z

Young Writers Society


12+

Survival: The Escape, Chapter 4.2

by KateHardy


“Did something happen last night? Aria having stayed up late and you being unsually happy can’t be a coincidence,” said Daisy, now positive that something out of the ordinary had definitely gone down.

“Uh…well…what is THAT?” he said, eyes going wide mid-sentence.

“What do you mean?” said Daisy, giving him a confused look. If you're trying to change the subject you have to do better than that Harry.

“Just look behind you!” he said frantically pointing.

“I swear if you are…” she said as she turned around but trailed off as she saw what Harry was pointing at. It was definitely something worth screaming about. What looked like a large flaming ball was slowly dropping out of the sky. Oh. My. God. The worst part was that it seemed to be pointed in their general direction. The two of them stood rooted to the spot.

“What are you two staring at?” asked Aria, looking up from her work.

They simply pointed at the sky. Aria followed their line of sight and gasped, a hand covering her mouth.

“Oh dear,” she said,” what on Earth is that?”

“All I can definitively say is that it is not of this Earth,” said Harry once he had managed to regain his power of speech.

Daisy recovered from her shock quickly enough to hear Harry's declaration.

“Wait, how can you say that from down here?” she asked.

“Deductive reasoning,” he replied.

"In English please?” she said.

“No planes or ships that belong to humans have taken to the sky in a hundred years. No ship up there can possible be from Earth," he said.

"Ohhh," said Daisy, nearly face palming. Of course. Why am I so stupid sometimes?

“Then what the hell is that thing?” asked Aria.

“Do you think I have super eyesight or something?” asked Harry,”there’s no way to recognize any markings from this far away and the fact that it is a giant ball of fire at the moment is not going to help matters.”

“Can you at least try to figure out if it’s a spaceship or some kind of local transport?” asked Aria.

“I’ll try,” said Harry.

“Where’s Samantha when you need her?” mumbled Daisy as she refocused on the big ball of fire falling steadily towards them. She looked at it carefully, looking for any part that would give away the medium that it was designed to fly through.

She couldn’t make out any details. The fire and smoke was obscuring anything that could be noticeable from that distance. The only thing that she could make out was that it seemed to have a very pointy front end.

She tried to recall everything that her mother had taught her about spacecraft. Daisy usually didn’t bother to pay attention. It wasn’t like there was a chance she was ever going to be flying on one. Who could've predicted this was going to happen?

She dredged up as much information as her brain would allow but before she could come to any sort of conclusion Harry blurted out an answer.

“I think it’s a starfighter,” he said, excitedly,” that very sharp nose design has to be from a starfighter.”

“Are you sure?”

“62% positive,” he said promptly.

Daisy looked away from the craft to stare at him.

“Really? An exact percentage?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I just made that up. It just sounded really cool to say,” he said, winking. "Although the pointed nose thing is true, at least it was a hundred years ago. Who knows what's out there now? We barely know the ships the Venocarpathians use."


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Sat Sep 25, 2021 6:59 pm
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MaybeAndrew wrote a review...



OOOOOOOH I WAS RIGHT CRAPS HITTING THE FAAAAAN
Ahem, sorry, Andrew here with a review.
Now, you may get a billion reviews out of me today for a variety of reasons but one of which is that I want to see where all this excitement goes.
Overall, all the characters were very well written in this section, all I'd ask for is a more in-depth description of the fireball since that is pretty central to the chapter and never really described, and also the well of emotion in it may be causing inside of our daisy.
But into specifics

What looked like a large flaming ball was slowly dropping out of the sky.

Being maybe the most important thing that has happened so far I think the ball deserves more than one sentence of description. Large? Like large when compared to a basketball or large when compared to a person or large when compared to a house? Ball? Flaming? Like, on fire, like the way a torch is on fire, or like in the way a falling asteroid, or like in the way a car's engine can burn?
Ball? Like perfectly round or vaguely spherical? Slowly? Are we saying slowly relative to things that normally fall out of the sky or like actually is it inching its way down? Sky? Like, the sky sky, like it's descending past clouds and possibly out of space, or like, 50 feet above sky?
As you can see, this one sentence leaves so much ambiguity I'm having a hard time imaging what's going on at all. It's hard to get into the story and relate to the characters when I can't see what there seeing. I understand that plenty of this information may not be available to the characters and or will be revealed as time goes on, but at the start I think it would be wise to give a bit more of a basic sketch of what they are seeing.
“Deductive reasoning,” he replied.

Elementary my dear Watson
“Do you think I have super eyesight or something?” asked Harry,”there’s no way to recognize any markings from this far away and the fact that it is a giant ball of fire at the moment is not going to help matters.”

Revealing more info through dialogue is good, but too little too late.
She couldn’t make out any details. The fire and smoke was obscuring anything that could be noticeable from that distance. The only thing that she could make out was that it seemed to have a very pointy front end.

what distance????
But that's all just my frantic two cents! Hope it helped!
“I just made that up. It just sounded really cool to say,” he said, winking.

I too harry, make up tons of random stats to sound cool.
All in all super exciting chapter, I just wanted moooore.
Thanks, and keep writing,
Andrew




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!

About the fireball...so I didn't go into too much detail just yet...cause I mean, essentially the sentence is what you can see, this is veryyy high up, so its like an orange blob and I mean, we've got kids who are seeing fire headed too them, they wouldn't really notice anything more than "ITS A BIG BALL OF FIRE"...Idk..that was my approach to this scene here..but hmm, I see what you mean...the description for it is very sparse. :D



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Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:29 pm
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MailicedeNamedy wrote a review...



Hi HarryHardy,

Mailice here with a short review! :D

That was a very exciting chapter. It seemed like a short push on the accelerator that you put on here. I was visibly surprised how the story changed from the last part to this one. I especially like how you managed to get around an explanation that Daisy had asked for.

In general, the chapter had a great dynamic through the dialogue. There was a lot of fun and humour to read again, which I liked after those intense info chapters. I especially liked Harry, how he stays calm and tries not to upset the others with calculation. I'm also very happy to see that Daisy is finally showing a bit more of herself, and you get a new insight that she's not really interested in what she should be learning. It doesn't make her seem stupid, but ignorant when it probably comes to such problems / outrages.

I thought the chapter was well written and had a good pace to it. I liked it.

Other points that caught my eye:

unsually happy can't be a coincidence,"

There's a "u" missing here. Did the aliens take it?

"What do you mean?" said Daisy, giving him a confused look. If you're trying to change the subject you have to do better than that Harry.

This naivety that Daisy exudes comes across as if she has lost the plot quite often and doesn't always trust people. It also shows a bit of this introspective view where she puts herself at the centre and doesn't think about the fact that she's just one person. The general public is certainly more important in those moments than she is.

"Wait, how can you say that from down here?" she asked.
"Deductive reasoning," he replied.
"In English please?" she said.

Daisy, that's not really difficult to understand. :D She should have stayed in school and listened.

She looked at it carefully, looking for any part that would give away the medium that it was designed to fly through.

The second "to look" can be replaced by "to search" to avoid repetition.

"62% positive," he said promptly.

Ah, one of those features I like. Giving percentages to build up a tension. At least it's a random number that doesn't end in 5 or 0.


Have fun writing!

Mailice




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!



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Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:13 am
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ForeverYoung299 wrote a review...



Hey! Forever here with a review and wow, I have reached it at last.

That 62%!! That was insanely funny, to be very honest. I love that exact percentage.

Now with the Venocarpathians. The name is a bit long tho. If I am not very wrong, the humans refer to the Aliens as Venocarpathians? I don't have any idea of what it means nor does Google. So, I think I will get some idea of what it means and how the humans refer to the Aliens by that name. There must be a reason and a history though that might not be known to the children tho.

“Deductive reasoning,” he replied.

"In English please?” she said.

I didn't really understand what happened here. Harry said it in Englsh only. A little confusing to me.

Now this Samantha. You referred to her in the previous chapters too. She seems to be a tech expert and also quite an engineer in making? She is quite n interesting character in the story and I am eager to know more about her. Howver, I really doubt that would be very soon judging from the fact you introduced Kane after referring to her for a whole chapter. Indirect reference is quite a way of building suspense in the minds of the readers. :D

The Planes are not allowed to take off... Ah, this reminds me of something... Anyway, that was a good little detail there. I just recommend writing it as aircraft. When you write it as ship, it gives me a image of something sailing in water and not flying in air. So, I think aircraft gives a better image.

Now to the craft. A starfighter, it's called. Hm... fight between stars, XD. So, as I don't know the purpose of this starfighter, I can assume it can be used for some sort of transport or maybe for fighting. The latter seems to be more prominent. Now if that is for fighting, I wonder with whom they are gonna fight? Among themselves? I wonder. And if I go with the former there are chances that it is being used to transport materials, maybe from their own planet. For what? Maybe for that 100 year celebration. Who knows. Not a green flag for the humans.

Anyway, kicked out of GR :D

Keep Writing!

~Forever




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!

Hmm...the Venocarpathians...I think you won't learn more about them till like book three of this story...which I haven't even written yet..but uhh, well the name comes from where the galaxy they come from and a few other details, they have that name because of a reason, but yeah....loong story, it mixes with a bunch of other alien races linked to a couple of other novels I'm writing...yeah I have kind of a looot of worldbuilding done :D

Oh...she's just saying that Harry is talking in words that are too big for her to understand...xD

Ohh...I call it a ship because its a spaceship :D





So, this is gonna be a trilogy? interesting!
Ohh...I call it a ship because its a spaceship

Ohhhh..... okay! Got it. :D



KateHardy says...


Yup, that's the plan...I'm thinking of writing book 2 in december, its my holiday month :D And then book 3 probably sometime next year. :D



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Sun Sep 05, 2021 1:34 pm
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RandomTalks wrote a review...



Hey Harry!

RandomTalks here with a review!

I really enjoyed this chapter. It was entertaining, surprising, and humorous. There wasn't much setting in this part, or even some small description to base the scene around, but I guess that is to be expected when you divide a chapter into parts. Still, I liked how it continued from the previous chapter, like it was started from the middle of a conversation. It did feel a little sudden, but their surprise and shock was realistic enough and I think you delivered that very well.

The other thing I really liked was the dialogue, especially between Harry and Daisy. Even in the middle of a ball of fire heading right towards them, they manage to be childish and funny. Except I don't really think that they were intending to react like that, and the sudden shock had simply thrown them into overdrive mode and they were reacting without much filter. For some reason that made it even funnier for me.

“62% positive,” he said promptly.

Daisy looked away from the craft to stare at him.

“Really? An exact percentage?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I just made that up. It just sounded really cool to say,” he said, winking

This was such a 'Harry thing' to do, that despite the humor, it also made me smile.

I do think that the ending was a bit too sudden though. You had built up such a high with the appearance of the ball of fire, that it seemed to end without a conclusion or warning. Maybe you could work with that.

And no, I am not even going to guess what the ball of fire is, because I am very sure I will be wrong.

Another great chapter! Looking forward to the next one!




KateHardy says...


Thank youu for the review!!




Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced.
— Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness