Moon Shadows

Prologue


The wind was rushing by me as I run through the trees to the safety of my home. I could hear twigs snapping from behind me as I ran.
The creek was rushing along beside me, though it was quickly turning to meet me in my path.
I ran bare foot with only a shirt and shorts on. As the creek came to meet me I jumped landing on my hands and knees.
Though they weren’t hands and knees anymore they had turned into pure white paws, my body had changed shape. It had gone from slow, weak human to a powerful wolf.
I used my powerful hind legs to propel myself into the trees again. It was time to lose these guys. I leap onto the lower branch of the tree beside me.
I leapt onto the next and the next until I was high enough to see back across the creek and the incoming enemies.
The Cyran had just jumped over the creek and I knew it was searching for my scent. I waited as it ran following my scent.
Just as it went under the tree I was in, it disappeared. I looked around trying to find it. Wham!! I was knocked out of the tree.
Falling, I desperately fumble for another branch. Finally grabbing onto one I phase back into my human form hold on to it.
I look down to see how high I am. Seeming not to be too far I let go of the branch landing on the balls of my feet. I phase quickly and look around for the Cyran.
I sniffed. Wham!! I stumble sideways; my jaw opens as I let out a threatening growl. I sit and close my eyes opening my mind to my surroundings.
On the edge of my mind I sense my friend; I touched his mind, sending him an image of the Cyran. There was a light touch in return.
I use my senses to locate the Cyran. It was heading this way. I let out another growl. As it got close I retaliated, whipping out with my jaw.
My jaw closed on flesh I crushed the Cyran so hard it yelped. I had gotten its leg. Using my hold on its leg I lift it up and throw it back to the ground.
I place my paw on its stomach holding it down. I close my jaw over its neck and pull causing it to snap. The struggling Cyran had fallen limp.
I begin to run towards home again. I jump over the creek again as it came to meet me after I had changed direction.
I came to a dead end but I didn’t stop I ran straight through the cliff face blocking the way. I was home at last.

Hey Mist, here's a review for you!

The wind was rushing by me as I run through the trees to the safety of my home.

First mistake, 'run' should be changed to 'ran'.

As the creek came to meet me I jumped landing on my hands and knees.

There should be a comma between 'jumped' and 'landing'. To indicate that there are two actions.

Though they weren’t hands and knees anymore they had turned into pure white paws, my body had changed shape

Same here, between 'anymore' and 'they'.

I leap onto the lower branch of the tree beside me

Past tense, should be a 'leaped'.

Wham!! I was knocked out of the tree.

You could have added a 'When' as the first word...

Falling, I desperately fumble for another branch. Finally grabbing onto one I phase back into my human form hold on to it.

The sentence structure of this paragraph seems a little...incorrect. Firstly, how can a wolf fumble? Even if it could, 'desperately' would probably sound better with 'trying to grab'. 'Finally grabbing onto one I phase back into my human form and held on to it'.
There are more irregularities in tenses and other errors, I think that you should read through again and try to correct them.
Overall this seemed to be a pretty short story, although it was interesting to a certain extent. Your grammatical errors were still understandable but such mistakes would not be accepted in English.

Have a good day
PenNPaper

i have made the changes you suggested. and this isnt the whole story its just introducing it. i was told earlier that this is a prologue not a preface which is what ive been calling it.
thankyou for your feedback

Hi there-
so I thought this was really good, a nice opening to a story. I do think that perhaps you could change some things. First- remember to always keep tense. I noticed it change one or two times. I would also recommend adding in some more description. Your character is transforming into a wolf, getting knocked around, and fighting. What does that feel like, physically? Is there a mental rush? Is she nervous? Is she hurt? These are the types of things we need to know. I also don't think that "Cyran" would be capitalized, if it has an article in front of it. You also very briefly mention a friend- what happens to them? I don't think they were mentioned at any other time, and I was curious.

Overall, like I said, I think this was quite good- I also think that it could be even better with some fine tuning.
Nice opening.

-Coral-

Hello! I love the story line you have!! Now for some editing...

I could hear twigs snapping from behind me as I ran.

You already mentioned in your opening sentence that your character was running therefore there is no need to say it again.

I leapt onto the next and the next

Maybe you could reword this somehow. Is leapt a word? I believe you will have to use leaped instead.

Finally grabbing onto one I phase back into my human form hold on to it

There should be a comma after one and I'm a little confused. Did the character hold onto the human form? Or the branch? Or both?
I think you should tell us a little more! Is the character a female or male? That is an important aspect for the reader to know! Maybe attempt to describe what a Cyran looks like or what the wolf looks like.
Try to add a little more detail to interest the reader as well. It will help make it longer too!
Overall this is a good opening that just needs to be added to! Keep writing!

the twigs snapping behind the character is not from that character its from the thing thats following them. and i have not shown a specific gender because it gives away the identity that the reader will try to guess in the first 2 chapters.

as for that last one i will try to re-word it... thanks for pointing that out.

Mist

see if this clears up some of your questions... i have not edited this chapter yet because i just finished it...

Animans

I sat on the bridge watching the fish swim by in the stream beside me. In the water I could see my reflection, I have light blond hair, I’m skinny and I have slightly brown skin.
I could sit here for hours just staring into the water. This is the one place I can think and be myself. Only my friends know that I come here, when they get here we will go to school.
As I stare into my reflection I see something moving in the background. It was high up in the trees coming towards me.
I turned just as it’s nearly upon me, though as I turn, a furry body jumps across the creek passing closely to my body and grabs the creature that was stalking me.
After a quick tumble it was over, the small, limp figure, of the creature lying on the ground in front of a fluffy, white wolf.
The wolf stared at me through piercing yellow eyes and I stared right back into the yellow knowing that this wolf could kill me without a second thought.
Then the wolf’s body began to tremble before it collapsed. I move slowly towards it noticing the usually white fur was now turning red from the wolf’s wound.
Down the left side of its body was a large cut from the strange creature’s claws. Even as I watched, the wound began to heal closing right before my eyes, a thin scar remained. The wolf slowly got to its feet and ran off into the forest, the last of the blood dripping from its fur.
A few moments later I could hear the unmistakeable approach of my friends. Chloe as always was always talking. She has dark brown curly hair, pale white skin and small light blue eyes.
She was talking to Charme who always let Chloe talk herself into silence. Charme has long, blonde, straight hair, bright blue eyes and pale white skin.
From the other direction came Agua, she has long dark brown messy hair, with light brown skin and deep chocolate brown eyes. She looked as if she was deep in thought so without saying anything we walked out of the forest towards road which would lead us to school.
Only Chloe spoke on the short walk to school with the rest of us pretending to listen. I thought about the wolf and the creature that it had killed. Eventually she became quiet, everything that happened to her on the weekend told.
“What about you Misty?” Chloe asked.
“What?” I say, drawn out of my thoughts.
My friends call me Misty, I’m not sure why though well all have nicknames within our group. Agua was Lua, Chloe was Coco and Charme was Bunny, they chose their names but I couldn’t decide so they chose one for me, my real name is April.
“What happened to you on the weekend?” she asked me.
“Nothing worth telling.” I say as Lua looks up at me. I had decided not to tell most of my friends that I had seen a wolf in the forest, though Lua I could trust.
She knew something would be up because I normally talk more than I had this morning. She would ask me about in first class today because the others wouldn’t be with us.
As we arrived at school we walked towards the locker room to retrieve the books we would need until break time. We only brought bags to school to carry books between classes but other than that everything stayed in our lockers.
When the bell rang Coco and Bunny wandered off to their class, physics while Lua and I went to Biology. Walking into the classroom we sat down at our usual seats in the back of the classroom.
The good thing about biology was that our teacher didn’t mind if we talked, as long as we completed the work and today we were starting something new.
“What’s up?” Lua asked.
Knowing what she meant I told her about the wolf and the wound that it had received. By the end of it Lua seemed slightly tense, though she was unable to reply because our teacher was calling for our attention.
“Alright,” our teacher Mr Clark began. “You all know that we are beginning a new topic and that topic is Animans. Can anybody tell me what they are?”
“They a legend which is said to have began in our town.” Lua said straight away. “Animans are humans which have the ability to transform into a single animal, though there are stories of animans who can transform into any animal they would like.”
Lua was almost always the first to answer a question asked by the teacher. He nodded. “What do the legends say about their transformations?”
“They say that the first transformation is the longest and the most painful.” Lua answered again. “If the first transformation between human and animal is interrupted, it may cause the animan to become a Cyran.”
Mr Clarke nodded again. “What are Cyrans?” he asked.
“The enemies of Animans.” It was not Lua this time but a boy named Kyle from the seat in front of Lua.
“Now we all know that Animans and Cyrans aren’t real.” Mr Clark told us. “But for the sake of our unit of work let’s say that they are.”
Mr Clarke began to hand out text books on animans as well as some work booklets that went with them. “Now these books provide everything you will need to know about animans for your exam at the end of the term.” He told us as we walked back to the front of the room.
I saw Lua in the corner of my eye looking through the text book with a frown on her face. Once she had finished flipping though it she turned to the workbook.
“Work your way through the workbook at your own pace though you will need to hand it to me on the day of the exam.” Mr Clark told the class.
Lua was already writing in the workbook. I also began to work, first looking in the work book then going to the text book.
When the bell rang over head some students in the class jumped. The class had been working silently, but now they collected their books from their desk and filed out of the classroom, Lua and I among them.
As we walked down the main hallway, Lua turned into a smaller one heading towards her English class which she had with Bunny.
My next class was maths and I had that with Coco. The teacher like my biology teacher didn’t mind if we were talking and sat at his desk after setting our work. Coco of course talked to me all lesson. I pretended to listen while working out the algebra we had been set. After what felt like ages the bell rang for lunch.
Coco and I walked out into the hallway and headed towards the locker room to wait for Lua and Bunny. When they arrived we grabbed our lunch and went to our usual spot on the oval to eat.
We ate in silence then began to play tag until the bell went for class. The rest of the day passed in pretty much the same manner.
After the short walk home I was in the forest climbing the trees with Lua. We climbed until we were as high as we could go without breaking the branches.
We always went to the forest after school, it was fun to climb and just be ourselves. For a while we just talked, I keep nothing from Lua.
I felt Lua tense beside me. “I need to go do some homework.” Lua told me.
I nod and we begin the climb down to the ground. Once we close enough we jumped out of the tree and grabbed our bags. Lua walked further into the forest leading towards her house, she would leave the forest a few streets over from where I leave it. I went the other way towards the closest exit.
I walk out of the trees onto the slightly dark street and head towards my house around the corner. I walk up the driveway of my home while I pull out my keys. The door opened when I reached it.
It was my mum. “I was about to come get you.” She explained. “Dinner’s ready.”
Walking into the house I toss my bag into my room on my way past and go on to the kitchen to eat my dinner. After dinner I go into my room and begin the biology homework.
Turn into animals.
Wounds heal fast when in animal form.
Cyrans are small creatures which seek animans to follow to their sacred lands.
Animans protect humans from Cyrans
The phrases jumped out of the text book at me, these phrases reminded me of the wolf I had seen this morning. Turn into animals. Wolves didn’t live around Rosedale and if they did they would be hunted. Wounds heal fast when in animal form. The wound of that wolf had been healed right before my eyes. Cyrans are small creatures which seek animans to follow them to their sacred lands. The wolf had killed that small creature. Animans protect humans from Cyrans. The wolf had killed that creature which was going to kill me.
My books fell from my lap as the shock of it hit me, Animans exist. This was as the thought that crossed my mind.

Hey Mist! Sporks here as requested. :] I'm going to start off by correcting anything grammar related I see. Red is punctuation and such, green is word choice, and purple is my commentary.

Mist wrote:
I sat on the bridge watching the fish swim by in the stream beside me. In the water I could see my reflection. I have light blond hair, I’m skinny and I have slightly brown skin. You might want to space these paragraphs. It's a bit easier to read that way.

I could sit here for hours just staring into the water. This is the one place I can think and be myself. Only my friends know that I come here, when they get here we will go to school. Random tense switch. Watch for that.

As I stare into my reflection, I see something moving in the background. It was high up in the trees coming towards me.
I turned just as it was nearly upon me, though as I turned, a furry body jumps across the creek passing closely to my body and grabs the creature that was stalking me. To be honest, this sounds weird. She just saw the creature, but the verb "stalking" implies that the creature has been around for some time. It doesn't fit.
After a quick tumble it was over, the small, limp figure, of the creature lying on the ground in front of a fluffy, white wolf.
The wolf stared at me through I don't really think "through" is the proper preposition. I suggest something like "with." piercing yellow eyes and I stared right back into the yellow knowing that this wolf could kill me without a second thought. "Yellow" becomes redundant here. You can always switch up your adjectives.
Then the wolf’s body began to tremble before it collapsed. I move slowly towards it noticing the usually white fur was now turning red from the wolf’s wound.
Down the left side of its body was a large cut from the strange creature’s claws. Even as I watched, the wound began to heal closing right before my eyes, a thin scar remained. For this sentence, it would be better rewritten. Something like, "The wound began to heal, closing right before my eyes. I watched the gash fade into a thin scar." That would get rid of the redundancy and run-on of your current sentence. The wolf slowly got to its feet and ran off into the forest, the last of the blood dripping from its fur.
A few moments later I could hear the unmistakable approach of my friends. Chloe as always was always talking. You don't need to instances of "always." I'd suggest getting rid of "as always." She has dark brown curly hair, pale white skin and small light blue eyes. Tense switch right here. Stick with past.
She was talking to Charme who always let Chloe talk herself into silence. Charme has long, blonde, straight hair, bright blue eyes and pale white skin.
From the other direction came Agua, she has long dark brown messy hair, with light brown skin and deep chocolate brown eyes. She looked as if she was deep in thought so without saying anything we walked out of the forest towards road which would lead us to school. Something to think about for your next part...why do they meet in a forest?
Only Chloe spoke on the short walk to school with the rest of us pretending to listen. I thought about the wolf and the creature that it had killed. Eventually she became quiet, everything that happened to her on the weekend told.
“What about you Misty?” Chloe asked.
“What?” I said, drawn out of my thoughts.
My friends call me Misty, I’m not sure why though we all have nicknames within our group. Agua was Lua, Chloe was Coco and Charme was Bunny, they chose their names but I couldn’t decide so they chose one for me, my real name is April. This is awkward. Perhaps you should introduce the characters with their nicknames and make vague references about real names. Otherwise, this becomes a teeny bit confusing, especially since it seems to have little relevance at the moment.
“What happened to you on the weekend?” she asked me.
“Nothing worth telling.” I said as Lua looked up at me. I had decided not to tell most of my friends that I had seen a wolf in the forest, though Lua I could trust. Why is that? Something you might want to expand on.
She knew something would be up because I normally talk more than I had this morning. She would ask me about in first class today because the others wouldn’t be with us. I strongly suggest you don't keep this bit. It's straight up telling the reader what's going to happen, and you never want that. You should hint at it...or not mention it. Otherwise, it's awkward reading.
As we arrived at school, we walked towards the locker room to retrieve the books we would need until break time. We only brought bags to school to carry books between classes but other than that everything stayed in our lockers.
When the bell rang, Coco and Bunny wandered off to their class, physics, while Lua and I went to Biology. Walking into the classroom, we sat down at our usual seats in the back of the classroom.
The good thing about biology was that our teacher didn’t mind if we talked, as long as we completed the work and today we were starting something new.
“What’s up?” Lua asked.
Knowing what she meant, I told her about the wolf and the wound that it had received. By the end of it Lua seemed slightly tense, though she was unable to reply because our teacher was calling for our attention.
“Alright,” our teacher Mr Clark began. “You all know that we are beginning a new topic and that topic is Animans. Can anybody tell me what they are?”
“They a legend which is said to have begun in our town,” Lua said straight away. “Animans are humans which have the ability to transform into a single animal, though there are stories of animans who can transform into any animal they would like.”
Lua was almost always the first to answer a question asked by the teacher. He nodded. “What do the legends say about their transformations?” Why would a legend be taught in a biology class? That makes no sense, unless your story is set in a sort of parallel reality. xD But you might want to explain why.
“They say that the first transformation is the longest and the most painful.” Lua answered again. “If the first transformation between human and animal is interrupted, it may cause the animan to become a Cyran.”
Mr Clarke nodded again. “What are Cyrans?” he asked.
“The enemies of Animans.” It was not Lua this time but a boy named Kyle from the seat in front of Lua.
“Now we all know that Animans and Cyrans aren’t real.” Mr Clark told us. “But for the sake of our unit of work let’s say that they are.” Why? I know I asked this before, but this is something that should definitely be elaborated on. This could be extremely interesting but you skip over it.
Mr Clarke began to hand out text books on animans as well as some work booklets that went with them. “Now these books provide everything you will need to know about animans for your exam at the end of the term.” He told us as we walked back to the front of the room.
I saw Lua in the corner of my eye looking through the text book with a frown on her face. Once she had finished flipping though it she turned to the workbook.
“Work your way through the workbook at your own pace, though you will need to hand it to me on the day of the exam,” Mr Clark told the class.
Lua was already writing in the workbook. I also began to work, first looking in the workbook then going to the textbook.
When the bell rang over head some students in the class jumped. The class had been working silently, but now they collected their books from their desk and filed out of the classroom, Lua and I among them.
As we walked down the main hallway, Lua turned into a smaller one heading towards her English class which she had with Bunny.
My next class was maths and I had that with Coco. The teacher, like my biology teacher, didn’t mind if we were talking and sat at his desk after setting our work. Coco of course talked to me all lesson. I don't think you need the "of course." That phrase implies that the reader should already know this about this character, but they don't. So you don't need that. I pretended to listen while working out the algebra we had been set. After what felt like ages the bell rang for lunch.
Coco and I walked out into the hallway and headed towards the locker room to wait for Lua and Bunny. When they arrived we grabbed our lunch and went to our usual spot on the oval to eat.
We ate in silence then began to play tag until the bell went for class. The rest of the day passed in pretty much the same manner.
After the short walk home I was in the forest climbing the trees with Lua. We climbed until we were as high as we could go without breaking the branches.
We always went to the forest after school, it was fun to climb and just be ourselves. Earlier in the piece, you say that your MC can only be herself at that bridge. You might want to change that...since she's also able to be herself here. xD For a while we just talked, I kept nothing from Lua.
I felt Lua tense beside me. “I need to go do some homework,” Lua told me.
I nodded and we began the climb down to the ground. Once we were close enough, we jumped out of the tree and grabbed our bags. Lua walked further into the forest leading towards her house, she would leave the forest a few streets over from where I left it. I went the other way towards the closest exit.
I walked out of the trees, onto the slightly dark street, and headed towards my house around the corner. I walked up the driveway of my home while I pull out my keys. The door opened when I reached it.
It was my mum. “I was about to come get you,” she explained. “Dinner’s ready.”
Walking into the house, I tossed my bag into my room on my way past and went on to the kitchen to eat my dinner. After dinner I went into my room and begam the biology homework.
Turn into animals.
Wounds heal fast when in animal form.
Cyrans are small creatures which seek animans to follow to their sacred lands.
Animans protect humans from Cyrans. I suggest you somehow indicate this is part of the book, whether you italicize or something. Otherwise, the readers will immediately think this is the MC and not the book. xD Just a suggestion, it's not imperative that you do so.
The phrases jumped out of the textbook (Textbook and workbook are one word, though in this piece you write them as two words. at me, these phrases reminded me of the wolf I had seen this morning. Turn into animals. Wolves didn’t live around Rosedale and if they did they would be hunted. Wounds heal fast when in animal form. The wound of that wolf had been healed right before my eyes. Cyrans are small creatures which seek animans to follow them to their sacred lands. The wolf had killed that small creature. Animans protect humans from Cyrans. The wolf had killed that creature which was going to kill me.
My books fell from my lap as the shock of it hit me, Animans exist. This was as the thought that crossed my mind. You don't need this last sentence. Ending with Animans exist is perfect.

My thoughts:
As far as grammar goes, you didn't edit this, as you said. I edited what I found, to help give you a guideline for when you go back and do some editing of your own. Some things to watch out for that I may not have found: Tense switches, slight misspellings, lack of commas, and run-ons. Other than that this was good. As for plot, you aren't really showing much. You mainly tell what's going on: "So-and-so did this. Then they did that. They thought this, and this other person said that." You definitely want to fine tune this to make it more showing than telling. Other than that, I really like your idea and I think this has a lot of potential!

PM me if you have any questions, and keep writing!

~Sporks