Young Writers Society

[temp. deleted - will be back soon.]

I like it, I like it.

'I’m staying tonight,’ I tell him. ‘I want to observe the patient throughout the night.’

The repetition of "night" bothers me.

He chuckles, and as always I’m struck by how healthy he sounds. ‘You ask a dying man why he has trouble sleeping?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need to apologise. We all say foolish things sometimes.’

‘Even you?’

He chuckles again. ‘Especially me.’

Same here with the chuckles.

I jump a little and feel my heart rate increase as adrenaline is released into my bloodstream.

This is a good sentence; it reveals his scientific mindset.

Although it shouldn’t, the idea disturbs me. The Messiah Scrys many, many people, so he knows what to expect in a person’s mind. He would anticipate, permit and ignore those dark, twisted, involuntary thoughts that flicker and fade through my psyche. And as a doctor to whom patients reveal embarrassing secrets and strip down for on an almost daily basis, I should appreciate that nothing he sees in my mind will be unacceptable.

Creepy.

The present tense doesn't really bother me in this story. I think it might be because you gradually ease into it, starting with events that took place in the past, and then coming into the present.

Nice cliffhanger, by the way.

Solid.

Prokaryote

*waves* Yo, Sureal!

a transparent mask is placed over his mouth to assist his laboured breathing. His skinny chest rises and falls erratically under the blue hospital gown.

This seems contradictory; if his breathing is being controlled by life support, his chest would be moving in the same rhythmic way a normal person's would, not erratically.

There are no injuries, no other signs of disease, no poison; there is no discernable reason as to why his body should be failing. Were it not for the fact that his organs are weakening, he would be a normal, healthy man of twenty-eight.

You go through all this building up of how the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him, and it makes me think that it's something super-serious. But 'his organs are weakening' sounds a bit, well, weak. It doesn't have the same BAM impact on me that the previous sentence did. It doesn't take much to weaken organs and they can still function.

I’m dead to the sight now. Desensitised.

Switch the period to a semi-colon? That's just me though XD I don't think it would detract too much, just made me a little itchy.

I adapted in a matter of days [s]though[/s].

It feels a little odd ending a sentence on the word though. Doesn't feel quite right.

I found that thinking of him as a normal patient, rather than as the Messiah, helped.

This reminded me of German, in that you have the verb riiight at the end. But it meant that by the time I got to the end, I'd sorta forgotten what the beginning was and had to go back and read it a couple of times before I worked it out.

‘I’m staying tonight,’ I tell him. ‘I want to observe the patient throughout the night.’

There's a bit of repetition with night, although I think you could pretty much end it with 'I want to observe the patient'.

There is always two specific doctors on-site,

Shouldn't that be 'There are always two specific doctors' instead of is, given that it's plural?

He shifts in his bed and states, ‘You’re intending to stay here all night, Doctor.’ Despite the disease, his voice is as beautifully clear as ever; there is not even a hint of scratchiness to it, which would be expected given his condition.

This shocked me quite a bit as I assumed that because he was on life support he would be in a coma or something similar. Anyone I know who's been on life support had to be put into medically induced comas before they could be hooked up, although I'm not sure if it's the same in all cases. But yeah, I thought he was out cold so I was very surprised when he started talking.

And as a doctor to whom patients reveal embarrassing secrets and strip down for on an almost daily basis, I should appreciate that nothing he sees in my mind will be unacceptable.

I really like this comparison, between the scrying and the doctor =D

One last thing is your use of commas, in that there are an awful lot of them XD Quite a few of them could easily be removed I think, some seem to be there from mental pauses when you were writing. I'm terrible with it myself, and it's something I know that I personally have to go through and check very carefully. But yeah, you should be able to pick out the ones I mean ^^

Anyhooz, this was pretty funky! I quite like the religious undertones and the way it seems quite clinical. You ended in on a cliff-hanger you fiend, so se sure to let me know if you post more so I can take a look-see XD

Hope that I've been of some use to you!


-fish!

Quite an interesting tale you are spinning. Something that bothered me was that the Messiah was awake when he was dieing, I belive most patients that near death were put into a medical induced coma, I almost jumped out of my seat when he started talking.

But perhaps your universe, or with this special case is different, I would not know.

It will be interesting to see how you countine this, here's to more good work from you.

I really liked this story, it had an essence of nature, and was flowing, i really enjoyed it, mail me if you have any more stories like this one...

A true masterpiece...

Thanks for the reviews guys. ^_^ I'll be sure to refer back to your crits when I come to edit this in a couple of days.

For anyone interested, Part Two can be found here.

(BTW: I've changed the rating of this part to R, because Part Two has potentially R rated material in it.)

Just a few nitpicks (and they really are major nitpicks. This story would be great even if you just ignored them all).

His mysterious ailment has turned his usually tanned skin pale and dry, and he looks much skinnier than usual, little more than a flesh draped skeleton.

Should be dash between flesh and draped.

A mist the colour of a poorly tuned tv had consumed my sight and only carefully controlled breathing had brought me back into the room.

"tv" should be capitalized.

I take it and flip through a few of the pages, all of them dirtied and smudged by constant use

Just so you know, hospitals are highly hygenic places. Hands are constantly washed, and there's rarely a speck of dirt to be seen anywhere (I should know - I used to volunteer in one). So the fact that people who are treating this man, touching him no less, are getting his papers dirty, is unrealistic. In a real hospital the papers may be bent - but never smudged or dirtied.


But other than this, I loved it. Very well-written and creative. Going to look at Part Two.

Wow.

This is really well-written and interesting! Others have beaten me to all the nit-picking, but one suggestion I have is perhaps you could describe the hospital in a bit more detail? I didn't really get a vivid image of the character's surroundings. Like KJ said, hospitals tend to be immaculate places. I get the impression this is a very important, high-end hospital, so I imagine it as being almost scarily clean-overwhelming whiteness, harsh light, etc, and being full of high tech equipment.

The pace frustrated me a bit- by the end of the segment I was left with very little indication why the patient was a "Messiah" and what kind of society this was... but I know that's just me being impatient, I'm sure that part 2 reveals more about that.

So very nice work! The doctor's voice is very realistic and you have a fascinating, if creepy, beginning. ^_^

Thanks y'all. I've made some simple edits to it, and will probably make more major edits sometime in the future.

In other news, Part Three is also up.

Quite an interesting tale you are spinning. Something that bothered me was that the Messiah was awake when he was dieing, I belive most patients that near death were put into a medical induced coma, I almost jumped out of my seat when he started talking.

But perhaps your universe, or with this special case is different, I would not know.

It will be interesting to see how you countine this, here's to more good work from you.