Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: This is a nice little starting point here. As far as prologues go I feel like maybe this reads more like a first chapter than one of those, but its still a pretty good piece for starting a story off either way.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Abby,
Eleven year old Abigail Perkins had a big secret. She saw her teacher Mister Phelps' demon today. Daddy says demons are what cause people to do bad things, he told her she had done a good thing telling her about Mister Phelps' demon and he was proud that Abby could see the demons like he could. He had thrown things, screamed and raged at the sky.
“How could you let this happen? In my own daughters school!?” Then he'd calmed, turned to Abby and quietly said, “Angel, can you tell me why I'm upset?”
OKay...this is off to a pretty dangerous start there. I feel like the flow isn't the best. It starts out sounding a bit like a blurb before it then takes a rather sharp turn towards sounding a lot more like a regular piece and its just a bit of confusion there. You may want to look into smoothing out the flow at the start. Other than that, the demon plot is coming out rather nicely here.
“Because Mister Phelps is an abomination. A crime against God.” Abby obediently repeated.
“What about Mr. Phelps is a crime against God, honey?”
“Because he... he loves another man like he should only love a woman.”
“Why do you think he does that?” Abby knew what he wanted her to say. “Because he hates God.”
“Good girl. What happens to people who hate God?”
Ohhh...well this is a very different track for what this story seemed to be going towards, and this now just got a lot more intense cause it appears this is a very human situation, but with humanity at pretty much its worst there.
Abby stared at her Father as he paced the torn linoleum and washed down three caffeine pills with a grape soda. His greasy hair fell into his wide, tormented eyes and she swallowed. She didn't want to say it. At her silence he whipped his head around.
“WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHO HATE GOD, ABIGAIL?” He shouted.
She flinched. “They die.”
This Father appears to be very into this idea there...I have a feeling something horrible might happen as a result of all of this anger that's currently being rather casually tossed about here.
The next day Mr Phelps watched Abby concernedly from his desk. The pale, far too thin little girl was probably the brightest student in his class. And, he guessed, the most troubled. She swung her skinny legs and stared out the window, chewing on a wad of her light brown hair. He had never seen her ignore her schoolwork before. When the bell rang and twenty-three kids made a break for the freedom of the playground, Abby slowly stood and gathered her things from the little desk that had been hers all year.
“Abby?” The teacher said, offering her a reassuring smile. “Is everything okay?”
Her head shot up and she turned and gave him a defiant look.
Hmm, yeah, the teacher certainly seems to be a pretty nice person there which means all of this craziness stems from that one thing...and well...this is sad to see here, but well as far as a prologue, this does a wonderful job of catching our attention here.
“Yes, Mister Phelps. Everything's fine. I just need to gather my things. Daddy is taking me out of your class.”
Mr Phelps took a step back, shocked at the hatred marring her pretty face. “Abby, honey, what's wrong? Why is your Daddy taking you out of school? Is everything okay at home?”
She ignored him and marched towards the classroom door that led outside.
“Abby! Wait! I think you and I should go have a little talk with the school counselor!”
Ooooh, now there's some cause for proper conflict building there. It seems that Abby is pretty young and completely believes in what her father says so she's probably going to react to that rather badly. I like how you showcase that Mr. Phelps is a pretty caring person there by going out of his way there to see if Abby is having any problems at home.
He knelt down at her eye level and put a hand on her shoulder. “We need to talk about what's going on,” he pleaded, then he reared back in shock as the child's spit trickled down his forehead and into his eyebrow.
She sneered at him. “You're a crime against God, Mister Phelps. You deserve what's coming to you.” Then she broke free from his grasp and ran outside.
The teacher stood. Shaken and disbelieving what had just happened, he wet a paper towel at the little classroom sink and wiped his face.
Oh dear...wow was not expecting that ending. I feel like that's almost too sudden a transition from the persona for the child you were building. Here she goes full cruelty by spitting at the person which is quite a far cry from her reluctantly nodding along with her father earlier.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, I think this here premise can make for a really interesting story here and we've got some interesting characters being built. There's some inconsistency in the child's behavior, so I think you need to look into that, having an issue like that in the first part itself is not a good sign. Other than that, the characters were brought across quite well I think. Overall, a solid piece, but it needs a bit of work.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Points: 265387
Reviews: 4146
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