Syboleth ch. 9: An Awakening

Hello!

Valerie awoke, and was briefly disconcerted by everything being upside down. But a familiar upside down. She was at home, with her head lolling over the side of her bed, viewing an inverted display of her bedroom.

I like the image of her waking up with her head hanging over the bed because it immediately tells me that something went wrong the night before, but the phrasing is a little awkward in places. "But a familiar upside down" works for her disoriented thoughts, though "viewing an inverted display of her bedroom" feels much more formal and detached. I think you could keep the whole paragraph closer to Valerie's groggy perspective. It might also be worth mentioning how she physically feels because at the moment she seems surprisingly unaffected by having blacked out. That must suck!

Valerie’s face went even blanker than it already had been. Now she understood why her brain had been trying so hard to prevent her from remembering anything.

This is obviously the key moment of the chapter, but I think it's too vague at the moment. You don't necessarily need to show the entire memory, particularly if Valerie herself can't face it, but I think you may need some detail to understand what she has remembered and how serious it is. It could be a sound, something Derek said, an image of the room or even a physical sensation.

Her face becoming "blanker" is also difficult to picture, especially as it has not been said that her expression was blank before this. I think a more physical response would fit the extent of what happened, especially if it was traumatic.

She just had to make it through this moment, and then the next, and so on until things were fine.

And things would be fine in the end; though it would take a very, very long time.

I like the first of these sentences a lot because it captures the way someone can reduce survival to getting through one moment at a time. The second sentence explains the future a little too confidently, though, and feels like the narrator stepping outside Valerie's perspective to reassure the reader. The reader should not matter here as much! I think the ending would be stronger if it stayed with Valerie's need to believe things would eventually improve rather than confirming that they definitely will.

The semicolon after "end" should also be a comma, although I think you could probably combine or trim these lines to avoid repeating "fine" so often, as well.

***

I'm not used to reading short chapters from you! Though I do think the ordinary domestic details work well against what Valerie is trying not to remember, and it makes sense why this chapter is shorter compared to the others I have read. The eggshell in the sink is particularly effective, for example, because it's such a pointless thing for her to focus on. I also like that it remains there until late at night because it becomes a measure of how much time has passed without her being able to do anything.

I do think you need to give the revelation a little more time. At the moment, Valerie remembers something terrible, goes blank and then appears in the kitchen, which means you have moved past the turning point almost immediately. Even if you want the memory itself to remain unclear, you could slow down her reaction and show what happens in the few seconds after it returns. I think I have picked up on what happened, which is very tragic, but it does not feel as tragic since the moment ends rather suddenly.

Once again, cheers!

Lip