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Young Writers Society



So Many Lost Ones - IV (Fin)

by manilla


After everything goes dark for Lukas, he is whisked away.

--

White, strewn across him. Fluffy, bitter cold white. Red, crimson, iron, dry. Staining all he can see.

His lungs are beyond ice, his throat is drier than the desert. His eyelashes are dusted with falling snowflakes.

Lukas tries to croak out words, words for anyone to hear, but he remains still. Crunching footsteps, behind him - Tino is still around, still alive.

He lies there, utterly paralyzed in fear, trying to tame the last shred of logic and sanity he has left. God, it hurts...It’s like he’s being tore open, ripped to shreds, and scrubbed raw again. The needle didn’t end his pain; Tino was too cruel for that. It enhanced it, yet made Lukas completely numb to react.

As if.

As if there were more levels of numb to be reached out in this winter night, where the wind has began to howl. The moon leered at him menacingly from its high point in the sky, suspended in its own balancing act. Wolves howled their mysterious songs in the far off distance, beyond the shred of alpine forest ahead.

Lukas realizes he’s dying out in the open, not surrounded by who he loved when he would go. It’s...Not ideal. He wouldn’t be thinking of that, not when he’s about to let his eyes close for the last time.

The crunching becomes incessant, desperate behind him, and Lukas twitches a feeble finger. No, he’s not dead...Not yet, when there is so much left to do, so much left to see. Perhaps the angels in Heaven or the demons in Hell would say their remarks about this...What if, what if?

Faster. It’s growing faster, the footfalls, the ragged, shallow breathing. Tino’s going to shoot him to death him this time as soon as he discovers the truth. It’s growing harder and harder to breathe, too. Perhaps he will be able to spare his mercy before the hunter comes. Lukas can’t feel his fingers, his limbs, his tongue, his eyes, himself. The steps stop in the tracks, and a warm hand presses against Lukas’s forehead.

Tino’s hands were never this warm.

As badly as Lukas wants to tilt his head back to see, he can’t. He feels himself being pulled out of the snow with a giant heave, seeing that the stars are not the only lights dancing in the sky. Colorful ones, strung upon imaginary strings, twinkle around his vision. They warm the air along with a pair of arms circling him and lifting him towards the sky.

Whispering - Soft whispering, barely audible and incomprehensible. Lukas hears it, relished in it, and let go of the pain he bears. It trickles out of him - The anguish, the regret, the freezing numbness of the snow now melted. Slowly, slowly, slowly. The hand that has brushed itself on his forehead has found its way to Lukas’s. The pairs of fingers are now intertwined, along with hearts and souls. He trembles as the lights grow brighter, whisking away the view of the night sky and the dark forest ahead.

The owner of the hand says his name is Mathias, and he will bring Lukas to the homeland he has never known before, a one as white as snow, and a one as high as the tallest mountains. Somewhere safe, somewhere where all the so many lost ones would come to life.

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378 Reviews

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Thu Jan 03, 2019 12:22 am
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Omni wrote a review...



Hey manilla! Thanks for requesting this review! I will let you know that I haven’t read the previous chapters, so this review is based solely on what I’m reading right now. As such, there may be questions that I post that were answered in previous chapters.

So, your first sentence tells me a few things. First, that you may be mixing up tenses here, second, that something obviously happened in the last part, but third, that this sentence is a weak way to start this chapter part.

Now, regarding the tenses, you have “is whisked” which is a mixture of present tense and past tense. You have three options here on how to fix this! The obvious one is to just make this past tense, but I believe you’re writing this all in present tense, so “was whisked” doesn’t work. The next one is to make it present tense, but that requires a bit of a restructure within the sentence. Maybe something like “After everything goes dark for Lukas, they whisk him away.” The third option is using present perfect. There can be an argument here that this is present perfect, but I don’t believe it is. I also don’t believe this is the best solution, but it is one you can do.

Going onto my last point, I just don’t feel like this is a good way to start this chapter part. It’s very straightforward. I’m not sure exactly how you can improve it, because I haven’t read the previous parts, but it’s a weak beginning.

I’m also not a fan of how you go about the descriptions of his capture in the next two paragraphs. I totally get the usage of sentence fragments and comma splicing here, because it’s meant to convey confusion, stress, and the unknown. But, it just doesn’t work for me here, and I think it’s because you’re not telling me enough of the situation. What sense are being used here? Let’s dissect the first few descriptions you used here.
White – color, so visual
Strewn – tactile
Fluffy – also tactile
Bitter – tactile
Cold – tactile
White – visual
Red – visual
Crimson – visual
Iron - ?? Olfactory/Gustation
Dry – Tactile/Gustation
You have so many descriptions here that point to different sense, so there’s not a clear image. Is he seeing this? Is he feeling this? Is he smelling, tasting, or hearing this? See, the thing is, if he’s seeing colors, then things didn’t go dark for him. But, that’s not my biggest problem with this. My biggest problem is that, if he’s using his sense, just give us more description of those senses. Give some sense of action here, because I really don’t think the fragmented senses works here.

You then do similes and metaphors, which also don’t land too well. What does “beyond ice” mean in this situation? Are they frozen? Cold? Hard to breathe? The throat one is fine, and I do like the eyelashes part here. Maybe you could go further with that with him trying to open his eyes, but they are frosted shut, and as soon as he opens them, the intense cold stabs at them.

Your last paragraph uses future tense and then present perfect, which I believe is intentional, but I though I’d point it out anyway.

So, thoughts on this chapter! I think the stream of consciousness is a bit sloppy here, as the paragraphs don’t truly follow each other too well. There’s a lot of vague imagery that is shallow and doesn’t quite make sense the more you look into it. When you have someone who’s imprisoned, there’s not much you can do besides describe their situation with imagery. However, here, you need to remember that you start this chapter off with a description of Lukas’ world getting dark. I think the thing you do well here is talk about how cold it is. So, continue with it being cold and maybe a sense or two, like tactile and visual. I’m getting more of a feeling that you know what you want to describe, but you’re trying too hard to make it fancy. Perhaps I’m wrong, but that’s the feeling that I get. There’s also quite a bit of repetition here that doesn’t quite land. Overall, I do understand where you’re going with this, but the literary tactics you use don’t give it justice!

Anyway, I hope this helped! I’d love to hear your thoughts about my comments and critiques :D




manilla says...


This helps a lot! Thank you so much for the review.



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Sun Dec 02, 2018 5:38 pm
FireSpyGirl wrote a review...



This is a neat story!
To begin, I am going to point out everything I like about this, and then I will point out the few things I saw that could use a little editing. :).
One of the very first things I noticed when I read this was the detail. You put detail and emotion into this without overdoing it. That is hard to do, so congratulations and good work! The reader really feels what Lukas is going through.
Now, there is one thing that I thought could use a little work. This sentence:
"Red, crimson, iron, dry." To me, this is just a little confusing. What is red, crimson, iron and dry?

I hope this helped some!




manilla says...


Dried blood is red, crimson, iron, and dry.

Thanks for your review.




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