Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language.
A/N: This story is only 18+ because of occasional f's. The content itself is probably the least mature content I've written in a while. Please let me know if 16+ would suffice.
The water swirled around his ears and squeezed his skull tight. This wasn’t fun. This was not graceful. There was no sweeping bow wave guiding him forwards. He daren’t open his eyes for fear that they would be frozen, or nibbled on. He could barely even feel his arms as they ploughed through the murk.
There are no piranhas, he assured himself, no piranhas at all.
A muffled shout penetrated the surface and he burst from the water. The breath he’d held exploded from his lungs and he heaved in another, then treaded water with his ankles and focussed on the golden figure looming before him.
“Jaravin.” He gasped. “Teersin?”
Jaravin lifted her arms out of the water, revealing a dark green body that was battered, beaten and bloodied, but still easily identifiable as Teersin.
“Come on!” Hannah shouted from somewhere between himself and the shore. He twisted round to face her just as she noticed him and gulped as her jaw dropped. “What are you doing?”
Jaravin’s chest was shuddering with each breath and her eyes were flat. What could Dannel do? Tow her? He was nowhere near strong enough. His flailing arms knocked against her stomach and a spark of energy tingled his fingertip where it had brushed her scales. He tried not to think about the lasting sting in his fingers, like salt on a raw wound.
No piranhas.
He couldn’t let himself get distracted; he had an idea. He slipped Teersin from Jaravin's arms and placed his fingertip on Teersin's forehead, right in the port-point. He'd always heard of this is a last resort, the fabled final swing of a defeated warrior. It had become a proverb symbolising helplessness: a Full Transfer.
He felt the bond between himself and his imp tighten. Teersin's desperate, mangled muscles cried out for energy, dragged it out of Dannel's being. All he had to do was surrender, give himself up to the trust he had in their bond. For Dannel, it was simpler than a twenty-five metre sprint.
The energy rushed out of him like water roaring from a dam. He felt it thunder along the connection. The weight of it strained him and drained him.
It's up to you.
The last thing he saw before the sky turned as black as the water was Teersin's left eye spring open and his head nod once.
Images darted across his consciousness. Teersin’s images - Teersin’s eyes. The sky juddering past above him. Shoreline bobbing up and down. Flying. A forest coming into view. Images getting fainter by the second. Teersin must have been using up that energy, fast.
***
Dannel groaned and rolled over. Something sharp jabbed at the flesh just above his hip and he yelped.
"Hannah?"
A hand was softly placed on his side and rolled him back over. Hannah was gazing down at him, chewing her lip. Her eyes were wide and a little moist. She pulled him into a short hug.
"I can't believe you did that.” Her arms had tensed and her jaw had set. What was she so angry about?
A vague recollection of passing energy to Teersin flitted through his mind.
“What did I -- Oh. Never mind, I remember. Where’s Teersin? Ow! What am I lying on?”
He twisted up onto his elbows and looked around. The sky had brightened but the sun had no effect on the loch, which lurked about forty metres away. He looked down and found that he was lying on a slab of rock, which the water must have worn away at for centuries.
“It’s like a granite sponge… Hannah, why am I lying on lying on a bed of granite sponge? What was wrong with the sand?”
“I didn’t want the sand to get into your cuts!” Hannah stood and folded her arms. “Teersin and Jaravin are sleeping. And don’t try to turn this on me.”
Dannel started and his arms trembled as he tried to retain his balance. Luckily, his muscles were far sturdier than he’d expected them to be.
“What do you mean?” he asked eventually.
“Why the fuck did you do a full transfer? Why did you have to do that? What possessed you? And I know it wasn’t Teersin, because he’s as furious as I am!”
Dannel winced. “I - I thought it was the only way.”
Hannah grated her teeth. “Don’t you think I thought of that? Don’t you think I realised that the only way to save Teersin was to full transfer to Jaravin? But I didn’t. I knew the risks and I loved you too much.”
“What are you talking about?” Dannel frowned and sat up straight. “Yeah, I love you too, but what’s your point?”
“Oh, just leave it, Dannel!” Hannah strode off toward a line of trees to Dannel’s right. That could have been the forest they’d emerged from, or the one they would be following once they set off again, or some totally unrelated forest that had nothing to do with anything.
Dannel twisted around. “I’m really sorry for disappointing you! But if you could just explain to me-”
Hannah whirled round and her features looked sharper, as if her chin wanted to stab him.
“Don’t you worry about yourself. You didn’t disappoint me. Your infantile idiocy and your stammering nonsense about granite sponges have been well worth the fucking wait.”
“Wait? What wait?” Dannel felt his eyes widen and he raised himself to his knees. “How long have I been out?”
Hannah levelled her gaze at him. “Three days.”
Without another word she stomped off into the trees. Dannel knew he couldn’t follow her. She probably wouldn’t have wanted him to anyway, but he would have had he not been terrified of standing up.
The wounds on his arms had crusted over. Presumably the slices on his face and his feet were also recovering. Perhaps his essay keeping him up had been a good thing. He’d have been far more vulnerable in his pyjamas - boxers and an old t-shirt. Still, standing now would only lead to him toppling back onto the rocks and splitting his head open. He was staying put.
He unwound a bandage around his foot and retched. There was skin hanging off in flaps between his toes and his left big toe’s nail was scuppered. There were no bite-marks, only patches of exposed flesh where the micro-piranhas had swarmed together and attacked the top of his foot. He winced as he reapplied the bandage and wished he hadn’t pissed off his first aid qualified sister.
A shout caused him to glance up. His stomach ceased up at the thought of a ‘furious’ Teersin and he prayed that the shout was not his imp coming to tell him off. At the edge of the forest Hannah had disappeared from, a tall, lanky figure was emerging.
The fuck…?
Dannel recognised that loping gait, that oddly square head. Lucas Martin, two years younger than his sister, Holly, but still a year older than Dannel.
“Lucas?” he called.
The young man strode forward. His steps were purposeful; he knew where he was going. Dannel’s stomach tensed again. Lucas’ bushy eyebrows were knitted and his lips were drawn tight. Dannel noticed that the demon - he vaguely recalled its name as Frantz - tailing Lucas had four sturdy limbs sprouting from its sides and a thick armored hide. Dannel had never seen Frantz in combat mode before.
Lucas stopped and turned to face Frantz. “Go tell Garek I found him.”
Frantz frowned.
“He’s not even armed, Frantz! I can take him.”
Frantz shrugged and scurried off on all fours back in the direction of the trees.
Lucas strolled the last few metres and winked at Dannel.
“Fancy just coming quietly?” he asked.
Dannel stepped back and stumbled over the rock. He thumped into a sitting position on the edge and drew his legs up onto it.
“What are you doing, Lucas?” Dannel asked, swinging his legs over the other side of the rock so it was between him and Lucas.
Lucas scoffed. “You must be able to guess by now. You didn’t think the people were just going to sit by and let your lot poison our blood, did you?”
Poison our blood.
Where had he heard that before?
...wouldn’t live under the same roof as anyone who ‘sullied their blood’ with the ‘demonic tint’…
“What are you talking about? Please! You have to tell me!”
“You really don’t know?” Lucas stepped up onto the rock.
Dannel shook his head.
“Poor kid.” Lucas shook his head.
Lucas leapt down and lunged for Dannel. Dannel ducked out the way, wobbled, then started running, thundering off in the direction of the trees. His feet screamed at him but he tilted forward and kept going. Whatever was lurking in forest, his family was in there too.
Maybe all that was left of his family.
He gasped as if he’d been shot and staggered forward. His ankle caught the back of his leg and he toppled forward, the ground whooshing up at him. Dozens of stones cut into his face, stabbing at a patch of exposed flesh in his forehead. An angry throbbing pounded in the small of his back and he reached an arm around. His fingers brushed against a sturdy, muscular arm, retrieving a glittering pellet from underneath his skin. Dannel screamed and kicked out.
The arm sprang away but before he could move anywhere he felt another arm grab under one of his armpits and another under the other armpit, and another round his waist.
“Frantz! He is to be kept alive.”
The arms wrapped around Dannel tensed and squeezed, then loosened a little. Dannel pushed against them, but there was still no way for him to get free. He twisted round and found himself staring straight into Frantz's face. Lucas crossed his view and Dannel turned round to face him, and away from the manic glint in Frantz's eyes.
“He wouldn’t be much good as a hostage if you suffocated him, would he?”
Frantz grunted and Lucas smirked.
“And what do we do to hostages, Frantz?”
Frantz extended two canine teeth toward Dannel. He tried to squirm away but they just kept coming. Even in Frantz's loose hold, he could only lean so far. Lucas shoved his head back over and Frantz's fangs sank into the flesh of his neck. When he withdrew, Frantz's fangs were glistening with a green, gloopy substance.
Lucas wobbled before Dannel. Dannel blinked, but Lucas continued to wobble. As did the trees, the rock, the silt and the sky.
“What do you do to hostages?” Dannel asked, feeling his voice wobble too.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Lucas frowned. “We drug them.”
The sky and the silt blurred into one dark mass and everything went black.
End of chapter
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140,681 Literary Works • 673,591 Reviews
Heya, Scot! Casanova here to do another review for you!
Anyway, like the reviewer before me I have to say- awesome cliff-hanger! Good job on that. Anyway, to the review!
To start off with, let's start off with the dialogue. Although you have a bit of it at the beginning and end, it just.. Doesn't seem the appropriate dialogue for the situations? Like, for Hannah and Dannel's talk whenever he wakes up. It just doesn't seem like that's what would go down, if you know what I mean? I mean, why would she be firstly pissed and caring last? It seems as a sister that she would make sure he was okay after waking up before drilling at him, if you know what I mean.
Then the situation with the kidnappers(which, by the way, was a shock, so props for that) it seems too gamey, like it's one big game. Also- how does biting his neck drug him? I don't know, but it all just seems like one big game at the end, but I do like where you ended it.
Anyway, to continue. Hannah. I still don't get much from her, and I'd like to see her expanded on.
One other thing bugs me about the kidnapping- why wouldn't Dannel yell out for his sister? It's obvious she couldn't have gotten that far away and would be able to hear him, so it seems like the most logical thing to do would be to yell out for her since he's in such a injured position.
All in all, I like where this is heading and I like what you've done with it, so props for that. But with most everything, I believe it could use some work, especially around Hannah.
Anyway, that's all I have to say on this one and I hope it helped.
Keep on doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.
Your friend, Matt
First off, great cliff-hanger
And it would be a realistic brother/sister relationship.
I like the introduction to the new characters (or were they mentioned in chapter 1 & 2? It was so long ago that I read those...)
I feel like the conversation after Dannel woke up was a little lacking... I know Hannah was pissed at him but still...surely she was a little relieved that her brother's still alive? Especially seeing as he had been unconscious for three days. I think maybe it would be work better if he woke to her sat beside him stroking his head or something and him capture a glimpse of the worry in her eyes before he fully wakes up and she gives him a piece of her mind?
Also, I think you could have added a little to the part when Dannel was running from Lucas, because only moments ago, he thought he couldn't even stand and then he's pegging it through the forest. Either add more to the description of his pain or his surprise at his nimbleness.
I liked your description at the beginning of him in the water, that was done well.
I noticed a little error, 'why am I lying on lying on a bed of granite sponge?' - you repeated 'lying on'
Another thing, I really don't mind swearing in novels (mine are full of it) but I just don't think it really fits with this story? I dunno...maybe it's just me, but this seems to be aimed at young teens and the swearing always seems a bit forced in. Just my opinion.
I'll probably read the next chapter on Review Day because it's coming up
I will think about the swearing. Just, in my experience, teenagers swear
And thanks for the rest of it. I see what you mean about the relationship and the running 
Hi Biscuits!
Happy review day!
I know, I have disappeared for a while but I am back again to continue reading this and give a review!
So... what did I like about this chapter? I think what I liked most is that clues are slipping in from the essay Dannel wrote and now we get to see that somehow it had significance. We can also tell that whatever it is that is different about Dannel and Hannah, it's something that is enough to turn people Dannel previously thought were his friends against him. And that means it must be gravely dangerous and I cannot wait to find out what it is! I also love the way you slip descriptions gradually into your chapter in certain places so that we don't get it all in one section, The effect is that is sounds so natural and reads with a certain flow. When it comes to plot points for this chapter, I honestly don't have too much to say because I enjoyed it that much. I do have some technical things, but that is it! Because this chapter included so much dialogue it was pretty short, come to think of it it xD
The first thing I wondered when I was reading this was why on earth Dannel was swimming in the infected water with his head underneath the water! If he is an expert swimmer, let alone a basic swimmer he should know you can swim with your head safely above the water xD Yes, it is slower, but it is also safer and he should be regarding his safety in some aspect throughout the chapter. So yes, I suggest you keep his head above the water, otherwise you might end up with more frustrated readers like me!
Another thing I wanted to know a bit more about was the Full Transfer. I didn't think we had enough information there. Sure, we knew what it was and that it would drain Dannel. We found out it would give all the energy possible to his imp. But one thing I don't understand is why it is such a big deal. Hannah is acting like it is some crazy thing he did, but seeing as it is only temporary (from what I gather) than it shouldn't really matter right? Unless the Full Transfer has long lasting connections like making them closer than before because they have shared such a tight link, or giving Teersin constant access to take his energy whenever he needs it or some more severe consequences, I don't really see what the issue she is having here is. It just makes Hannah seem like a girl who knows how to make a mountain out of a molehill. More explanation could help?
Another thing is that we hear about how angry Teersin is from Hannah, but we never get to see it ourselves! That makes me a bit sad because, well, I wanted to see it myself. I wondered what the imp would do to his best friend, the words he would say out of anger. And I can just envision it being such a funny scene. Or maybe in the middle of his tantrum the imp would run up and hug him or thank him for saving his life or something. That conversation has so much potential but it kind of gets skipped over here and we miss a moment when you could be showing instead of telling
I feel like we need a bit more of Dannel's emotions, which I do believe I have said before. Hannah is raging at him, and even though he deserves it in some ways, he doesn't in others. Doesn't Dannel feel the tiniest bit annoyed that he had a near death experience and could've died, and the first thing that Hannah does when he wakes up is yell at him? No thank you or so? And he did something which might've saved all their skins (we don't know how everything quite went down?) but she doesn't even fill him in much.
How is Hannah okay? Hannah was in the water just as long or even longer than Dannel (in case more things happened after he blacked out - which we need filling in on a bit more in this chapter before Hannah storms away) so why does he have so much injuries and the girl seems to be practically fine? It doesn't sound fair to me at all, and I wanted a bit more justice in that area. There was not even any mention to her having some minor cuts as well, so make sure you think about that.
The last thing I am going to mention plot wise is the black outs. Dannel blacks out twice in this chapter, in the middle and in the end. Once is all fine and dandy, but blackouts are fairly cliché and make the reader miss out on a lot and then have to be retold of events later on. So I think you need to be careful that you don't include it too much and exhaust the idea of blackouts. Maybe transform one of these into a different ending or something, to be a bit more unique?
Oh wait, that wasn't the last thing xD I also wanted to mention the names. Dennis... Dannel... you are treading dangerous ground with how similar their names are. I am sure some readers are going to get confused at some point, and some might even get annoyed. Some authors believe it is best to not have characters within the same novel with names that begin with the same letter. I am not saying that is correct, but I am telling you showing you the methods people run to avoid what you have here. I suggest you change Dennis to something new. And then again, what was with having Holly and Hannah? Holly is only mentioned fleetingly but I noticed and wondered how much you like the letters 'd' and 'h'.
On with the technical stuff now!
Eh, I wasn't really for this description. Would the water really squeeze his skull tight? You make it sound like it is because of the microbes inside the water. Maybe you need the word 'seemed' in there somewhere.
I liked the half repetition you had going on here. How about using 'wasn't' in the second sentence to keep it up as well?
I think you meant 'as' instead of 'is'.
'Dragged' should be dragging.
Seeing as this is the part where he is blacking out, I thought you shouldn't let him have such logical and concise final thoughts. Look at how I have changed it below to make it seem like he is growing drowsy and blacking out while still bring across the same messaged.
Shoreline bobbing up and down.
Flying.
Forest.
Why is everything going faint?
Energy is going...
Fast.
I am not saying you have to lay it out like that, but do play around with the format a bit more. Not everything has to be done according to the rules because your novel has your rules. You could play around with this a bit more ^.^
Otherwise, I have no more to say! It has been near a month and no update D: Keep writing and working on this because I want to be reading more!
Deanie x
Thank you! I was trying to get chapter 5 finished up for today but I didn't quite make it.
I don't know how many reminders it is going to take to change Dennis' name. I promise, I've been thinking about it.
The rest I'll probably read more when it comes to editing, but thank you for your brilliantly set out and structured review.
This is amazing! Talk about originality, and I didn't even read the other chapters! Well done, BiscuitsBatchAvoy. I can't really break this down much, but I'll try. I tell you, I liked nearly everything.
Here are the things I didn't like. You wrote focused as "focussed"--minor error which could happen to anyone. This one really threw me: "Hannah shouted from somewhere between himself and the shore." Whoa! Is Hannah used as a male name? I know that's not what you're doing, but when I read this I honestly thought that. You seem very confident, as if you know what you're doing; but here is a good rule for any writer: only use the reflexive pronouns (myself, himself, herself, so forth) for two purposes. First purpose--the subject is doing something to himself. Examples--"I hit myself," "she said to herself," "we love ourselves." Second purpose--the writer (or speaker) is adding emphasis. Examples--"he did it all by himself" and "you wrote that by yourself." The other time you misused the reflexive is here: "He felt the bond between himself and his imp tighten." I'm not trying to add unnecessary emphasis to this concept in grammar, but if you follow it, it really does make your story easier to understand. "He daren’t open his eyes"--actually, it should be "dared not" because you are writing in the past tense.
Now for some specific commendations. One of the things I like about this is that you were able to introduce a new concept without making it seem unprofessional. You mentioned "full transfer" and the imps (in whatever purpose they serve) rather naturally, as if they were as organic as trees. You have that working for you--that this work feels really professional to me, as a reader. Also, I generally feel it necessary to comment on dialogue: yours feels realistic, which is definitely good. I also liked your descriptions. You are a bit of a poet, as evidenced by these: "The water swirled around his ears and squeezed his skull tight," "The arms wrapped around Dannel tensed and squeezed, then loosened a little," and "He felt the bond between himself and his imp tighten. Teersin's desperate, mangled muscles cried out for energy, dragged it out of Dannel's being. All he had to do was surrender, give himself up to the trust he had in their bond. For Dannel, it was simpler than a twenty-five metre sprint. The energy rushed out of him like water roaring from a dam. He felt it thunder along the connection. The weight of it strained him and drained him." I quoted much of what wrote, as did CHRISSY321; that is because this work is really worth quoting. Your wording is really so great!
Honestly, I have read from you before. I remember reading some story about an apocalypse and thinking it wasn't very good. Nonetheless, this impressed me. I like this very much, will undoubtedly read the other parts soon enough, and look forward to what you write next in this series. Awesome, BiscuitsBatchAvoy!
Thanks for the review! Oh, btw, 'focussed' is the British spelling
Oh, I see. I did not know that. It's like "colour" as opposed to "color."
Yeah
Hello. Here for my 1050th review.
Haven't read any previous parts. Just going off what I see here.
This is an interesting little mix of what feels like fantasy, from the mystical names (from the talk of scales, I had visions of merfolk; was vaguely surprised when his sister stood up and walked because i thought Hannah was a mermaid...), and sci fi, from the micro-piranhas and ports. Soft sci fi, I believe it's called.
I'm confused in a good way, mostly because the character is extremely confused. You've got just enough of a call back I can sort of figure out what's going on, even if the character can't from being panicked and just woken up. I hope you'll address where Hannah is and what happened to her, especially since everybody seems to be family and I'm wondering what the dynamics were.
I think the thing I was most unhappily confused about was the dynamics between him and Hannah. They lacked a sense of history and were a little flat for my taste. There wasn't much body language in the main chunk of dialogue, although you thankfully avoided adverbs. I'm a huge advocate for body language simply because it shows off so much and is the vast majority of how meaning is conveyed, so when you're looking to really reveal a character I always suggest looking there first. I'd still suggest you at least think about body language, especially when the names start getting extremely similar between Dannel and Dennis. I kept having to look between the two and figure out which was which; if one had markedly different body language from the other, it'd be far easier.
You also had a fair chunk of repetition in the prose which I'm pretty sure you'll catch after rereading. Line editing I wouldn't focus on quite yet.
Finally, a neck bite is a terrible place to inject drugs. The walls of those arteries are thick, and there's so much blood flowing through it can take awhile to coagulate. The injury is far worse than worthwhile, which is why injections are done via arms, legs, or butts.
Overall, watch your dialogue and confusion that can happen spatially there. It was hard to keep track of where everybody was when they spoke, and once you had two D names with double Ns in there, it was a nightmare to know who was who.
Hope this helped. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
~Rosey
Thanks for the review
I'm just learning not to use adverbs so I'm still a bit bumpy with speech. I'll keep working on it!
Don't be afraid to use adverbs; they are the frosting to a good cake of verbs.
Adverbs have a time and a place. They can be used very effectively, such as when a situation has been so well established that anything but an adverb would be out of place. When they're one of many tools to describe something, they're fantastic.
However, if you use adverbs as the only method of conveying emotions in a work, then you're debilitating your characterization and should consider other methods of showing how your characters emote.
This was a very interesting story! You did a pretty good job! I loved all the gory details, and action. Here are some of my favorite parts! :
Jaravin’s chest was shuddering with each breath and her eyes were flat. What could Dannel do? Tow her? He was nowhere near strong enough. His flailing arms knocked against her stomach and a spark of energy tingled his fingertip where it had brushed her scales. He tried not to think about the lasting sting in his fingers, like salt on a raw wound.
He unwound a bandage around his foot and retched. There was skin hanging off in flaps between his toes and his left big toe’s nail was scuppered. There were no bite-marks, only patches of exposed flesh where the micro-piranhas had swarmed together and attacked the top of his foot. He winced as he reapplied the bandage and wished he hadn’t pissed off his first aid qualified sister.
Typher extended two canine teeth toward Dannel. He tried to squirm away but they just kept coming. Even in Typher’s loose hold, he could only lean so far. Dennis shoved his head back over and Typher’s fangs sank into the flesh of his neck. When he withdrew, Typher’s fangs were glistening with a green, gloopy substance.
I especially liked the last one. This was a great job overall! Very creative! Keep writing! Happy Review day!
When you say I did a 'pretty good job', it would be helpful if you told me what I could have done to make it a 'great job'
but thanks anway