Of the Past - Part 1

“You aren’t done! You have to finish or you won’t pass the test and you can’t join the club.” The voice was mocking, daring me to walk away. I heaved again, bringing up the last of my lunch, and then returned to the ‘test’. This time, when I felt him hit the back of my throat, I swallowed the bile that threatened to send me into another spasm.

No one could know about this. Never would my mouth open to tell this story. Not only was it sworn as part of the test, but no one would believe me if I did. No one would understand. Who could understand how desperately I wanted to be in their ‘club’. They bragged about it all the time. Bragging aside, who wouldn’t want to spend most of the day with their older brother, cousin and their friends? It’s a little kid’s dream to be offered that opportunity in exchange for three simple tests.

The tests weren’t so simple. With each ‘test’ I passed, the shadows drew closer. Even at that young age, I saw them closing in and I was terrified, but I was more so of my cousin, of being left out. Seven and friendless was a hard thing to be. So I finished the tests, which far surpassed the three agreed to.

I was welcomed into their club alright, but not by them. The shadows embraced me and surrounded me as if I were their own. They weren’t your normal shadows, though. They were as solid as you or I, and light couldn’t break them. In fact, light seemed to make them ever stronger. The harder I tried to escape them, the more they smothered me.

I remembered the taste of him in my mouth, lost my stomach, and embraced the shadows in return. I stopped trying to escape them. What was the use when they were so strong and they had reason to be with me, to engulf me? It was their club that I joined, after all, not my cousin’s. Each day more shadows seemed to grow around me and each day, I fought them until I became weak, until I remembered.

One day, I remembered without the help of the shadows and I let them win without a fight. They continued to grow from the pain until there was nothing left of the light that had once dwelt somewhere inside me and I became one of them.

I bonded to the shadows and them, to me. They could not exist without me and I was nothing without them. That is when I became Master of Shadows. I became their Master, but they were also mine.

Reak--

Some of this was very well done. The wording you chose for provided a very foggy, mysterious tone. Unfortunately it left us, as readers, in the dark. I understand it's the first part of the larger piece, but I think some parts you could clarify, because right now all we have is questions. And they aren't just curious questions, they're confused questions. For example, you mention the protagonist's brother, cousin, and their friends, but we get no information about them.

And if we don't know about the cousin, how can we possibly know if he has a club or not? I think you could benefit from description in this piece. Even though you want the tone to be mysterious, hazy, you don't want the reader to come away from it without an image in his mind. *Personally,* I think you could use more imagery and a bit of development of the characters. We're thrown into the story face first, and without any images to back it up, all we have is a foggy blur of plot, with a single...rather disturbing image.

Objectively, there is nothing wrong with the story at all. Grammar, punctuation, spelling...all perfect. Excellent work, Rea--I'll be keeping an eye on this.

--Dono

I think the main thing I would do with this is to be less abstract and actually explain what is going on the scene. As it is, I have no idea what is happening. Being mysterious can be a good thing, but when you give nothing in the way of description or even an idea of plot, you have a fog that the reader can't really grab onto.

With that said, you have quite a bit of exposition that doesn't actually do much. It may be oversaid, but action would be your friend here.

EDIT: Ha. Hunter got to this right before me. We both came up with fog, so I would say that you have an accurate idea of how the piece is feeling right now.

Dark Much?

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying all the time here, obviously you might be trying to avoid...graphic detail, but sometimes you're shuffling between cryptic and downright uninformative. AS others have said, its a bit foggy and you're going to have to choose between squeemishness and actual narration.

"in exchange for three simple tests.
The tests weren’t so simple."

I think I understand what you're doing here, in that the tests didn't turn out as what had been outlined, but I think it might become clearer if you sort of spelt that out, even throwing an "Only" at the beginning of that second sentence makes it easier to follow.
Otherwise it just sounds like you'e changed your (as the author's) mind, rather than the narrator's.

I like the idea of the shadows, but you could describe them a little more when you first introduce them, even a little more imagery wouldn't go astray. I think Terry Brooks uses a similar (and yet yours is very distinct) idea in his "Knight of the Word" series. The idea of palpable emotions and pain is interesting.

This is really well written and there isn't anything to really pick at otherwise, your development of the narrator's character is very strong, which is just compounded by the first person narration. You do utilise sense imagery, taste, touch etc, but it's something you should keep doing throughout the piece as you expand it, which im looking forward to seeing.

I like the last few words. It's a nice scene ending
The idea is definately cool and you should continue on with it.

Ooo, spooky! *shivers* I liked the mysterious tone on this, but as Dono said, I think you could definitely benefit from some description. Your wording was great on this, and I'd love to see more of this story, but I felt left in the dark. You almost were too vague. Don't try too hard to be shadowy and mysterious--you've got that natural gift, and just go with that.

The part that confused me the most was the tests. What were they? What's the point? Perhaps describe in a little more detail? Also, the narrator seemed a lot older than 7. If this is a flashback, then I understand, but maybe clarify?

EDIT: Yup, I just saw the title.