Two humans stood arguing in front of the large rectangular building. Beards stretching down to strong chests and lungs. The polar bear fur hoods covering most of their unshaven faces, their eyes lifeless-they held no sparkle in this dreary grey-white expanse. I was reminded of myself, since I had no soul. Yet, these humans obviously had one, so why did they seem so dead?
I watched the humans banter, their voices harsh from the environment, and touched down slowly while dropping my head inch by inch..
"We need to find Roger and his gang, Bill. They have an over-due catch, so they had better show up soon."
"I know, I know. What is keeping them.. What's that?" His voice quieted at the end, like he was expecting someone. I didn't move a muscle for a tense moment.
"No one's there, Bill! We need to find them, there's a blizzard coming!" His voice came out annoyed and desperate.
"William.. You're right. I worry though.." His words continued to fade as he spoke. The men looked at each other in the eyes, seeming to speak without saying any words. I do not understand humans. I do know that the one I am protecting was hurt, and that I must look out for her. Why? Even I do not understand, but for some reason watching an.. innocent.. get hurt was too much for me.
As I stood musing, I had flapped my wings in concentration, gathering the attention of the humans below me. This time, they seemed to understand my presence, that I was there. I need to reveal my presence now. Somehow I had to communicate with them. I spoke with words they had used before,
"William.. Bill... I need to find them. Roger... No one's there." They looked up at me, their jaws dropping while they stared at my gleaming teeth. Their faces turned pale when they looked down though, for some reason. Bill, the one who had first noticed me, spoke first after a few minutes passed, very softly,
"You.. You killed Roger? A-And the rest of them..?" ending in an angry tone, though emanating fear. At this remark I seemed to find words from inside, almost like I could feel my human's feelings. I stared at the polar bear's corpses, lifeless and dead. I looked down at my claws, now stained a maroon red from the battle with Roger and his men. I laughed, not because I thought something was funny.. but because I was irritated with Bill's question.
"And you killed them, didn't you?" I nodded my head in the direction of the pile of polar bear corpses.
"That's different!!" His voice escalated. William joined in, "That was work. Don't confuse the two--work and friends! Those were our friends! They didn't do anything to you!" I stood there silently, watching them vent, knowing that their reasoning was faulty-they didn't know what their friends had done to my human. I felt anger then for the first time. I snorted at their pitiful threats. Laughing coldly, I talk clearly and smoothly,
"How funny it is that you humans make these assumptions without knowing what your friends have done. They have hurt my friend-they shot her. I had my vengeance by killing the men who wished to kill her. You call the deed of the dead work, then? I am really confused by men's ideals. Some friends you humans make. So here's the actual deal: You help me get to your leader and allow me to kill him, or you die. Simple choice, so choose now."
~Retribution~
The humans decided to help me after all. I stood outside the doors to the building which their leader stayed in. I got the signal that they had done their part--which was to move out all the men who were tired of the job and to convince their leader to come out and 'deal' with a rogue man of the expedition. He opens the doors and stares out into the polar expanse with a confused expression glued on his scarred face.
This human was ugly in more than one sense and absolutely disgusted me. His scent was revolting, emanating of fear and blood. The blood was mixed up of both polar bears and humans, left as brown splotches on his clothes like a trophy. The white of his polar bear fur jacket showed it brilliantly. Not only that, but he had a different weapon of choice than the other men-a shotgun-whereas Roger and his men had rifles. This suggests that he stood close up to give suffering to his opponents.
As I figured he could not see me right away, I flapped my wings slowly back and forth in a show of intimidation.
"How?.." Was all the human managed for awhile. Finally, after some time, he spoke to me, "What do you want illusion?" aiming his query at my maroon claws, as they stood out among the white expanse.
I took some time to find an answer. "You are the tyrant here, correct?" I ignored his comment about being an illusion, for I can only assume he meant it as an insult to the fact that I blend in with the Arctic. Still, I found myself snorting in protest in effect to my human's emotions. From inside I heard a soft voice.. You are not fake.. -tanic.. You are real.. The human merely stood there, silently puzzled at my reaction. After a moment or two of silence, he seemed to regain his composure.
"You annoy me, beast. State your purpose here, and then I will kill you for the trick you have pulled by killing my men or swaying their loyalty. Did someone hire you? Are you merely a weak boy, projecting a dangerous figure, hiding behind his daddy?" His pathetic insults weren't felt by me. My thoughts were elsewhere, as the smell of the dead continued to waft into my nostrils, slowly enraging me into a state beyond calming. I froze in place in time, remembering.. all the horrible things this man has done... the smells stained on his soul... the oppression his hands wielded upon bears and men. Wedding trains of blood forever sewn into vivid memory...
A monster. I roared in fury at the insolence.. the oppression--the devilish acts! I reached my claws out towards him, picturing the red eyes and streaming tears coming from the human I must protect before I took over.. and was brought back to the present, watching as he pulled out a shotgun...
And fired.
~Now he had left a proper blood trail. Now, he was an equal to the polar bears.~
End of chapter
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137,476 Literary Works • 672,034 Reviews
I'm very busy today, so this may be the only thing I will get to reviewing today.
This was definitely a powerful chapter, to say the least. I'm going to go over a few nitpicks with your verb tense changes first.
This paragraph, the first one, seemed to have the most problems. It's almost as if you got more into the flow of writing as you continued with the chapter. Be sure to carefully proofread from the beginning to the end before submitting a chapter, fixing things that don't sound right and playing around with sentences that don't flow as well.
I also found that you used the multiple periods (...) frequently in your dialogue, but most of the time you only used two periods (which you do in texting a lot too
That's all for nitpicks. Just be careful to edit through your essay with a fine tooth comb! I know you know a good sentence from a bad one, you just need to look for them.
I really like where you stopped this chapter, leaving us with a despicable cliffhanger that makes us want to turn the page... But since this is a site known as the Young Writers Society and most books are works in progress, those cliffhangers are oftentimes all the more despicable when we realize the author hasn't completed the next chapter yet. Curse you, cliffhangers!
I'm still rather confused with the plot of this book because it's just so different than what I've ever read before. If this is indeed Earth, why don't the other people seem that surprised by the appearance of a dragon, particularly the polar bear hunter leader? I wouldn't think these guys are accustomed to seeing a giant arctic dragon everyday.
Like I've said before, work on the main character's inner thoughts a little big more, and try to relate things back to the real world so your readers can have a better understanding of what's going on. How? Have your MC think back on the old days, when she was a teacher. It seems odd that she's never even really thought about her days as a human since she's been a shapeshifter.
But otherwise, I really enjoyed this chapter! You did a pretty awesome job. I have to leave now so I apologize for the smaller length of this review, but I hope to talk with you more about your book in person instead. Keep up the great writing!
Thanks again for all your help. I will go back and do my best to edit everything, and any PMs from you, @Wolfare1 or anyone else, with specific editing ideas would be very appreciated
Actually, *sigh* it's hard to explain, but Titanic is soulless. When a soul receives a name, they become stronger.Titanic is the teacher, but since he has so much mass, it takes a lot of strength from the teacher to shape shift into him. Titanic is soulless, unlike other forms. Other forms have had a previous life and which they then died. That dead animal is being borrowed to traverse Earth by the teacher. That means they have a soul. So those animals have the ability to speak as they are fully developed compared to Titanic. Titanic freed himself from the support structure of the tower and became his own shape. Since he has no soul, he will continue to feed off of the human's emotions(the teacher's) and take her soul for his own. Thats what the shadow conscious in the teacher's head was explaining. This all seems dreadfully boring to put into the story so I haven't integrated it yet. I started this story when I was fourteen, so it's still a bit childish in some places 
however, I will work on it. I want to keep my story my own, though inspired from other's works. That's why I have difficulty with expressing plot sometimes. I will work on foreshadowing as it seems to be a weak point and only one person mentioned tense switches, so I'll take a look at that. Thanks for all the support everyone, and please keep reviewing my works all you like 
Hey, Cynder!
The first paragraph there is has a really strange formatting, adding in these kind of end-of-sentence-tag-ons as their own sentence. It makes for a really choppy feel and a less powerful sentence fragment, because we expect there to be something else there, but just cuts off and moves on.
As Dracula did point out, there are some spots that aren't quite as strong as they could be, weakened with weak adjectives and adverbs and the like. Be careful of those and try to look for stronger words so that exactly what you mean comes across in the writing and we're not left floundering in what's happening.
Another thing that doesn't seem very consistent is how titanic was speaking (and I'm trying to understand what he is. Is he a dragon? Where's he come from? I thought he was the tower, but apparently not. But he sure does serve the teacher trapped inside the tower as she tells her tale.) At first he spoke slowly and uncertainty, it even said he only used words the men he heard used. Then it went on and that changed. What changed? How did he gain knowledge of these words? Did he just feel them? Perhaps from his master? It's a little odd to me.
(Oh, and there was a lot of tense change here, so I'm not sure if it's in accident or if you can't decide which one to go with? I'd read back through this and look for those kinds of spots, so things stay consistent.)
This is supposed to be set in the modern world, isn't it? How come these people are completely unfazed by this dragon/beast-thing. Well, modern, but Sci-Fi ish. Dragons aren't really in there, and it's cool to see, just the reacts don't seem like they should be. Why is he not terrified by this giant thing talking to him and wanting to kill him... >.> (I totally didn't notice the illusion part. But, I'm still kind of confused about this world. How does one project an illusion in the wasteland that is the arctic? What kind of technology is there?)
I also didn't really get the last line. Uh... Which he was being talked about? I assume titanic... *shrinks* It's an interesting last line, but I'm just hopelessly confused. (I blame lack of sleep).
Anyways, I really enjoyed seeing this other perspective here, and learning a lot more about the teacher and how titanic works. In the end, I'm assuming he ignore his master for a moment to try and kill this man, and the bullet may have bounced off? I don't know. But, I'm curious to find out ^^
Keep on Writing,
~Wolfare~
Hey, Cynder! The chapter was action packed and I found your story very interesting. Now to review it. Well, I have a few nitpicks, but nothing major.
I was reminded of me, since I had no soul. Yet, these humans obviously had one, so why did they seem so dead?
I was reminded of me doesn't sound right. I suggest you use myself instead of me.
"No one's there, Bill! We need to find them, there's a blizzard coming!" His voice came out annoyed and desperate.
I do this all the time, but you should try and swap annoyed and desperate for a more powerful word. For example, instead of saying he said loudly, I would say he yelled.
Finally, after some time, he spoke to me, "What do you want illusion?"
His speech needs a comma somewhere, read through it and decide where.
~Now he had left a proper blood trail. Now, he was an equal to the polar bears.~
The last line is genius, I feel like you must have planned that from the start.
Those mistakes I mentioned are the only things I found wrong. Like I said at the start, your chapter was action packed, and the story world also seemed supernatural and magical. I enjoyed reading it, keep continuing your story.
Thanks so much! I will edit it, certainly. I'm glad you enjoyed it:)