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Survival: The Escape, Chapter 21.5

by KateHardy


Aria pointed towards a few bushes nearby and made her way towards that, the rest of them following suit. They were soon behind the bush, squeezed together just a little bit too tightly, but it was either be squashed or be safe.

“Okay, so, that’s another huge part out of the way,” said Aria, “we’re through the town, at least now anyone we meet is going to be trying to kill us, so it’s a little easier if we have to fight our way out with force.”

Daisy nodded. As grim as the statement was, it was true. This was technically a war, a war that humanity had lost a good century ago, but with them escaping and the mission they were setting out to complete, they had pretty much restarted it, or at least that was the plan if they managed to get through the final two hurdles in their path. They were now almost within touching distance of their escape.

“Okay, well, you guys know what we need to do, the cameras are all pointing towards the road, at least until we get to the warehouse itself, so let’s all stick to the trees, stay low just in case they have guards, there shouldn’t be at this time of night, but well, the drone was never flying in this area during an active escape attempt, they must have all been notified and while they don’t expect us to get this far, these guys are not known for making assumptions, they cover all the possible angles. So just keep your eyes peeled at all times, stay low and stay in the shadows of the trees,” said Aria.

With that, they all moved out, silently slipping into the trees one after another, Aria up ahead, followed by the others until it was Harry bringing up the rear, just behind Daisy. They quickly made their way across the road. As far as roads went, Daisy didn’t really have much to compare it to, but it certainly looked a lot better than the road leading to the jungle or the roads through town. This one had quite a few trees surrounding it, with quite a few trees looking to be ones made for decoration rather than wild ones. The road itself was a very smooth black strip, that didn’t seem to have a single imperfection. There was a long strip of purple grass mounted on a small metal platform running along the middle of the thing, and the lights were all attached to poles that were built on that small platform.

There were also several flowering plants scattered among the purple grass on the platform, and hanging from some of the light posts, there were even more flowers, some reaching to be ridiculously large sizes. In fact, a couple even looked to be from the carnivorous plants they’d run into during their trek through the forest, except of course this one was definitely a plucked one, and there weren’t any roots or stems in sight.

The cameras also appeared to be mounted on these light poles, carefully concealed among some of the flowers so that you would never know they existed if you weren’t already looking for them. Luckily the angles on the cameras meant they were all pointing towards the edge of the road and wouldn’t be capturing anything but the closest of the trees. They would be able to remain undetected for a little while longer.

They ran silently through the trees, like a brigade of some ancient ghosts of the past, creeping silently up on the brightly lit warehouse. It wasn’t exactly a hub of activity there, but there certainly were quite a few of the aliens wondering around, doing things here and there. There didn’t appear to be any transports going in, but hopefully they would find a few inside that were getting ready to leave. They couldn’t be certain but from the information they’d gathered, the transports did come and go every day.

As they got ever closer, Aria finally called them to a halt. They were maybe twenty feet out from the main edge of the road, where the circular land where the large warehouse was built stood. And twenty feet away, there stood two guards, large automatic weapons in their hands.

They all ducked behind a bush once more.

“Well, this is it, the final phase. It’s all about timing now. Either we pull it off perfectly and get out, or become grease stains on the floor.”


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Mon Dec 06, 2021 6:53 pm
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RandomTalks wrote a review...



Hey Harry!

RandomTalks here with a short review!

It seems that we are at the end of the chapter. I was fully surprised by the way you left things as I had fully expected you to throw another cliffhanger to disbalance us on our feet. That has been your usual style until now, but personally, I did not mind the quiet ending. It just didn't feel like an end, like there was more to go after that.

Overall, I liked the informative yet light tone of this part. We learn more about what is going on and what they are going to do and still it is interesting because of the way you have presented this information. We are very close to the end, and that thought is a lingering presence in every chapter right now. Everything that happens now affects all of humanity, and it will be appropriate to say that their future rests entirely upon them. Well, I can already say that the next two chapters are going to be very interesting.

Something I find a little hard to believe is the foolproof plan and their small reactions along the way. The only real danger they have been in until now was on their way out from the camp and in the forest. When they entered the town, it seemed to the backseat for a while. They have never been in a town, and even if they have thoroughly studied the documents about it, their reaction to this new environment was a little bland. There should have been more curiosity, and thrill in them. Yet they all just seem to go on.

Another thing is the big dialogue in the beginning where Aria tells them what to do. It really is one big run-on sentence, and even if you have inserted commas in between, it still makes one a little breathless on the first read. You have to break them down into separate sentences so that it becomes easier for your readers to follow.

That's all!

Keep writing and have a great day!

Until next time!




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!! :D

Yeah, I'm going to have to do more than a couple of improvements here for this particular part..it was a little rushed. :D



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Fri Dec 03, 2021 7:45 am
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ForeverYoung299 wrote a review...



Hey! Forever here with a tiny review!!

Forgot to mention it in the last part but it's pretty great that the drone has managed to capture all the intricate details of the whole area. Like according to the modern standards of the story, the quality of the drone is pretty low standard and still it managed to capture a lot of things. Yess, that proves modern things are not always the best and old-aged things are not always bad. :D

This part did a great job in showing us the nature of the aliens. I never expected the aliens to be so accurate when it came to the details but seems like I was wrong. They appear to be very much subtle to the details and designs. Planting decorative trees can of course be taken as a part of design as long as they don't have any hidden measure of security in them. I wonder if these plants and everything are their own works or if they have been made by robots or something. As the aliens do not appear to be very patient, I guess the latter.

The guards are definitely not helpful in the meanest sense. I don't see what it has to do with the timing. However, I think that maybe the guards will get busy with the transports and they will have to sneak in and out in that very short period of time. Well, that's quite hard to do.

Overall, this chapter had a few bumps in it but don't worry, as I mentioned, they can be fixed easily. I do sometimes wonder why the aliens even planned to capture Earth. Something with their own planet? Some problems that were actually caused by the humans? Maybe... Finally, I have caught up!

Keep Writing!!

~Forever




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!! :D



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Thu Dec 02, 2021 1:27 pm
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MailicedeNamedy wrote a review...



Hi Harry,

Mailice here with a final short review! :D

Here we come to an end for this chapter. I must say it left an impression that left me a little confused. I had gone in a slightly different direction with the title of the chapter than has now been presented here. In general, I am not yet sure how to judge the chapter in its entirety, because it seems to me that something is missing.

Compared to the previous chapters, there was always a build-up that came in the last parts at the climax, so that it looked a bit staggered when you looked at a bell curve, but here it was different. The centre was a short climax after the chapter had suffered a bit from having such a quiet start.

I'm still a bit split on how to rate it on some things, but think that overall this is a chapter that leaves me a bit blank in the head. That's not to say that I don't like the chapter, but there are some things that you've deliberately put in more in other parts and just didn't see as much here. I think the constant insertion of more emotion doesn't necessarily hurt the story, or the brief description of some places to give the reader a visual example. Here the chapter seemed like a script (I think that's the right word to describe it.) The script only describes what happens in its "raw version" and that's the chapter here. You could quickly make something out of it for the screen, but as a purely literary chapter, I would definitely rework it a bit so that a lot of it doesn't seem so grey.

On the other hand, I really liked that we got to see a lot of Aria again (so why Daisy was used as a POV here is beyond me) and her talent, but because of that the other characters seemed to be pushed into the background a bit more. I found it strange because we are now coming towards the end of the book and I think we should finally learn more about the rather secondary protagonists.

Hm... yes, I think I will come back to this chapter when the next one is here, because I still don't think it can end like this.

Have fun writing!

Mailice




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!!

Hmm...it could just be down to the old last minute rush problem. This chapter is a second draft, but its still very unpolished, cause my last four chapters for NaNo last time were all written in a big chaotic mess..xD I might just have to give the other two chapters a second look before I post them..xD




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