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Young Writers Society


12+

Survival: The Escape, Chapter 20.2

by KateHardy


On that note, the five of them sped up as they moved through the trees, there was every chance they might run straight into some kind of very dangerous plant, but it was a chance they had to take at the moment, Harry assumed Aria would get them to slow down once the sounds of branches breaking had died down somewhat and they were in a safer position.

“Wait!” shouted Aria from up front and they all slid to a halt. “No one move.”

Harry froze as he took in the sight of what was in front of him. It was a very large and very brightly colored flower, that bad part was that it was also a flower he recognized from the list of things that could potentially kill a human. It didn’t look the part, with five large white petals accented in reds and purples in varying patterns. The large red stem didn’t even have any thorns. And yet from what the drone had seen, if they stepped too close to the flower, the carefully camouflaged parts of the flower’s stem which ran along the ground would snare them and push them against the trunk. The flower fed off of the large insects in the forest by slowly digesting them through whatever poisons it injected from the stem and then absorbing the fluids remaining from its roots. As horrible as it had been to see an insect undergoing that process, personally taking part in it would be far worse.

Then because the massive problem that was directly in their path wasn’t a big enough issue the sound of breaking branches started to get louder and more frequent.

“Well, it doesn’t look like we’re getting out of this one,” commented Ryan. “We’re trapped between whatever that is and this stupid plant.”

“Alright, no need to think this is the end of the world here,” said Aria, “we’ve come too far to give up now, I mean, once we’re outta this forest, we will be almost free, think about that, we’d have officially cleared the defenses of the actual prison, we just need to sneak through the town and get on the right transport outta here. I think what we need to do here is make a choice.”

“Choices, it doesn’t look like we have those,” said Kate. She looked pale enough to be a ghost as she said that.

“Oh we always have one of those,” said Aria, “what we have to decide is, do we try and dance around and escape this plant we already know a lot about, or do we risk having to fight something potentially dangerous we know nothing about.”

“Can we even escape this plant?” asked Daisy, “the roots here are pretty much invisible, I can’t tell which place is safe to step on and which place is not. I would honestly take the chance with whatever it is in front of us there, and just shoot anything if it attacks; shooting our way through a potential horde of creatures sounds far safer than tiptoeing around this plant.”

“Pity we can’t just shoot the plant, “said Ryan, “that would make life much easier.”

“Yeah, if only those poisons weren’t stored in the stem of this thing,” said Aria, “then we wouldn’t be standing here discussing our options, we would be out of this place and running towards the town.”

“Well, I vote we try to shoot the horde too,” said Ryan, “if somehow those things get here as we’re trying to sneak around the plant and set the traps off, they’ll be taken care of but so will we, I think we’re better off just trying to tackle them in a safer spot and take our chances.”

“That does seem like the best option,” said Aria, “Harry, Kate, what do you guys think?”

“Let’s go find out if there are mutant hostile monkeys,” said Harry.

“I guess, it definitely seems like the safest option, I can’t believe I’m saying this but, I’d take a horde of mutant monkeys over tiptoeing around this plant,” said Kate, with a determined nod.

“Okay then, everyone, keep your weapons hot, and let’s see what we can find, if my memory is working properly,” began Aria,” we’ve definitely at least made our way halfway across this forest by now, so the end is not too far off, maybe running off towards the monkeys means we find a safe detour without this plant anyway. Ahh, I wish we the canopy wasn’t so thick around here, we could have had a pre-planned route through this mess then.”

“Well, let’s just get moving then, we definitely want to try and get a headstar…” began Harry, as they heard several loud thumps echo across the forest around them.

“That’s not good,” said Kate.


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Fri Nov 26, 2021 8:33 pm
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MailicedeNamedy wrote a review...



Hi Harry,

Mailice back with another review! :D

I'll just call this part a "lore part" where we learn more about some plants or a specific one and how the group has to arm themselves against it here. I liked that a lot, especially how you tried to show the plant in an interesting light with the details. I think Harry certainly has a good memory there, if not a photographic memory, to remember so much.

I liked that part. It felt a bit like a "mission" or quest they had to complete and I liked the interactions between the group here and how they were partly looking for a solution. It also took away a bit of my worry that there might be something more to come. :D

In terms of structure, I liked that it was so similar to the first part, between the narration in the first half and the dialogue in the second half. Also a little detail that I really liked here was how Aria made the group stop. It gives me the feeling again that I had of her a few chapters ago. It also shows me that maybe Harry wasn't so careful at the beginning. :D
What I also like here is how the focus slowly shifts and we don't just get to see the usual Aria-Daisy-Harry trio, but also more of Kate and Ryan. That gives the whole thing a dynamic that wasn't so noticeable in the previous chapters.

One other pointsI noticed while reading:

On that note, the five of them sped up as they moved through the trees, there was every chance they might run straight into some kind of very dangerous plant, but it was a chance they had to take at the moment, Harry assumed Aria would get them to slow down once the sounds of branches breaking had died down somewhat and they were in a safer position.

It´s a nice first paragraph, but it´s also just a sentence long. :D I would split it up a bit to keep the suspense here. So the air leaves the balloon too soon.

Have fun writing!

Mailice




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!! :D



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Wed Nov 24, 2021 4:47 pm
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ForeverYoung299 wrote a review...



Hey! Forever here with a review!!

Okay, well seems like this is not going towards anything good. I am growing suspicious of whatever it is. To add to their trouble, the flower too has made its appearance in the very perfect time.

Ah at the beginning of the part, I too was kind of relaxing like the characters but then it all turned into something horrible. The flower top was perhaps a mutant flower. I really want to know if this flower can actually kill an alien too. Like if we see nowadays flowers, those carnivorous flowers can actually bute humans, I guess. YouTube told me so. Now, if the same happens with the aliens, that's not a bad point. Also, what if they can actually process that animal into the flower? Like they always have the option of killing the animal down but it seems to be creative if they could actually get the animal into the flower. They can hide and wait. Also, maybe if that happens, they will be safe to go past the flower. Like after trapping and poisoning a whole big animal, the flower will need some rest. :)

I can just sit here and hope that they will at least be able to fight with the animal if it's indeed an animal. Like with the sounds, I am guessing that the animal is quite fast and if that is a monkey, it can simply jump on them. That sounds terrible, extremely terrible. Hm... I was not really in line with their opinion because getting past the plant seemed to be easier to me but well, they have chosen the other one. So, we have gotta go with that. Best of luck shooting the animal down! Something extremely good or something extremely bad is going to happen. I have that intense opinion.

Keep Writing!

~Forever




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!! :D



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Tue Nov 23, 2021 7:14 pm
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RandomTalks wrote a review...



Hey Harry!

RandomTalks here with a short review!

This was an interesting continuation of the story. While I do enjoy their conversations/discussions, I do think they that they dig their own graves every time they dillydally in the middle of danger because they want to debate first before coming up with a decision. I remember several instances in the story when they have gotten in trouble because of this particular reason. On the other hand, this habit of theirs does make the story feel more realistic and also intensifies the excitement of the readers.

You seem to have spent a lot of time fleshing out these creatures planted all over the forest, and it shows in the descriptions and the characteristics that you have mentioned in the story. Each of the plants or creatures that we have come across until now, seem unique and dangerous in their own way. I really like the fact that you have thought this out, mostly because we didn't have many descriptions before stepping into the forest. It makes it all the more interesting and gives us an idea of the danger surrounding these foreign creatures.

At the moment, I do feel that they should have taken their chance with whatever that was in the forest. At least, they would have had a head start then. The echoes do not sound like good news to me, and I don't think they are any better than the plant with the invisible stem in the ground. It will be interesting to see how they get out of trouble this time.

Overall, this was another nice installation. There were a couple of run on sentences, especially in the dialogues, throughout the part. They make it a bit tedious to follow the text, so I think its best if you break them up into separate sentences instead.

That's all!

Keep writing and have a great day!

Until next time!




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!



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Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:18 am
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Anamel wrote a review...



"On that note, the five of them sped up as they moved through the trees, there was every chance they might run straight into some kind of very dangerous plant, but it was a chance they had to take at the moment, Harry assumed Aria would get them to slow down once the sounds of branches breaking had died down somewhat and they were in a safer position."

You immediately begin the chapter with a run-on sentence, which can deter readers from being able to comprehend what is happening in a concise way. I suggest splitting this up into multiple sentences because at this point it's basically a paragraph. For example:

On that note, the five of them sped up as they moved through the trees. There was every chance they might run straight into some kind of dangerous plant, but it was a chance they had to take. Harry assumed Aria would get them to slow down once the sounds of breaking branches had died down and they were in a safer position.

You can see I also removed a couple words that weren't necessary to what was going on.

"Harry froze as he took in the sight of what was in front of him. It was a very large and very brightly colored flower, that bad part was that it was also a flower he recognized from the list of things that could potentially kill a human. "
You could have the first sentence only say 'Harry froze.' Afterword you could get into what he was seeing without explicitly saying he was taking in the sight. Such as: 'Before him was a very large, brightly colored flower.' You also state it's a bad thing this is a flower that could potentially kill a human, but the reader already knows and understands that's a bad thing. Don't try to explain things to the reader like they don't know anything, unless it's specifically a part of your world/worldbuilding they've never come across before.

"“Alright, no need to think this is the end of the world here,” said Aria, “we’ve come too far to give up now, I mean, once we’re outta this forest, we will be almost free, think about that, we’d have officially cleared the defenses of the actual prison, we just need to sneak through the town and get on the right transport outta here. I think what we need to do here is make a choice.”
Another run on sentence.




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!! :D

Uhh...those flowers are kind of brand new alien things that neither the reader nor the characters have seen before so no one knows what it does.




The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
— Mark Twain