Under the Moonlight: Chapter 1

This is the first chapter to "Under the Moonlight". I may add more to this chapter later on since it kinda short and title may change, I'm not quite sure. Please offer an criticism you can and let me give an early thanks if you do XD.
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“I swear I hate studying for these stupid tests.” moaned Lora. Lying on her bed, she stared lazily at her mound industrialization notes for her history test. Being the procrastinator that she was, she had put off studying until they very last minute. But she had never really considered her type of studying as 'studying'. All she did was glance over her notes once the night before a test. Even still, she found it annoying nonetheless.
Finally glancing over the last page, she gathered her notes and laid them on top of her nightstand in front of the alarm clock. The time now reading 12:45 a.m., she let out a sigh of disappointment. She had stayed up later than she had intended. To hopefully avoid a verbal thrashing from her mother, she quickly turned off the lights and slipped herself under the covers. The last thing she needed was another lecture from the dragon lady.
Snuggling up against her pillow, a single question crossed her mind. Will It happen again? She forced herself to close her eyes; angry at herself for even thinking of it. All she could do was hope and pray that it wouldn’t.
Before long she was unable to remain awake. Unwillingly, she slowly drifted off to sleep.

The young woman hastened down the dark hallway, her lavish blue Victorian gown billowing around her feet. The light from the moon peered through the misty windows casting a pale light onto the marble floors below. The place had an eerie and unnatural silence about it. The only sound was that of her own footsteps which echoed throughout the hall.
As she walked, she felt a slight tugging at the back of her mind. Something was wrong. A meeting of the Council of Twelve had been called without her. Knowing him all too well, she knew that He would never keep anything as trivial as a meeting from her without a just cause. She gripped the fabric on the side of her dress tightly as she quickened her pace down the hall.
She rounded the corner to the next hall and saw the large, brass doors of the council room come into view at the end. The doors loomed over the hall making everything within its shadow seem insignificant. Now struggling to stay calm, she took a few deep breaths and tried to maintain a steady pace as she made her way toward them.
About midway, a sharp, muffled sound shot through the hall which made the young woman freeze in her steps. She couldn’t recognize the sound but could tell it was coming from somewhere nearby. She listened closely and studied the hall, waiting for the sound to repeat itself. Finally, she heard it again. This time she recognized the sound and the direction from which it came. The sound was of clashing metal and it was coming from behind the brass doors.
What color she had drained from her face. She shot toward the doors with a non human speed; her heart racing. Upon reaching them she grabbed the doors’ long brass handles and flung them open.
Despite its large size, the council room was well lit by the torches protruding from its walls. The woman winced and shut her eyes tightly as she entered. The light was like daggers from the time she had spent in the dark hallways. Slowly opening her eyes, they began to adjust; her blurred vision catching only the color red. Her eyes finally open; she found a daunting scene that sent shock waves throughout her body.
Before her, on the newly bloodstained floor, laid the massacred bodies of the Council of Twelve. From the positions of their bodies near the door, each had been slain as they attempted to flee the room. Their bodies were covered in deep jagged wounds; each member’s overcoat dyed red with blood. She could feel bile rising up her trough as she clasped her had over her mouth. As she looked at each face, each person she knew, her eyes began the sting. She bit her lower lip as tears streamed down her face and she fell up on her knees to the floor.
Lost in her own thoughts, she wondered who on earth could do such a terrible thing. Better yet, how was someone even remotely capable of doing something like this? Despite her fears, she had never expected anything like the tragedy in front of her.
In an instant, she caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye which jerked her back to reality. She froze in fear. She had completely ignored the possibility that the council’s slayer could still be nearby. She quickly raised her head as the sound of the swords reentered her mind and scanned the room looking for the source of the movement. It was then she noticed the ajar door at the far right side of the room
Slowly, she rose from the floor and carefully began making her way to the door. She slightly jumped at each little sound, knowing that danger could shoot from any direction at a moment of its choice. This fact was what life itself had taught her/
Upon reaching the door she slid off to its side and flattened herself against the wall to avoid being seen. With her breath racing rapidly, she clenched her fist in dread and turned her head to peer inside the room. No sooner had she looked in the room that her eyes grew wide as she jumped back at what she saw.
A young man of no more than seventeen and a tall, hooded man clad in black stood facing one other, each with their sword in hand pointing directly at the other.
The young man’s gaze was directed fiercely at the hooded man, his yellow cat like eyes glowing like fire. He studied the man for a few minutes, everything from his arm length to his posture. He then raised his sword and, without a seconds notice, slashed swiftly at the man. The hooded man easily sidestepped the attack and retaliated with a slash of his own. The young man brought his sword in front of himself and blocked the attack The young man then began to deliver a full set of swings but the hooded man always seemed to be a step ahead. Each attack the young man sent, the hooded man countered and returned.In a desperate attempt to end the fight, the young man spun behind the hooded man and swung with a lightning like speed only to have the hooded man counter the attack and knock his sword from his hand.
With the young man taken by surprise, the hooded man seized his chance. With a beast like strength, the hooded man took his arm and knocked the young man across the room into the opposing wall. There he hit with a thud and his body slumped to the floor.
The hooded man gave a deep, demonic laugh and began his approach on the young man. The young woman looked on with fear. She tried to scream, but no words came. When the hooded man had reached his destination, the young man looked up at him with a look of anger and disbelief. A feeling of pure dread filled the young woman as she watched the hooded man tighten the grasp his sword.
Staring into the young man's eyes, a barely visible smile formed across the hooded man's shadowed face.“From the shadows, death will reign and the world will be reborn anew.”
With this single sentence, the man brought his sword up above his head.
The young woman ran into the room and toward the young man. To her, time seemed to slow with seconds seeming like minuets. With each stride she took, the distance between them never seemed to shorten.
As the sword neared the young man, the young woman screamed his name soundlessly as everything before her was dyed in a red light. The woman felt a searing pain shoot through her body as she fell to floor between the two men. Her thoughts clouded, she struggled to maintain consciousness. She looked up weakly to see the hooded man’s sword hanging in front of her, the blade spotted with blood. After a brief moment, a faint smile came across her face. Somehow, she had been able to save the young man; the man she loved. The blood on the blade was hers.
Her vision faded from her within a matter of seconds and the world around her became enveloped in darkness. With all sight gone from her, all she could do was hear the young man’s sorrowful scream.

your post is fantastic! i loved it.
the language you used is pretty captivating, just the kind you get to read in books such as Eragon.
there was a little silly mistake i found :

“I swear, I hate studying for these stupid tests.” moaned Lora. Lying on her bed, she stared lazily at her mound industrialization notes for her history test. Being the procrastinator that she was, she had put off studying until the very last minute. But she had never really considered her type of studying as 'studying'. All she did was glance over her notes once the night before a test. Even still, she found it annoying nonetheless.

best of luck with your next chapter!

Hi Lynnea, I'll be your reviewer for today.

It's getting rather late so I'm not going to be terribly lucid and I'll keep this brief. Please excuse any spelling/grammar errors. The later it gets the worse I type.

I think this story has potential--there's certainly something very mysterous and nefarious going on, and I'm interesed in knowing how Lora is connected to the strange dream sequnce. I also like what little I see of Lora's character--you've done a good job at creating, with justa few paragraphs, a protagonist with a strong personality a lot of people can identify with. Certainly I can understand procrastinating (look at my counry ).

That being said, I feel the dream sequence could be better. It's intersting, what's going on, but at the same time...there isn't much life in it. And not as in "twelve people just got killed, of course there is no life." I mean, it just feels rather...detached. Your descriptions have a little to do with this. They're all rather vague and simple, using basic adjectives (color and shape) and basic verbs. What really makes descriptions pop is interesting figurative languae (without being over the top) and strong actiony verbs.

There is also the problem that we as readers are rater detached from the character. After doing a good job of setting up Lora as the protagonist, it's a bit of a whiplash to turn to someone else, and one that you keep us at arms length from. I can understand not using names to make the charaters seem more mysterious, that's not the issue here. But the character's feelings and reactions simply don't ring true to me. Again this comes from the vague and general language you use to describe her emotions. "She looked at the bodies with horror," "A feeling of pure dread rose within her," etc. It's telling instead of showing. Don't say that she'shorrified or feeling dread. Show us her heart racing, nausea rising n her throat. Qualifying emotions with physical reactions is a great way to make their emotions ring more true, as well as using more punchy verbs. There are also times when you describe her facial expressions. Nothing pulls me away from a character faster than beingt told what expression is on their face; it's like switching suddenly from being inside the character's head to being a dispassionate observer floating above them. Never describe a viewpoint character's expressions. You can say they feel their face twist into a scowl or contort in fear, but better yet is to delve into their mind and show us their emotions directly without having to go throuh their face.

This is an interesting idea and I have to read more to reserve judgment on it, but you could definitey make it more emotional and give it more impact. It's a first draft so the prose won'tbe perfect; focus on making your descriptions less basic and connecting the reader to the character. Showing instead of telling. Consider varying sentnce structures too--short and snappy sentences, fragments, convey action; a lot of clauses stacked upon each other convey panic. This will help get acros the character's emotional state better. It's imperative that you connect us to your protagonist and her feelings, because if you don't, as fascinating as her advenures are, readers will have no reason to really care about what happens to her.

That was probably completely incoherent. I should not try to write reviews at 11:30 at night. Probably I'll go back and make this more sensical and in depth in the morning, when I can actually think.

Good luck and keep on writing. ^^

Hi there! Welcome to YWS!

It's getting rather late so I'm not going to be terribly lucid and I'll keep this brief. Please excuse any spelling/grammar errors. The later it gets the worse I type.

Lol Bickazer.

Anyways, I'm much to tired to be of any use to you. But I will say this was interesting and had a sort of dark, mysterious feel to it. Which I definitely enjoyed.

The only problem was that it was a bit painful to read. Paragraph after paragraph is painful to read, maybe break it up more. But it might just be my eyes begging me to sleep.

Either way, I'm interested in how this might turn out. Let me know when you post the next chapter.

Good luck.

Kamas

Thanks so much for everyone's input so far. It's really helping. Ill go back through the chapter soon and edit what is posted above but feel free to keep commenting!