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[Werehuman]

  As you can tell from both the title, and the story itself, it was heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Constructive criticism is wanted. This is my first time writing a short story outside of the stupid narratives and expositions we had to write in school.

  Me, Arthur Newbourn, an inquisitive, curious young man, journalist, sat in front of Schmuel Janson, with a weathered appearance and a long wispy beard, and apparently with knowledge of the life after death. Though some claims are obviously false, such as that he could never die, and that he was the wisest man on Earth, it was true that he was of great knowledge. He supposedly told of extraordinary tales about the after life, so detailed, so perfect, only the most cynical, realistic minds could not take in at least part of his stories for fact.
  "So, tell me your stories about the life after death." I stated; the first thing I could think of, obvious, but nonetheless important.
  After Schmuel coughed a bit, and then began his tale. "You might want to get cozy in that chair of yours, its a long story."
  "There I was, at the sharp age of fifteen, with my father, a merchant at the time, who was on board to go to India to get their fine goods for sale, following a map we had gotten passed down to us.
  "Well, apparently either it was the wrong map or we took a faulty turn, and we ended up at an unknown land, peopled by albino folk. The people just looked inhuman to an extent, with queer facial features, too wide mouths, too big eyes, ugly proportions, and no hair. They spoke with a guttural tongue but somehow knew a small amount of crude English.
  "'Why you here? Nobody come here. Why you here?' croaked a particularly deformed looking man. I looked at my father, and he urged me back into the ship. I retreated to the ship while my father attempted to ask for where they were and directions to India, though most of it was just answered with a horrible croak.
"While my father was doing that, I searched for the food storage-"
  "Cut to the chase!" I exclaimed, as I was getting impatient; how could this possibly relate to life after death?"
  To this, Schmuel looked sad for a moment, but didn't say anything about the interruption and simply continued, albeit in a wide-eyed manner.
  "Well, they got angry, and as I looked through the window in the ship, I saw hundreds, thousands stream out of crude shacks I had thought empty. Dozens of the foul, albino creatures grabbed on to every normal human on the island, and dragged them, to only where they knew where. I just watched in horror, and then I think I fainted. When I awoke I too was surrounded, and judging by the skinless, bloodied corpses, I thought I was doomed for a similar fate. Instead, far more deformed albino creatures than the ones we saw on the island, some having extra limbs or heads, or lacking of a head altogether, dragged me down a bottomless pit, through an infinite cavern, and across an endless tunnel.
  "Finally, I was nearly dead, when I was thrown to a giant statue of a horrific Thing. A nearly indescribably horrific mockery of a creature; I could have sworn It was a living thing were it not for the pedestal It was permeably attached to. It was a vast array of chaotic tendrils and madness, eyes where there shouldn't be eyes, heads in places, nearly human but yet unimaginably alien."
  Schmuel eyes bulged and his voice grew slightly mad, as he took a pause, as if waiting for the horror to sink in.
  "I could not escape, as I had been wounded by being dragged the whole way, and I was stunned by the monstrosity before me. The disgusting albino creatures began a chant, arrhythmic and revolting, to the statue. It must have been my madness that made me think the statue was quivering, because I was surely mad by then. They never stopped to breath, it just got louder, faster, and even more alien to my ears. It seemed like days when finally they abruptly stopped. It was alive, not merely a statue, just in a dreamless deathlike state. The Abomination upon the statue, swam in the air, unheeded by gravity, flailing its many tentacles, towards me and Its loyal subjects. The horrific albinos forced a foul substance down my throat. I was dead."
  Schmuel stared at me, waiting for my denial that the outrageous story was true; but I was too ensnared with fascination by his graphic details. Still yet madder, more crazy sounding, he continued.
  "It must have been a drug or some magic; drowns you into death, and then returns you back to life. I knew I was dead though, for sure, I no longer felt Its presence. I stood up, I didn't feel the fatigue, or the wounding I had sustained earlier. At once, I felt compelled to follow a road, the road in front of me. At first I ran, then I walked, then I crawled as I followed a road without measurable length. When I could go no longer, I fell down, through the road, and I was in a dark room. I fell into a spiked room, where the body I had used in death was destroyed into small pieces, and smeared the walls with blood. I was dead already though. My mind drifted to space, outside of the dimensions we know of. I could see of unimaginably horrific monstrosities similar to the Thing I had seen when I was still alive.
  "I was already mad, and I was already dead, but just the sight of them nearly broke my mind. I saw The One Who Is All, The One Who Is Everywhere, I saw Yguthplh, Gthnkahth, the Unnamable One, the All-"
  Schmuel began foaming at the mouth, eyes darting about the room at unseen things, and screaming nonsense. "Iá! Iá! Damn you, you foul creatures, don't stab me with those things! Stop! Get away!" Schmuel's eyes glazed away, and the police and the forensic scientists were there, and the cause of death was associated as suddenly mass brain death, but they were stumped as to why.
  I was extremely disturbed, and I had a nightmare that night. Unlike most dreams, where it is a blur, I remember it clearly, too clearly. Schmuel spoke to me, we were in the same house, the same desk as when we had spoken where he had suffered .
  "I bet you were disappointed at my story being cut off, don't worry, I'll finish it." He had a sarcastic grin, below glazed over eyes, full of fear. He shivered anxiously, contrary to his easy going manner.
  "After I had seen these things, I suddenly returned to life, and I was alone on the shore of the island. I saw my father's ship, and I walked into it. There, was my father, who was very relieved. He had been worried, but he and the whole crew knew nothing about the abominable creatures. I knew it had happened though. I led them to the tunnel where I was dragged down, but all of them refused to go down there and see. They proclaimed me mad, and after a lot of therapy, I was cured, momentarily. I knew I would turn mad once I relived those awful moments, but someone must be alive to pass it on. Not for historical value, not for scientific, but as a, 'I told you so' when those abominable creatures awaken the unspeakable horrific gods. Now, spread forth this knowledge. You asked for knowledge of life after death, now you know it."

[XXSockXX]

I love cosmic horror and Lovecraft, so I'll try some literary criticism:

- To get really good at writing you need to write a lot, read a lot, write a lot and then write some more. I hear that Lovecraftian horror is a good place to start in fiction, because you have sort of a blueprint you can emulate. So you're on the right track there.

- I'm not a native speaker, so I'm not really qualified to criticize your language or style. I think you are trying to convey too much information in some sentences, like the first one for example. Also some expressions like "Cut to the chase" or "I told you so" seem anachronistic and too modern for a Lovecraftian story. A lot of the atmosphere in these stories comes from the archaic, somewhat pompous style. Try to get away from anything that sounds like spoken language.

- I think the story is too short in two places:

a) The beginning. Why is your protagonist doing the interview? As it is, you start in medias res, it seems almost surreal, but only few people can pull that off well, like Lovecraft himself or Thomas Ligotti (whose stuff you should read). I'd suggest having a paragraph describing the journalist arriving at Janson's home, maybe a description of the sinister old house, to set the tone.

b) The part where Janson dies. That doesn't really work for me. You glance over police and forensics being there in like half a sentence and "suddenly mass brain death" isn't really a thing. You should elaborate on that.
I would suggest you use another classic Lovecraft-twist: Janson doesn't die, he starts babbling, says he doesn't feel well and ends the interview. The journalist goes home/ to his hotel, falls asleep and has the dream. He can't stop thinking about the dream and the abominations Janson described and the weird implications. He tries to contact Janson for another interview, but he doesn't succeed. Then he goes back to the house where Janson's servant tells him that the old man died just a few minutes after he left, before he had had the dream. Alternatively he could also read it in a newspaper, you just need to adjust your chronology. If he finds out about it days later, there is time for an autopsy that reveals some weird things, like Janson's brain being in a strange state, preserved as if mummified, but obviously dead for decades.

- For the sake of realism: Skip the part about asking for a way to India, maybe also the map. Nautical travel does not work like that, even maps are not that essential because there are other methods of navigation.
They could have just been lost in a storm and maybe the sky over the island had no stars or there were strange star constellations nobody ever had seen before, though something that looked like the Pleiades appeared weirdly much closer than it should.

[Werehuman]

  Thank you very much for the criticism. This wasn't a heavily planned, revised thing, literally it was a rough draft. Just about every point was obvious. Admittably, my original goal, was to just have a person who had seen death and was telling the narrator, and thus the audience, however I felt I needed to have a bridge. Otherwise there would have been the obvious question, of how he got there. I didn't think that, obviously a map wouldn't be much help out at sea. I was just writing sentences on whim while trying to convey information. I've always had trouble with breaking up sentences and not making them too choppy, but not having them too busy or long. I could have had the madness much better, but I had wanted it to be lovecraft themed, not specifically copying. Otherwise I would have had cries of, "Iá! Iá! Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!", and ramblings and screamings naming the other gods. In some time I'll stain the forums with another short story, most likely Lovecraftian.

[XXSockXX]

Yeah, I got that it was a rough draft, didn't point it out to not discourage you  . Closely imitating someone like Lovecraft is good practice, as you can work with certain established tropes and styles, which helps you to find your own style over time.