Published May 25, 2009
The Mysterious Signal
The year, 2113, the earth finally built its first station beyond the moon. My father was there at the time. No one expected the station to be unstable, but it was, and not getting any better. That’s when it happened.
A transmission came in on the teleport floor. It was encrypted, so they all thought it was from the Onia Corp. headquarters. They accepted the transmission.
“What the heck is that?” inquired Marip, over an electric sound. A being started to solidify on the pad, bringing a dreadful aura. It demolished the computer with a single touch. It fired a mysterious orb from it dark and blue palm.
Screaming followed, filling the entire station. Around the station, people ran. The fire burned everything in sight. While in an attempt to escape, my father was killed by whatever the thing was. No one every found out, but one thing is for sure, it will come back.
14 years have past since the incident. I am now 14 years old and now the CEO of Onia Corp. I am the only teenager to be a test subject. I took a radiation test to see if I could pass the Tomano test. I did, and became the smartest kid in the universe. That’s what scares people. For now, I know what the thing on the station wanted. It wanted me, dead.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
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.
139,259 Literary Works • 672,523 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
Okay this is interesting. There's a mild sense of rush in this particular piece and I think that's potentially due to how quickly you give a word there to sort of establish the setting before diving into the world and this particular bit makes it feel like its a tiny bit more rushed than it should be as opposed to just surprising. Besides that tiny issue though, this is a pretty solid start here, it does manage to get my attention at least fairly well.
Hmm well I am a bit in two minds about this piece. On one hand its definitely very shocking and it gets your attention very well with just the sheer chaos going on and the instant sense of mystery that engulfs everything, but on the other hand once again it feels like everything is flying through entirely too fast here and its just not having the impact that it could have. As it is, the impact is there but its all happening so fast we can barely process it.
The cut away there once again kind of heightens that issue of the pacing. And its not that this is bad as an ending. In fact, its quite a nice little declaration there. It does make you want to know more..but the way it switches there from the previous scene so fast just really doesn't quite work and it ends up feeling like an information overload more than anything else. I think you really need to take a look at perhaps expanding this out a bit.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
okay, so what is Onia Corp, where is it. who is this person, is it male or female, how old was he/she at the time of the incident, more detail would be nice. i think that taking people's advice is great, but that's my opinion. you don't have to take it, but i've been better off. anyway the idea of it all is great! i love it. another word of advise:keep writing!
~Livi J.
Hey Juicebox!
---
The structuring of this sentence is rather odd. You have two commas in there, cluttering up the reading of the sentence, when they're not really necessary at all. A more clear way to phrase this sentence would be "In the year 2113, the earth finally built its first station...". You eliminate one comma this way, and really unless you're using a lot of description, the less commas the better. This is a simple introductory sentence, not full of a lot of detail, so its good to lower the comma usage.
"That's when it happened" isn't necessary. We know something is going to happen, especially since you've just said no one expected the station to be unstable, and we know it's going to happen while his father is there, which you've already mentioned. So it's best to just ditch the last sentence.
There's no need for that comma. It reads fine without it.
Where is that pad? What room are they in? What does it look like? What exactly is "the pad"? I don't read science fiction that often, so when you say "the pad", I think of something Star Trek-y looking, which I'm not sure is what you want us to imagine -- so tell us what you want us to imagine as readers. Establish a setting. Tell us, even briefly, what the location looks like, what the objects the characters are interacting with look like.
Oh, dip! So this thing is kinda scary! Unfortunately, you haven't really described it yet. Give it some description. What does this dark and blue thing look like BEFORE it sets off on a path of destruction? It isn't the best to describe the creature after it's already started melting the ship around it.
For sure? How does he know? There has to be some sort of hint or clue, some sort of reasoning -- tell the reader.
Comma isn't necessary. "It wanted me dead". Dead just looks all awkward, hanging out on the other side of the comma.
---
Y'know, this is a decent start to a science fiction storyline. It's creepy and unsettling, it's got a monster -- I like that. You just need to take the time and fill it out some more, in the areas where I've already told you. When writing, try to slow down the plot and describe things more. Pacing is very important in fiction, because if you're going too fast, then you lose the reader, and if you're going to slow, you lose the reader also. So the trick is finding a nice medium of describing things, but not too much, but right now you're writing too fast -- so try to slow down your pace and savor your storyline and characters and setting some more.
Hope this was helpful!
~ Clo
This sentence is awkward to read. If you put an in in front of the first the, it would probably be more fluent.
The last part of the sentence isn't needed and just makes it confusing.
What do you mean by an electric sound?
The second now isn't needed.
All advice will help. Now, I'm just an amateur author, with all this help, I will get better and better. Thanks.
Hi. the title caught my eye so i thought i'd give this a read. this is slightly confusing as i have no background info and i don't know what 'Onia Corp' is or where it is. however the tension is built up well and it was spoiled by the fact that i felt i was missing something background info. some of your sentences can be quite awkward and don't flow. But that's nothing a quick proofread won't change. i really liked the way you introduced the situation and i look forward to reading more when you post it.
Hope this helped,
Afeefah