Short story fantasy beginning

Well, this will be my first story to be put up. We'll see how it goes. Enjoy! (or try to at least)

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Erebus

I lack the knowledge as to how or why my hand gestures this way, pen in hand; I do know however that from these seemingly arbitrary movements, a stretch of vellum will become a portal to my past.

The dying light smoldered beneath the crimson cloud; the sun’s concluding breath now hid from view. Only visible in the twilight was the storied mountain of Ares, its altitude so towering, it is thought of by my people to be a direct link to heaven, and hell. Before I continue, I should tell you where I come from.

The town of Erebus, or village as it may be suited better, is sporadically placed over an area of land too far to leave, but small enough to gather when necessary. The terrain proved to be less lucrative than a morgue; dry hillocks littered with desiccating vernal pools compose the estate. Weeping willow trees hover over the dry ponds, as if the forgotten water is just as lost as these mortals’ souls. Yet generations of inbred families swiftly evolved the necessary organs able to accept the polluted water that our feeble bodies would now disregard as arsenic. The large plots of thick, stable, arable ground we take for granted lack appearance in Erebus. The crucial food born from the earth is that of the ordained apple trees; little other fruit-bearing vegetation exists. In extreme rarity another plant may sprout, but rather than sowing the priceless seed for more practical food, the ultimatum of hunger is met with the gnawing of the roots, only after the unwonted berries are greedily swallowed by a blessed passerby.

Thick oak trees accompanied by the melancholy willows dominate the forest. Travel is slow and short-lived; the wide branches and congested leaves made the pious sun as rare as a full stomach; we live in the shade.

Some forty or fifty shelters are scattered throughout the acres, their main purpose though, not to offer protection from the relatively negligible weather. The biggest benefit is psychological protection. Knowing at the moment that with sleep you will see light the next day gave the shelters their crowning purpose. My people, be them people at all, are not chiefly afraid of hunger; starvation is of a simple nuisance when compared to the reason this story has significance.

I will call them Beasts, for lack of a word that can truly portray the satanic conscience that beats within me, every time I bring Them back to my nefarious life. Let this be the last time I must recall.

These people’s purpose, just as contentious as ours, is shadowed from the fact that with time, be it months, weeks, or even days, the Creatures of Hades will return. But before I explore any longer on such dread, I must relay the life and inhabitants of Erebus.

The Erebians held a unique tone to their skin; over many years lack of light gave no need for protection from the rays; their skin grew as pale as the clouds they never saw. Malnourishment accents their veins; they protrude from their skin as if they were placed on top of the bodies after birth. Their legs were long, as if our Creator was amused when forging these manifestations, giving them the option of a futile escape from The Beasts, given such poor nutrition their energy drains in minutes. My people see no need for hair, it only slows them; yet nothing is wasted; decent kindling when knotted together. Their faces were of similar appearance to those of humans today; none quite the same, everyone different. Our eyes, however, retain no trace of human influence.

Humans tend to see different colors in various globular organs; white, black, green, red; the most common. This was not true in Erebus. Malnourishment may account for this, or possibly the incessant reality of fear; but for reasons I cannot say, I am sure an external force has caused my pupils’ phenomenon. For not only are our eyes red as an albino’s, the entire eye shined the color of blood, even the pupil.

its altitude so towering

Altitude is a location (noun) and not a descriptor (adjective).

The dying light smoldered beneath the crimson cloud; the sun’s concluding breath now hid from view.

How does this relate to writing being a portal to the narrator's past?

to heaven, and hell

Why is there a comma here? "And hell" is not an independent clause and cannot stand on its own as a sentence if you remove the "and".

Before I continue, I should tell you where I come from.

Semi-poetic prose, and then suddenly this. You lost me here with the abrupt change in tone. Also, why is it important that we know where the narrator came from?

The town of Erebus, or village as it may be suited better

Then say so in the first place. Also "or village as it may be suited better" makes no sense. The village is better suited as what?

is sporadically placed over an area of land too far to leave, but small enough to gather when necessary.

...

What? Speak sense, please. How can a village be placed over land that is too far to leave? How can land be too far to leave? The same questions apply for being small enough to gather when necessary.

I suspect thesaurus abuse...

Clarity over complexity. Remember that. Pretty words may be pretty, but if they have no meaning, all they are good for is looking pretty and annoying the people who know their meanings. Do not use words you are not absolutely certain of the meanings of, and even then look them up every once in a while in the dictionary to ensure that you are using them properly.

Also, do not use the thesaurus to come up with a "better," fancier word if the word you already have works just fine and has the intended meaning. Just don't.

And from this point forward I shall refrain from commenting any more on overly complex to the point of being nonsensical prose and misused words.

I will call them Beasts, for lack of a word that can truly portray the satanic conscience that beats within me, every time I bring Them back to my nefarious life. Let this be the last time I must recall.

Are the narrator calling their own people Beasts, or are the Beasts the reason the shelters exist? It sounds more like the former than the latter the way it's currently set up.

globular organs

*can't stop laughing*

Just call them eyes. Refer back to my comments on the thesaurus.

the entire eye shined

Shone, not shined.

The shoes shone. The shoes were shined.

Overall, remember not to abuse the thesaurus and that clarity is more important complexity. I did like the descriptions of the Erebians, but the labyrinthine and obfuscated prose really destroyed my interest in the story. Also, you jump around between different aspects of the narrative, and this further adds to the confusion caused by the nonsensical prose.

I suggest rewriting this in plain, ordinary English after restructuring the narrative so that it proceeds in a more linear fashion.

Humans tend to see different colors in various globular organs; white, black, green, red; the most common. This was not true in Erebus. Malnourishment may account for this, or possibly the incessant reality of fear; but for reasons I cannot say, I am sure an external force has caused my pupils’ phenomenon. For not only are our eyes red as an albino’s, the entire eye shined the color of blood, even the pupil.
Classic infodump, in fact the whole story was. This is a nice introduction prologue, but I wouldn't use it. The whole prologue is just explaining the Erebians when there's the rest of the story for that.
Besides that, it's very lovely. The words flow nicely together and there's a lot of details. Good luck for the rest!

ow my head.... The first sentence was so filled with big words that it was hard to grasp what you were trying to convey. And no offense but TOTAL abuse of the thesaurus!! I didn't even finish reading this because I didn't understand what you were writing at all. Sometimes short words are awesome because their short, and easy to understand while giving description. If you re-write this I'll definitely read it again.

It seems like a interesting story, though confusing at times.
Fancy words are good every now and again but not in every sentence as it confuses the meaning of it especially when most dont even know the word. I did not mind that much as I understood most of the story anyway and it was very interesting, it made me curious which is a good thing as i am more likely to read more

It seems like a good story, though its a little hard to read.
Lots of big, not commonly used words in there, makes it a little confusing.
Big words are okay at times, but when you use them so often its hard to understand what your trying to say.

This is a very confusing story.
There are too many long and confusing words that you
would have to search the dictionary to find their meaning.
I'd advise using the most common terms for words, but occasionaly
use 'big' words.

I didn't make it half way through the story because alot of it
was not understandable.

I would tend to agree with most of the other reviews. It would read well if the more uneccessary of those complex words were replaced. The use of polyllabic words in the first person makes you narrator sound intelligent and powerful but the gaffs need to be cleaned up.
Another small point i dont think has been made, the use of 'Before I continue...' and then again 'But before I explore any longer...' further down the page is kind of clumsy. Still, its easy to criticise and i admit to using the thesaurus button a lot myself. I'd like to read this once it's been gone over, an intresting opening from a narrative point of view that makes me want to read on, especially the first sentence.

Finally, I agree with Kyllorac on the whole 'globular organs' thing... *shakes head slowly*

First off: You haven't figured a title out yet? They're pretty difficult, but they'd certainly improve first impressions, as it's the link you click on to get to the story, haha.

I quickly scanned through to check the tense. Just to clarify: The narrator is recounting events, so that's why parts not in first person narrative are in past tense, yeah? After reading through most of it, I've given up on pinning the correct tense, it just seems to jump around.

The dying light smoldered beneath the crimson cloud

By "the crimson cloud," does that mean there is only one cloud? Or are you only specifically describing one?
Also, I don't see how this pertains to anything besides establishing the setting. The narrator is the writer, so why would he write, in rather colorful prose, unnecessary details on things like the sky? Isn't there something more important about his past than the scenery?

the sun’s concluding breath now hid from view.

Was that intentional? The sun's rays hiding from view? Because I think you meant "hidden" instead of "hid."

it is thought of by my people to be a direct link to heaven, and hell.

I suppose in reading it, the comma would serve as a pause to heighten drama, but grammatically, the comma isn't needed.

Before I continue, I should tell you where I come from.

The narrator took a rather sudden plunge into informal prose.

The town of Erebus, or village as it may be suited better

Awkward phrasing. While Kyllorac said that you should've just said "village" instead of town, this is a person, the narrator, writing this, so it could be part of his thought pattern, I suppose.

is sporadically placed over an area of land too far to leave

That sounds vaguely oxymoronic. Establishments of any kind are rarely just "sporadically" placed somewhere, particularly in an area of apparent inconvenience. The line also doesn't make sense. How is something "too far to leave?" Unless it stretches into infinity, it's got to end somewhere.

but small enough to gather when necessary.

Confusing. What are you referring to? What's small enough to be gathered? The village? How did that relate to the rest of the sentence?

The terrain proved to be less lucrative than a morgue; dry hillocks littered with desiccating vernal pools compose the estate.

I liked the first description, but then the part following the semi-colon is overdoing it. Also, shouldn't compose be in the past tense form?

Weeping willow trees hover over the dry ponds, as if the forgotten water is just as lost as these mortals’ souls.

Creative, particularly the latter part. Still, why the info-dump and halt of all action (which never presented itself in the first place)?

Yet generations of inbred families swiftly evolved the necessary organs able to accept the polluted water that our feeble bodies would now disregard as arsenic.

What does evolution have to do with any of this? Actually, I'm not sure what "this" is. Rather rapid evolution, also, but this isn't a human race.

The large plots of thick, stable, arable ground

Try not to overload on adjectives when maybe a couple, more effective ones would be better suited. Also, how did it jump from inbred family evolution to plots of land?

lack appearance in Erebus.

Faulty word choice there, with "appearance." Something can't lack appearance, since appearance is how something looks. If it lacks appearance, it wouldn't exist, or "sight" wouldn't exist in this world.

It jumped from the land's "lack of appearance" to apple trees how? The flow is rather jerky, and I don't see how "blessed passerby" devouring the berries has to do with anything. If it's that important, you could've touched upon it later, perhaps in a non-telling way.

made the pious sun

You're either very creative with words, or abusing the thesaurus. The most common definition of pious is "devoutly religious," which doesn't seem to fit here.

Some forty or fifty shelters are scattered throughout the acres, their main purpose though, not to offer protection from the relatively negligible weather.

Awkward phrasing, particularly from "their main purpose though" and onwards. I think a comma might be needed before "though." I almost thought it was a fragment, as well.

I will call them Beasts, for lack of a word that can truly portray the satanic conscience that beats within me, every time I bring Them back to my nefarious life.

I don't think the comma after "me" is necessary.

The Erebians held a unique tone to their skin; over many years lack of light gave no need for protection from the rays; their skin grew as pale as the clouds they never saw. Malnourishment accents their veins; they protrude from their skin as if they were placed on top of the bodies after birth. Their legs were long

See, the tensing really got me here, at "were long." It was past tense, then the present, and then past again.

giving them the option of a futile escape from The Beasts

I was confused as to who "them" was until I realized you were describing the Erebians, since I didn't notice the final line of an earlier paragraph. While this could show the narrator is skidding away from the topic of the surely horrendous beasts, it's confusing when you keep jumping between info-dumps.

globular organs

... I think they call them "eyes."

the entire eye shined

Past tense of "shine" is "shone," not "shined."

That was a really abrupt end.

Your descriptions were grandly imaginative and colorful, but the narration jumped far too much, both literally and technically. On your diction: don't use a big word when a small one will do.

And that's it.