Falyn
Falyn opened her eyes and looked around. The white ceiling and pale blue walls weren’t familiar to her. Neither were the pictures on the wall or the view out the windows. As she ran her hands across the sheets, she realized that she wasn’t in her own bed.
Sitting up, she took a better look around the room. It was a small room, barely fitting the bed, a desk, and a gray dresser. The door was wide open, revealing the walls of what she assumed to be a hallway. The maroon color clashed with the soft blue that occupied the room. There wasn’t much space to walk around since there were bags and clothes flung everywhere. The clothes consisted of t-shirts and cargo shorts and most definitely belonged to a man.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she moved to get up. But just as she did, a tall man walked into the room, a towel wrapped around his waist, his wet, blond hair dripping wherever he went.
“Ah, you’re awake,” he said, his voice deep and smooth. “Let me just get changed and I’ll be right back.” Just as quickly as he appeared, he had left. Falyn debated going after him, but she figured it was no use. He had said he would come back after all.
Suddenly, a terrible thought ran through her head. What if she had been kidnapped? What if she wasn’t supposed to be here? She didn’t know who that man was or why she was in his room. Something strange was going on and she had to find out what it was.
First things first, she had to get out of the room without the man noticing. She wasn’t sure where he had gone to change seeing as he’d obviously just come from the bathroom and she was in his room.
Quietly, she slid off the bed and touched her bare feet to the floor. Hadn’t she been wearing socks and sneakers? She looked around for them, but it was obvious that they weren’t in the room.
She made it to the doorway and stuck her head out, looking this way and that. There was no sign of the man so she headed out into the hallway and went left. The man had passed straight by the room and she wanted to go the opposite way of where he was.
The rest of the house was rather unimpressive. It didn’t take Falyn long to realize that it was an apartment rather than a house. The kitchen was at the end of the hallway and led directly into a living room. The only two things in the living room were a small television and a green, worn out couch. From the looks of it, the man spent most of his time sitting on the couch. She just couldn’t imagine him sitting on a cushion that had springs pushing out of it.
The kitchen was much nicer than the living room and the bedroom. It was a bit strange to her though, because the entire room was white. The ceiling and walls were white, the table was white, the chairs were white, the stove was white, the refrigerator was white; everything. Sure there were pieces of metal here, such as the legs of the chairs, but that wasn’t much color. That was just an attempt to make the room less bright. It wasn’t working. Everything was so white that it was nearly blinding.
There was the door, not that far away. It was next to the refrigerator, taunting her. It was right there, but she had no idea where it would lead her to. If she left, would she be safe? Would there be more guards coming to get her?
Before she could make a decision though, the man came back, this time wearing more than just a towel, which Falyn was ever grateful for. He was dressed in a nice, blue plaid shirt with a pair of black jeans. His hair was still wet, but it was now slicked back neatly.
Falyn expected him to say something to her, but he didn’t. Instead, he crossed the room to the fridge and pulled out a box of pizza. Why was it that everyone liked pizza so much?
“Want any?” he asked, offering the box to her. The truth was, Falyn was starving. But she wasn’t about to take anything from a man she barely knew.
The man shrugged and sat at the table, stuffing a slice of pizza into his mouth. “Sit down,” he said, his mouth full. Falyn cringed at his lack of table manners as she sat across from him. It really wouldn’t be that much effort to swallow the food before he talked?
They sat in silence while the man finished eating. Falyn was starting to get rather annoyed. If he wasn’t going to talk to her, why was she there?
“What’s your name?”
Falyn looked at him strange before answering. “Falyn Perez. Why am I here?”
“You mean you don’t remember?” The man asked as he got up to make a cup of coffee. It wasn’t until then that Falyn realized that it was breakfast time and the man had just had pizza for breakfast. But who was she to judge?
“What am I supposed to remember?” she asked. “I know who I am and that I live in Agathi. The only thing I don’t remember is who you are.”
The man nodded and leaned back in his chair. “Fair enough. My name is Phillip. I’ve known your parents for a while now.”
“My parents…” Falyn said slowly, trying to remember exactly who her parents were. She stared at the wall behind Phillip, her mind working overtime.
The word parents was something she knew, but she didn’t know which people in her life belonged to that title. It was like someone has gone inside her mind and blocked off all of the information important to her.
But the thinking only gave her a greater headache, so she gave up trying. Everything would come back to her eventually, right? At least she knew the important things: who she was and where she belonged.
“They’re good people, Falyn,” Phillip continued. “I’m sure they’re looking forward to seeing you as much as you are to see them.”
“I’m going to—my parents?” Just like everything else Phillip had told her, it was confusing to her. She remembered having a father, one she lived with since she was young enough to remember. But a mother? There wasn’t one in her memory.
Just as she was about to unload all her questions onto Phillip, there was a knock on the door.
“Wait here,” Phillip said as he got up from the table.
Falyn only nodded and stared at her hands. This was all too much to digest. There had to be something going on here that made sense to her.
Whispers were coming from behind her. She resisted the urge to get up and see what was happening. She recognized Phillip’s voice right away, but the other voice was unfamiliar to her. It was definitely a boy’s voice, she could tell that. It was very controlled and didn’t waver. Whoever could talk like that had her utmost respect.
She was only able to catch part of the conversation, but what she heard was enough to make her curious.
“…just want to…isn’t there any way…”
“…no need. We can’t have her…too much at risk.” Phillip said after a long pause.
“She needs to know. At least let me…right to know.”
“I can’t deal with this anymore,” Phillip said, clearly aggravated. “Just go back…and the others…be along soon.” After another pause, Falyn heard the door shut and Phillip reappeared in the kitchen. There was a smile on his face, but Falyn knew that it was all just an act.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“No one important,” he responded. “Just someone who…anyway, let’s get on with things. Are you feeling any better?”
“Not really,” Falyn said. “My head is absolutely killing me.”
Phillip chuckled. “That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“Do you like the place?” he asked, changing the subject. Falyn narrowed her eyes, wondering what he was hiding. He wasn’t about to give away any of his secrets though, she could tell. There was no flicker in his eye, no shifting in his seat, nothing that indicated that he was hiding something.
She realized that she wasn’t going to get any information out of him. If she was going to find out what had happened to her and what left her this way, she’d have to come up with a better plan, one that involved getting outside of that door.
The two made small talk for a while until Phillip announced that he had a meeting to attend. He told Falyn to wait, that he trusted she would still be there when he got back.
Big mistake. She thought the second the words were out of his mouth. But she told him that he could trust her and that she was looking forward to talking more with him when he got back—all a total lie. He seemed to buy it all and grabbed a suit jacket from a hanger near the door before heading out.
Falyn stood there, staring at the door, counting the seconds as they ticked by. After five minutes, she made a move and opened the door. She stuck her head out into the hallway that was on the other side.
After looking up and down and realizing, to her relief, that no one was in the hallway, she stepped out and shut the door behind her.
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For the LMS contest. Word count: 1,642
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137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
Hello! KatyaElefant here for another review! Let's see what we have right here...
Some of this imagery that is depicted here is amazing. Especially at the beginning, I was fairly impressed with this vivid description of the area. It really helps me to get a feel for the place. The only thing and I know you are bothered with this comment from me all the time but I will say it again, is sentence structure(this sentence is an example of a poorly structured sentence. >,<) If you had the correct sentence structure, I would have adored the first couple paragraphs. Though, just not to put you down too much, I have seen a lot of improvement with the various types of sentences throughout these chapters. Over time, your writing gets better and better until I'm a little concerned if my reviews are just me ranting about the characters' ships and their stupid actions.
Before, I read anymore, I want to make a prediction. I have a feeling that this is Falyn's real dad's house but she doesn't know it. I bet he rescued her at the last second. Also, presuming this is his house, I notice a very manly sort of way shining throughout the house. I don't imagine any woman here. Therefore, I can assume that Falyn's mom might be dead or she might have moved away from her husband.
Gosh darn it. I didn't guess correctly. It is stupid Phillip's house(whoever that is). Why did he even trust Falyn to stay in the house. She isn't a very trustworthy person, if you look at her last few days and what she has done. I wonder what she is even going to do when she leaves the apartment. I mean, there doesn't seem much to do out there but get caught by the police or something.
Keep calm and keep writing
KatyaElefant
Timmy here
This was an amazing chapter, and I just love, love the fact that there were none of the other characters in it to help make Falyn's decisions, and there was no one else there to take up any of the attention. This chapter focused solely on Falyn... and this new dude, Phillip. It's quite strange how we have come this far with waiting and waiting to meet this guy, and then he turns out to be quite normal - off to a business meeting, wearing a blazer. Oh, not a suit of armor.
Now this may be a strange thing to wonder, and you will just have to bear with me, but what kind of clothes is she wearing? I knowww you haven't ever really described clothing on your main characters so far, and that's normally fine. It's just that you're describing all these clothes strewn about the room and the clothes on Phillip, so I think Falyn would be noticing what she is wearing, because of that.
It's considered poor writing to begin a sentence with an adverb. Just thought I would point it out to you. ^.^
One thing I did notice a lot of in this chapter was redundancy. And no, it wasn't too big of a problem. I mean, I noticed it so there is an issue, but it's something you can fix later. But I noticed it especially when you were describing things, like the couch you mentioned a few times in a row. Just repeating the same word in multiple sentences after each other. Most of the time, you can work around that and find some synonym or word your piece in such a way so that there is no need to mention the object again.
If the person hadn't meant or wanted the kitchen to be bright, they wouldn't have made it so. I think this sentence is a bit confusing, because I don't really think anyone would buy chairs with metal legs... just so that they weren't white. And how did she come to that conclusion so fast? How did she know it was an attempt to make the room less bright?
This makes me wonder who it was at the door.... I admit, at the first bit when you mentioned a boy, I thought it may have been Sam (although he would have sounded more like a man, I suppose), but then you never mentioned who it was, so my hopes were kind of dashed there. Meanie. Not saying who it was. People have been killed for less!
"were coming" is passive voice... and should really be avoided if you can. Using the active voice keeps everything flowing and more here and now. So, "whispers came" would probably be closer to what you are looking for.
So one thing I noticed here, and it's something you do in other chapters, too, is that you do your thoughts very strangely. Now I will just show you an example of how most everyone else does it, which makes more sense to me than what you've done here. Here:
No period after the thought, and allow the thought to flow right into the rest of the sentence - like a piece of dialogue would in this case.
I don't know about everyone else, but I really enjoyed the fact that Falyn was finally on her own with something. Yeah, it probably isn't much and her friends will no doubt be around soon to find her and ask her where she is going and take her back and blah, blah, blah. But I didn't blame Falyn for her actions whatsoever. I think I would have done the same thing, because it doesn't matter what this dudes name is. She doesn't know him, so she doesn't trust him. Fair enough.
Now I am curious as to what happens to her! *scampers off to next chapter*
~Darth Timmyjake
THIS IS SO EXCITING. Falyn is out on her own! Oh my gosh! I can hardly wait to go read the next chapter! I'm happy that we've met Phillip, and we're in Light Port now... I think we're in Light Port, anyway.
It feels like this chapter has open a totally new book, and closed the other one... I'm not sure why, it just seems like the other characters could have been anything else, and are no longer a part of this story. I know that's because their just not around right now, and you're probably not going to ditch the rest of the group, but it just is almost like this is a totally new story... I don't think it's a bad thing, in fact, I think it's an interesting way of pulling the readers back into the story.
The only thing I wasn't too fond of in this chapter is that we didn't get to know who was at the door. I feel like we deserve to know who's behind that door! Maybe I'm being selfish, I don't know! I can kind of see why you might have chosen to keep it from us: If it was Sam ( which I think it was, Falyn's got a head injury after all... ) or anyone from the group, than you probably don't want to use that sight memory trigger quite yet... because you want Falyn to do a little bit of exploring!
Anyway, that was pretty good! I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter! Great job Noelle!!!
-Socks
Hi Noelle!
Anyways, here comes the review which I hope will be useful...
Oh man xD I was so close to being all caught up as well! I guess this is what happens for being so slow
I think this is a fairly weird chapter, just because we're left a little confused. I have a suspicion that this could be happening now, as in she just woke up from getting across the fence and now is experiencing this. But maybe this could even be something from the past, when she first is brought into Agathi and she doesn't know anything about Mina being her sister or anything. It could be both. I guess the only way for me to find out is read more, which I sure will be doing as soon as possible! I like how you kind of left us in the dark about things in this chapter, refusing to give anything major away. Ah, so much suspense!
One of the things I often mention is mixing up vocabulary. It's because when I read something I like the flow to be smooth without anything in particular standing out too much. But there is one thing I always see sticking out when it comes to reading, and that is the same word being repeated too close to the same one unnecessarily. It happens in this case. This sentence could easily be.
It was small, barely fitting the bed, desk and gray dresser inside. I took out the 'a' because we don't really need that small word in there either. It kind of brings across the meaning and as many authors have said before, if you don't need a word and it doesn't add anything to the story - cut it.
Okay, as mentioned above this is the same idea. 'Couch' being repeated twice. How about: the man spent most of his time sitting on it. We already know what you are referring to by using 'it'.
Hm, seeing as pizza has never been previously mentioned in this story, maybe it would be helpful to mention people who have liked pizza previously in her life, so that it would justify the question? But something tells me she wouldn't know the name of her friends. So how about between those two sentences having something like: Falyn could remember a lot of people who liked pizza, but she couldn't remember their names for the life of her. Why was it that everyone liked pizza so much anyway? Or something xD
Wait a second! He just pulled that pizza out of the fridge! Does no else find it kind of alarming that he is eating freezing cold pizza? Either have him spin it in the microwave for a bit first or have Falyn a bit surprised that he is eating freezing cold pizza. Seeing as I don't eat pizza myself, maybe it is normal for it to be eaten cold? In that case...
everyone else is weird.I felt like this shouldn't be a question. To give this more of a question feel, make wouldn't couldn't instead.
*has should be had.
Nooo my pet peeve senses are tingling! I am not sure whether I mentioned this to you before or not, but you really need a space between the ellipsis and the following word, otherwise you aren't technically using it right. Especially if a word follows because then you are connecting those two words, which doesn't make sense. You used this quite a bit there, so make sure it gets fixed! It should look like this in the end:
... just want to... isn't there any way..."
There doesn't have to be a space if the ellipsis is coming from a word, just when leading on to another one
As for the story itself, I find it hard to find anything I would pull out and correct. I'm afraid this means this is purely a nitpicky review, but then you've got the story down and well developed, so it's all I can give you ^.^
This time I really am going to catch up!
Deanie x
Hello, Noelle. Wolf here for a review.
Anyways, hope more comes soon! Keep on Writing,
Okay, so this was a quite interesting chapter, in a both good and bad way. So we get to meet this Phillip, who is apparently the big boss. We were kind of introduced to him a while back in a phone call with Akia, but there wasn't much then. We just kind of found out from that that he's kind of pushy, wants things done his way. Phillip kind of strikes me as some bipolar person, or just a really good actor. I'm not really sure whether I can trust him or not.
What is the bad interesting part is that her memory seems to either be blocked or she's going through amnesia. It's really more confusing than anything, but I feel you in this. It can be pretty hard to just have a character forget everything and convey it well, since of course the readers still know all this stuff. The first time I read this through, I didn't understand that something was up with her memory, but I still think you did the best you could do with showing that without straight up telling us "Falyn couldn't remember anything."
Something that confused me was when she thought she was kidnapped. As stated before, I don't know exactly what is going on with Fayln, but it kind of seems obvious she doesn't remember the whole Azure Pelet ordeal. Still, I'm not sure how far back she can remember if it's amniesia, or what's blocked. I see at some point her thinking she's kidnapped again, and she even mentions Rhys, but not Akia is thought about, no Sam or Zeke, or even Mina. I find that a little odd. Why can she remember Rhys, who she met AFTER those four, but not them? It doesn't make that much sense to me.
I can see why you don't feel very good about this chapter, and that's alright, everyone has a few chapters like his, and the faster you get your bad ones out, the faster you can move on to the best ones!
So, there seems to be a lot of repetition here, and what I mean by that is that lots of things are trying to all be described at once. Now don't get me wrong, I love a good description, especially of places we've never seen before, but I'm not feeling the flow. For starters a lot of they sentences start with the word 'the' and that word is just used so much in general. It eventually gets tedious to read. I also feel like your descriptions are just kind of there. They don't really feel like they flow well together, but that may just be me. Or it's all the 'the's that are there.
Either way, I'm quite curious as to what Falyn thinks she can do, because obviously she has no idea where she is, and who knows who she'll meet. She has nowhere to go, no one to really look for since she can't remember anyone, and she still thinks she can get away. Good luck with that, Falyn
~Wolfare~
Aw man, I did mention Rhys in this chapter, didn't I?? *facepalm* I'm gonna change that now. Thanks for pointing that out!
Hey! Here to review again! So, r4p17 covered all the nitpicks, and I didn't see any other grammar errors, so you're good in that department!
All right, you said rip this apart, so I'll do my best! First off, this was way too short! It's like, half a chapter. Definitely need to lengthen it somehow! My big question in the chapter is Falyn's memory. She doesn't seem to know anything! I mean, I understand she doesn't know where she is, but it looks like she doesn't know a lot of other stuff too. Like with her parents. Maybe I'm reading into this too much, but you write like she doesn't remember Archie isn't her real father. Is that right? She also seems to not remember what had just happened. Please tell me, because it's confusing me! Anyway, I feel like I'm being too negative and harsh, sooo... On to something positive Nd encouraging! I really loved your word choices in this chapter; they so well described and really captured the....what's the word I'm looking for??...monotony of ths apartment. Great job on that! Well, going to bed... Signing off,
PeanutPhoebe
Knight r4 here to review this work in answer to your summons! I certainly hope this helps you! I can't wait see what happens in this chapter! This is a good thing to motivate me to review!
This is just a minor nitpick. I think that I would change sneakers to boots. It is kind of hard to go hiking out in the wild, especially when you are going over rough terrain. You also may want to change that into a thought though that is just a suggestion.Um just a quick question. How does Falyn know what pizza is.
You need to change strange into an adverb by adding "ly" at the end.
Before I read any further I thought that I would comment on the fact that Fayln doesn't even wonder about feeling totally fine after passing out because of those pellets. I mean it think that would probably be one of the first things that crossed my mind you know. The part about her not being in her bed was a little cheesy too. I that you should have her remember that she is in Lightport even if you don't right away. Aside from that I think I covered all the nitpicks!
How dare you! Again you ended the chapter in suspense. One of these days I am going to spam your wall so badly! So be ready for it. You can be so aggravating some thymes! And yes that typo was intentional! And so was the conjunction at the beginning of the sentence.
Okay now that rant is over I get to tear this chapter apart like you said I could. First you need to get back to the rest of the group in the next chapter; that is after you have told us what happens to Falyn. I will be looking forward to it. This chapter was too short. It was alright for a part but not a chapter. *crossesoutthepreviousnitpick*
Overall this is alright. I thought it was well written though I thought it the first part was disconnected from the previous chapter. But it was kind of cool how the beginning and end were connected with the same theme. Well that is all I have for you Happy Writing!!!