Angels and Vampires-Part 6

I expected warmth, but her skin was cold, like a gemstone which you had picked off the ground. Beads of sweat were across her forehead, even though it was snowing. She didn’t feel hot, but her skin was ashen.
“Tempest honey, are you okay?” I said, trying to even out the waver in my voice. Suddenly, our relationship had got a little closer, and I was a lot more worried about her. She looked exceedingly dizzy which wasn’t usual, as she was normally up on her feet with confidence. Her health had taken a turn for the worst. Her eyes were crossing wildly with dizziness.
“Are you thirsty?! Tell me, please!!!” I ran my wrist past her mouth a few times, but she didn’t react. She looked like she was about to throw up, her face nearly white. But her face was always like that. Her mouth opened to speak, but no words came out, just an indistinctive noise that I couldn’t understand. She was trying to tell me something but she couldn’t. I laid her down on the wet ground and brushed her dark hair out of her face, my arm still around her back. Tears ran down her face slowly.
“Le….it’s….” She tried to say, but I held her tighter to my face. I was so worried, I needed to know what was wrong. I brushed her slightly dried tears away with the back of my other hand. They burnt it slightly, like I had spilled bleach on that exact part.
“The blood…oh it hurts, I shouldn’t have…” She cried harder, clenching my fist in obvious pain. Her hands were colder than the still night. I clenched her hand back, wiping away my tears fast so she wouldn’t see them. Even though she had hurt me so much, she had been my best friend, the only person there to listen when everyone else was gone. “Is their anything I can do?” I whimpered, so quietly I could hardly hear what I said myself. But she took my collar and pulled my ear to her mouth so I could hear her rasping voice.
“Take my wrist and pull it to my teeth. I’ll tear it with incisors. There will be a lot of blood. Now, pull your mouth to the slash and drink the blood until you can only taste iron, or until I pull you away.”
“But I…” I hesitated. I wasn’t a vampire!!!!! But this was for the only person that had ever helped me, been there for me in these hard through weeks. I picked up her left wrist lightly, being careful not to grasp it too hard. I held it up to her mouth and turned my head away, but I could still hear the slow tearing of her pale skin even with my eyes closed. She gave me the okay to turn around, and the crimson blood was running down her arm like a stream. I gulped, took a deep breath and slid my mouth the open wound. The blood tasted weirdly sparkly, with a hint of wisdom and knowledge. As I drew more and more my head got weary and my stomach twisted with nausea, but the iron taste got stronger in the back of my mouth. A few seconds later, Tempest groaned and pulled me by my hair off her arm. She ran her tongue along the gash, and as she kissed the end, only dried blood was left.
“Oww!!!!”
“Oh shut up, you child.” She moaned, and rolled her eyes. She was obviously better. Personally, I realized I liked her better when she could hardly talk. She got up and rocked on the heels of her trainers, rubbing her eyes and licking the blood off her arm.
“What?” Tempest shouted, her tongue still on her arm but her bright eyes on my face. I laughed.
“It’s just disgusting! Couldn’t you have waited or something?! Anyway, sit down. I want to tell stories again.” I patted my knees with eagerness, and she rolled her eyes again. I was like her little pet that she had to entertain regularly.
“But I don’t have any stories to tell….” She moaned, and she laid down again, yawning slowly. I think it must have been the boredom, but I didn’t really care. It was a privilege for her to even still be here.
“I’m sure you dooooooooooooo….” I carried on the last syllable until she sat up, hit me sharply on the forearm and opened her mouth to talk.
“Okay, maybe I do. Firstly, you have to understand that vampires age slowly. It takes 10 years of living before we look a year older, okay? When I looked about 12 years old, or looked about the age of you…” I hit her, and she laughed.
“I’m 16!!!! In these years anyway. And I’m never going to get older. So ha-ha-ha.”

This story is really good forgotten fallen there are only a few points I would like to acknowledge. So here we go...

It seems you write in a style where you don't check as you go along and the words stream naturally. This makes interesting descriptive text but of course if you're anything like me you do this and don't read it through. It wouldn't take long to correct if you did. Now then, I think I'm just nit picking here but here are some things I think don't quite go with your style.

She looked exceedingly dizzy which wasn’t usual, as she was normally up on her feet with confidence. Her health had taken a turn for the worst. Her eyes were crossing wildly with dizziness.

Change the dizziness in the second line and make it something different such as vertigo, faintness, wooziness and giddiness. It just makes it so the reader doesn't double take at the two words.

TIP: Never use the same words twice in a sentence or in the sentence after it. It doesn't feel right for the reader to read it.

“Tempest honey, are you okay?”

Is Lexine really that close to Tempest to call her honey yet? I mean I don't know if it fits, your choice to follow that though.

She looked like she was about to throw up, her face nearly white. But her face was always like that.

Here is a typical example of something most people do regularly. those two words I've highlighted in red should be separated by a comma not a full stop because those two sentences sound better as one.

TIP: Try to avoid putting but at the beginning of a sentence.

I actually think, after reading all of my comment through, that I'm just nit picking and it's perfectly okay the way it is but that's just me. Maybe I helped you in some way if not for this project but for another. Some of the stuff I've said should help you with a few secret projects.

Iamyoursacrifice xxxxx
I'M YOUR BEST FRIEND!

Okay, here goes my second review.
I think it's a great story line and there's just one or two things which you must have not seen when going over your work

I brushed her slightly dried tears away with the back of my other hand, they burning my hand slightly like I had spilled bleach on that exact part.

I assume that the tears are burning her hand? Maybe it should be something like;
I brushed her slightly dried tears away with the back of my other hand. They burnt it slightly, like I had spilled bleach on that exact part.

I held it up to her mouth and turned my head away, but I could still hear the slow tearing of her pale skin even with my eyes closed.

Just thinking, how could closing your eyes take away the sound?
Also you might want to cut down on some of the exclamation marks.

Over than that, great!

cosby
xxx

Hi forgotten,

I’ve read everything you’ve posted so far, so this is a review of the story as a whole.

Overall, while I enjoyed the description and thought the imagery was creative, I think the writing is letting you down here. If I could direct you to the classic post Slushkiller, about the many reasons why novels are rejected by publishers, I think #4 is the one you’re suffering from here:

Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, dire straights, nearly penultimate, incentiary, reeking havoc, hare’s breath escape, plaintiff melody, viscous/vicious, causal/casual, clamoured to her feet, a shutter went through her body, his body went ridged, empirical storm troopers, ex-patriot Englishmen, et cetera.

You frequently seem to use words in subtly wrong ways. The moon, singular, is your protagonist’s “parents”, plural. A name is “meaningful yet meaningless” and “correct for a boy”, whatever that means. The protagonist is a certain age “to this date”, but which date that is and how old that makes him is never clear. Ideas are frequently repeated several times in contradictory ways: your protagonist is described as being “for all intent and purpose [sic] a hawk”, when in fact he’s clearly nothing of the kind. You have a lot of independent body part problems: the way you describe your protagonist’s hands and/or eyes moving makes it sound like they’re moving around by themselves, to the point where when I read about the protagonist’s “hand being dragged off” by Tempest I assumed it was a horrific amputation accident.

It feels like every paragraph I’m doubling back to try and figure out your meaning. I’m puzzling out misused words, incorrect prepositions, weird images and so on. I think my primary suggestion is to work on clarity, because there’s only so long a reader will struggle with writing they find confusing before they give up.

The other major problem I noted is the romantic stuff. It feels very sudden. Lexus and Tempest meet in chapter two, and 1500 words later, Lexus is thinking about he could “never hurt her ... ever. I would stay by her side ... I would be there for her” as if they’re having the epic romance of the ages. As far as I can tell, it’s been less than 24 hours since they first met. I can’t buy that the protagonist is passionately, spectacularly in love with a girl he’s known for less than a day -- it feels rushed and unmotivated to me. Real love develops over time.

Are you familiar with the concept of the red string? This is the idea that two characters who are meant to be together are tied together by an invisible red string of fate. Kind of like soulmates. The problem is that when a romance between two such characters is written poorly, it feels like the red string is the only thing pulling them toward each other. Romance in stories should arise from compatible personalities and interactions between the characters involved, but this romance is happening solely because the author snapped their fingers and made it so. The story is being strangled by the red string: damaged by an unrealistic, rushed romance.

Slow down. Characters need time to meet, understand and explore each other. Their interactions need to happen onscreen, so that the reader has time to see their romance developing and come to be emotionally engaged in their relationship. All this “I could never hurt you” stuff is the payoff that comes after the buildup.

Hope this helped.

Cheers,
Karsten

PS: I’ve attached the original story with line edits.