This is amazing! Please continue it!
z
Lizzy rested her chin on a wrist and propped up the elbow on a knee, and watched a spider crawl up a thread of spider web too thin to see with the naked eye. She could probably have seen it better if the sky was not as dark as it was, but she saw it nonetheless; forced herself to keep her eyes on it. The last thing she wanted to see was the face of the boy who insulted her at every word she uttered.
No, said a voice inside her. No, he isn’t as bad as that. You know it.
How would she know? She did not know. Except, every time she thought of Ronnie as a kid who did not deserve to be among them, she heard her mother’s voice telling her, “Sometimes the sidekick is more valuable. Nut the world just doesn’t care.”
She shook the thought off. He was only valuable to her as long as he found her a way back. Instead, she thought of her friends. What would they be doing?
Mira was sure to be meeting up with the kids from the other homerooms, gathering and absorbing any information in general. She would be traipsing the lobby, tracking down teachers and asking for last minute tips. She had seemed very confident about today’s quiz in particular. And Jenna was possibly still doing some last minute cramming at her desk, where Lizzy had left her. She had probably gathered up a bunch of things Lizzy was supposed to explain to her before the quiz started, and was wondering what was taking her so long in the bathroom. Lizzy felt a growing sense of guilt. She had left Jenna hanging, so to speak. Who knew how long it would take to get back.
She sighed. The only sign of anything living, except for the spider, was Ronnie sitting next to her, and the log shifting slightly every time he took a breath. He had done nothing but stare at the ceiling for the past- she checked the time on her wrist watch, it read 10 45- five minutes. She pulled at the left hood string and began to twirl it between her fingers, and that was when she noticed the scarred tissue of the back of her right wrist.
It was a scrape-scar. The jagged edges outlined a laterally inverted ‘R’. Its foot and tail were deeper than its head, and it had been itched, because the skin was beginning to peel and a small trail of blood had been smeared across the its bottom. She remembered itching the exact same spot in the morning when a student assembly was called, as well as when she was sucked out of the building on her way to the bathroom. She could not believe she not noticed the blood before. When had it come out? More importantly, she could tell this was not something trivial, but how had she not even noticed that she had scraped her skin? The curving tail of the letter looked familiar. She had seen it somewhere besides her word processor’s font collection. But, she could not remember where.
She pictured herself standing in the lobby in the morning during the assembly. Who had been standing next to her? She did not know at once why she remembered that particular moment, but she recalled one of the other girls from her class jeering at her, and when she looked around she had seen Ronnie in line right next to her. On her right.
She remembered how he had shifted to the left suddenly, right into her, probably as one of his friends slapped him in the arm, right before she felt that cool itch on that spot.
She snapped her gaze in his direction, and scanning his side profile, and spotted it. Half hidden under his sleeve, she saw the curve of the top of the ‘R’. She stared at it while wondering how on earth she had not noticed the scar in the last three hours. She did, in fact, have a mild case of OCD, and could not bear to have any of her hands were sticky on any side for more than an hour. How?
She was so caught up in her thoughts that she did not notice the movement in the water. Ronnie caught her staring again, and she was just turning away when her eyes fell on the swirling surface of the algae covered water just behind him. It was not raining, the sky was clear. Nothing could live in that water, the algae took up all the sunlight and oxygen. She turned away and shook her head. She was probably hallucinating, what with the sky and everything, she told herself. Was the sky really only a hallucination, though?
She tried to keep from thinking too much about it, and took to cleaning her scar with a nail instead. IT came off in tiny pieces of scab. She was almost done and her eyesight detected Ronnie hunching further, still staring at the ceiling. He began to murmur something under his breath.
“What are you trying to communicate to that slab of concrete, Baker?” she asked.
He stopped abruptly. “None of your business, Crawford.”
She finally let annoyance take control of her sarcasm. “Aww, come on Baker. I’ve been hanging out with you for the past quarter of an hour, even got your fancy bracelet imprinted on my wrist, and that’s what you give me? I thought better of you,” she said in mockery.
“Well, sorry to disappoint you, Crow-face,” he said without even so much as a sideways glance.
She felt the anger almost making her blind. She was far from a crow’s appearance. She took after her mother, who, half of their neighborhood agreed, was one of the prettiest people to walk the earth.
“Wait,” he said in a second, turning away from the ceiling in one swift motion. “Did you just say you have my bracelet imprinted on your wrist?”
“Tsk. You hear pretty well for a baker.” She put her arm up for show.
He squinted at it, clearly recognizing the size and the meanders of the curved letter. He pulled on his sleeve to expose the original, and kept looking from it to her hand, and then back. “No way,” he whispered. “When… How…?”
“At assembly,” she provided, and watched his eyes squint at something above her head. Probably just taking a trip down memory lane, she thought. His reaction just a second later left her reeling for solid ground. His eyes widened in horrific realization, as if she were some sort of unbeatable monster he had summoned up. She felt as though she had found a lead to whatever was happening, but could not quite grasp it; as she closed her fist around it, it disintegrated like smoke.
She saw ripples in the water again, and focused her eyes on the water with minimal movement. There was definitely something under the water. She was only vaguely aware of his hand grasping her wrist.
“What’s that?” she said, her voice quiet and wary. He turned to face the water as if struck by an electric shock. They sat there, motionless, afraid that something would go wrong if they moved. A humongous burst of water made the hairs on their hands and the backs of their necks stand on end.
A submarine floated on the water.
Hi back for ch4 finally!
I like the spider as something to focus on. It not only provides a visual, I guess you could call it setting, but it gives a jumping off point for introspection, too. And I liked the contrast of how she shrugs off Ronnie and instead thinks about what her friends would be doing at that moment. I also like that we're getting more pieces of the puzzle.
The memory of Ronnie bumping into her felt a tiny bit retconned. I can see how it might be giving away too much to say it in the prologue, but I think a good compromise would be to put in the prologue that "someone" shoved into her, without her seeing who it is. Then you have a good event you can call back to and we'll be like "oh yeah that did happen!" and then the reveal that it was Ronnie will be like connecting some dots.
There are a few typos and things, but I thought I would comment on this one: " Nothing could live in that water, the algae took up all the sunlight and oxygen." That comma should be a semicolon; semicolons are used to separate two related statements that could stand as sentences on their own
"His reaction just a second later left her reeling for solid ground." - I try to be careful about the order of cause and effect. I know sometimes people use statements to preface the description, to give it a kind of emotional context (even published famous authors), but it doesn't always work for me. I kind of feel like if the thing that's being described floors the main character, the description should be flooring in and of itself. Something to think about, I suppose.
Overall I'd say your writing is quite good. Good enough that you're past little problems like verb choices or not enough sentence variation or big infodumps. The thing that came to mind for me while reading this chapter was, "This needs to be tightened." Which is such a subtle, hard to describe thing... I'm not sure I can point out much in the way of specific examples. Right now the writing is smooth, but you could make it even better. It seems like often more words are used to say something than are needed, and a lot of places could be trimmed and tightened. The more efficient you are, the faster of a read it is; it feels like we cover more ground more quickly, even though the same things are being said.
Let's see... "She remembered itching the exact same spot in the morning when a student assembly was called, as well as when she was sucked out of the building on her way to the bathroom." That's a lot of words, eh? I don't know if I can make it better, but quicker maybe: "She'd itched that same spot at the morning assembly, and again right before she'd been sucked out of the building." It's only a small difference but it's 20 words down from 33. Imagine if you did that in a lot of places, it would really add up and sharpen the pace. Descriptions are probably the biggest areas to look at for tightening. You could drop any details that seem superfluous, but I guess what I'm really talking about it is rewording things to be more concise without changing the essence of what's said.
A submarine is a pretty unexpected turn of events! Be careful about ending up like the show Lost, where instead of resolving anything they just distract you with a new weird and interesting development. But for now I'll buy into it for another chapter
Cheers and happy writing!
Hi there! Noelle back again for another Review Day review!
I'm all caught up now! Go me
Lizzy rested her chin on a wrist and propped up the elbow on a knee, and watched a spider crawl up a thread of spider web too thin to see with the naked eye.
No, said a voice inside her. No, he isn’t as bad as that. You know it.
And I am back for more
Lizzy rested her chin on a wrist and propped up the elbow on a knee,
but she saw it nonetheless;(, and she) forced herself to keep her eyes on it.
The last thing she wanted to see was the face of the boy who insulted her at every word she uttered.
No, said a voice inside her. No, he isn’t as bad as that. You know it.
How would she know? She did not know. Except, every time she thought of Ronnie as a kid who did not deserve to be among them, she heard her mother’s voice telling her, “Sometimes the sidekick is more valuable. Nut the world just doesn’t care.”
Mira was sure to be meeting up with the kids from the other homerooms, gathering and absorbing any information in general. She would be traipsing the lobby, tracking down teachers and asking for last minute tips. She had seemed very confident about today’s quiz in particular. And Jenna was possibly still doing some last minute cramming at her desk, where Lizzy had left her. She had probably gathered up a bunch of things Lizzy was supposed to explain to her before the quiz started, and was wondering what was taking her so long in the bathroom. Lizzy felt a growing sense of guilt. She had left Jenna hanging, so to speak. Who knew how long it would take to get back.
She pulled at the left hood string and began to twirl it between her fingers, and that was when shenoticed the scarred tissue of the back of her right wrist.
It was a scrape-scar.
She could not believe she not noticed the blood before.
When had it come out? More importantly, she could tell this was not something trivial, buthow had she not even noticed that she had scraped her skin?
She did not know at once why she remembered that particular moment, butshe recalled one of the other girls from her class jeering at her, and when she looked around she had seen Ronnie in line right next to her. On her right.
She did, in fact, have a mild case of OCD, and could not bear to have any of her hands were sticky on any side for more than an hour. How?
Was the sky really only a hallucination, though?
She tried to keep from thinking too much about it, and took to cleaning her scar with a nail instead. IT came off in tiny pieces of scab.
She was almost done and her eyesight detected Ronnie hunching further, still staring at the ceiling.
“What are you trying to communicate to that slab of concrete, Baker?” she asked.
She finally let annoyance take control of her sarcasm.
She felt the anger almost making her blind. She was far from a crow’s appearance. She took after her mother, who, half of their neighborhood agreed, was one of the prettiest people to walk the earth.
His reaction just a second later left her reeling for solid ground.(But then) His eyes widened in horrific realization,
as if she were some sort of unbeatable monster he had summoned up. She felt as though she had found a lead to whatever was happening, but could not quite grasp it; as she closed her fist around it, it disintegrated like smoke.
and focused her eyes on the water with minimal movement.
Points: 396
Reviews: 22
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