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Story Six- The Battle of Liquid Light



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Reviews: 8
Thu Mar 24, 2011 2:19 pm
Riveneye says...



Well it's been awhile since I've posted anything but I finally got off my butt and started working on this novel again. Here we go out of order story number six.

The battle of liquid light and clouds of darkness

The first thing I remember was wondering why the ground was so cold. Why was I laying face down on the ground? In the interest of finding out, I got up and looked around. The air around me was cold too, but I was too busy wondering if I had gone color blind to notice.
There was no color anywhere, like if someone had colored in a coloring book with a pencil. I was in a field with a few gray trees, gray grass, and a gray overcast sky. It was kind of depressing, so I looked for any source of color or light, but there was none to be found. But there was something odd off to the side.
It looked like a rain cloud was coming, because the ground was getting dark. As it got closer, I could see that there was movement in the darkness, and shapes of people. I did not think that were I was standing was a good place to be. Especially if an army of people was coming my way. I booked it in the opposite direction as fast as I could, but the people in the darkness kept pace with me. I kept running, but was gaining no distance on them.
Ahead of me was an infinite plane of gray, and behind me was a mass of people in darkness. I soon ran out of breath, and realized that I would not be able to outrun them. I didn’t know what to do, but the darkness people made the decision for me. Soon they were close enough to make out their faces, and I could see that they were all wearing armor, like the Romans did. They did not look right somehow. They seemed to be made of darkness.
Then they were three feet away, and I couldn’t run anymore. I closed my eyes, expecting to get killed by a shadow army. But then I opened them just a crack, and saw that they had stopped. No, just the ones closest to me stopped. The rest circled around me until there was a massive sea of darkness. They all absorbed color like a sponge, and my clothes were starting to drain of any life.
Then some of the army parted, and saluted the man walking in my direction. He was clearly the commander, because he had the most impressive armor. He stopped a few feet from me, like I was dangerous to get too close to.
“You there!” he shouted in a loud, clear commanding voice. “Who are you?”
I was starting to get the idea that they wanted something from me, so I shouted back, “Who are you?”
He smiled, something that looked very creepy on a 3d shadow, and said, “I am Commander Morpheus. And this,” he motioned to the men around him, “this is my army.”
“Wow,” I said, looking impressed. “You have done a great job of recruiting.”
“Yes,” he said. “And we hope to recruit one more.”
I didn’t like where this was going, so I replied, “What do you mean by that? Am I to join your ranks?”
“Why not?” he said. “We have the best trained army anywhere, and we have dominated over much land. Joining us would put you into a very prestigious position.”
If this is how they recruited people, I could see how they have so many. “And if I were to say that I’m not the military type?”
The commander’s mood changed so quick I could feel the air get colder. He apparently did not get much resistance. “Unfortunately, anyone who is not allied with us is viewed as an enemy. And we,” he said, changing the darkness that was his right hand into a pair of scissors, “don’t allow enemies in our land.” He said, snipping the scissors shut. You have to admit he was persuasive. I was just about to tell him that he had other soldiers, but something caught my attention.
Up in the sky, under the overcast clouds, a streak of light was shooting through the air. It was like a firecracker that was illuminated, and it started coming down in my direction. Morpheus looked up and swore very loudly. “Grab him!” he screamed. All the soldiers around me extended their arms towards me. Then their arms started getting longer, like a rope being pulled out of a coil. They were about to about to grab me when the comet hit the ground at my feet.
It exploded and lit up the darkness like a million suns. I averted my eyes just before it hit, and that probably saved me from going blind. When I looked back at the crater, my enlistment didn’t seem so likely. There were six men there, completely opposite from the shadows. They were made completely of light, shining like a light bulb covered by a white cloth.
They didn’t waste any time. They grabbed me by the arms and started running towards the sea of darkness. In the flash, part of the arms that were reaching towards me disintegrated, and the soldiers blended together to make a blob of darkness.
“Wait!” I cried. “We are going run right to them.”
“Oh no we’re not!” they said, and morphed. It was like their light became a liquid and flowed under and around me. One became a seat that I got on, and another two formed a rocket booster behind under the chair. Before we hit the darkness, light shot out of the rocket, and the seat that I was on shot up into the air. The last three light men hung on for dear life.
I was hanging on to my seat as well, terrified. I looked down and saw us soaring away from the dark sea below us. One of the light men that was hanging on shouted over the wind speeding by, “Are you all right?”
“A little shaken up, but fine otherwise.” I shouted back, regaining my composer remarkably fast after that whole ordeal. “What’s going on?”
“This is a rescue mission.” He yelled, checking the ground. “We were sent here to… HARD LEFT!” I looked down and wished I hadn’t. The sea of darkness was keeping pace with the rocket, and columns were shooting up from it. Some were spinning like a tornado; others were like solid javelins headed our way. The rocket went hard left to avoid one of them, missing it by a few feet.
“Alright, we need to get out of here.” A light man shouted, putting his hand on the rocket. Light flowed from him to the rocket and more light shot out the end of it, doubling our speed. In no time we were clear of the darkness, the screams of Morpheus still echoing in my head.
We slowed down, and it wasn’t long before we left the gray plans. The grass slowly regained its color, the trees looked fuller, and everything seemed better. However, it was still overcast. We had been flying for quite a while now, and the light of the rocket was going out. Just when I was thinking that we would fall, I saw a massive glow.
When it got close enough to see it, my mouth dropped open. It was a castle, shining in brilliant splendor. It was made of light just like the men, and it shone down to the last stone. We flew right to the highest tower, and dropped onto it. One of the men with me, the rest had given all their light to the rocket and disappeared, said, “Come, lady Helaine is waiting for you.” “Man”, I thought as I followed him into the castle. “People here sure have some weird names.”
As he was directing me through, I noticed that everything was made of light. The floor I walked on, the walls I could touch, even the torches . The castle was a huge labyrinth, and my feet got tiered long before we came to our destination. It turned out to be a library, with huge shelves with golden books.
“Good day sir,” said my traveling companion. “I must get ready for the battle.” Before I could ask what that battle was his feet became connected to the floor and he dropped into it.
“Quick getaway.” I said, going into the library to look for this Helaine. It did not take long. The only person in the library was sitting in a big stuffed chair, reading about the history of war. She was the most normal looking person I had seen made out of light or darkness. Her clothing was a glowing toga with golden sandals strapped to her feet. The only sign of wealth or power was a single shining bead on her necklace.
Going by her height and figure I guessed that she was about sixteen. Overall she looked very plain and simple as far as clothes. Yet her face and hair capture my eye. She looked so beautiful it was hard to tear my eyes away and speak up.
When she didn’t notice me I cleared my throat with a slight cough. Slightly startled she looked up from her book. A sweet smile played across her face when she saw me. Putting her book down, she jumped out of her chair and threw her arms around me.
“Oh thank goodness you’re all right.” She said in the same tone that a starving person would use if they found food. “We would have been devastated if something had happened to you!” I was a little stunned at this generous greeting. In fact the only thing going through my mind was how warm a person who was made of light was. It was like hugging a fire. Only without the excruciating pain and getting burned. So actually, it was more like being under three or four quilts.
When I didn’t respond, she let go and stepped back. “Oh, my apologies. Introductions are in order.” She took a little bow. “I am Helaine, goddess of light and eternal enemy of darkness. And you,” she said, poking me in the chest. “Must be wondering why you are here.” The question crossed my mind once or twice.” I said wondering how a goddess could look like a high schooler, the same age as me.
“Well, I see that I have some explaining to do. Come.” She said, heading towards the door. “We will walk and talk.” So I followed her, enjoying her nice voice and the glow of her skin. “I apologize for not appearing more formal, but our supply of light is in short supply is low as it is.” Seeing my puzzled look, she exclaimed, “oh yes, yes I forgot, you are new here. Let me show you.”
She took me into a giant chamber that was open to the sky. It was filled with magnifying glasses, huge on the top but progressively smaller towards the bottom. “This is one of our light collecting rooms.” Helaine explained. “We focus the light until it is in liquid form, then distribute it throughout the castle” she pointed to pipes that seemed to run everywhere.
“So you can mold the light to make whatever you want?” I asked.
“Yep.” She said leading us out of the room and climbing further up. “We make everything from jewelry to soldiers with it. But it’s not permanent. It decays after a while, or it is canceled out if it touches darkness. Which is why you are here.”
At that point we had gotten up as high as we could go, on an open tower. We were up so high that we could see clearly for miles around. So we could see very clearly the army of darkness marching our way. I was starting to get really sick of them.
“Wait a minute.” I said, starting to put two and two together. “When darkness touches light both disappear right?”
“Right.” said Helaine
“But that’s ok because we can get more light. Right? Except when there is no light,” I looked up at the black clouds. “Like when it’s overcast.”
“Yes.” She said, looking too sad for words.
“Ok then we can just wait for the clouds to pass, right?” I said hopefully.
“No.” she said, looking directly at me. “Those clouds are not natural. They are made of darkness, and they will stay long after this castle is over run.”
“Oh.” I said, looking away and instead at the darkness. It was huge and overwhelming, just like before. To tell the truth it was down right depressing. “What can I do?” I asked strongly.
“It will be dangerous.” She warned.
“I can take it.”
She gave a small laugh. “Ok then here it is in a nutshell. The clouds are too big to hold themselves together, so there must be a support system in there holding it together. We can’t send in any soldiers up there because they will just disintegrate before they get four feet. We need someone who can safely pass through and deliver light to the supports.”
“And I would imagine that I fit the bill.” I said
“Yes, but it will not be easy for you. She looked up at the clouds. “They are made of darkness, and that darkness will try to bleed into you. It will try to destroy your light and throw you down.” She looked like she would cry. “I don’t know what I would do if that happened.”
I walked over and put my arm around her. “It won’t happen. You’ll see. I will be alright.”
She smiled, then looked at the army of darkness. “It’s getting closer.” She said with a very serious and sort of tough look on her face. “You need to go. Here is the light that you will need.” She took off her necklace and handed it to me. “Don’t bother with the little stuff. Go for the biggest and strongest of the supports, near the middle.”
“Ok.” I said, trying to keep that in mind. “But how do I get to the middle?”
She turned towards the stairs we had come up from, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled very loudly. Two soldiers marched up the stairs and stood at attention. “We will need another rocket.” She told them. They morphed into a rocket similar to the one I had ridden before.
I climbed on and looked at Helaine “I will succeed.” I told her with a lot more confidence then I felt. She held my hand and said “Keep the light safe. It’s all you have.” Then she rushed down the stairs.
I tapped the rocket. “I’m ready. Let’s go.” A low rumbling was heard, and then I shot into the air. The wind was blowing past my face so fast I started to get windburn. But I had started fairly high up, so it didn’t take too long to reach the cloud. It was about then that I started to wonder how I would reach the middle.
When the rocket slowed down I realized we were only a few yards away from the clouds. Just when I thought I was going to ram it at high speed, the rocket fell away from underneath me and pointed itself at the castle. I was still going full speed at the cloud, and I braised myself for the impact.
Of course there was none, it was a cloud after all. Instead I found myself sailing through a black fog. I saw what must have been the support system. Small, stringy wisps of concentrated darkness in a crisscross pattern line the cloud. It reminded me of a cargo net. I grabbed hold and started to climb. As I was climbing the voice of Morpheus rang out and echoed around me.
“Ah good, your back.” Said the voice, sounding overjoyed. “I was afraid we lost you to the other side.” I was not sure, but the strings I was climbing on became less wispy and more solid. But the higher I climbed, the louder the voice got.
“I believe we were cut off before. You were about to join my army and ride out against the enemy, is that correct? Just say the word, and you can float down like a feather out of this cloud and be home free.” The strings were more like ropes now, and something seemed to be pushing me down. Regardless, my mouth was staid closed. The voice laughed.
“Oh come on, what do you think you are doing? Even if you stop us now, which the chances are slim to none, we would just come back and strike them down again. Your stubbornness has put you on the losing side. Look now, they are like drowned rats fighting for a breath.” The clouds opened up underneath me, and I did all I could not to look down. The ropes had become as big around as my wrist, and were starting to feel like iron.
The darkness condensed around my head, and my neck twisted so fast I thought it might snap. I was forced to look at the battle below, and my heart sank. It was not going well for the light side.
The darkness was pounding the castle with catapult and black arrows. There were huge spots missing from it, and soldiers were desperately taking stones out of the castle to throw them at the darkness, but they were way outnumbered.
“It’s manifestation of destiny.” Said the voice. It was not echoing around me anymore, but it spoke in my head. “They are clearly weaker than us, and we are simply extending our glorious power over them. They wanted to be separate from us and cause trouble, so we did what was needed to be done.”
“No!” I shouted, and started climbing up as fast as I could, knowing that my time was limited.
“No?” Said the voice in a comical tone. “Now you are just being childish. Get serious.”
“I am being serious!” I shouted desperately, feeling the large pipes that had to stop growing sometime. “What gives you the right, you miserable pig faced oaf, to destroy light? What gives you the right to destroy and demolish and tear down? You don’t even know them! You have no idea what they are doing! You don’t even…” Then I hit my head, and I looked up. There was a massive, solid tube above me that all the other support tubes lead into. I knew this must be it.
“Well said.” Said the voice coldly, then something closed around my neck, choking me. I desperately tried to get it off, but it was like trying to pull off my arm. It would not let go, and breathing was becoming tough. Panicking, I reached into my shirt pocket where I had put Helaine’s necklace and pulled it out. It practically exploded in my hand, shining out and releasing the grip around my neck.
Getting my breath back, I released that I was waiting light, so I quickly thrust it into the big pipe above my head. It burned through like a hot knife through butter, and it began to creak. Then I felt things flying around me, replacing the darkness that was being eaten up. I soon released that they were the other supports. As more of them sacrificed themselves to the light, I could hear the cloud cracking as it started to break up.
However here were a lot of supports, and the light could not last forever. It kept shining on though, and the massive tube started getting thinner and thinner. It condensed till it was pipe size. Then the support I was hanging onto moved, like it was going to go help. Seeing as how this would make me fall, I grabbed onto the not so massive pipe as it jumped into the light and was gone. I hung onto the pipe as it kept shrinking and shrinking. And just when it was string sized and couldn’t get any smaller, the light abruptly went out.
“No!” I cried, unable to believe my bad luck. There was only a minuscule string left. Any light would get the job done, but I was hanging on the string with no light.
“Ha!” wheezed the voice, sounding worn out. “Did you really think that I would let you go this far and defeat me without any resistance? What an idiot.”
I just stared in disbelief, not accepting it. It was all over. I had failed. The light was going to be gone forever because of me. I had let them all down. And now I was doomed to hang from a string, listening to the voice, now laughing hysterically.
I thought of Helaine and how she had been counting on me. How she thought I had been brave. How she hugged me when she thought I was hurt. Her hugs were so nice and warm. It was like I could feel its warmth and see its light.
Hey, where was that light coming from? I looked down at my shirt pocket where I had put the necklace. I reached my hand into there, and there was a bit of light in liquid form. I had no idea how it got there, or how I had missed it until now, but I didn’t need to. I scooped some in my hand and brought it to the string that I was hanging from.
“Wait, where did you get that?” the voice screeched.
“Here comes the sun.” I sang with a smile. Quickly, I dabbed the light onto the string. It snapped and shot off in two directions. The voice yelled something at me, but it was too garbled to hear, like a radio that was being smashed. I was pretty smug, until I released that the string was gone and I had nothing to hang on to.
So gravity took its course. I was falling, most likely to my doom, but I couldn’t stop smiling. I had done it, and the fruits of my labor were starting to show. The cloud was very loudly ripping itself apart. Everything was shaking and moving away from me with the same sound as an earthquake.
It wasn’t long before shafts of sunlight were poking through and further destroying the cloud. The darkness that made up the cloud didn’t disappeared as fast as it would have with liquid light, but it was more like an ice cube under a heating lamp. It didn’t take long for the air around me to be flooded with light.
It was overwhelmingly bright after the darkness, and it did a very good job of illuminating the ground that was rushing up to meet me. I was terrified, but only for a moment. After that, I saw that a few soldiers, of light, were under me and changing into a trampoline. I was still falling too fast for that to work, but I thought, why not? I landed feet first and bounded back into the sky.
I came down and bounced back up, but not as high. I came down, did a flip in the air, then came down and stopped. I climbed off and thanked the trampoline. It changed back into several men, and they bowed to me.
“It is us who should be thanking you.” One of the men said. “Look there.” He pointed to the battle field, which had drastically changed. Sunlight was pouring onto it, and the darkness soldiers were frying, literally. The darkness was starting to become mist rolling of the soldiers, many of whom were retreating with the clouds.
In addition, soldiers of light were pouring from the castle (which had half its stones missing). Any dark soldiers that were not retreating fast enough were quickly overrun by the mass of soldiers on horses and cut down. But some soldiers were binding together and causing trouble, so the soldiers near me said, “Excuse me sir, but we need to help out.”
“Go ahead.”I told them. They raced off to help. I saw them dive into the dark lump, and was extremely pleased with myself. I had single handedly prevented darkness from overtaking light. As I was thinking this, a sharp pain exploded in my left leg. Small drops of blood hit my face as I fell and looked at my leg. A black arrow, three feet with the fletching, was sticking out of my leg.
I looked up to see who the archer was, and saw my old pal Morpheus stumbling towards me, long bow in hand. He didn’t look too good. He had lost a lot of darkness, and there were several holes in his chest. But that didn’t stop him from stumbling my way, another arrow in hand and a look of pure rage on his face.
A scream tore from my throat as I tried to stand up and collapsed. There was no way I could run away. I tried to call to some light soldiers, but they were busy getting rid of the last of the enemy. There was no way they could come fast enough, and Morpheus knew it.
“Your face wouldn’t look so good with a hole through it.” He said in a raspy voice. He loaded another arrow and pulled back, aiming for my temple. He was five feet away, so the chance of him missing was not likely. He released, and I closed my eyes. I heard a thud in front of me, and I opened my eyes to a wonderful sight.
A golden horse was in front of me, its lean body blocking the shot. But atop the powerful beast was the Lady Helaine, fully dressed in shining golden battle armor. She held a streamline lance in her hand, and the look in her eyes sent a very clear message to Morpheus.
He made a very nasty hand movement at her, then changed into a raven and flapped away. Helaine hurled her spear at him and he made a startled squawk. Satisfied, she got off her horse and bent down to my level
“I’m so sorry.” She said, the warrior look in her eyes softening. “I was not fast enough, and our hero has been wounded.” She put her hand on the arrow, and it disappeared under her touch. As she laid her hand on the drops of my blood they turned into the liquid light. Then it covered my leg, almost like the blood trying to go back into me. Slowly, the hole where the arrow had been closed.
“At least you got here when you did,” I said, my leg feeling a lot better. “If he had another second, you would be without a hero.” She smiled, and then helped me onto her horse. She made a clicking sound and the horse started off while she walked next to it.
“I didn’t get the chance to tell you before,” she said, “but it was necessary for you to be exposed to the darkness before you came here. You needed to see why the darkness must be resisted. We were all so worried that you would give in, but you performed wonderfully.”
“It will be back.” I told her, “The darkness will come back and attack again.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but we will be ready and waiting for it. Besides, the darkness is not all bad. Without it, I never would have met you, and you never would have proven yourself a hero. It also makes the light brighter.”
I was stunned that she had this respect for darkness, and she had seen it on my face. “Regardless, we will continue to fight and win against it.”
“Yea.” I said, comforted by her words of wisdom.
“Now, I need to go rebuild my castle, and you need to rest that leg. My horse can take you to a chamber where you can rest. I will check on you when I can.” She patted the horse, whispered something in its ear, and it started off towards the castle, leaving her behind. I smiled, knowing that everything was going to be all right.
Off in the distance, fireworks were going off against the sunny sky. It looked a lot better than the clouds, but I was so tired that I fell asleep on the horse while watching them. My dreams were filled with light.
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Tue Apr 05, 2011 2:31 pm
Azila says...



Ahoy there! Thanks for the review request.

I'm not going to go through and point out all of the typos and things like that, because I really don't have the time for nitpicking right now. But I do suggest you read this over very slowly out-loud or under your breath--that usually helps me find the kinks. Or you could have someone else read it to you; that helps me too. Anyhow, I'm not going to talk much about this technical stuff but I do want to warn you to beware of repetition. Look at this passage, for example:
In addition, soldiers of light were pouring from the castle (which had half its stones missing). Any dark soldiers that were not retreating fast enough were quickly overrun by the mass of soldiers on horses and cut down. But some soldiers were binding together and causing trouble, so the soldiers near me said, “Excuse me sir, but we need to help out.”
See how many times you say "soldiers" in just a few sentences? That kind of thing can make the reading a little choppy and awkward, so I suggest you try rewording passages like that.

All in all, I think I like this. The overall concept of it is really intriguing and I think you've done a pretty good job of translating that concept into words. Your descriptions in the beginning definitely pulled me in. I love the way that at first, it seemed the "made out of shadow" was just a figure of speech, but as I read on I realized that it was, in fact, literal. It reminded me a little bit of Gabriel García Márquez, who does similar things in his writing. Nice. I also like that while this is a story about light triumphing over dark, you haven't made the dark be completely evil and repulsive. In fact, when I first started reading about the shadow soldiers I thought they seemed pretty cool to me. I like that I couldn't tell they were the villain right away.

But I'd like to see the same with light. By this I mean, I like that the dark side isn't completely evil--and I'd like to see the light side not be completely good. This is completely personal preference, so I won't push you to do it, but I was sort of bothered by the fact that there was nothing bad about the light. They only attacked in self-defense, and they just want to be happy and perfect and beautiful and kind. I find that boring, personally. I'd rather they have some sort of complexity. And I'd also like our hero to take a little longer to side with them. Sure, the goddess is beautiful, but how does he know he isn't just being tricked?

Along those lines, I'd like to know more about your character. Right now, he's not really anything special. My only reason to be interested in hi is because of what he does, not who he is. His emotions and goals are just kind of boringly perfect, in my opinion. Perfect people don't exist, so it's hard for me to feel for him. I'd like to see him have some flaws so that I can relate to him! Also, does he have a history? How did he get where he was in the beginning? Does he remember where he was before? I'd really like to know what is "normal" for him, so I can know how he feels about what is going on in this story. For all I know, he could go around saving the world every day, in which case this would be just him doing his job.

I'm also a little confused about why he had to go into the cloud of darkness and destroy it. Why couldn't the soldiers do that? My guess is that there might be some sort of prophecy or something that means he has to do it (though I hope that's not the case. >.< Unless they are done really well, prophecies are painfully cliché at this point), but I have no idea.

One more thing: watch out for monotony. By this I mean, when the pace of the plot changes, the feel of the writing should change. For instance, you start out with a descriptive passage, and then it goes very quickly into action--but I almost didn't notice the sudden change because the voice of the writing (sentence structure, etc.) doesn't change. In general, I suggest making your sentences shorter and simpler during action scenes and longer and more lyrical during descriptive passages. It will help the reader know how to feel and it will also help the piece not drag on.

Overall, this definitely has potential. It's a bit long/epic for a short story, and it feels a little bit rushed to me, so I'd like to see you extend it--if you want to, of course. I think you've got some great material here, and I hope you polish it up a bit because I think it could really shine!

Let me know if you have any questions or comments or anything about what I've said. I hope it helps somewhat.

Beamishly,
a
  





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Fri Apr 08, 2011 5:54 pm
Sins says...



Heya, Riveneye!

I'm terribly sorry this has taken me ages to get to. It doesn't normally take me this long to get to a review request, honestly. It's just that I've been horribly busy lately, so it's taken me a while to find the spare time to do this. Enough of my apologising though. Onto the review!

I will be honest with you and admit that this isn't exactly my favourite kind of story/genre, but hey, at least it's not historical fiction. ;) Even though I don't usually like this genre, this has actually caught my interest, so well done for that! You have a really interesting concept here, the idea itself is great and original, and I think that a lot of your descriptions were interesting and well written. Your grammar seemed to be pretty good too, so well done for that. This is a review though, so I better get onto some critiques.

I'm not sure if this is just me being a complete idiot, but I'm actually a little baffled about why your MC is actually where he is in the first place. He doesn't, like, live in this world, right? Judging by your descriptions at the beginning, I guessed that he'd somehow been transferred to the world from ours. I assumed he would be from ours, anyway. Knowing me, I just missed some information on this, but if it isn't me being an idiot, then I think you need to clear this whole situation up. Where is the MC actually from? How did he get into this world? Is he ever going to go back to his usual world?

Staying on the same(ish) subject, I found his reaction after waking up a bit weird. I mean, he didn't have a clue where he was, right? He seemed awfully calm about it to me. Then when the darkness army guys came, he seemed just as calm. his dialogue matched that too. He didn't seem at all afraid of them, which I found a little odd, especially if he did just come to this world from another. In fact, throughout this, your MC didn't really seem especially afraid at any point... I guess this ties into something that Azila said. He's a bit too perfect for my liking. He isn't really scared of anything, he's a proper hero and I can't really spot any obvious flaws or anything.

Something else I noticed in this is that it sometimes felt a bit... rushed, I suppose. I often found myself rereading some paragraphs after realising that you were describing a different action, scene, happening e.t.c. to the one I was reading before. You also had a lot of happenings in this. You had the MC wake up, run into the bad guys, run into the good guys, meet a load of people, save some people e.t.c. all within the space of a long(ish) short story. I think that added to the rushed feeling. It kind of feels like this should be a novel to me. That way, things won't feel as sudden and rushed, and us readers will be able get a better grasp of what's actually going on exactly.

This kind of ties in with confusion actually. Like I said before, I had to reread some paragraphs to actually realise what was going on. With the help of the rushed feeling, the piece can be a bit confusing at times. Admittedly, I am easily confusable, but still, I do think you have a genuine problem with making this a weeny bit confusing sometimes. You need to be careful not to stuff too much information and too many events into one story, if you get what I mean. It can be a challenge to make people understand every single detail to a piece like this because it isn't something people see every day, and it does involve a lot of details, but with some tweaking, I think you could do it easily.

Hmmm... I think that's it for now! I have a feeling I've been very confusing... If so, I am terribly sorry, If you have any questions, just let me know by posting on my wall or PMing me. Thanks for the read! I should be able to get to the other piece you asked me to review soon.

Keep writing,

xoxo Skins
I didn't know what to put here so I put this.
  








they got that magical iridescence that you don't expect to be on a sky rat y'know
— Ari11