Brinda stared down at her muddy reflection, watching as each tiny ripple tore through her once flawless face. She pulled back the stray strands of long brown hair that hung loose around her shoulders, framing her face and setting alight her large Hazel eyes. She tentatively placed a finger to her cheek, rubbing softly at an angry red graze
Pain throbbed through her and she pulled her hands away in fright, holding them in front of her to examine the bright red substance that had been smeared across each frail finger.
She straightened up and wiped them clean with the hem of her heavy black school skirt before smoothing it down, smiling sadly at her image in the dirty puddle and sniffing quietly. The soft sound seemed to vibrate through the still and silent overgrown bush, pounding in her head as she continued, almost lazily down the narrow dirt track.
Her cheek burned intensely and both knees felt as if they may dissolve if she walked any further. Brinda slipped off the track, an old bushman’s trail, she suspected and headed down a dry stream.
Grass and flax scratched at her bare arms as she desperately searched for a place to rest. The once dazzling and appealing green of the bush had churned to an ugly and evil, darker than the hearts of the forever condemned, deep in the pits of hell.
Mud coated her heavy black shoes and caked on her ankles, weighing her down as she crashed through the dense undergrowth. Brinda cursed her school for the every-faithful uniform, which she knew was unfair, nobody had the slightest idea that she would be battling for her life, crashing through the scrub when she should be sitting an algebra exam!
She finally came to rest under a large Kauri tree, falling to the ground like a mistreated rag doll and pushing her body close to its base, its sturdy trunk a security blanket, supporting her and shielding her from the rest of the world.
Brinda lifted her head heavenward, her hair catching on the rough tree bark and her sink ached for the warm kiss of sunlight. A large canopy for trees hid the sun and its twisting rays, filling Brinda with the icy chill of darkness.
She pulled her arms inside her light blue blouse, once again cursing the school, sleeveless summer shirts, Why? She found little warmth under the thin cotton and drew her knees toward her chest, pulling her shirt over them and folding herself into a warm embrace.
Her lips parted slowly as she whispered the words from a familiar song, shattering the bone chilling silence. She closed her eyes in concentration as the words became harder to retrieve from her memory.
“And the birds of prey, they fly,
An expectant Mother lies down to cry,
The first night of war, yet to see its dawn,
Yet a woman left behind has reason to mourn.”
Brinda regretted ignoring all the warning, all the rumours spread through the school yard. The war would never catch up with a minuscule allotment of land, deep in the Pacific Ocean yet here it was. The Buen war had sprung upon New Zealand, an eager dog set upon an unclaimed bone.
She shut her eyes once more and conjured an image of her family. Her younger sister Liana’s curly brown hair and sea green eyes flashed before her, that cheeky gap-tooth grin as always planted on her facer and her puggish up –turned nose was turned up in the air, a constant reminder of how head –strong and proud Liana could be.
Brinda and Liana had been the best of friends since, when Brinda was three her Mother held Liana’s blotchy pink face against her own and whispered.
“She’s your baby sister, keep her from harm and love her unconditionally, Liana is a blessing”
Brinda sniffed and blinked back the tears, ‘keep her from harm’ how could she do so if she had no clue where she was? She threw her head backwards, hitting the tree with an all-mighty crack and making her cry out in pain.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,814 Reviews
Wow, i just found this and I'm working on editing and adding more, will keep you posted on my progress.
Oooh, excellent!
I knew it was too good to be...untrue.
Just please, for the love of God, let us know next time.
Sam ma' darling there is more to come! Im hoping to turn this into a novel so hold on for a few days and you will get the next part!
This piece...
AS WRITING: Very, very excellent.
AS A SHORT STORY: Horrible.
WHY?
At the end of the story, we're not quite sure who this girl is, where she is, and why she's there. We don't have enough information about her to care what happened to her throughout, which is a shame, with such a well-written story. However, if you do want to use this particular bit, save it for when you're writing a longer story and we can find out a lot more about Brinda.
I cant believe i said pudding! just to clarify...i was writing near dinner time!
You said 'pudding in her head' on the last line of the third paragraph, sorry for not putting that before.
Hey Hannah! Great to see another story!
She pulled back the stray strands of long brown hair that hung loose around her shoulders, framing her face and setting alight her large Hazel eyes. She tentatively placed a finger to her cheek, rubbing softly at an angry red graze
This needs punctuation at the end.
The once dazzling and appealing green of the bush had churned to an ugly and evil, darker than the hearts of the forever condemned, deep in the pits of hell.
Heh heh.. Metephors! (sp) Well.. I think.
The Buen war had sprung upon New Zealand, an egger dog set upon an unclaimed bone.
Um.. It's eager.
She threw her head backwards, hitting the tree with an all-mighty crack and making her cry out in pain.
I don't really think you need the and here, but that's just me.
This is interesting. I like it. You have lots of nice discriptions. Are you going to write more on this?
Yeah, I agree with Dammer, this is really good with a few minor things needing some light editing.
muddled. You do this a lot, leave off just one letter at the end. Its not deliberate but it is a consistent mistake, again some light editing should fix that up.
Apart from that and similar little errors this is really quite good, very nicley written.
Thanks for that, i was worried nobody would crit! um firstly where did i say
Because it does scare me that i didnt even notice i had said it and no, its not just you it doesnt make any sense!
This is cool, it leaves you thinking. A few points though;
You say 'smiling sadly at her image in the dirty puddle' then say 'headed down a dry stream.' This doesn't seem to work, why would there be a puddle when the stream is dry? You also say 'Mud coated her heavy black shoes' which wouldn't be the case if it was dry, her shoes would be coated in dust.
'pudding in her head'. This doesn't make sense to me although it could be because you live in a different country and there are some languge differences.
'Brinda slipped off the track, an old bushman’s trail, she suspected and headed down a dry stream.' you can remove the commas from this sentence but saying prehaps 'Brinda slipped of the track onto what she suspected was an old bushmans trail before heading down a dry stream' - or make up something yourself.
'The once dazzling and appealing green of the bush had churned to an ugly and evil, darker than the hearts of the forever condemned, deep in the pits of hell.' In this I think you need to change the word 'churned' to something else, it's not quite the right word for the sentence. I also think the second part of the sentence need rethinking.
'an egger dog' you misspelt 'egger', it should be eager.
when using a hyphen between linked words you don't put a space between the either of he words and the hyphen.
Other than that it's it's a really good start to a story and as i said before, you add a certain amount of mystery to the plot.
Looking foward to reading more!