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 Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:39 am
((Alright. I swear this one won't die. I've even already gotten 3 chapters done! =O This story is fantasy-based. Anyways, here's the prologue! Please critique. ^_^)
Shattered Void, Prologue:
I really hate feeling helpless. The woman staggered towards me, bleeding profusely from several long gashes on her limbs. She was carrying some sort of bundle, too, though at this distance I couldn't quite make it out. I really need to get some glasses, I thought to myself. As she stumbled closer to me, however, I was able to discern two things. One was that whatever it was, it was bleeding heavily. The second was that is was crying.
The woman was carrying a baby. With a gaping head wound. The realization hit me hard, and it almost felt like I had been physically punched.
"Please!" she cried out suddenly. "Please, priestess, help my baby! Do something!" she sobbed. I blinked. Priestess? What was she talking about? I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, that I was no priestess. But I didn't want to sound mean, so I kept my mouth shut.
Okay, so I lied. I didn't want anything but to get the hell out of there. However, as my feet didn't want to move, I was forced to stay frozen in place and watch as they approached me, dying with every step.
I was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming desire to help them in some way, but again, my feet were glued to the ground. And I wasn't stupid, either. All around me, explosions blasted and gunfire rang out in a morbid little rhythm of death. I had already seen women like this one, apparently battered and bruised, approach men asking for help, only to blow up in their would-be helpers faces. Literally. I was in the middle of an all-out war zone, so cautiousness was smart. It might have been that logical part of my brain that kept me from running over to her.
But this one...she looked awful. And she had a baby with her, for God's sake. As I considered the possibilty of her exploding on me, she continued to move slowly towards me. Soon enough, she was standing just within arm's reach of me. I watched her warily, keeping an eye on every movement she made, as she slowly raised her hand and reached towards me. She opened her mouth to say something.
Bang!
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:42 am
Chapter 1
I jolted awake, the sound of the final gunshot from my dream still ringing in my ears. So close, I thought. I had been so close to hearing what she was going to say to me. I leaned back onto my pillow, lips pursed in thought. I'd had that dream several times, and each time it had progressed a little further. I tossed and turned for what seemed like an hour, then finally gave up and glanced at the clock.
"4:20?! Ugh!" It was waaaaaay too early to be getting up on a Saturday. However, since it was obvious I wasn't going back to sleep, I crawled out of bed anyways, checking to see if my roommate Samantha had been awakened by my little...outburst. Luckily, she hadn't. Sammy was always so grumpy in the morning. I think it had something to do with her low blood pressure, but whenever she wakes up, she's an evil little bi -sorry, person- as she goes about in a stupor. As long as she doesn't snap at me, it's actually quite funny.
Grabbing my towel and a change of clothes, I headed to the bathroom for a shower. Let me get one thing straight: I love showers. To me, they're like the pinnacle of human civilization. I turned the water on, pushing the knob as far to hot as it would go, and stepped in, savoring the feeling of hot water coursing down my back. I rolled my shoulders a bit and closed my eyes, still trying to get rid of the image of the woman. I proceeded to stick my face into the water, and then I simply stayed there, relaxing and enjoying the heat. I stepped out of the dinky little shower thirty minutes later feeling very refreshed, and a little sleepy.
"Aaah, much better..." I whispered to myself.
"Nng..." I whipped my head around, startled, towards the direction of the moan...grumble...thingamabob. Yes, thingamabob. (It's a technical term, I swear!) I saw Samantha standing in the doorway of our room looking at me like I was crazy. Hence her next words.
"What, are you insane or something? It's five in the morning, woman!" I rolled my eyes. I love Sammy, she's a great person and friend, but her bluntness and total lack of tact often had me itching to strangle her.
Ignoring her usual tact (or lack thereof), I replied, "Nah, I just couldn't sleep. I'm headed back to bed now anyways. You should too, or I'll be the one calling you crazy." She gave me one last look and shuffled backwards. I heard a faint ploof as she collapsed back in bed. I glanced into the mirror and froze. I had been expecting to see, y'know, me - average height, straight jet black hair, green eyes, faintly tanned skin, skinny as a pole, with an overall Asian look. Who I saw in the mirror looked nothing like me. In fact, I realized with a shock, it was the woman from my dream.
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Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 10:44 am
((I've noticed my indents disappeared, sorry! And yeah, I know they're short, but that's how I do things. >.<))
Chapter 2
I clapped a hand over my mouth, trying very hard to keep myself from shrieking like the wuss I was. The woman smiled sadly at me from the mirror. I shot a glance over my shoulder, but no one was there. Soon, the apparation faded away, leaving me staring at the mirror with a look of absolute horror. I waited a few more moments before I trusted myself not to scream, and then I took a deep breath and removed my hand.
My mind was racing, but I forced myself to remain outwardly calm. Freaking out and waking up Samantha wasn't the best idea. However, I did allow myself to be mentally freaked. No harm in that, after all. What the hell was that? There was no one there, so how was she in the mirror?! Ohmigod, I'm hallucinating. This is not good. Do I have a fever? At that last thought I hurried grabbed the thermometer and took my temperature. It read 98.4 degrees - not a fever by any means.
I closed my eyes and conjured up the woman's image in my mind. She was very pale, with ice-blue eyes, and white hair. But she wasn't old at all - in fact, she seemed to be about 19, the same age as me. But there was something, I don't know, different about her. I studied her closely, but couldn't seem to put my finger on it. Slowly, carefully, I soaked in every detail of her visage, when I finally found the problem that had failed to stick out before. She had ears that were barely pointed at the top.
Basically, she wasn't human. This made me seriously wonder if I was, in fact, still dreaming, but after I pinched myself, I quickly threw away that possibility. It was relieving, in a way. I've had dreams before that actually happened later. Premonitions of a sort, if you will. I was quite glad to know that, because since it obviously couldn't happen, I wouldn't be stuck in that particular situation.
After finally convincing myself that it was, and will remain, only a dream, I followed Sammy's example and headed back to bed.
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Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 7:21 pm
((Yay! Here's one that's slightly longer! And it's more...normal. Yeah. But it goes un-normal again next chapter.))
Chapter 3
A/N: Song is "Going Under" by Evanescence.
"Now I will tell you what I've done for you
Fifty thousand tears I've cried..."
I awoke to the sound of Evanescence, my favorite, favorite band, blaring in my ears. As I began to wake up, I softly sang along to the song.
"I'm going under (goin' under)...
Drowning you (drowning you)...
I'm falling forever (falling forever)...
I've got to break through."
"KARIIIII!" Sammy screeched from the kitched. "TURN THAT DOWN!" Tch. Damn. That was fast - normally I get further into the song. Reluctantly, I turned the CD player off and walked into the kitchen. Well, kitchenette. It's tiny, but it does its job. Samantha was already up and moving (mostly), rapidly draining a cup of coffee.
"G'morning!" I said cheerfully.
"Nuthin' good 'bout it..." she replied drowsily. I laughed to myself about this comment.
"Aww. Can't wake up this morning, Miss Sunshine?"
"This and every morning," she replied, ignoring the 'Miss Sunshine' jab. If anything, she's the total opposite.
"Maybe you should get yourself some stronger coffee," I retorted. As if I didn't know hers was the strongest you could get. At that remark, Sammy simply sent me a dirty look, and I couldn't help but grin.
Still smirking a little, I shuffled through our thinning food supply - someone seriously needed to go shopping soon - looking for something to last me until I could hit a Whataburger.
When my hand landed on a carton of eggs, I grabbed it and whirled around to face Sammy.
"And exactly how old are these eggs?" I demanded. 'Cause there's really no telling with us - stuff can go forgotten for weeks in the fridge. She looked at me, then at the carton, then back at me. Wordlessly, she held up two fingers, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes. "Two days?" She shook her head. "Two weeks?" I persisted. Finally, she nodded. Hunh, I thought. Are two week old eggs edible?
Still deep in thought about the edible...ness...of eggs, I didn't notice my watch going off until it was almost done. I glanced at it and yelped in surprise. I had to leave, fast! I began moving around Samantha and my shared apartment (we're best friends, and it was cheaper to split) at warp speed in a frenzy, trying to do everything at once so as not to be unfashionably late for my first class of the day at Seattle University.
Ten minutes later, I burst out of the apartment out to the... well, not-so-sunny campus of Seattle U. I mean, let's face it, Seattle is so not the sunniest place in the world. Usually it's covered by cheerless gray clouds, and thick fogs are a regular occurence.
I raced across one of the many sprawling lawns in a rush, trying in vain to ignore my stomach practically eating itself. It didn't work too well. I was in such a hurry that I didn't notice the rock a size of a freakin' head in the middle of the path until I tripped over it. Of course, by then it was too late. I went flying and barely had time to think crap before I hit the ground hard and blacked out.
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:31 am
Only critiquing chapter 3 since I believed I combed through the others rather thoroughly already.
First off, if anyone can sing softly to "Going Under" I'd love to see it. But overall, I felt the inclusion of the song was somewhat pointless?
The deal with the kitchenette sounded akward... I think you're lacking a sentence in there, like "It was about as small as our bathroom." to help reinforce the point it's small. Kitchnette is not a connection people are going to make right off the bat.
You're also having trouble with your tenses again. I don't care if the kitchen's still around by the end of the story, you should still use a "It was tiny, but it did its job." You're describing it as she was seeing it - the entire thing should be in past tense.
Maybe take the mostly in parenthesis and put it next to the "already up" instead. It's hard to be mostly moving. Were her eyelids glued shut or something?
"I laughed to myself about this comment." - weird phrasing there, didn't feel as if there was much point to it. Either elaborate or take it out.
Once again, "she was the total opposite."
"I retorted, as if I didn't know hers was the strongest you could get." Sentence fragment. Not good in the middle of a paragraph. Add it on to the "I retorted."
The finding of the eggs doesn't need to be a separate paragraph.
"'Cause there's really no telling with us - stuff can go forgotten for weeks in the fridge." It's present tense, but you need something before the "'Cause." Like "it was important to ask, because" or something. It's a sentence fragment.
I like the dialouge about the two-week-old eggs, though. It makes me smile. :3
"Still deep in thought about the edible...ness...of eggs" No real need for the ...s, but you should definitely take out the last set. "edible...ness of the eggs" And go over the eggs. She's not questioning eggs as a whole - just the one carton. Clarification, it's a wonderful thing.
" began moving around Samantha and my shared apartment (we're best friends, and it was cheaper to split)" Seems kind of redundant... Don't we already know that Sam's her roommate?
"at warp speed in a frenzy" Use one or the other, please.
"Seattle is so not the sunniest place in the world." You can start a knew sentence here, and take out the "so." Seems too Valley Girl-esque for your character. I think another phrase like "Seattle is not exactly the sunniest place in the world" would work better.
And.... that's all. Remember, I'm editing this like I would my own story. If you want me to stop at any time, I will. x3
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Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:40 pm
I know it is first person, but you should still use proper garmmar. Still the story looks fasinating, keep up with it.
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Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 8:37 am
---> K I R A <---
Meep. I think I'll just rewrite the chapter. It needs it, so does 4.
<--- Kinyoubi no Yoru --->
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 8:33 pm
Not a bad story you've got there, and I only have one comment to add that hasn't already been said. I noticed you several sentence fragments, since that is the way people generally talk. Normally, you want to avoid doing so, as it looks bad on paper and anyone with any sort of education will frown. But I have found them, on rare occasions, to be very effective. If you want something to really stand out, then you can use fragment, although I must warn you to use them sparingly. There are some rules in the English language that, once understood, are meant to be broken. Then again, there are others that must NEVER be broken. It's all a delicate balance... sentence fragments, new paragraphs, and capitalization rules can be bent for a good reason. Just make sure it's warranted!!
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Quotable Conversationalist
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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:25 am
-sobs- This story has died.
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