Chapter Seven
His voice was playful.
That was my favorite part. He had never been as happy as the time we found a river.
A secret river.
Sure, it had just been a stream, but what did that matter to us? We had just been cubs at the time.
"Nubia!" I pushed my brother in the shoulder, hoping to wake him from his nap.
"Nubia, wake up! I have an idea!"
Nubia moved his head and blinked slowly, drawing his jaws back and forming a yawn.
"What is it now?" He asked.
"I think that we should sneak away and go on an adventure! Just like the one you wanted to go on a few days ago!"
I had known that Nubia didn't like to disobey mother-and neither did I, but what's the fun in living without a little adventure?
"Nadia, you know we're not allowed to." He sat up and I opened my mouth to
complain but he spoke first, "But that be supper fun. And mother is asleep so we can be back before she wakes up. Let's do it!"
I scampered into the tall grasses with Nubia following close behind. Since Corin had been training so much, Nubia had become my favorite playmate. After all, he wasn't too bad to play with. As long as you didn't mind that he twisted the rules of every game so that he won.
We slowed down a little once we where out of earshot from the pride.
"Where should we go?" I asked my brother. He was practically beaming and
sniffed the the ground.
"I think I can smell water! Let's go to the watering howl on our own!"
He had been so excited and I wish that life could have stayed as it was. We where happy together.
Never mad.
Never angry.
Always just...happy.
We started to follow the scent of water and after a while I thought my paws where going to fall off, but Nubia seemed perfectly fine so I was determined to be just as strong as he was. But I had to pause for just a moment and when I did, Nubia never noticed, even after I called out. He continued through the grasses until I heard a yowl. My paws still hurt but I got up and ran in his direction, afraid that a hyena had gotten him but when I emerged from the grasses I found that Nubia was submerged chest-high in water.
He let out another yowl of excitement and splashed me with the glistening water. I laughed and submerged myself in this small stream, splashing him as I did so.
We both played in the cool water and lost track of time because this had been our secret steam. It was running underneath a low hanging tree with a few bushes for cover. The grass next to the water was long and green and there had been a large rock in the water that had jutted out, right in the middle of the current. Nubia would pretend that he was the leader of Dawn Pride and I was his only pride-mate. We splashed and played for hours until we heard something coming.
"Let's go Nubia." I had said, getting scared. If it was one of our pride-mates then
we would have been in a lot of trouble but this was worse. A crocodile that was at least thirteen feet had come out of the undergrowth. It's claws where glistening in the sun and it's teeth stuck out of it's mouth. I let out a frightened whimper and started to run, thinking that Nubia was right behind me but when I looked behind me he was nowhere to be seen.
"Nubia!"
I called his name five times before I heard an agonized roar and the thumping of paws. Nubia had sped past me with blood streaming behind him. I gasped to see that half of his ear had been bitten off by the crocodile. What had happened? Why hadn't Nubia been right behind me?
I started to run as hard as I could, trying to catch up to my brother. After a few moments I was right beside him and we where running for our lives.
When we finally arrived back at Dawn Pride camp, Nubia had collapsed onto the
the soft dirt and I would have also, if I hadn't wanted to make sure he was okay. Simao had called sent Amina to get Twilight Pride to come heal his wound. They had arrived shortly after Nubia lost consciousness.
"Help him!" I had begged, "Please help my brother!"
"Don't worry sweetie, we'll do everything we can." A young lioness, maybe only two years older than me, had comforted me the whole time that Twilight Pride helped Nubia. It took a long time but he finally gained consciousness again and I rushed to him, rubbing me head over his to show how happy I was to see him again. But Nubia pulled back, glaring at me.
"What's wrong Nubia? Your alive!" I had been so happy-I thought he was going to die. It's not often that a cub gets injured but when they do, it's very serious.
"What did you just leave me, Nadia?" His voice was cruel and it dawned on me that this was why he was mad.
He blamed me for this injury.
"N-Nubia I promise, I thought you where right behind me."
"Well I wasn't and maybe you should pay more attention or things like this," he pawed his bitten ear, "wouldn't happen."
I wake to find myself back at the Selection Rite.
I must have passed out.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,008 Literary Works • 672,820 Reviews
I really enjoyed the structure of your writing especially how you worked in te comments from the future. Your writing flows nicely and is easy to read and understand. I think the idea of your story is interesting and I love the dynamics of the relationship between Nadia and Nubia! There isn't much that I would suggest you fix. There are a few grammar errors like when they are at the watering hole instead if hole you say howl. Just simple things like that. Another thing I saw is that you could work on showing the reader what you mean rather than telling them. This is very important especially when describing things like the watering hole.
Well, it was really a shock for me to realize this whole thing was a dream of hers but this needed to be expected from my side. Anyways, very good job with the decription of the memories of the siblings. I really liked it. The happy moments and the brutal, sad and emotional end of it all with the bitten ear. I am really pleased with this part and I need to aplogize myself for not realizing the existance of this part and for so long also. I will not point out what I think can be edited/corrected in my own opinion only of course. This part let the readers get deep inside the memories and mind of the main narrator and see it from her point of view.
'Did that matter for us?' kind of sound more acceptable here but I think both ways are totally fine. Usually I find this question more used.
You can not use past pefect tense if you have only one thing mentioned in the sentence.
'We had just been..' You can use say you had been cubs before when you were younger but now in such a way. You need one action or event that had happened before other to use this tense.
Example for sentences with past pefect (wrong/right)
He had been very sick before he tried to put himself together.
He had been very sick.
Advices
1. If you have only one verb, you can not use past perfect tense.
2. Check which happens first to not miswrite and ruin the meaning of the sentence.
3. 'before' and 'after' are must for the right sentence.
4. Double check. If the past perfect tense is in the wrong place, your sentence changes its meaning.
5. If you use past perfect tense, everything else ( the other events/actions ) that is in this sentence has to be in past tense, no change.
You can not push him 'in' the shoulder. You can 'push him over' or just push his sholder right away ( I pushed his shoulder ).
'wake him up' it needs to be in the next sentence.
I do not know why this line was seperated from the other but I saw this in 2-3 places while reading the part. Just hit the enter button.
'supper' is the meal after lunch. You meant 'super'.
'...of every game so that he won.' The game is not only one and he continued doing it for each game so this part needs to be in simple tense. It is not a past finished action, I suppose.
'where' needs to be 'were' and this is a mistake I saw on 3 places.
This is totally optional but it needs to be 'Where should we go to?' in my opinion.
You can choose it of course.
Only pointing out that it is weird to say that the water has scent but we will accept this. Some smell, some do not.
'where' needs to be 'were'.
'still hurt'
'I got up'
Two different tenses and only one is right. 'still hurted' needs to be. 'chest-high' is 'chest high'.
You have more than two times 'and'. You need to put comma before the third one.
This is how you order. After the second and, you need to put a comma.
'pride mate' it is.
You do not talk about Nubia, you talk to him. Comma before the name.
You can not use past perfect tense here with continuos tense. I had explained it above.
'I said, getting scared.'
'where' again needs to be 'were'.
'called sent' can not go together. Two verbs they are. Connect them with 'and' or remove one of them.
The past perfect tense problem here also.
Two events happen at once.
You need one event before/after other event to use this tense.
'me' is 'my' ?
Comma before the name and 'your' needs to be 'you are'.
'where' mistake again.
'promise' needs to be replaces with 'swear'.
Good job and keep on writing.