Friends

~Hey ya'll! This is my first story, and I hope you like it! I'm not really into short stories, but I hope it's good!
~Please review, or the elephant will cry >





People fear them, and want to destroy them, so why? Why? Why couldn’t I run away from him? He was standing right in front of me looking at me with a confused and curious look on his face. He just looked so innocent.
“Um, hi?” I said, a little unsure of what to say.
“Why aren’t you running like the rest?” He asked, I could hear a twinge of sadness in his voice, “You don’t seem that scared either. Why not?”
“I-I’m not sure.” I answered slowly, “I’m getting a-a good vibe from you. I think you’re just misunderstood.”
“What do you mean?” He asked, his face getting a more confused look on his face.
“People don’t really try to understand you because their first instinct is to run from you.” I tried to explain, “I think you could be nice if you would just make friends.”
“Friends?” He asked, tilting his head like a puppy. “What are those?”
“You don’t know what friends are?”
He shook his head.
“Wow, okay. Friends are people who you can talk to. People you can trust, and they can trust you.” I took a step in his direction, closing the ten foot gap between us a little.
“Trust? I have heard people talk about it. What is trust?” He asked, raising his innocent green eyes to look at me from under his straight, black locks.
“When you can tell someone something, and not worry about them betraying you.” I said, brushing some long, red hair from my brown eyes.
“Really?” He asked, his eyes getting a little bigger, “Do you have it?”
“Yes, I trust my friends. Do you have trust?”
His face crumpled a bit while he thought about it, “No, everyone hates me.” He said, and my heart broke. Poor thing!
“Do you want a friend?” I asked, fighting the tears.
“What do you mean?”
“I could be your friend.” I said, taking another step towards him.
“Really?” He took a step towards me.
“Yes,” I held my hand out in a friendly gesture, “I’ll be our first friend.”
“Really?” He asked again, shocked.
“Yes, really.” I said with a small laugh.
“Okay.” He took my hand.
“Then we’re friends, now. And you can trust me.” I said, smiling.
“Okay.”
“But, we have to change something.” I said, my tone now serious.
“What?” He asked, getting a worried look.
“You have got to stop doing this.” I said, motioning to the destroyed buildings and crashed cars, “People could get hurt.”
“Okay, I can stop.” He said with a small smirk.
“Great.” I said with a large smile, and began dragging him towards my house.
“Where are we going?” He asked from behind me.
“We’re going to my house, we’re friends, and you’re going to hang out with me for a while.”
“Hang out? Are we going to hang ourselves?” He asked, again innocent.
I sighed at his ignorance, “No, people say that. We’re just going to go to my house and relax.”
“Oh, okay, good.” He said.
“You never told me your name.” I realized.
“My name is Gray.”
“I’m Emerson.” I said, giving him a warm smile.
I, Emerson Walker, have a vampire as a friend.

I accidentally read the last line first, and was a little prejudiced when I started reading it, because I was thinking Ew, not another Twilight cliche however, that is just so, so sweet! When I found out that the vampire had no friends, and doesn't know what friends are, and he's all innocent, it made me sympathize with him and feel so sorry for him, because he probably just needs a friend.

kitsuneXfoxXwriter wrote:“Why aren’t you running like the rest?” He asked, I could hear a twinge of sadness in his voice

----> I liked that you used the phrase 'a twinge of sadness' to describe his tone of voice. It was at this time that I started sympathizing with him, and feeling sorry for him, and thinking 'o poor you!'

kitsuneXfoxXwriter wrote:tilting his head like a puppy.

---> You compared him to a puppy, which makes him seem like a very innocent, helpless, little child. Maybe that was your intention. It did make me sympathize with hime even more, though.

kitsuneXfoxXwriter wrote:His face crumpled a bit while he thought about it, “No, everyone hates me.” He said, and my heart broke. Poor thing!

---> That's exactly what I thought! Poor thing! And I felt so bad, that everyone hated him. even though he's a fictional character.

kitsuneXfoxXwriter wrote:He said with a small smirk.

---> The small smirk kind of killed the whole innocent puppy image for me. And that's a bad thing. He doesn't seem like the 'smirking' kind. Or at least to me, he doesn't. I loved that character because he was so sweet and innocent and all alone, and I sympathized with him, because of that, so could you replace it please? With maybe 'smile' or something? Just so we can stay true to the character.


Plot

Unclear as of now. However, from what I read it's probably about their friendship, and it will probably involve some of the hardships that they face. That's all I can guess from what I've read. But, I don't want to play the guessing game, so I'll just wait until you post more. From what I've read so far though, I do like it. A lot. We were able to learn a lot about your vampire. Not much about the plot though, hopefully that's coming. I'm guessing this is just a small part of the whole story, right?


Characters

Your MC

I'm not sure if Emerson is a girl or a guy. I think it's a girl though. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. So far, she seems really sweet. Just because she offered the outcast to be her friend. That made me go 'Awwww'. Not a lot is revealed about Emerson, except that she's a nice person, who doesn't run away at the sight of vampires, which was a bit Twilight-ish with the whole, everyone else was running but not me. However, I will not insult your work in such a way, this was way more original than twilight, and it didn't go on about how perfect the vampire is. Which leads me to your next character.

Gray

First of all, a job well done. Gray does not sparkle in the sun! Well, so far. So awesome job! Apart from that he seems like a little child, like I've already mentioned a few times. He doesn't seem to understand a lot of things, and has a very different grasp to the world, which comes through when we realize he doesn't understand 'trust' and 'friends' because no one had been there for him before to show him these things. Perhaps, it is for that reason that he destroyed things, because he didn't know any better, and now that there is someone to teach him, he will change for the better, and maybe he won't be judged this harshly. It will be interesting to see this one come through.

Conclusion

This is obviously going somewhere, and you should definitely keep on writing it. Read my comments, and any other comments you may receive and consider them, because some of the things that we say can really help you improve it! Still, it's your story, so you don't have to listen to us at all! Haha, Okay I'm rambling now. But I liked your story. That's all I want you to know. PM me when you post more.

Just a little side note:

People will be more likely to review your work, if you write some reviews as well . It works both ways, you know. Some people might be discouraged from reviewing your work when they see that you haven't written any reviews. It's a bit scary at first, but you get used to it

Hi there!

So, is this supposed to be for Suzanne's contest? If so, then I wish you the best of luck! I don't know what feel or theme you were trying to go for with this. It's definitely very cute, but my problem with it is that doesn't really feel like a vampire story. Towards the end, I almost forgot that the vampire was a vampire and I just thought of him as a lost child.

You can definitely go for this approach, but it would have to take place a little differently. For vampires, humans are food. They are going to do anything to get their food. Imagine if you were rabidly starving-which I'm sure this vampire is-you are going to bite right into your food and not stop. The narrator would slowly have to try to tame him, and in the meantime, talk to him from safe distances. Even though this wasn't in the story, I feel like I should mention it-your narrator is going to have to be exceedingly careful around him, because if they get even the smallest cut, they're screwed.

There was also another thing that really bothered me.

“You have got to stop doing this.” I said, motioning to the destroyed buildings and crashed cars, “People could get hurt.”
“Okay, I can stop.” He said with a small smirk.

Okay. I just want to point out that vampires are not human. They have a wholly different set of instincts then we do, and the fact that they prey on humans is just a means of their survival. They know nothing different, and are not going to give it up so easily. Imagine someone you barely knew coming in and telling you that you could no longer sleep in beds. You aren't going to give it up so easily. The vampire will be resistant at first, because it's his nature to attack and suck the blood of humans. If your narrator wanted to succeed, it would have to take place very slowly and with a lot of patience and potential danger.

Another thing that bothered me is that the vampire mentioned that he didn't know what friends were. He has to have had some exposure to others of kind at at least at one point in life, even if he is alone as of now.It just seems a bit unrealistic to me that he wouldn't even know what they are.

You also never really give a reason as to why the narrator stops and wants to befriend a vampire. I mean, he's a vampire. Obviously the only things the narrator has been exposed to are the myths like Dracula and such. He should know that they suck blood and that victims of vampire attacks die or are turned into other vampires. What makes him turn around and change his mind? Is it something he's just been exposed to prior to the attempted attack? Does he see desperation and sadness in the vampire's face? Clearing a little of that up will make things a bit less confusing and bring the story back down to reality.

Now, you may be wondering why you need to be realistic in a fantasy story about vampires. Well, this is for a number of reasons. First, if you strip away the basic elements of fantasy, you have characters-people-in a story who have thoughts, desires, and interesting traits, right? Just like real people. Maybe there's a government with a corrupt ruler that shares parallels to our own. Many fantasy stories deal with common themes like war and love. When you add the element of fantasy, even though we know it can't exist, we should be able to believe that it could within the story you create, if that makes sense.

Well, I hope this helps, and I hope that I haven't rambled on for too long. Enjoy your day and time on YWS! PM me if you have any questions.

-Elinor xo

This was really good for a first short story, you write really well. I'll go through a few nitpicks and then my overall response at the end

People fear them, and want to destroy them, so why? Why? Why couldn’t I run away from him? He was standing right in front of me looking at me with a confused and curious look on his face. He just looked so innocent.

As an opening paragraph this is good, but it could be better. The first line could be modified a bit to give it more impact. Perhaps by splitting into two? 'People fear them. They want to destroy them.'
Also, there's a few too many 'why's. If you split the sentence into two, you could possibly remove the second why.
You say he was 'right in front of me' and 'looking at me', that's too many 'me's. You could rephrase this in a number of ways, for example, 'He was standing right in front of me, looking into my eyes...' Or you could just remove the 'looking at me', or rearrange it in a different way, but I'll leave you to look at that and decide what to do with it.

closing the ten foot gap between us a little

Wow! Ten foot? And they're not shouting? I mean, I'm 5ft 3 and if there were two of me lying in between two people I think they would have to raise their voices a little Either say at the start that they were apart so the reader knows that they are talking quite loudly, or reduce the gap a little. In my mind they were speaking in quite hushed tones, as you gave the impression people shouldn't be speaking to them as, for some reason, they are quite scary or dangerous.

Raising his innocent green eyes

Again, if they were ten feet apart, could she really see what colour his eyes were? Also, it should be 'innocent, green eyes' but apart from that it's good description

“Yes,” I held my hand out in a friendly gesture, “I’ll be our first friend.”

Should be 'your'.

“Okay, I can stop.”

He's going to stop? Just like that? When I got to the end and discovered he was a vampire and then re-read, this line kind of ruined it a bit. Maybe it's just my preconieved ideas a bout the vampire, but why would he destroy things and then suddenly stop because some randomer asked him to? I just think it's a bit unbelievable, but maybe it's your intention to make the vampire a bit... soft? I'm not sure, but it just didn't really work for me, sorry. [Also, I just realised Elinor also pointed this out, so sorry for repeating! But, I agree with her that the nature of the vampire means they wouldn't just suddenly agree to stopping their innate behaviour].

“Hang out? Are we going to hang ourselves?” He asked, again innocent.

Haha! That's funny!

I liked the twist at the end that he was a vampire, but I think you could have a bit more description at the beginning as to why everyone fears them. You could do it without giving it away, maybe have the 'motioning to the destroyed buildings and crashed cars' description nearer the beginning? Also, some more background as to why vampires are commonplace in this world you've brought the reader into, and why Emerson is so curious would be great too! Apart from that the dialogue was really good and you kept up the momentum within the piece, which made me continue reading. You had some really cute pieces of description and little jokes that were really nice to read. I like the style you write in and I can see this piece really going somewhere

If you have ever got a comment from myself before you know how they usually go, but this story is spiecial. I could actually feel sympathy for this Vampire, how he didn't know what friends were and how they work. He is so innocent. I hope to find more of your work in future and that you carry this on.

skutter11, the worst reviewee ever.