ghost of the fire (sequal of 'just like me')

You don’t understand, do you?’

Her hand waved over the candlewick, which exploded and crackled into a large flame.

My heart fluttered.

‘I’m just like you…'

-----

What was I supposed to do with her?

Why was she sent here? Now?

‘Yuki?’ She continued to stare at me. My mind was racing in circles, tripping over the words I couldn’t remember how to say. I had to stay calm, I had to stay poised. My feet where already shifting beneath me, as I prayed she couldn’t see my hands trembling.

A loud yell from outside made me flinch.

‘Yuki!’
The girl I had come to know as My Miki. She was blonde, beautiful, high-spirited, and still ever so fragile.
‘Yuki!’ She swooped into the doorway and skidded to a halt. ‘Yuki the electrics are…’ Her voice faded as she caught sight of the stranger, her fingers already twitching nervously. I often forgot how timid she could be. She lowered her head slightly, eyes wide as she stared at Ai, who was now weaving the flame around her palm.

‘Ai!’ I barked, sharp enough to make her pull her hand away. Turning to Miki she smiled innocently.

‘Sorry,' Miki said. A soft blush crept across her cheeks. ‘I didn’t realise you had guests’

‘Ai,' I said. ‘Stay here, don’t touch anything, and put the candle out.' I grabbed my jacket from behind the door, beside which hung the torch that I clasped tight. ‘I’ll be back in a moment’

Desperate to get out of the situation I slammed the door, leaving my shoes on the rug inside. Miki pressed her lips tightly together, avoiding all eye contact.

The cool darkness of the night coiled around me, causing a welcome shiver to run through my body and clear my mind. Just for that one brilliant moment, I felt a brief freedom with the rush of icy air that flooded into my lungs.

‘Who is she?’ The new chains latched over my shoulders again.

‘Who? Oh, her?’ She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Of course. She’s, a friend. Well, the daughter of a friend of my dads’. A friend of my Dad’s who I knew all to well and respected out of both love and terrible fear. I know that doesn’t explain much about his him, or his daughter, but perhaps that is something best left untold for the time being.

‘So, why is she staying at your place?’

‘Family difficulties, she’s only staying the night, maybe tomorrow… As soon as I can get in touch with her dad anyway.’ The very thought of meeting him again brought a dreadfully nervous buzz to my stomach.

‘He’s not with her mum?’ Her voice softened as if she was talking to a child. One of the very few people who could see through me, she knew she was treading over uncertain grounds.

‘He travels a lot.' Together we strolled round the dark corner, led by torchlight to the red plastic box that held the switches controlling the electricity of the whole building.

‘Sorry for the trouble,' she said. I hurried back as fast as I could, swerving the conversation away from the kid that had now appeared in my apartment.

‘Don’t worry about it. It’s too late for a girl to be wandering anyway’

‘Thanks.' Silence hung between us for that last moment when we reluctantly nodded goodbye and she slipped through her door.

‘Anytime.' I sighed and watched her go in. Stealing the moment to take one last deep breath I headed for my door. ‘Well done Yuki.' I cursed myself.

The door was already ajar when I stepped back inside and my eyes skimmed the room.

‘Ai?’

Her bag was gone. No note, no sign that she had ever been there. Nothing except the unnerving ghost of the flame now whirling itself around the candlestick.




Extra note: this is the first draft, and i know it has a few clichés and bad grammar in it :p I'm working on it. Suggestions and improvements much appreciated

It's good!!

Who is Miki though? She (and your main character) need a little more background to them. Just add some little things, things that are unique to them as a person and they will become WAY more real.

Did the girl say 'Yuki' the first time, or was it Miki? It's not clear.

"˜Yuki!"Miki, the chirpy, blonde beauty from next door, with a voice that reminded me of the beat of butterfly wings. "Yuki!" She swooped into the doorway and skidded to a halt.

the two descriptions of her are somewhat contradicting. Butterfly wings make you think graceful, beautiful and fragile, but then she bursts loudly into the room. You might want to change that, or elaborate on how her appearance and actions are very different.

So does the protaganist know who the girl is or not? Is she actually the daughter of a friend of his dad's or was he making that up? If he is making it up that should be more obvious, if he isnt, it should have more non-dialogue information about how he recognizes her.


I like you story, it's interesting, catchy and I definately want to know how it ends, but you need more character details so it will make sense to everyone. Some of the things you wrote could be taken in different ways and that's confusing.

PM me when you write the next part please!!
xo

again, a nice peice of work!

all that needs to be fixed are simple errors, along with your use of speech marks.

for example:

‘He travels a lot’. ----------- this should be: "He travels a lot."

full stop INSIDE the speech marks, not outside!

anyways! keep on keeping on - i expect more from this series - also, the use of Japanese names is interesting. . . there aren't enough books out there that incorporate foreign names, good work!

jai

Ok, what is the point of the first part of this piece? It doesn't really show the overall picture of the piece.

Then you dumped Yuki's image onto us, which is not good. Not only does it distrupt the flow of the story, but you just spoiled the chance for the reader to deduce themselves as to what she looks like.

Now about Yuki as a character. What is happening in the piece doesn't fit that well with her as a character. On it's own, it only describe the environment and what is happening, but fails to involve the characters as well. As a result, characters are flat with 1 dimesional personalities.

The dialogue was ok. It was nothing special, just normal everyday dialogue and it does well in portraying the plot.

The beginning of this piece is the end of 'just like me', aka part one.

Yuki is the dude who was introduced as a purposely shallow character in part one, though i guess that was a really bad idea.
Ai is the young girl who has been sent to Yuki by his father
Miki is the new female character. I'm trying to make her seem confident with Yuki, but mostly shy around other people.
The idea of the dialogue is i'm trying to use it as a way of telling parts of the secret, but not all of it.
Suggestions on how to fix this are much appreciated.

kokobeans wrote:Umm... For the benifit of squalls, and whoever else skims this piece of writing.
The title says (sequal of 'just like me'), so the beginning of this piece is the end of 'just like me', aka part one. I kind of assumed people would realise this.

Yuki is the dude who was introduced as a purposely shallow character in part one.
Ai is the young girl who has been sent to him by her father
Miki is the new female character. I'm trying to make her seem confident with Yuki, but mostly shy around other people.
The idea of the dialogue is i'm trying to use it as a way of telling parts of the secret, but not all of it.
Suggestions on how to fix this are much appreciated.

Saying that I skimmed read this is your assumption, a false one in fact. I actually think that it is you that actually rushed this. You can't have a shallow character in part 1, as part 1 is your hook. Therefore, Yuki must be developed already in part 1 or else the reader won't be able to relate to Yuki, like I wasn't able to.

We were not shown his emotions and personality to a much deeper extent. Your descriptions were just there! It did little to interact with the characters and vice versa. Deeper emotions and personalities were not shown as a result. You just barely scratched the surface. They are just typical characters at the moment, and aren't very well defined.

By the way, I have not read the one before this, but even its should be more developed than it is right now. Mind you, sequel is spelled wrong.

Do not argue with me on this. You did not explain very much as to what is happening here. Everything just happens and the greater signifance of the piece is not existant. This means this lacks a firm path for a critiquer like me to know what was exactly happening. You do know that not every person that critiques this hasn't read the previous piece. Treat them with respect please.