By the time I finally worked my way under a bush, my entire body was on fire. Tears streamed down my filthy face as I bit my lip, trying desperately not to give myself away. It took me a few moments to realize that no one was around and it was just paranoia. I let my jaw drop open and a high-pitched scream escaped my lips, filling the cool evening air with my suffering. I screamed until my throat was raw and I could scream no more. I looked back at the bloody trail I had left when I dragged myself along the ground and realized that I had only gone a few feet, though it felt like so much more. As I lay sprawled under the bush, I began to shiver. Night was approaching and the temperature had dropped rapidly. Now I was alone, injured, and cold. My breath came out in little white puffs as I hugged my elbows, trying to stay warm. I saw the full moon rising in the crystal clear night sky and instantly thought of my clan. Every full moon we would hunt, but we didn’t just simply hunt. First we would take down the animal, then we would whisper to it:
You have lived a peaceful life on this Earth
And you will live a peaceful life in the sky
I shall use your body for our nourishment
For you will not need it where you are going
I am sending you to a magical place
A place where you can roam forever
Just follow the star that calls to you
It will lead you home
We would never kill savagely. We would whisper those words to lead it home, then break the neck. And with every animal that was killed, a new star was born in the sky. It would die a quick death, so it wouldn’t have to suffer, then we would use every single part of the body. We never wasted. We ate the meat and intestines. We used the fur for various things, and the bones were used for our story. You see, every wolf has a story. We are the first generation werewolves, and our story tells everything about our life. We would carve a portion of our story on a bone and then bury it next to the last bone. This was our tradition. It was what we believed in.
We never took from Mother Nature without asking and thanking her afterwards. We would ask for rain so we would have water, and would rejoice when it came. We danced and howled splashed about to show our appreciation. When it was hot, we would ask for a cool breeze, and when it came, we would howl with the wind as we cooled off. We learned to respect Mother Nature, for without her, we would never be able to survive. She is in control, and we respect her authority, so she allows us to live. That is how the world works. If you respect people, you usually get what you want or need. The difference between us and humans is that we never want. We only need. We never ask for things we don’t need.
I feel a dull ache settle in the bowels of my heart when I think of the clan. I’ve only been away for a couple of hours, but it already feels like an eternity. How many of them got out alive? What happened to them? Questions invade my head as I think of earlier that day. I could still hear the sounds of war echoing in the back of my skull. I could still see my clan risking their lives to protect me as they fight off the whitecoats. I could still hear the loud pop of guns being fired, followed immediately by the howls and whimpers of a wolf being taken down.
I felt something warm trickle down my cheek and knew that I must have been crying again. I wiped my face on my sleeve and tried to suck it up and be brave. My clan would be extremely disappointed if they could see me now. Lying under a bush crying, not even seeking help, and giving up. Maybe that’s what I was doing. Giving up. But I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t go to a hospital. They would find out about me. Run tests and experiments. Treat me like their lab rat. It would be an awful reminder of my childhood and even worse; it would be a repeat of my unforgettable, tragic childhood. All of those days I spent with IVs hooked to my arm. All of those terrible days I spent locked in a cage as they observed me like some sort of animal. I may not be completely human, but I was born human, until they took that right away, and I am still half human. I still think and feel like a human. And one thing scientists always forget when they experiment on humans is that humans will always have a mind of their own. No matter what you do to them, they will think for themselves. But that doesn’t make us failures. We just know what’s right and what is wrong. And we know what we believe in. And that is something the whitecoats can never take away.
I closed my eyes, though I knew that sleep wouldn’t come anytime soon. Though fatigue had really taken its toll on me, I was way too stressed and had way too much on my mind to sleep. So instead I just laid there shivering, waiting for the warmth of the sunrise to come and wash the cold darkness away.
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138,699 Literary Works • 672,249 Reviews
Hi, here I am with a review as requested
Let's start with a few specific comments as I read through, shall we?
1.
I'd love to see something between these two sentences to show that paranoia and reveal her thoughts to us. Give us an insight into her mind. Like:
trying desperately not to give myself away. Was that footsteps? Did I hear them breathing, air rushing in and out of their lungs like mine, quick, quick, quick. They were here. They were coming for me. Except they weren't; it took me a long moment to realize that no one was around and I was just being paranoid. But with good reason.
2. Telling vs showing. It's alright every now and then to dip into your character's head and give us pieces of their past but you have to ask yourself if this is the right moment and how much you're going to give. This is not the right moment. You're writing an action scene here, either just finishing one or still in the middle of one and your reader is on edge, they want to know what's going to happen next, will your character be okay. That is not the time for story telling. By back-tracking and talking about your character's past, you remove all sense of tension from the scene and bring the reader right out of the story. Try to leave story time for when it's quiet or when your character is talking to another. Storytime should feel like a natural lull in the action and not as though the reader has suddenly hit a stop sign.
3. Don't exagerate! When a few hours turn into eternity, you know something is going wrong. It makes a scene sound unrealistic when you exagerate so much. Instead, describe how it feels. How long those hours have been, how distant happy times seem.
4. Back-peddling. It's hard to critique this as I know it's chapter four so I don't know what the reader has already witnessed. If they've read about these events then you don't need to tell us again. It will start to feel very repetetive if you keep back-peddling and reminding us of earlier scenes.
Overall
Okay so there's some stuff I like here but a lot that I think needs work. I'm going to cover this in a few short sections I think:
Characterisation - I wanted to know more of your character's personality! From what you have here I can sense that they're determined and perhaps also intelligent but I don't know much else. Maybe loyal/ caring but what about the finer parts of their personality? There isn't a set 'voice' that I can hear. You're writing in first person so there should be a voice, it's the biggest factor in favour of first person, that you can write how your character thinks and feels.
Description - You have the basics covered but you can go further than that, you need to build the atmosphere. Think about the five senses - what can your character see, hear, touch, smell and taste? You'll not need all of them at once but every scene you should aim to cover at least three/ four out of the five. Then think about unique similes - how does your character see the world? If they're a sailor, maybe everything they see reminds them of ships or part of ships or storms. They'll think in a nautical way. A blacksmith on the other hand, will think in terms of his job: the fire and the forge. In this way, two different characters would describe the same event/ place very differently. The blacksmith might say, 'the roofs were as flat as the top of an anvil.' while the sailor would claim, 'the roofs were flat and smooth like the underside of a ship.'
Plot - I can't say much about this as it's such a short chapter but so far it seems interesting. Scientists and experiments, the question of what it means to be human. Good work with that
Well that's all for now, let me know if you have any questions,
Heather xxx
This is so stunningly beautiful. So how could anyone like the evil whitecoats create anything as beautiful and pure as the clan. A very unique twist of Good vs Evil with the human race caught in the middle as the prize. I especially like the beautiful part where you whisper to your prey before you kill then because you need food. This whole chapter is so touching spiritually it's makes you want to cry at the beauty of it. You do indeed have a gifted beautiful and creative mind. I know you don't like the word awesome as being charitable, but this is AWESOME. I truly hope you are able to keep this going. I can not imagine were it is going. But, I can not hardly wait to see. This chapter really stands out as an example of how to show and express feeling and events with words.