Author's notes: I'm mainly looking for spots where I could build more atmosphere? I feel like I'm struggling to actually build of sense of what the world is like.
Word count: 1,127
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Cora had only run that fast in her life once before, and it was after she had found her mother’s lifeless body lolled over on the desk in their old home. Cold air inflamed her lungs, but she refused to stop even if her own breath depended on it. Visuals contrasted inside of her head — one moment, she was eight years old and running frantically from her house to the schoolyard in search of her daddy; the next moment, she was running down the sidewalk in Middle Creek roughly twenty paces away from the Kiplingers’ house. The difference between night and day didn’t matter anymore, just the urgency in getting to Sam.
The crickets' symphony, previously serenading the night, faded to tertiary noise.
She blinked back tears, stopping in front of the white house and gathering her breath. Each gasp was a struggle as she doubled over, hands on her knees to keep from collapsing. Her calves ached, the balls and heels of her feet not relenting in their displeasure at the sudden burst of exercise. Cora wiped the thin sheen of sweat off her brow. Memories bubbled to the surface of her mind before slowly dissipating. Lena is my priority right now.
Cautiously opening the door to the house, she slipped inside and made her way upstairs. Her heart drummed so loud in her ears that she couldn’t bring herself to listen to the subtle creaking of the house — she couldn’t even bring herself to worry about Mr. and Mrs. Kiplinger waking up. Her head spun recollection of the mushy apple rotting in her hand — she had intended it as a snack, not a science experiment. Suddenly, she imagined a grotesque sketch of Lena, halfway rotting with skin dripping down her stark white bones.
Cora wanted to vomit. A tight force tugged on her gut.
She twisted the doorknob to Samuel’s room, sliding in and blindly reaching for the light switch to the left of her. The overhead light in the room turned on with a click, the mess of Samuel’s room no longer sheathed in darkness. Cora couldn't be bothered by the falling band posters lining his walls or the boxer hanging off the corner of his dresser, instead her eyes drawn to the movement of his body as he sat up.
Samuel rubbed the sleep from his eyes, blinking hard to adjust to the newfound light in his room. His typically messy blond hair had a life of its own, sticking up in odd places as if he had gelled it. Confusion decorated his face with his eyebrows furrowing and his head tilting, revealing that he wasn’t wearing his hearing aids. “What’s up?”
Cora tried to not notice his pink boxers, instead looking him dead in the eyes and signing, “L-E-N-A fell in the dead circle.” She winced at her own bluntness, the visions of the horror Lena could be going through echoing in her mind’s darkest chambers. “I need help to get her out.”
Samuel's confusion washed away to white terror, all the pink color flushing out of his cheeks. He immediately stood up, kicking away his Aquaman bedspread, grabbing a pair of khakis and hopping as he put them on. Cora wasn’t entirely sure if she should just stand there or if she could help in some capacity. She looked around the room, unable to make sense of the cacophony that Samuel lived in— clothes and comic books merged into one spread-out mass.
Her heart jumped into her throat and she wanted to bite down on it.
Shirtless, Samuel started grabbing his shoes and his hearing aids, putting them on before turning to Cora in a huff. “When?” His signage was abrupt, his soft blue eyes hardened over with fear.
Cora checked her watch, staring down at 3:34am. “20 minutes ago.” She swallowed down the sickly anxiety rising in her throat. Reaching out for something physical to grasp, her hand landed on and pulled Samuel's jacket off the hook, slinging it around her shoulders. They had no idea how cold it would be inside the death circle.
If they made it.
Didn’t Romy say something about portals?
Samuel nodded, moving around his room with an ease that Cora thought to be impossible. He managed throw aside a heap of blankets in the corner to reveal a blue backpack. Tossing it to Cora — she caught it — he grabbed a spare t-shirt from his actual bedspread and signed, “No time to waste. Let’s go.” With that, he walked out his bedroom door with no shirt on.
Cora slung the backpack over her shoulder, frantically looking around the room before following Samuel and closing the door behind her.
-
Cora was used to Samuel being talkative by her side, signing about anything and everything, trying to get her to engage in conversation and open up. She was used to looking up from her sketches to see his blue eyes alight with happiness. She was used to brushing him off and him being persistent, but his abrupt coldness rang out.
“I don’t like this,” he signed, gazing down at the ashy grass of the dead circle. “Are you going in first or should I?”
Cora did a quick mental calculation — she didn’t want to be around Samuel because she didn’t want to injure him, so to tell him to go first… it would be cruel. She looked down at her right hand, seeing the distinct lack of bone and rot. “I go in first,” she began. “If I’m not out in five minutes, follow after.”
Her stomach flip flopped with dread, a nagging little voice in the back of her head whispering about how she was setting up her two new foster siblings to die.
How one was already dead.
Looking back down toward the circle, she tried to recall everything that Romy had told her about portals versus pockets. Of course, this dead circle had to have been caused by her — one similar to it, with black grass like spikes, had appeared in her last foster family’s backyard.
Except no one had fallen in.
And only she could see it.
She took off her watch, tossing it over to Samuel. He caught it, raising his eyebrow.
“I’m sorry,” Cora signed.
She looked up toward the lightening sky. A thick sense of guilt covered her conscious. Readjusting the backpack, she knelt down and started to climb into the circle. Her legs went first, hanging over into nothingness, then she lowered her body down. No tingling sensation of decay overtook her body. Cora looked up at Samuel — his face contorted into worry, his movements antsy.
“Get her back and explain, okay?”
Cora nodded.
Then she let go, falling into nothingness.
End of chapter
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138,428 Literary Works • 672,118 Reviews
Hey Adrian! Here to give you a lil review and bounce this cutie right out of the Green Room.
So overall, this chapter is pretty cool. It gives us an idea of how Cora and Sam really interact, where before we've only really seen them in thoughts and flashbacks. It leads us into an interesting part of the plot and, while we haven't seen a lot of your world so far, it gives us a good idea of where we're heading next.
Let's get into the specifics here.
Whoa that first line tho. That hits hard and fast.
I have a bit of an issue with it, and that's because you take the punch out of Cora found her mother dead. I know death has become like an everyday thought for Cora, but I want to feel that visceral gut-punch, and your syntax doesn't let me. I would maybe reframe it in a way that it gives the reader a more immediate reaction—instead of "Cora had run that fast once, and it was after" maybe something more like "Cora had only run that fast once in her life: when she found her mother's lifeless body in their old home" or something along those lines. By removing the conjunction and joining the two thoughts instead with a colon (or an em dash!) you make the connection more immediate and pressing.
Also, Cora and Sam kind of sound like the same person when they're talking. I know they're signing, and ASL and other sign languages have a slightly more limited vocabulary than traditional spoken English, but there's nothing to say they can't have their own voices in dialogue. I think you've been working more on your narrative voice, but it would be nice to really feel the differences in the characters come through in how they communicate.
I really liked Cora's thoughtfulness! You're doing a great job of setting her up as a sympathetic character. A little angsty at points with the "I'll kill everyone"-ness, but it's good groundwork for making her clearly concerned about the wellbeing of others (and hey, she's a teenager, all teenagers are a little angsty now and then).
Keep writing!
Heya, Adri!
Hitting your chapter while I've got the motivation. Short one, but that works out great for me, haha. Let's get into things!
Saying “the desk” feels ambiguous? It's the desk, but which desk is that? I understand the evasion of saying “her desk”, though, as it could be mistaken for belonging to Cora. Maybe you could get the vibe across with “the desk in their old home”? It makes it clearer in the prose, which is important, but this is a minor suggestion, really.
I'd personally say “Cold air” here, but it's kind of nit-picky of me.
The crickets appear rather abruptly here and feel out of place. You might fix this by rewording it to “The sounds of the crickets, previously resounding through the night, faded to tertiary noise” or something of the sort. Give the crickets a more solid connection to the scene and the world around Cora. They may have been mentioned in the previous chapter, but they weren't a focal point, and so bringing them up again with a quick “the crickets” is improper and feels flimsy.
I think “doubled over” has some more umf to it than “bent over”. This sentence also kind of reads as though the gasps are a struggle due to her bending forward? If you read through it slowly you might catch that. I think it's worded right, though, so this must be a fluke of the English language (or me overthinking, haha, oops).
I'd write this as “bubbled to the surface before slowly dissipating” or something like that. It plays out a bit better in my mind? Also, saying she's “watching” them is a little weird to me, but I can't think of an alternate phrasing. I absolutely understand your intent with her “watching” the memories, but the wording doesn't sit right with me. It feels more like she's literally watching them, as though on a screen, and less like they're flashing across her mind, if that makes sense.
I'm not sure if this should be “loudly” or if that would be an adverb (which are apparently Writing Sins).
I think “the same mushy texture as the apple that had rotted in her hand” might sound better, but this is just a suggestion.
I would also clarify that this is in her mind, as I can imagine some readers being confused (when I was younger this would've tripped me up because I sometimes took things too literally, even in books).
Would also recommend a comma after “Lena” and possibly after “rotting” (omitting the “with”, so: “a grotesque sketch of Lena, halfway rotting, her skin dripping down her stark white bones”)
Given her disregard/inability to focus on the house creaking and not caring about the parents waking up, I think it would be more consistent to say that she “couldn't be bothered by the falling band posters […] or boxers hanging off [oh, you put 'of' here, by the way] his dresser, instead gluing her eyes to the movement of his body [...]”-- it keeps in line with her hazy “Gotta Get to Samuel” attitude rather than halting the flow and making everything feel calm again. If you do a rewrite like that, it'll keep the suspense(?) or urgency alive, active, and gradually continuing upward, as it was doing up until this sentence. Keep the flow rolling and all, ya dig?
I think this would flow better if you said “Samuel's confusion” or “The confusion on Samuel's face”, then edited “flushing out of Samuel's cheeks” to “his cheeks”, obviously. For some reason, even though we know who the confusion is attributed to, just saying “the confusion” here feels detached and “ambiguous” for lack of a better word.
Aquamaaan!
I think “spread out” should be hyphenated.
This should probably be “into her throat” so that it isn't implied that her heart is typically in her throat? Like, you could say it jumped in her chest and that makes sense. But saying it jumped in her throat sounds like it's just there to begin with, don't you think? Easy fix, though!
Also, why is her heart jumping? Is it at the mess that is Samuel's room? I imagine she'd have seen his room before and be used to it. Even if she weren't, acknowledging it now lessens the urgency of the situation a bit.
Or is it possibly about Samuel himself? 'Cause next paragraph specifies his shirtlessness. But I don't know the age difference between these characters and they're also foster siblings, kinda, so I doubt you'd go for that, haha.“grabbing stuff and putting on stuff” is kind of lazy writing. Stuff stuff stuff. Also, you already said that he'd put stuff on? It wasn't everything but maybe you could just specify here that he grabbed a shirt and his hearing aids? (If you do that, maybe drop the specification that he is shirtless because saying he's shirtless and grabbing a shirt feels redundant).
If you're insistent on the stuff bit, you could at least fuse it into “grabbing and putting on stuff from around the room” rather than saying “stuff” twice, haha.
Repetition again, this time with “down” twice. Maybe say “Cora checked her watch and stared down at the glowing 3:34am”? (I imagine glowing digital numbers but that's me taking liberty with it, OOPS. This is a review, not fan fiction!!)
I'd say “the sickly anxiety rising in her throat” or something (say throat here 'cause you say swallowed, but anything else could work too). The jacket bit feels too dragged out and with the anxiety portion it just makes for a long, winding sentence. There's also a tad sense of repetition with “grasp on and landing on”? I'd make the first one “onto”.
Landing also had me imagining her as falling onto it, though, like it were spread over a chair or something. Maybe try “trying to find anything else to grasp onto, her hand landing on”? It makes the sentence longer (especially if you use the first part of this beat, too) but if you can write it well enough then the length won't feel as winding anymore, [ironically].
I appreciate your vocabulary, but I'm not sure about the word usage here. Finagle literally means to “obtain (something) by devious or dishonest means”, and unless he conned the heck out of those blankets, I don't think any finagling happened. Then again, it could work like “cacophony”, which is typically used to describe noise but can be used for other situations as well (like how you employed it in this chapter, for instance). But yeah, I'm not sure about finagle.
Specifying that Cora caught it is unnecessary. If you say he tossed it, we can just assume she caught it, unless you specifically state that she didn't catch it, which would be more important to let readers know? But if you say he tossed it, then it's presumed that she caught it. At least, that's how I see it.
Also, there's a space missing between the dialogue and “With that”.
Typically the phrase is “slinging a backpack over your shoulder”? Saying that she slung it on her shoulders sounds kind of weird to me, but it could be perfectly fine. -shrug-
I'd personally add, to the end of this sentence, something like “as they walked back to the dead circle”. I think it would make the sentence feel more complete and it's a firmer close to the comparison between typical!Samuel and now!Samuel, if that makes sense? It kind of flows better and makes his behavior feel current and tethered to the scene, I think.
[Oh, but next line has them already there so maybe you wanted a time-skip with a quick mention about Samuel's silence, which is also good. It sort of sounded like they were walking there up until the dialogue.]
Need a comma after “spikes” to close that parenthetical comma break.
And done!!
The ending lines were great this chapter. Really well written and a nice stop for this portion. Overall, the pacing and flow were pretty good, aside from whatever slip-ups with flow I mentioned above. Character consistency is also going nicely, taking previous parts into account, and I'm liking Samuel already. Love the Aquaman detail, haha.
I'm alsoreally looking forward to what the world beyond the portal is like, and seeing how Lena's doing.
I wish I had more to say but it's late and this is already long enough. If I come up with any more, I'll text you about it! Anyway, keep up the great work, and I hope this was helpful!
- Hatt
Heyo, Hatt! Thank you so much for the review. They're always a delight to read~
Yes, I will make those little edits. Thank you for pointing them out, btw. They always tend to fly over my head.
Nooooo, it's not about Samuel himself. I was worried that it would come across like that, haha -- in previous drafts Rease/Cora and Cayden/Samuel were always friends, but people shipped them? I don't remember if I played up the romance angle, but I don't think I did. Regardless, her heart's in her throat because she's worried about Lena and she can't do anything about it. Thanks for pointing that out, because I'll try to make it clearer going forward.
Also, uh, so Cora is 15, Samuel is 15, and Lena is 7! (And Romy is like... very very old.)
Naaah, not insistent on the stuff bit. *edits*
I laughed there, omg.
Once again, thank you so much! I'm incredibly motivated to write now, haha.
-E