boy screamed again at the fact that the lump of skin and bones in front of him could talk. It took him a while, but he gathered the courage to yell back, “One cup.” Henry smiled. “I don’t know what happens to you,” he whispered as the last ounce of skin on his leg bubbled out of existence.. The boy turned and ran to the place where he had come in, kicking at the door. And though he could barely hear himself over the screams, Henry was delighted when at that moment he began to cough.