Prologue:
Finally. It is my turn.
Hovering thirty thousand meters above the earth, I stood silently in the shower of the rising dawn light, which immersed my unfurled wings, lent me warmth, and led my spirits towards a great unknown. Vast clouds of nebulous emotions stirred my mind into chaos. I closed my eyes, and fell into a state of tranquil weariness as I give my soul to the heavens.
Could it have been only a few years ago?
My prided sword, drenched in the golden blood of my foe, fell. Its serrated edges sliced through my fingers as it tumbled into the crimson stretch of humanity.
The world transformed into a maelstrom. A shattered mirror whose broken pieces shot into my body and soul.
The azure sky merged with the clouds, which in turn blurred into the darkness. The only colour I could see was my iridescent blood—the sacred blood born from unity and sacrifice— slowly exuding from the wounds of battle. I felt my cheeks lift into a slight, rigid smile.
It is time.
As I slowly shut my eyes from the perpetual shades of grey, glazed images of those whom I loved, of those whom I hated, of those who died and lived, unfurled in front of my eyes. I surrendered my falling body to the rush of the winds, which first caressed, then grated against my skin as the power of immortality slowly vanished.
…
Thoughts from long ago emerged like an evanescent dream, disappearing as soon they crossed the numb mind. It was worse than taking a sip from Lethe River, the cursed water of oblivion.
The hours of dawn burned me; its power torn through my flesh as I craned my head, for the last time, towards the sun.
As I embraced the light, darkness welcomed me.
***
Chapter 1
5:32 PM, October 21, 2019.
Ten thousand meters above the Atlantic Ocean.
I gazed out of the polished window, staring blankly into the edgeless blue sky. It was clear, except for the occasional cloudy outlines far away.
What a good birthday gift.
My hand glided over the marble surface of the seat lining, back and forth in a repetitive motion; the coolness was soothing to my calloused finger. With the other, I squeezed the fringes of the gold-threaded cushion and watched it mold obediently under my grasp. I rested my head on it contently.
The lavender scented air swirled and blew softly in my face, as gentle as a mother caressing her child. I sunk further into the comfort of the seat and dozed off into a deep slumber.
I dreamed of nothing. It is that moment of blissful silence where nothing but warmth surrounds your body and soul. Time seems to go on and on until an airport attendant tapped me gently on the shoulder.
“Miss. Dawn, the plane is about to land, please secure your seatbelt.” She bowed like a perfect usherette, pulling her cheekbones into a bright smile while not making any effort to hide her distaste at my messy hair and shaggy shirt.
I nodded drowsily. I picked up a bottle of cranberry juice, lifting the cold glass until it pressed against my lips.
To my chagrin the airplane shuddered, and the juice spilled all over my shirt. I dabbed it with a napkin and threw it aside.
Great, now I look like I have blood all over me.
The plane shook a few more times and I felt my ears pop as it began to descend. The pilot’s calm voice sounded through the radio. We have reached the London Heathrow airport.
As soon as the seatbelt light went off, I rushed up to get my luggage, which had its special little area on the side of the plane. The attendant hurried towards me and asked if I need any assistance. I shook my head and yawned loudly.
Still, she reached her hand out expectantly, palm up, head bowed. I raised an eyebrow, and walked passed her without a second glance.
I heard the attendant grumble something about cheap people, good fortune, and no tips. I shrugged and walked out of the plane.First impression: Very rare weather for London.
The chauffeur was already there when I arrived. The weather was beautiful, unlike the foggy city I left eight years ago. I looked out the dark window with reminiscence. The ageless architectures were as grand as always, perhaps a few more stains here and there, but nothing much.
The traffic was slow. My eyebrows furrowed at the cacophony of impatient car horns. I forced my ears to shut out the noise, but it didn't work. Soon, the sound dragged into an unrecognizable drone as I dozed off into a small nap. When I woke, the golden sun had begun to descend down the horizon.
London was so different, yet its beauty was the same. The spires of distant churches were a lovely shade of red, and their glass windows became a beautiful rainbow in the setting sun.
Then, my wondering eyes froze.
Right there, in front of the St.Paul’s Cathedral, stood an elegant couple who were about to get on a fancy, black limousine. I couldn't see their faces clearly, but the woman was probably in her thirties, with flowing brunette hair and a dazzling white fox-fur overcoat. The man was very handsome with a look of maturity and intelligence. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder gently, both of them gazing at the fading sunset before disappearing into the car. This image would’ve looked beautiful to anyone.
The man was my father; rather, he resembled my father.
No, there was no way. I haven’t seen him for eight years, there is no way he would still look the same as he did when I was young. After all, it could be a random man hugging a random woman whom I don’t even know. I forced my eyes away.
Ten minutes passed by in silence and then I am here. The place of my childhood; the cache of my memories, my mother, my home. It was a grand, Roman-styled mansion with high white arches, majestic spiraling pillars, and ornate wooden doors. Though it was first built in the 19th century, it has gone through so many furnishings since then that it remained an awe-inspiring infrastructure composed of modern convenience and entrancing antiquity.
The structure was incredibly detailed. Images and abstruse symbols were carved into its walls. No one knew what they meant, but they had a unique charm. I recalled Mother telling me a story about a worker who tried to paint over the symbols. Somehow, the paint always disappeared by the following morning.
Greeneries surrounded the three-story house, ranging from a well-tended vegetable garden to a beautiful Chinese-styled garden.
A paved pathway with overhanging wisteria branched into various routes throughout the gardens. Occasional pavilions were intermittently placed for guests to enjoy the views. The mansion was surrounded by thick walls with tactically installed electric wires on the top. There were four steel gates in total, the larger two as the main and back entrances, while the other two more concealed ones are used for more trivial purposes like grocery shopping.
It was beautiful, but it seemed so…foreign. The sadness I had hoped to suppress surged out no where. Of course, nothing is the same anymore. The two stone lions guarding the front gate sighed in unison with me.
I walked up to the gate, and before I could push the door bell, the steels bars creaked open.
That was weird.
I pushed open the grand gate swiftly and stepped in. The wisteria caressed my face as my hair flew behind me in the twilight breeze. I inhaled deeply, indulging in the untainted scent of nature. It took a minute of walking before I came to an intersection that split into four smaller routes. To the left was the old water garden, dotted with white and pink lotus in full bloom. A Chinese water wheel was churning softly in the miniature lake. Vibrant, frisky koi darted from here to there, hiding between large stones that surrounded the water.
To the right was a completely different view. It was a paradise consisting of oceans of beautiful flowers planted in intricate terraces. There were lavender, lilies, and dahlias…. Even though I have seen those flowers countless times before, they looked different somehow. I laughed at my stupidity; of course, there is no way those flowers could be the same after so many years. Then, I noticed something different. The center of the garden was originally filled with my mother’s favourite flowers: peonies, calla lilies, and lilacs. But those were gone. Instead, a heart-shaped patch of regal roses waved their thorns at me.
I hurried towards the main door, mentally preparing myself to scold the person that made the changes. I looked down at my faded jeans and fumbled in my pockets for the right key. I inserted it into the silver socket and turned.
It opened.
The first thing I saw in the entrance hall was a girl in a flowing white dress, lolling dreamily on the leather sofa opposite to a glossy grand piano. She had flowing dark brown hair that cascaded down to her waist, and her perfectly milky complexion contrasted nicely with her onyx necklace. My eyes widened in surprise, and as my sneakers clicked clumsily on the marble floor, she twisted her head toward me.
She had a light, diamond-shaped birthmark on her forehead. Her features were not perfect; in fact, they gave her an unwelcoming, fierce expression that undoubtedly made her socially unwelcomed. Her eyes, though, made her beautiful. They were as bright and lively as glittering stars on a moonless night, yet were paradoxically full of maturity—eyes that have seen too much. But the face meant more than that to me, it is the most familiar but strangest face a person can ever see.
I saw me.
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hey there.
First off, I like your use of imagery, but I think you went over the top with your description. You use a lot of unnecessary, big words, and as a result, you make the prose rather overpowering to read. I can tell you are aiming for a calm, serene sort of setting, but you need to choose your words more carefully if you want that effect to fully take place.
I also wished it was more grounded with reality. It's a bit too abstract at the moment. It is unclear as to where the protagonist is going, what her plans are or what this world is like. Colorful prose doesn't mean much if we don't know exactly the direction of this piece.
Hope this helped.
Andy.
Hi CookieO!
Good start to an epic story, I can visualise the beautiful imagery you are painting here. I agree with Stella, so I won't get into the details of that ... except maybe to point out that not all your readers will be writers, so you run a risk of alienating them if you throw too many big words at them all at once.
I have several comments, so bear with me!
I suggest you try not to introduce terms like this:
when you are not going to be able to explain them right away. Unless Lethe is someone or something that will be a major part of the story, and you will talk about it in the very next chapter, most readers will immediately forget you ever mentioned it. (You've left no clues as to whether it's a thing or person or place - you used "from Lethe" whereas if you said "of Lethe" it would narrow it down a bit, giving an image of a liquid)
Generally I have my reservations about first person stories. My number one pet peeve is that you can read an entire scene, like yours, and not even know the gender of the character. Especially at a post-dramatic moment like this, it's unrealistic to have them describing their own appearance... nonetheless, your character is still a fuzzy blob in my mind surrounded by a pretty sky. Other than male/female, questions I had unanswered were: wings or no wings? Young looking or old? (more difficult to tell with an immortal character, I don't just assume they look young) Unique identifying traits? I mean possibly something that will make us remember the character without necessarily being told a name or full description (think Harry Potter's scar). Something that makes this character stand out not just from mortals, but from other immortals too. This is important at this point because a prologue usually sits apart from the main story flow, and can often be referred to again only much later. If by chapter 5 we have forgotten the description of your prologue character, we may not tie them together when you bring them back into the storyline. That would be nothing short of a disaster.
I don't understand the break near the end, I feel it's unnecessary. It seems you wanted to separate the text into two sections, but it looks to be the same scene. The lines at the ends of the two sections seem repetitive:
It seems like the character is dying twice, because each of these lines has a tone of finality. An easy fix, if your intention is to show the gradual progress of his/her death, is to change the first line to "...as my immortality slowly began to vanish". But this would weaken the writing, so make your decision carefully.
Other possible accuracy issues - I'm not sure how high 30 thousand feet is, but if it is above most clouds, no matter whether it is midday over the Sahara, it will be freezing cold up there because of the thin atmosphere. That's one of the main reasons you can't roll down a window on a flight.
As a prologue, you need to make sure it has the "hook" that pulls a reader into your story. Edit it as many times as you need to because the beginning is the most important part. You may even reconsider whether you even want to start at this point - but you know your story best, only you can judge.
AH thank you SO much for the comprehensive review. The things you pointed out are totally correct. I will try to make it as better as possible!
(But that's like, the very very end of the novel)
By the way, the immortality part, it was more a reference to a temporary invincibility
Hi there Cookie!
the word choice of "Levitating" annoys me, because that means they've risen thirty thousand metres. Hovering maybe?
Okay, reading further into this prologue I realised what I think is the problem! It sounds a bit like you've used a thesaurus to write it. It's what we call "purple" prose- when you're trying to impress us with your vocabulary and trying to construct sentences that are just too pretty to work.
Like, let's just take this sentence as an example:
"The azure sky became tainted with grey as the clouds merged into the darkess"
now, I love those words. But you're describing too much. We know if the sky goes grey it's because of clouds, and it gets dark. You don't need all this description. It's forced. No matter how nice each bit is, the sum of the parts is less than each part combined.
You don't want your readers to think that you used a thesaurus. Do you use the words "phantasmagorical" and "maelstrom" both in a sentence in conversation? Probably not. You probably don't use either, but this is literature not conversation, so one is okay. Two is just awkard. Also it's not getting any point across. The point is lost in the prose.
The tip is just to relax. Write the story in the best way you can. Don't worry about impressing readers with your words- words are just tools. You want to impress us with your tone and your characters and your story and your symbolism and your style. We're assuming that, as a writer, your vocabulary is broad. You don't have to prove anything.
Other than that, this was intriguing, I wonder how this prologue will link into the actual story!
Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!
-Stella x
Hey Stella! Thanks so much for the review. Actually, I am glad you pointed out the usage of big vocab...I sort of wanted to create this sage, deep kind of poetic atmosphere. I promise that the rest of the novel is way more casual, haha
Thanks a lot though!