FACEMAP. Chapter 1. [R-13 for Swear Words]

Okay um, this was a random idea of a story that I created yesterday. It's totally unplanned (I don't plan my work xD) so I'm just going with the flow. It's the first novel idea I've had in a while, 'cos usually I just have short stories. Word count: 2726. Please review, thanks.

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"What do you mean they're dead?" I demanded the police officer. He was sitting so comfortably on our couch, a cup of coffee in his hand, and eating a few of our biscuits he'd some how gotten his dirty paws on. I narrowed my eyes at him. Link was sitting on the other couch, opposite the officer. In between them was the coffee table, and the T.V in front of the window was playing on low volume. The News channel, how ironic.
"Well kid,"
"Skye." The officer coughed up a bit of biscuit, and it landed on his small beard. He didn't even bother to wipe it off before he began again.
"Well Skye, from what we've gotten in the report, it was a driving accident. Some drink driver early this morning whacked into your father, it was a fatal hit. Your mother was sent to hospital, because she was on the other side. But she had serious injuries and didn't survive them." The color drained from my face. Even though I had been in school during the accident, I could still almost imagine it perfectly. You think it won't happen to you. You feel some sort of sympathy towards the kids who's parent's have been killed, but then you get a move on with your life. And now here I was. In my lounge room with some fat dumbass telling me and my brother that our my parents were dead. My suddenly quiet brother.
"Link, are you okay?" I asked him. I could almost hear the sadness and sincerity drop from my voice. Link barely looked up at me and a pang cut deep into my chest. I turned back to the officer. Officer Seeley.
"Where's the murderer?" I asked. Officer Seeley looked at me with some sort of annoyance.
"He's been arrested under a few charges, drink driving for one, and some others but that shouldn't concern you. Don't worry, he will make up for it."
"What do you mean? Is he going to jail? He killed my parents!" I yelled, my voice breaking into sobs.
"Look kid, I know you're going through a lot but it's my job as an officer to help you discuss your future plans. Do you have any other family you can go to? Either that or you will have to go into foster homes. And uh, don't worry kiddo, I'll make sure you and your brother go into the same house." Anger spread through me like a wild fire, but some higher power kept me from spilling my brains out screaming.
"No, we have no other family" I replied calmly.
"Oh, er. Okay. Well, son. You and your brother have 24 hours to collect any stuff you need. We will be contacting any foster homes we have available, and will be back to pick you two up tomorrow in the afternoon. Is there anything you need?" Officer Seeley asked. I shook my head and bit my tongue, tempted to tell him to fuck off. That's what I wanted. "Right, well. Goodbye kid, and once again, I'm sorry about your loss. I'm er, sure they were good folk." He expected me to say something back, thank him, perhaps. But I remained quiet, a mean glare plastered on my face. He cleared his throat awkwardly and heaved himself off the couch surprisingly fast for such a large man. I waited until he had left and after I heard the front door close I moved over towards Link. My heart was stabbed once more as I took into notice the fact Link looked so much like dad. He had tussled brown hair that hid half his face, and vividly bright, green eyes.
"Link, buddy, you okay?" I repeated. He looked up at me. I grimaced. "See ya later then, I'm gonna go to the shops and grab some food. Mum was 'sposed to buy-" I trailed off, then without a word got up and left, making sure I locked the door behind me. So many emotions coursed through me. My blood pulsed unevenly and I couldn't feel my body. It must be the shock that was making me so ghostly. I clenched my tingling fingers and tried to get them back to normal. Officer Seeley had knocked on our door at about 5:30, and Link had jumped up and ran to open it, thinking it was mum and dad. Little did he know. A voice broke me out of my thoughts.
"Hey Morris, what you doing out here? Ain't you're parents home yet? What were the coppers doing outside your house, mate? Ain't in any trouble are you?" I turned to look to my left. Mr. Goodbey, our next door neighbour, was standing on his front lawn. I was pressed in silence, unsure of what to say.
"Nah, everything's fine. I'm just heading to the shops to grab some stuff" I replied finally. Mr.Goodbey eyed me suspiciously.
"You want a lift then, mate?"
"Nah I'm all good, the shops are only a few minutes away. Thanks, though."
"Mate, it's getting dark, and you're not wearing a jumper, are you? It'll be bloody freezing by the time you reach the shops. Wait there a sec, I'll grab my keys" Mr.Goodbey replied. I stood and waited. What else could I do? I felt like crawling into a hole and dying. Not to mention me and Link might not go to the same foster home. Link couldn't live without me. Or rather I couldn't live without him. Another thought struck me. Did Trey know yet? Surely the cops would have alerted him, that is to say if he was still living in the city. He'd left home six years ago, no money in his pockets and a bunch of druggie friends waiting around the corner for him. And yet, something told me he was still nearby. But what had become of him, not even mum and dad knew. Once he'd left, we seldom talked about him. And soon he had been almost forgotten. No longer a brother or a son. Link could barely remember him anyway, he was 2 years old when Trey left. But I could remember him. I was 9 then, only a year older then Link is now, and Trey was 16. Everything had been going fine until the one afternoon when mum had been cleaning Trey's room and found the stash. His stash. She cried for hours on end, and even cried after dad had kicked him out. I was in my room holding Link at the time, peering out a slight crack in the door, but I can remember the conversation clearly. It had gone a little something like this.
"What the fuck were you doing cleaning my room anyway, mum?!" The spite that had held his voice together was unbelievable. I had thought that Trey's red eyes were a cause of lack of sleep, as had mum and dad. Nobody had even stopped to question wither he was on drugs or not. But of course Trey had good grades and a steady girlfriend, who would?
"How could you, Trey? My own son hiding drugs in his room! How long have you been on them? Who's been supplying you?" Endless questions were thrown at Trey, and nasty comments were given back. Finally dad had to step in, and there was almost a fight. Trey was slightly larger than dad, but I never would have guessed Trey would try and fight dad.
"Let me get my shit and I'll go, I've got some friend's waiting" Trey growled at dad. Mum was in an emotional wreck by now, crying and wailing on the floor, clutching her heart like she was about to die. Thankfully Link was a good baby and didn't start crying over the whole ordeal, he just kept quiet and stared up at me with big, questioning eyes.
"Trey's going, Link. And he's never coming back" I whispered sadly down to him. He gurgled a response, but my eyes were already up and watching the event that was taking place.
"No, Trey, you leave now. Go with your friends, and don't come back until you are over this addiction. I love you son but you can't put such stress on my family, so go now" Dad said, surprisingly calmly.
"Fuck you, dad, fuck you and your family" Trey screamed, shoving dad before turning and running out the door. He slammed it behind him and you could hear him smashing a few of mom's gnomes as he went down the path towards the road. I trembled violently, bringing myself away from the terrible memory. Mr.Goodbey shut his door and came trotting down towards me.
"Thank you Mr.Goodbey" I said quietly, quickly shunning back any forthcoming tears.
"Call me Rory, mate" Mr. Goodbey said solemnly. I nodded numbly, and followed him towards his car. It was a flash looking car, but I was too wrapped up to admire it.
"Nice ride" I commented, hoping to put a bit of friendliness into my voice. I got in a shut the car door, and Mr.Goodbey sidled in beside me. He started up the engine and I was forced once more to keep away the tears that were welling up inside me. We started to move along down the street, and Mr.Goodbey sighed.
"Do you have any money, mate?" He asked. I blinked. Oh shit. I'd left the five dollars on the counter in the kitchen. Mr.Goodbey took my silent answer as a no, and sighed once more. "Don't worry, Skye. I'll give you some quib. Where's your parents anyway? The lovely Mrs. Morris and Mr. Morris?" Mr.Goodbey asked, trying to start up a light-hearted conversation. I made a split-decision to tell him. What did I have to lose?
"They're not at home" I answered. Mr.Goodbey scratched his head, a mop of curly blond hair. He was only 23, a year older than Trey.
"Really? At this time? Where are they at, mate? I've got my brother Travis over at the moment, but I'm sure he'd love to meet my neighbouring kids for a few hours until your parents are home. When are you expecting them back?" I sniffled and shivered.
"They're not coming back" I whispered softly. The words created a distant memory. What I'd whispered down to Link when Trey left. Mr.Goodbey was quiet. An awkward tension formed between us, and I shifted uncomfortably.
"Mate. Is that why the coppers were there?" Mr.Goodbey asked quietly. I nodded, and finally, I let the tears fall. My pride was damaged, but I needed a big cry. Mr.Goodbey kept driving, his face pale and thoughtful.
"Where will you be staying, you and Link?" he asked.
"The cops are finding a foster home for us" I struggled to reply. I wiped my nose on my sleeve and gasped for breath. I didn't usually cry, but now I could understand how mum felt when Trey left. Broken. Not even stitches could help fix this shredded heart now. It was a funny feeling, that of death. Previously I could see myself in years to come, days even. But now all there was in front of me was a black sheet of nothing. I prayed silently, asking God why he'd let this happen. Why were my parents dead? Why was Trey gone? Why was I here in this stupid fucking car when everybody else that mattered to me had fallen from my grip? Finally my tears came to an end, and Mr.Goodbey had stopped his car. We were almost near the shops, so why was he turning around? He reversed up a driveway and did a U-turn.
"Where are we going?" I asked. He was heading back the way we'd come.
"I'm ordering Chinese take-outs for you and your little bro. If you need anything for the night you can just come and get it from me or Travis. Do you need any help with packing for your new home? I would take you guys in but, you know, we're not family and your folks probably wouldn't have wanted someone as young as me taking care of a fifteen year old and an eight year old. You sure you got no-one else? I had a friend once who had a foster family, and he hated it. Oh, sorry mate. Not putting you off or anything, am I?" He said concernedly. I shook my head.
"Nah, it's fine" I replied. A few minutes later we were back outside his house. It was almost pitch black, and the time displayed in Mr.Goodbey's car was 6:30. Officer Seeley had taken up a lot of our night telling us the simple fact that our parents were dead. Regret and guilt washed over me. Had I been good to them this morning? I'd had a small argument with my mom over some stupid school stuff, but had she forgiven me? Was it my fault they were dead? I felt like crying all over again, but the first time was humiliating enough, and I assumed if I did it again Mr.Goodbey might tell me to get out of the car and leave. "I'll go and get Travis and we'll see you inside your house in a few minutes, alright mate?" Mr.Goodbey said. I nodded and got out of the car. Mr.Goodbey locked it quickly and jogged inside, giving me a quick wave as he left. I headed down the pavement and up the path to our house. I knocked on the door, chiding myself for forgetting the money and my key. The door opened and Link stood there, his eyes puffy and red. Looks like I wasn't the only one who'd let my emotions go. But I figured Link thought I didn't notice, and I didn't want to embarrass him by pointing it out, so instead I braved a weak smile and walked in.
"You know you shouldn't just open the door like that, I could have been anyone. Next time ask who it is, okay?" He stared at me, his eyes once again big and questioning. I got the feeling he blamed mum and dad's death on me, or maybe I was just being paranoid. "Mr.Goodbey's coming over with his brother Travis, they're gonna buy us some take-outs. Have you done any packing?" Link shook his head.
"Okay, we'll do it in the morning." There was a knock at the door and I peered through the small glass window next to the door. It was Mr.Goodbey with someone who looked exactly like him, only with shorter hair. I opened the door and Mr.Goodbey and Travis walked in.
"Hi mate, hi Link. This is my brother, Travis, or Trav. Call him whatever" Mr.Goodbey introduced his identical counter-part.
"Hi" I said to Travis.
"Hey mate, sorry about your folks" Travis said, attempting a smile at me. Like that would make anything better. A smile couldn't bring back the dead, I thought bitterly.
"Its okay" I managed to say back to him.
"Is your phone in the kitchen?" Mr.Goodbey asked me, after scoping out the room. I nodded. Travis went down to sit on the couch and caught my startled appearance. He froze mid-air.
"Uh, sorry mate, mind if I sit down? I know this is your house and all" He trailed off and I felt heat moving in my cheeks.
"Yeah, sorry, um, sit down" I said, then realized it sounded like some sort of command. Travis smiled at me, and I felt like a complete idiot. Link watched Travis, and Travis tried to strike up a conversation.
"Your name's Link, right? Pretty snazzy name, mate" Travis begun. Link just stared.
"Um, Link's not talking. I think it's some Vow of Silence thing. I dunno" I tried to warn him, but I was all a bit flustered. Mr.Goodbey came back into the lounge room and clapped his hands together.
"Right, the food's on it's way. Do you boys wanna tell me what happened?" I sighed and sat down next to Link on the couch, and Mr.Goodbey sat next to his brother.
"I'd rather not" I mumbled. Mr.Goodbey and Travis gave sympathetic smiles.
"No worries then. I guess we can just watch a bit of TV until the food comes" Mr.Goodbey said, reaching for the remote. The air inside the room was tense and gloomy, and I could see that Mr.Goodbey and Travis were trying hard to keep everything all good, but it wasn't working. I felt kind of sorry for them. It must be kind of tiring to keep some newly orphaned kids entertained. But it was a nice gesture, nevertheless.

Very interesting. I enjoyed this.

I demanded at the police officer.

I demanded would sound so much better.

The News channel, how ironic.

Hehehehehehe. I like that line.

tempted to ask him to fuck off.

Hmmmm, this is a little awkward. Maybe you could say that your MC was tempted to tell the officer to f*** off instead of asking him. It would make the sentence flow a lot better.

Other than those little things, I didn't see many major grammatical or spelling errors. I am very impressed by your characters. They seem to be developed very well and are very real. Your descriptions are also great, but there were a couple of paragraphs that seemed a bit info-dumpy. In a novel, you don't necessarily have to tell us everything in the first chapter. Space things out a bit more and take your time with explaining everything. I really hope all of that makes sense. =)

I did like the flashback with Trey fighting with his parents. That was so amazing and filled with emotion.

I hope you continue this and please PM if you post more.

Sasha

Hi!
Wow. This is amazing, I could picture everything so well. It's so emotional...

"What do you mean they're dead?" I demanded at the police officer.

I agree with Sasha. This 'at' shouldn't be there.

In my lounge room with a fat dumbass telling me my parents were dead, and my brother.

The way this sentence is phrased makes it sound like the MC's brother died along with the parents. It should be like this:

In my lounge room with a fat dumbass telling me and my brother that our parents were dead.

"Either that or you will have to go into foster homes. And there is the chance of having to be split up in case we can't find families who are willing to take both you and your brother."

Not even one as horrible as Officer Seeley would tell two newly orphaned kids that they might be split up, straight after they learn about their parent's death. That's just nasty... Wouldn't the officer be trying to comfort them, telling them that it was probably going to be alright? I think it would sound more realistic that way.

"Right, well. Good afternoon kid, and once again, I'm sorry about your loss. I'm er, sure they were good folk."

This seems too jolly. I suggest replacing 'good afternoon' with 'bye', or 'goodbye'. It would be heartless to say 'good afternoon', even if this policeman is rather thoughtless.

But I remained quite

I suppose you mean quiet?

"Nah, everything fine. I'm just heading to the shops to grab some stuff,"

Everything's fine, I think you meant. Also, don't forget the comma at the end of the dialogue.

Did Trey know yet? Surely the cops would have alerted him, that is to say if he was still living in the city.

This is great. You introduced a new character, and therefore a new problem. This really makes the reader want to read more.

"Trey's going, Link. And he's never coming back"

At this stage we don't know if he's never coming back. Also, coming out of a nine year old, 'and he's never coming back' sounds odd. That's my opinion, anyway.

"Where will you be staying, you and the little bugger?" he asked.

I'm not sure if referring to Link as 'the little bugger' is appropriate in this situation... it's too jokey, not serious enough. I suggest just simply saying 'Link'.
Also, make sure to uncapitalise that 'h' on 'he'.

It wasn't usual I cried

This is a very awkward way of putting it. Maybe: 'I didn't usually cry,' or something like that.

so instead I smiled at him and walked in.

Smiled? Smiled? After everything that happened, I can't imagine Skye smiling. Maybe forced a smile, or smiled weakly... but not smiled.
Sorry about that outburst, I just felt it had to be said.

Right, so that's all the nitpicks I could find.

Apart from those, this is really good. I love the characters, I feel for them, I can see them, and I'm genuinly sad for Skye and Link. Really.
The only things I could advise you on are to try to keep the mood right - as I pointed out a few times, small things like smiling really stand out, and don't fit with the text at all. Also, near the end, with Travis and his brother, I thought the mood was a bit too cheery. I suggest getting rid of some of the smiles, and jokey sort of comments to make it more realistic.
The other bit of advice is about the dialogue. Make sure to always put punctuation at the end of speech, and to know when to put a capital afterwards and when not. If you have any qestions, PM me and I'll help as best as I can!

Keep writing, and hope I helped!

Hello, I've read this about nine hundred times and I never got around to criquing it. My goodness.
First off, one of my pet peeves is average kids having ridiculously not-average names. It's not something that can be pointed at as "grammatically incorrect" but it irks me as a reader. If I opened a book and saw two surburbanite brothers named Skye and Link, I'd close it.
"under a few charges that shouldn't concern you"? that sounds mysterious; but it only works if you're hinting that the police officer didn't divulge all the information. If he's just trying to be brief, throw in a few charges.

Auteur wrote:"Look kid, I know you're going through a lot but it's my job as an officer to help you discuss your future plans.

And it's not his job to bring people to justice? Or talk about the suspect?
I'm only nitpicking these things because I really like the important parts of the story.
I think that the dialogue between Skye (which could be short for skylar) and the policeman could be cleaned so its up-to-par with the rest of the story. After that, I don't really have any problems.

Hey. There were a bunch of formatting and punctuation errors which other people will tell you about, so I'll just talk about the plot.

It's very refreshing to read something written by a teenager that (so far at least) takes place in a realistic setting and isn't about some hackneyed romance. I applaud you for that. That being said, I do have my complaints.

I'm not sure how a fifteen year old would react to being told their parents have both just died, but I know it probably wouldn't be like that. You went over everything far, far too quickly. Something as major and tragic as this should be painful and slow. I know slow isn't a good way to begin a story, but in this case it would work a bit better. As is, I got the following impression:

Cop: Hey, your parents are dead.
Girl: Are you serious?
Cop: Later.
Girl: This sucks. I think I'll go shopping now.

Obviously that's exaggerated but I think it will get my point across. Slow it all down. Focus on the emotional agony this girl should be feeling. It was there, but it was sporadic and spread too thinly.

Also, your flashback to the girl's brother leaving felt very out of place. Just plunked down in the middle of the chapter for no reason. I would remove it completely and put it in the next chapter, or wherever else appropriate. And within that section, you once again displayed your main character accepting negative events very quickly. I just didn't believe it when the girl sees her parents and brother fighting through a crack in the door and can just turn to her little brother and say "Big Brother's leaving us now."

It's an interesting concept, as I haven't read a realistic work in a very, very long time, but it needs polishing and refinement. If you really like this story, then you owe it that much. Good luck.