The Twin guardians

This day is a day i have prayed never to come. Dark clouds fill the sky making it at noon as black as midnight. The great world cities twist together like weeds. It's become impossible to tell were New York and Paris end and where Tokyo and London begin. Big Ben and the Eiffel tower stand side by side as the Empire State Building looms over them both. But the epicenter of the madness is Liberty Island were Tokyo tower has penetrated the grand lady as easily as if she were a common streetwalker. And at the top of the twisted monuments stands the fiend responsible for the travesty which has befallen the world. His unholy minions surround me, my sword of light my only defense. It glows with the power of heaven in it's holy blade. With it i hack through the demonic spawn as if they were mere fodder and to me they are. My eyes lie not on these grotesque underlings but on their sinister master. A man who reads from a book of darkness and conducts the winds of apocalypse to tear through the world like a hurricane. He revels in the death and destruction he causes, to him this chaos is the natural state of the world. He is a true monster whose purpose is to destroy all of creation. He is my brother, and everything else that he has become is my responsibility. God, how did it all come to this?

***

Five years earlier.

I remember how it all began, when we were so much younger. We naively believed that each man carved his own destiny. We wanted to carve ours together as brothers. We were twins, identical down to the birthmarks on our butts. We had always done everything together it was only natural that when we graduated high school we wanted to go into business together as well. We each loved cooking and wanted to open our own restaurant.

"going into business is more difficult than you think." Our mother said, "Go to college instead, then start a business." We were too impatient to listen to her. We wanted our success to come quickly and without hard work. "Getting a loan will be easy." I told my brother, "All we have to do is use our natural charm." Our natural charm as it turned out got us kicked out of every bank in town. My brother started to talk about visiting a local loan shark, I warned him against it. "What if he wants to break your legs and breaks mine instead," I joked. But I was seriously worried that he would do something stupid. I had heard a strange rumor about a man who awakened people's destinies. Men would go to this old wizard and return to town having accomplished their life's ambition. My brother and I trekked through the woods at the outskirts of town. He was skeptical of the story but something in my bones told me it was true. We reached the hut at around dusk and the old man stood out front as if he knew we were coming.

"I have waited for this day," he said, turning to enter the ramshackle house.

"You can help us start our business?" My brother asked.

"If it is your destiny." The man replied, "it however is not."

My brother became irate and stormed out of the old man's hut.

"Your just some old nut!" He shouted. "I'm going home."

The old man stepped out after him with a short sword in his hand. As my brother walked toward the tree line the sword flew past his head and stuck in the tree in front of him. My brother turned in shock as the old man laughed. "That sword is your destiny boy.” He said. He then handed me an identical blade. "And this is yours. Twin swords for twin wielders." As I held it in my hand I knew that I possessed a power that I had never dreamt of and that I shared it with my brother.

the old man then returned to his hut and began to close the door. "My time as guardian is over." He said, "The demons of this forest are now free to kill you, unless you can kill them first."

And then we were surrounded by hideous monsters.

***

I have reached the top of the spire and with it my brother. He is not the same man that i remember. He has been twisted into something truly unrecognizable, though we are still as identical as the day we were born. The change that has overtaken him is one on the inside. He has become filled with hate, rage and despair. He does not wish to hand the world over to demons for the sake of being evil, he wishes to do it to regain that which I have taken from him. Even now his eyes burn me with their hatred. To be so hated by your brother whom you love is like being stabbed in the heart by a thousand knives. He draws his sword, the same sword that he received from that old hermit. It is identical to mine save one detail, while my blade is illuminated with the light of heaven his is enshrouded with the darkness of hell. The twin blades clash. A power that was not meant to oppose itself sparks with the fury of divine indignation.

"Stop this madness!" I shout, "I don’t want to fight you."

The hatred in my brother's eyes becomes more focused as he swings his blade wildly. The speed of his movement is so hard to follow that my shoulder is sliced by the demon blade. As my blood splatters onto my brother's face he smiles viciously.

"Did you really believe that you could stop me with words?" He asks. "After what you did, not even your life is enough!"

He's right, I was a fool to try to reason with him. What I did to him was unforgivable, but what he's doing to the world is equally unforgivable. It has become apparent that one of us must die. I caused this madness so it should be me, but that will not stop the destruction my brother is creating. No, in spite of my guilt my brother has to be the one to die. I must kill my brother for becoming the monster that i turned him into.

***

Three Years earlier.

For two years we had battled side by side, driving the darkness away with the combined light of our swords. We were the guardians and nothing could stand in our way. At first we had resented being forced to give up on our dream of running a restaurant together, but in time we came to love the battle. Fate led us around the world, wherever we needed to be the means to be there would come to us effortlessly. More than the adventure of travel there was purpose in what we were doing. Every demon that we killed represented human lives that were being saved. The demons did more than just eat people, they caused sickness, madness and murder. We truly believed that killing these foul beasts was not only right but the most noble action a human being could take. Together we had vowed to rid the world of the demon plague.

I don’t know when exactly it was that he met her. We had gone to Kyoto Japan, the city was absolutely infested. For every demon we killed three more would take it's place. We had only expected to be there a week, four months had passed. When he brought her home to me she seemed like a delicate flower. I was suppressed to learn that she had let him impregnate her, more so to learn that they had married without telling me. My brother always thought I was jealous of her. I wasn’t, I was suspicious of her, she reeked of deception. The longer she stayed with us the weaker our powers became and the more numerous the demons grew. I tried to warn my brother.

"She is somehow responsible for this." I said.

"Your jealousy has made you mad." He replied.

The more time that passed the more certain I became. She was evil, every bone in my body told me that. She had cast some spell on my brother and made him a slave to her will. It was not until she went into labor that I realized what was truly happening. That night lightning filled the sky. It was an electrical storm like none Japan had ever seen. Wailing demons filled the sky like migrating birds. As they passed in front of the blood moon their hideous forms became visible. In the birthing chamber my brother's wife was speaking tongues as she levitated. The oppressive forces in that room were so dense that I felt I could cut them with a knife. My brother had gone to find a doctor but I knew that no doctor could cure the evil that was about to be born into the world. I held my sword in my shaking hand, knowing that I had to do my duty as a guardian. I plunged it into the witch's belly, her scream was earsplitting. The earth shook and the demons in the sky fiercely wailed and bellowed as if the world was ending. Even as the unborn devil was slain my brother's wife assaulted me with her unnatural powers. Quickly I pulled the sword from her stomach and with a swift motion cut off her head. It was then that I saw my brother's horrified face in the doorway. He looked at me for the first time with those burning eyes full of hate. Had he not been so shocked I am certain he would have tried to kill me on the spot. Suddenly and without warning his dead wife's eyes opened up. The eyes were black and demonic and they were starring right at my brother. In a moment of hatred he accepted something evil into his heart, a power of darkness that his wife had once commanded. My brother turned his back on me that day, he left the house that we had shared and walked away. Stopping only long enough to share his hatred of me.

"You are not my brother." He said, "When next we meet I will kill you and this cruel world."

There was nothing I could say to him that would make things right. It was then I understood that he had always known that she was evil but he didn't care. He had let himself be blinded by his love, placing her above both his loyalty to me and his loyalty to the human race. He was aware of the fact that fate had placed he and the woman he loved on opposite sides of the eternal battle between good and evil but was hoping to forge his own fate. I had killed that hope with my own hands, my brother was doomed never to be happy again. He did not simply hate me for killing her but he hated himself for being naive and he hated the world for letting the tragedy take place.

All of this hate led him to the place he is at now. Crossing swords with me in a desperate attempt to destroy reality so that he can rewrite it. The deals he's made to get this far have guaranteed that any reality he creates be a hell on earth.

***

We've dealt each other some serious blows but we continue to fight. I don’t think either of us can last much longer. I can feel both of our powers waning. I destroyed his spell book, that was a smart move but it cost me the fingers on my left hand. My brother is bleeding pretty badly from his side, i must have punctured an organ when I stabbed him. With the book gone reality is slowly returning to normal, but my battle cant end yet. If my brother escapes he will return twice as powerful as he is today. I know that I cant live with killing my brother though, it would turn my soul inside out. My only choice is to give us both peace. I lunge at my brother with my sword, he lunges at me in the same manor. We stab each other, neither of us bothering to block the other's blow. Perhaps he is thinking what I am thinking or perhaps he is thinking that his magic will aid in his survival. Either way this is the end for both of us, I see to it personally. With the last of my strength I push us both over the tower's edge. The last thing I remember is falling and thinking that as we do I see a slight smile on my brother's lips. Peace at last.

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Points: 13816
Reviews: 563

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Wed Jan 20, 2010 1:44 am

Writersdomain wrote a review...

Hai there! WD here, sorry it took me so long. All right. I really like this. I have a huge weakness for elaborate narrators who take joy in telling their story in creative ways, and that's what you have here. I think there are some things you can do to improve this vastly, but I really like this idea and I definitely want to read a new draft of this if you should revise it. So, I'm just going to go through this piece by piece, all right? There are some spelling and grammar things here, but I think you can catch those with a proofread.

This day is a day i have prayed never to come. Dark clouds fill the sky making it at noon as black as midnight. #FF0000 ">The great world cities twist together like weeds. It's become impossible to tell were New York and Paris end and where Tokyo and London begin. Big Ben and the Eiffel tower stand side by side as the Empire State Building looms over them both. But the epicenter of the madness is Liberty Island were Tokyo tower has penetrated the grand lady as easily as if she were a common streetwalker. And at the top of the twisted monuments stands the fiend responsible for the travesty which has befallen the world. His unholy minions surround me, my sword of light my only defense. It glows with the power of heaven in it's holy blade. With it i hack through the demonic spawn as if they were mere fodder and to me they are. My eyes lie not on these grotesque underlings but on their sinister master. A man who reads from a book of darkness and conducts the winds of apocalypse to tear through the world like a hurricane. He revels in the death and destruction he causes, to him this chaos is the natural state of the world. He is a true monster whose purpose is to destroy all of creation. He is my brother, and everything else that he has become is my responsibility. God, how did it all come to this?

I love narrators who talk in this formal but unique way. I have one myself and it's fun. However, one thing you want to keep in mind is even though your narrator is formal and just wants to talk about the story, the reader still needs to connect with your narrator on a human level. It's hard to do with a formal narrator, but sprinkling with the narrator referencing back to himself will help. The more presence the narrator has in his narration, the more the reader will get to know him. So, when you take a second look at this, try to suck the reader in by giving your narrator a stronger presence.

Also, the sentences in red--that is one cool idea. I like it, but it's a mouthful right now and I think if you present it more concisely, it would have more impact.

"going into business is more difficult than you think." Our mother said, "Go to college instead, then start a business." We were too impatient to listen to her. We wanted our success to come quickly and without hard work. "Getting a loan will be easy." I told my brother, "All we have to do is use our natural charm." Our natural charm as it turned out got us kicked out of every bank in town. My brother started to talk about visiting a local loan shark, I warned him against it. "What if he wants to break your legs and breaks mine instead," I joked. But I was seriously worried that he would do something stupid. I had heard a strange rumor about a man who awakened people's destinies. Men would go to this old wizard and return to town having accomplished their life's ambition. My brother and I trekked through the woods at the outskirts of town. He was skeptical of the story but something in my bones told me it was true. We reached the hut at around dusk and the old man stood out front as if he knew we were coming.

This seemed rushed. Your narrator didn't take his time laying this out as much as he does other things, and it feels out of place. I know this is a lot of stuff you're covering here, but try to slow it down and focus it more. Right now it's a bit of a mess of plot points. :wink:

"I have waited for this day," he said, turning to enter the ramshackle house.

"You can help us start our business?" My brother asked.

Whoa, isn't his brother saying both these things? Who's talking here?

My brother became irate and stormed out of the old man's hut.

"Your just some old nut!" He shouted. "I'm going home."

Your narrator seems to drop out here; it doesn't seem like him not to expound on what exactly his irate brother looks like. More detail would make this better.

the old man then returned to his hut and began to close the door. "My time as guardian is over." He said, "The demons of this forest are now free to kill you, unless you can kill them first."

The old man was their guardian? I would think there would be some hint of him before now if he was.

The more time that passed the more certain I became. She was evil, every bone in my body told me that. She had cast some spell on my brother and made him a slave to her will. It was not until she went into labor that I realized what was truly happening. That night lightning filled the sky. It was an electrical storm like none Japan had ever seen. Wailing demons filled the sky like migrating birds. As they passed in front of the blood moon their hideous forms became visible. In the birthing chamber my brother's wife was speaking tongues as she levitated. The oppressive forces in that room were so dense that I felt I could cut them with a knife. My brother had gone to find a doctor but I knew that no doctor could cure the evil that was about to be born into the world. I held my sword in my shaking hand, knowing that I had to do my duty as a guardian. I plunged it into the witch's belly, her scream was earsplitting. The earth shook and the demons in the sky fiercely wailed and bellowed as if the world was ending. Even as the unborn devil was slain my brother's wife assaulted me with her unnatural powers. Quickly I pulled the sword from her stomach and with a swift motion cut off her head. It was then that I saw my brother's horrified face in the doorway. He looked at me for the first time with those burning eyes full of hate. Had he not been so shocked I am certain he would have tried to kill me on the spot. Suddenly and without warning his dead wife's eyes opened up. The eyes were black and demonic and they were starring right at my brother. In a moment of hatred he accepted something evil into his heart, a power of darkness that his wife had once commanded. My brother turned his back on me that day, he left the house that we had shared and walked away. Stopping only long enough to share his hatred of me.

Loooong paragraph. Split it.

All right, I like this a lot. I think you have some things to smooth out, but your narrator has a unique voice and I'm going to encourage you to give him more freedom. Here's what is not quite working about this right now. Your narrator is brilliant; he has a way of telling the story that works wonderfully, but he seems to be lapsing in and out. He has one-moment spotlight speeches and then he just comes out and tells us matter-of-factly what is happening other times. I would think a guy who makes those kind of speeches would pay more attention to some of those details. I think some more details could make this story more powerful. It is fast-paced, but the narrator makes it work; however, I'm not quite feeling the whole emotional scope of it right now. Details and setting your narrator free will help with this.

Also, if this is all your narrator talking, why are you using asterisks to show the passing of time? Right now it's jarring the reader a little bit and, when you have a narrator like yours, time gaps can be crossed with some brilliant prose and you don't have to be so reliant on those asterisks. Tis something to think about trying out as you edit.

So, when, revising, work on detail, give your narrator some more freedom and think about those time gaps. Also, proofread. Again, I did not harp about grammar stuff here, but if you want me to help you proofread, send me a PM and I'd be happy to. :wink:

A very nice idea here. Keep writing! And please PM me if you have any questions or want me to look at another draft.

Points: 1454
Reviews: 7

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Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:04 am

attackedbyleaves wrote a review...

Hi. I'm here to review, as requested. =]

My advice is just to work on punctuation and capitalization, as you have quite a few errors regarding both of those areas throughout the piece. Also, some of the dialogue was awkward to read because of your way of wording everything. For example:

"You are not my brother." He said, "When next we meet I will kill you and this cruel world."

While, technically, this is not incorrect, I feel like it would read much better if you wrote, "'You are not my brother,' he said. 'When next we meet I will kill you and this cruel world.'" That's the way the dialogue I've read is done, so that's the way I think most people expect to see it.

Next, I don't think it really makes sense for the narrator's brother to simply leave and vow revenge after the narrator kills his wife. If someone murdered my wife right in front of me, I would be pretty pissed off and I can almost guarantee you I would at least beat the crap out of them right then and there. From the detail you've given, the narrator's brother was understandably angered by his wife's murder, so I find it hard to believe he wouldn't have just killed him right here, especially now that he's accepted the evil from his late wife. Also, and I'm not certain about this, so don't quote me, but I'm pretty sure that if the brother had been stabbed in an organ he would have died or at least been rendered completely defenseless within minutes, at most, so maybe consider changing "organ" to "artery." With an artery being punctured it's possible he would last a few minutes to keep fighting before shock set in from the blood loss, but the blood loss would be as severe as I think you imagined it being.

The last thing I found is very very minor. I really like the ending; it's a nice way to kill off the villain and save the day without going the cliche route and having the hero win and everything be all happily-ever-after like nothing bad ever happened. But, the narrator says he remembers falling, which implies, to me, that he's telling the story from another location at a later time, implying that he either survived the fall somehow--which I don't think you intended--or he went into an afterlife of some sort to recall his tale. Assuming you weren't going for the afterlife outcome either, I would suggest taking out "remember" and just saying something like, "As we fall, I see a slight smile on my brother's lips."

So, all in all, I liked the premise of this and your writing has definite potential, you just need a bit of fine tuning with the little things.

Points: 1304
Reviews: 6

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Sun Jan 17, 2010 3:51 am

TNOandXadric wrote a review...

This day is a day i have prayed never to come. Dark clouds fill the sky making it at noon as black as midnight. The great world cities twist together like weeds. It's become impossible to tell were New York and Paris end and where Tokyo and London begin. Big Ben and the Eiffel tower stand side by side as the Empire State Building looms over them both. But the epicenter of the madness is Liberty Island were Tokyo tower has penetrated the grand lady as easily as if she were a common streetwalker. And at the top of the twisted monuments stands the fiend responsible for the travesty which has befallen the world. His unholy minions surround me, my sword of light my only defense. It glows with the power of heaven in it's holy blade. With it i hack through the demonic spawn as if they were mere fodder and to me they are. My eyes lie not on these grotesque underlings but on their sinister master. A man who reads from a book of darkness and conducts the winds of apocalypse to tear through the world like a hurricane. He revels in the death and destruction he causes, to him this chaos is the natural state of the world. He is a true monster whose purpose is to destroy all of creation. He is my brother, and everything else that he has become is my responsibility. God, how did it all come to this?

Generally I think this is an interesting premise and it caught my attention, which is hard to do. Although, personally, I don't like villains who are complete monsters or inherently evil or what have you, but that's really a matter of personal preference.
You do have some relatively minor grammatical errors, most notably "I" needs to be capitalized and in "It glows with the power of heaven in it's holy blade." "it's" should be "its".

We were twins, identical down to the birthmarks on our butts.

Note: Identical twins are never actually identical, just similar. I know four sets of them, and they're all quite easy to tell apart. Just because they have the same DNA doesn't mean they're going to look exactly alike or even, say, be the same height.

"going into business is more difficult than you think." Our mother said, "Go to college instead, then start a business."

Capitalize the first world of the sentence. Also, this bit feels a bit awkward, consider rephrasing it. I'd consider something like, "Going into business is more difficult than you think," our mother warned us. "Go to college instead, then start a business."

"Getting a loan will be easy." I told my brother, "All we have to do is use our natural charm."

Comma instead of a period after easy, and then don't capitalize all because it's not a new sentence.

My brother started to talk about visiting a local loan shark, I warned him against it.

Semi-colon, not a comma.
Also, throughout the whole paragraph you need line breaks every time someone new starts talking.

But I was seriously worried that he would do something stupid. I had heard a strange rumor about a man who awakened people's destinies. Men would go to this old wizard and return to town having accomplished their life's ambition. My brother and I trekked through the woods at the outskirts of town. He was skeptical of the story but something in my bones told me it was true. We reached the hut at around dusk and the old man stood out front as if he knew we were coming.

Consider a line break at the end of the first sentence, because you're starting a new idea. Also, the last sentence seems a bit... odd, maybe say they found the old man outside the hut, rather than that he's just standing there.

"I have waited for this day," he said, turning to enter the ramshackle house.

"You can help us start our business?" My brother asked.

"If it is your destiny." The man replied, "it however is not."

My brother became irate and stormed out of the old man's hut.

"Your just some old nut!" He shouted. "I'm going home."

You don't need to capitalize the words after the dialogue. '"You can help us start our business?" my brother asked.' You know?
Also, the old man's dialogue seems a bit weird. I'd change the tense of the first bit, as in "If it was your destiny," the man replied. "However, it is not."
You're instead of Your.

The old man stepped out after him with a short sword in his hand. As my brother walked toward the tree line the sword flew past his head and stuck in the tree in front of him. My brother turned in shock as the old man laughed. "That sword is your destiny boy,” he said. He then handed me an identical blade. "And this is yours. Twin swords for twin wielders." As I held it in my hand I knew that I possessed a power that I had never dreamt of and that I shared it with my brother.
The old man then returned to his hut and began to close the door. "My time as guardian is over," he said. "The demons of this forest are now free to kill you, unless you can kill them first."

And then we were surrounded by hideous monsters.

I don't like the wording of the last line. Maybe if you changed "And then" to "Suddenly" it would flow better?

I have reached the top of the spire and with it my brother. He is not the same man that i remember. He has been twisted into something truly unrecognizable, though we are still as identical as the day we were born. The change that has overtaken him is one on the inside. He has become filled with hate, rage and despair. He does not wish to hand the world over to demons for the sake of being evil, he wishes to do it to regain that which I have taken from him. Even now his eyes burn me with their hatred. To be so hated by your brother whom you love is like being stabbed in the heart by a thousand knives. He draws his sword, the same sword that he received from that old hermit. It is identical to mine save one detail, while my blade is illuminated with the light of heaven his is enshrouded with the darkness of hell. The twin blades clash. A power that was not meant to oppose itself sparks with the fury of divine indignation.
"Stop this madness!" I shout, "I don’t want to fight you."
The hatred in my brother's eyes becomes more focused as he swings his blade wildly. The speed of his movement is so hard to follow that my shoulder is sliced by the demon blade. As my blood splatters onto my brother's face he smiles viciously.
"Did you really believe that you could stop me with words?" He asks. "After what you did, not even your life is enough!"
He's right, I was a fool to try to reason with him. What I did to him was unforgivable, but what he's doing to the world is equally unforgivable. It has become apparent that one of us must die. I caused this madness so it should be me, but that will not stop the destruction my brother is creating. No, in spite of my guilt my brother has to be the one to die. I must kill my brother for becoming the monster that i turned him into.

Um. Sorry, but this passage just screams Marty Stu to me. I'm not sure how it could be fixed, maybe making it not completely the narrator's fault that his brother is a Complete Monster, but rather he just made a mistake that set him on his path?
Also, again, I needs to be capitalized. And the transition back to present is entirely unexpected; maybe put a heading (i.e., "Present") like you did with "Five years earlier", to make it smoother.

We truly believed that killing these foul beasts was not only right but the most noble action a human being could take.

Get rid of "We truly believed". That sounds like your narrator is trying to justify himself. If he really believes that he's going to state it as a fact rather than as a personal belief.

We had only expected to be there a week, four months had passed.

You need a conjunction there.

I was surprised to learn that she had let him impregnate her, more so to learn that they had married without telling me. My brother always thought I was jealous of her. I wasn’t; I was suspicious of her; she reeked of deception. The longer she stayed with us the weaker our powers became and the more numerous the demons grew. I tried to warn my brother.

"She is somehow responsible for this," I said.

"Your jealousy has made you mad," he replied.

I plunged it into the witch's belly; her scream was earsplitting.

Mm. Lovely. Murder is always fun.

There was nothing I could say to him that would make things right. It was then I understood that he had always known that she was evil but he didn't care. He had let himself be blinded by his love, placing her above both his loyalty to me and his loyalty to the human race. He was aware of the fact that fate had placed he and the woman he loved on opposite sides of the eternal battle between good and evil but was hoping to forge his own fate. I had killed that hope with my own hands, my brother was doomed never to be happy again. He did not simply hate me for killing her but he hated himself for being naive and he hated the world for letting the tragedy take place.

Ooh, angst. I don't much care for it. Consider cutting down on the whingeing. But, regardless, an interesting reason for someone to want to take over/destroy the world.

I destroyed his spell book, that was a smart move but it cost me the fingers on my left hand.

"that was a smart move" seems largely unnecessary. Obviously destroying the bad guy's spell book is a good move. You don't need to tell the reader that.

Either way this is the end for both of us, I see to it personally. With the last of my strength I push us both over the tower's edge. The last thing I remember is falling and thinking that as we do I see a slight smile on my brother's lips. Peace at last.

Huzzah! An ending which manages to be happy without being annoyingly overdone and/or cliche and/or involve the death of the villain and triumph of the protagonist.

Overall, good job. I enjoyed it. You do have several grammatical errors throughout, though nothing crippling and nothing that really detracted from the reading experience, except maybe the semi-colon thing. Some of your phrasing and wording was a little awkward and your dialogue could use some work. Other than that, very well done.