Carla, Carla.' I called shaking her. She wasn't answering.
'Carla,' I called again, biting my lip to subdue the terror building up within me. She still wasn't answering. Her lips were changing colour and her eyes were listless, her hands were hanging in the air. And the black mini-dress she was wearing somewhat resembled a funeral shroud.
'Carla, answer me Dammit!' I screamed in frustration but she remained as she was. 'Help. Somebody help me.' I cried but the sound of the pounding bass in the nightclub overpowered my voice.
I grabbed onto the shirt of a one of a complete stranger. 'Please help me.' I begged. 'M- m- my friend, she's unconscious. She wont answer me. I don’t know if she’s breathing.' He turned and glared at me scornfully, snatching his shirt away like I had stained it somehow. I heard the word 'druggie' form on his lips.
I pulled out my phone and quavering I dialled for the police. The rest of it went like a blur. I don’t know what I said to whomever answered the call, all I remember is the sound of flashing lights.
I blame myself for what happened. Carla is in a coma and it's all my fault. If only I had stopped her, told her that it was dangerous. If only...? No, she wouldn't have listened to me anyway. I am the passive one, she is the risk taker and that’s the way it goes. This time when she gets out of the coma, I'm going to set it straight. She's got to pick one...
One. Two.
I counted as I kicked the sandbag over and over again. I ached all over and I couldn't see any of my effort reflected on the sandbag.
Die evil mutant. Die!
I screamed internally of course, I'm not completely cuckoo and there were people in the room. I was dripping in so much sweat I might as well have poured a bucket of water on myself before going to kickboxing practise.
'Jane, you're doing it all wrong.' My lazy ass of a teacher complained.
'I've been doing it this way since I started this class one month ago.' I said emphasising on 'month'. I don’t know what possessed me to go join some kickboxing class.
One. Two.
'Yes. I know when you started but you're still doing it wrong.' He replied
One. Two. Three. Rip.
'Well this is how you taught me!' I screamed and stormed out of the room still in my sweaty tracksuit bottoms and a black string top.
'So you finally quit eh?' Carla asked well she didn't ask. She just mentioned it in a scathing way.
'No, I just yelled at Hudson for nothing and ripped what I hope is a big hole in the sandbag.' I answered.
'I knew you would quit.' She thrilled blotting out what if i do say so myself was wonderful sarcasm. Jumping down from the fence. 'Lets go.' She said pulling my arm.
'No. I'm not doing this. I don’t want to.' I hissed underneath my breath.
Her face fell. 'But it's more fun with you.' She wobbled her bottom lip and stared at me with tear filled eyes.
She's faking it. Don’t fall for it. She's faking it you dolt! Faking I-
'Okay but only this once, and you cant use.' She nodded but I knew she was going to. 'Promise me.'
She stared right into my eyes again and mouthed the words 'I promise.' And that was when I knew she was going to be completely out of her mind.
'I missed you so much' She squealed in her larger than life voice. I hated to admit it but I had missed her too. Both the old her and the new her.
'So you're going to stop, yeah?' I asked bluntly pushing aside all pleasantries.
'Yeah, I promised. Don’t you believe me?' She asked her eyes pooling with tears. Her words stung but I knew. I knew she was lying, I knew it was just an act.
'Of course I do.' I lied swallowing nervously. 'So where are we going?'
'ENVY' She said. 'And I've got dresses for both of us. It will be just like old times before you got weird. Right?' She asked glaring at me. Daring me to say no.
'Right,' I said. I was scared of her. Her petite frame boasted none of her psychological prowess. She made monopolising me seem so easy. I let her do it because she scared me. What she was scared me.
-/-
ENVY: 11:00pm
The air was stale. It smelt like sweat, alcohol and mingling bodies possibly even sick. Myself and Carla walked right into the club without queuing, Carla knew people. People who would get 16 year olds into an Over 18s nightclub no hassle.
The strobe lights covered the room as did the people, the music sounded like the drowning of several kittens yet several people threw themselves into dancing with such fervour.
Carla was dressed in a tight black mini-dress and I was in a copy of the dress only in white. When she dressed me up in it she said 'You are the Yin and I am Yang together we restore balance to the universe.' I didn't know what to say then so I busied myself with the mascara brush.
Carla left me at a table and returned with two bottles of WKD and a coke. She smiled pushing the coke towards me. 'For the martyr.' I smiled back at her and reached for the bottle of WKD. There was something about Carla that made you want to impress her.
She grinned and downed her bottle. 'Welcome back. I thought I had lost you for good.'
And the night went downhill from there on. Carla had so much drink while I pretended I was drinking as much as she did...I even did something I detested. I faked being drunk.
It was alright until Carla was offered some tablets. I told her not to have them but she smiled at me and halved it. 'Here. It'll make you feel better.'
'You said you wouldn't use!' I screamed
'You said you would stay sober.' She counteracted and dropped the pills on the floor
'I never...' I started but she wasn't listening to me anymore. She was heading for the bar, I ran after her.
She was holding two bottles 'Here, drink up.' she ordered thrusting the bottle into my hands.
'No.'
'More for me then.' She said and she downed the contents of the bottle.
'Look. Carla you-
She held her hand out to stop me from going on. 'I didn't take the pill so stop harshening on my mellow.' She said coldly taking another gulp of the bottle.
After a while the bottle was gone and Carla was falling all over the place.
'Lets dance.' She garbled staggering over to the the dance floor and disappearing into the crowd of people. She still had my bottle and would soon be starting on it. She was normally a lightweight but with the amount she has had she shouldn't even be able to walk.
I pushed through the throng of people covering my mouth with my hand. The air was suffocating and I could almost taste the sweat as I searched the dance-floor.
I needed her to be alright, I needed her to be OK, just this once I wanted her to stand next to me and tease me for my constant worrying. I spied her long coal black hair in the corner slumped on the ground. My bottle completely empty.
Oh Crap!
'Carla, Carla.' I called shaking her. She wasn't answering.
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139,565 Literary Works • 672,608 Reviews
I really joyed it. I especially loved the ending, it tied the whole piece together nicely. When it grammar and such I believe everyone else covered what I would
Hello, Anger. You were right, this does have a lot of reviews, but I will review anyway!
How could her hands be hanging in the air?There either needs to be a period or a comma behind "me". If you put the comma, though, "Dammit" needs to be lower cased.
Pick one what? Or is the answer to my question obvious?
Slight repetition of sandbag.
This sentence is awkward and out of place where you put it.
Use what?
"Into" should be changed to 'onto'. You can't go in a floor.
You should spell out numbers less that one hundred.
*grabs pillow* Oh, the commas. The poor, missing, orphaned commas.
This was good except there were times where I'd no idea what was meant to be said. This could have been from missing words or that the phrase wasn't in the right space. I don't know. Now that this is done, I'm going to go get some coffee.
ReisePiecey!
Hey AM,
Here as requested (sorry for the delay).
Biting your lip is a strange thing to do in a terrifying situation. It's usually a nervous tick rather than a reaction to panic.
Hmm. Rephrase required, I feel. Needs to be more certain of itself, this sentence. The somewhat throws it off. I reckon something more akin to "The black mini-dress she was wearing was becoming a funeral shroud." Or something dramatic like that.
It's pretty odd that this is the first time we're told this scene is going on in a nightclub. It was devoid of explanations for the reader, really, no sights, sounds, smells, until this throwaway part. I think you could do with a little more description to ease us into it a bit better.
I liked that you used a dramatic (ending?) start for your story, but this ruined it a bit for me. It went from an active scene to a passive monologue from the narrator, which seems superfluous to my eyes.
Comma splice. Split or change the puncuation.
This could have been written better. In my reading of it, your narrator just comes across ridiculously. Nobody flips and storms out that quickly, not really. There'd be more dialogue, more tension, more conflict. The teacher seems pretty reasonable. I reckon you need to work on this part in particular. It seemed unrealistic and the dialogue a bit silly.
There's quite a lot of grammar issues in this piece and I've decided not to comment on most of them (your other reviewers have done a good job on that already.) But this suffered in two respects: poor description and poor grammar. The reason I think it's poor description is that it sounds like you've never been in a nightclub. It sounds like how somebody would describe a nightclub smell if they'd only read about it or heard about it. Considering this is one of the few times you give us a description to work with, it needs to be stronger.
As for the friendship theme of the story, I liked it. A lot, actually! The theme of having a friend who is more commanding and dangerous, the friend who leads you places you don't really want to go, and so on, is a good one to work with. I understand it being a "short" story but I think your narrator needs fleshing out a bit more. The only time we really see her is the fight with her instructor, which as I mentioned needs some strengthening.
Good luck with the revisions!
Thanks for the feedback guys. I'm working on the third draft right now. I noticed the grammar mistakes and fixed the awkward sentences.
A great piece.. there were some parts that could be fixed up, I think. Some small grammar and spelling errors/typos.. Otherwise, nice piece.
I think that perhaps you could go in more depth with their relationship, why she felt so attached to Carla, why she wanted to help her so much.. their background. I also think that perhaps you could go more into the emotional side of this piece. I personally have had this happen (or something really similar to it) recently, and it's difficult. It's really, really difficult. There's more of an inner struggle, more internal conflict.
Altogether though, great job!
Coral
Excellent! An intense opening is a great way to start. Your character development is intriguing and I was hooked from sentence one. I can see a few grammatical mistakes but other then that, I really enjoyed the piece. Creative. ^_^
Yo.
I'm here to review, 'cause I am da shizz. Quite literally. My name is Shizz. I'm in a rather sarcastic mood, so sorry if I comment on something that makes you want to kick me.
Considering you said that she called Carla's name, I thought that an exclamation mark would have been well suited here.
Slightly abnormal... she should get that checked out.
Grammar, my dear friend. Grammar.
Unless this is some kind of Irishland saying, I think that you need to rephrase this.
I didn't know that the MC was based on you.
This sentence sounded a bit weird to me. I knew what you were trying to say, I think, but it was a bit unclear. I think that you should rephrase it so it makes more sense.
I understand that you want this to be like a blur. The first sentence kind of gives it away. I would like you to be a bit more vivid though. You don't have to write the conversation, just say something like this. I don't know what I said to whomever answered the call; it involved some panicked stutters and some loud cursing. The next thing I remembered was flashing lights. You wouldn't have to do that exactly, but that's just an idea. By doing that, you're explaining the conversation a bit, just with a lot less detail.
Dun. Dun. Duuuuun.
Hee hee.
You changed tenses for a second here.
Tenses, dear. My dog is disappointed in you.
I now know why you're called AngerManagement
You don't really need was here.
I sense some chav stuff goin' down. Shud b rite up mi street.
You make commas cry D:
Myself and Carla walked right into the club without queuing; Carla knew people.[/quote]
Wow! Does he know Barney?!
Oh... okay.
Wwwww... dis chick is whack.
Wannabe. *cough*
You said you wouldn't use..? What? A monkey?
'You said you would stay sober.' She counteracted and dropped the pills onto the floor.
Tenses.
This ended a bit suddenly to me. I know that you were worried about this being too long, but seriously, it's pretty short. Any short stories that I write end up being novels...
Overall
This was pretty good! I never normally notice things like this, but I liked the title. It suited the story well and I think that it was a good title as a whole. So yeah... I like the title! When it comes to your characters, I thought that they were really entertaining actually. Carla sounds like a complete chav to me... that was certainly amusing. I like how your MC is completely different to her and clearly isn't good with peer pressure. You've portrayed their personalities really well, in my opinion. They weren't boring personalities either, so well done. As for the story itself, I like it. It's a classic teenage booze up, resulting in something serious. You've clearly based it on your life experiences
My main critique would probably be the fact that, at times, it felt as though some parts were rushed. I'll take the ending as an example. The ending of a story is very important. It's just as important as the beginning, if you ask me. The ending is when any unanswered questions should be answered and when everything that's necessary to be summed up, gets summed up. There were a few things that I still didn't know by the end. One of them being, where had your MC been? By that, I mean that you mentioned Carly saying that she's glad to have her back etc. Where'd she go? As for the rushed thing, it's just that it felt like, all of a sudden, she found Carla unconscious. We're not really sure what happened exactly. I assume that she passed out because of her being drunk and maybe taking the drugs. I don't know that for sure though, to be honest. Don't worry if you have to drag things out a bit more. It'll only make the short story a short-ish story.
I don't have anything else to say, really... I agree with what the other guys have said. I don't want to repeat what they've already said; that would annoy the both of us. All that you need to do is to take into consideration what everyone's said and edit this up a bit. If you do that, this could definitely be a good story.
Keep writing and good luck with the contest!
xoxo Skins
Spoiler
Phoenix lands for a review
awkaward
This is a bit of a extream reaction at first. It makes more sense when he calls her a druggie. I think you can describe some things beforehand to indicate this. What does te street lool like? How are the two dressed?
.
As my teacher always said. What is "it".
Wait what. I don't see how the call relates to flashing lights, and you cant hear flashing lights. You hear the siren.
Yeah I think you could have added in description in the hospital leading up to the coma.
This seems like a odd point to describe what she's wearing.
? Do you mean trill?
'No. I'm not doing this. I don’t want to.' I hissed underneath my breath.
nasty tag
reword.
.
reword
countered
I can't imagine anyone saying this coldly it's a rather... well mellow statement.
Okay this was an okay piece. A nice story but the main character doesn't seem developed enough. The pacing is too quick as vital information is glossed over and I think some of the sentence structures could be made better. Over all this was a good start with promise.
I also found the whole kickboxing session useless. It had nothing to do with the rest of the plot. It provided a conflict that was never resolved, and was basically forgotten once the whole night club thing happened.
One last thing. When Carla passes out were they outside or inside? I first thought they were outside. Which ever the case is, this is an example of a glossed over fact that hindered my understanding.
Phoenix flies away
Hey Anger, Stella here!
I. NITPICKS
Should be a comma after second Carla.
She wasn't answering.
What, is she on the ground and her hands are just, like, above her?
Why the capital D?
Confused about dialogue punctuation? Here!
won't.
Pick one what?
Carla asked, well, she didn't ask.
can't.
'Look. Carla, you-'
II. OVERALL
Okay, you've got some really good elements here. I absolutely love the structure, though the coma scene needs a little work. Maybe she could be talking to one of the nurses or something- you know, make something of it, don't just have her sitting there. As well as that, I'd like to see a little more development of your main character, she's got interesting stuff going on, and I want to know why and how. It's short enough for you to spend more time doing that. The conflict with her and her teacher could definitely be stretched out as well. Then at the end, it was unclear whether Carla took the drugs or not, and I'd love if you just made that clear for us. Apart from that, fix up your grammar and you'll have something really good here!
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Thanks for the review. I understand what you mean about exploring her emotions, I was just trying to cut it short as it was really long and its a 'Short' story. I'll try to put what you said to mind.
Hey there!
I really like how your story starts at the end. That was a really good idea. I think its good although i think you can dig even deeper into the emotions of the main character. She obviosuly feels overpowered by Carla so maybe you could make it more realistic, for example when something shocking takes place if you think about what actually goes through the human mind, it doesn't only involve one thought of AAAA how scary, it also includes random thoughts, maybe even one thought that now she may be free from this overpowering friendship. Do you get what I'm on about? Apart from that I think that its really well written.