The land that once was America was now covered in soot, a great fire came to the land, only few of the human population remainded. My name is Avana, and i come from a select group of what i call The Shifters. In the midst of World War 3, we arrived in America. The country was in chaos, Russia launched a nuke attack on the USA on August 22nd 2012, but miscaculated and landed it in Mexico. Mexico blamed the US and sent thier military into Texas, New Mexico, and California. They began killing random citiznes on American soil. China, Germany, France, Spain, and North Korea all began fighting over something about a new disease called "Belye glaza smerti" meaning White eyed death in Russian. You become unaware of all your surroundings slowly, then your eyes lose color bringing a white veil over your eye ball. Once the white tint has covered your eye (If you havent commited suicide by then) the gooey film breaks off into your blood stream and kills you within 4 months of infection. I didnt like humans, neither did any of my companions, I was the only Dragon at the time and my riders name was Vsadnik, in Russian it litteraly means Rider. The riders of Dragons were also special themselves they had the strength of 1,000 men, and the grace and slyness of 1,000 ninjas. Once a rider has been chosen they are not allowed to resign, if the rider is killed the dragon usually dies too, but if not they are banished to live alone.
"Avana have you checked the building over there? I thought i saw maybe a young human child." Vsadnik had a Russain acent but his english was excellent. When you join the Shifters you are required to learn most all languages. im flluent in alot of Asian, Russian, and English.
"No, I'll go check," i flapped a few times to glide over to the crushed building. On the end of my tail a long dagger was attached, not by string or metal but my tail grew that way. The dagger could radiate light as bright as a tiny star, "hello?!" i called into the crumbled 3 story house. If i remember correctly, Vsadnik said we were in Indianapolis, Indiana. "Anyone in here?" No response came all i was left with was the rays of sunlight slicing through the crevices and cracks about the old structure. I turned my back to exit the building when i heard a crunch behind. MY body worked as fast as my mind i was whipped around and my teeth snarling. About 15 feet away a young human child cowered behind a piece of metal and rock barely enough to protect the thing.
"Vsadnik!" I called and he came quick, "it's a male maybe 7 or 8."
"Do you have a Father or Mother?" Vsadnik tried to speak clearly, and it worked the child spoke.
"They left me here... they left me here to die they went to heaven and left their only son." Tears covered his cheeks and filled his eyes.
"Im not sure on what to do Avana, we cant take it with us, and we arent permited to kill any humans." I started thinking...
"Where is the nearest city?" I asked stepping closer to see the boy had tattered jeans and a dirty white shirt. he cowered closer in the corner shielding his face. I rolled my eyes , Humans, they never will understand that Dragons left because they are smarter than humans! The boy didnt respond, I snarled at him then Vsadnik put his hand on my shoulder,
"Boy she is harmless, where is the nearest city?" his voice so smooth. The boy came toward him and pointed to a distant building.
"Wayyyy past that building." he stayed close to Vsadnik, keeping me in his line of vision at all times. I was tired of him staring! I shifted down into my human form. Vsadniks eyebrows rose as they looked over my body. The human boys eyes became large and round.
"What is it???" Last time i was in Human form was at least 2 years ago, back on my home planet Arthemis. (Its alot like Earth in its jerrasic ages.)
"Your hair got alot longer." Vsadnik looked away smiling.
"HOW DID YOU DO THAT???" The small kid wasn't yelling but he as shouting.
"Get with the picture kid, We arent humans, just tell us were we can take you so you get off my back!?" I didnt like kids in general, and this kid was really pissin me off.
"Avana chill out." Vsadnik gave me a stern look. I rolled my eyes, when i began to turn around i stumbled and fell on my knees,
"Ow." my knee began to bleed. Vsadnik came over quickly and took out his water bottle, dabbed a towel in the water and then on my knee, "OW!!!" i hadnt ever felt burning from a wound! Humans and thier burning cuts! I hated Earth i wanted to go bak home, i wanted to go back to when i lived with my birth parents.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I was only 5 when i was taken from my birth parents, I was drafted into this group, and i didn't regret it... We were forbiden from seeing people other than The Shifters and the teahers in the academy. Vsadnik was 7 two years older than myself. In the begining of your training as a rider you start out on the lowest rank, so did your dragon. Usually Male riders dont get paired with female dragons, but when i first came to the camp i didnt understand much of the Russian they spoke.
"GO! GET IN THERE YOU DUMB Arsale!" i just stared up at the husky muscular man, his teeth were so rotted and his eyes bloodshot. I couldnt understand his language my eyes filled with tears.
"GOOO!!!" he shoved me into the room and i fell to the gound, "do you like being thrown to the gorund bitch?!" I stayed on the ground not even caring anymore what would happen. He nudged me with his foot, not hardly but it hurt, "I'm atlking to you Arsale!!!" He reahed down and pulled me up, i didnt stand, my body fell limp to the ground. I saw his foot go back and before it hit me something moved me away. Another Arsale in my sector. He spoke Russian,
"ENOUGH!" he shouted, the man smacked the boy who saved me and left mumbling under his breath. I looked over to see the boy, his hair black like the natural obsidian from the 4 major volacanoes in Arthemis. His eyes like the fresh water lakes surrounding the land of my home island Grassisle. I sat up slowly and wiped away my tears, i didnt know if he understood, but i said it anyway,
"Thank you." No beds were given to us in this one roomed cabin we were to lay on the dirt floor. 8 of us in a 10x10 foot room! He nodded and kept his hand on his eye,
"I Vale." I smiled at his english,
"I'm Savana." That night we stayed up with each other telling stories of back home, the camp said we couldnt see our parents again untill we had gone through 12 years of The Shifters Academy. We shifters and riders age 2x faster than a human being, but live 3x longer, so at age 5 i had the brain compacity of a human 10 year old. Soon Vale and I gained respect it took 5 years to become a Cadet, you're an Arsale until you can pass the basic training test with your rider. That day we got our new permanant names. Savana Lee was now Avana Roy, and Vale Holdare was now Vsadnik Rozlan. 7 years left to go, 5 if you can pass the Ultimate skill test, but you've got to have straight A's which both of us had. 5 years after that day, exactly 5 years, we did something incredible,
"I dont think we're ready nik..." I bit my bottom lip.
"Vana dont worry bout it you'll do great! We'll do great!" He gave me that sideways smile that girls would fall over. Its against the rules to have flings with other students at S.A. Strange thing about boys is they love to break the rules. Vsadnik wasnt a bad boy the only rule he broke was leaving the camp to go into town and buy good food and pop or soda. I hadnt ever tasted sugary pop before and he said it was like a happy explosion in your mouth.
"Ok nik I believe you.... Lets go." Vsadnik and I beame the 1st pair to pass the Ultimate skills test in 10 years! I couldn't believe it! They threw us a ceremony , and gave us gold ribbons. Later that night me and Vsadnik awaited our 1st mission.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hi!
So, as I was reading through I saw a lot of grammatical errors which made it a bit confusing for me to read. I'll focus on this particular section:
Spoiler
1. 'I's are always capitalised. I saw that you left a few i's uncapitalised in this paragraph.
2. A pause seems like it's in order here. This is me being nit-picky by the way.
3. Same goes here.
4. Full stop as you're going to start a new line. More on that right below.
5. Every time someone new speaks, you have to put their speech on a new line.
6. Generally in writing, numbers are spelled out not written in numeral form. Unless of course, if you're writing a date or time.
7. I think that on fits better here.
8. You don't need was there unless the dragon was being whipped around by someone else, but as she did it by herself, the was isn't needed. This is one of the examples how grammatical errors can make the story confusing. So, grammar needs careful attention.
9. It was said before that 'the thing' was human, so, you should say replace 'the thing' with human. Unless of course, if you wrote 'the poor thing'. It make more sense that way.
10. An adverb is needed there.
11. Since it's just about 7 or eight, I think the more appropriate word would be boy.
Now that I'm done with the nitpicks, I'll go over the content, I liked the beginning you have and how you've set the scene and told us that the world was not the way it's used to. But there's a bit of info dumping in the first paragraph. Here:
That is an info dump (practically the whole first paragraph is, but I'd like to focus on this section). You say that the riders of Dragons had the strength of 1 000 men. That isn't as interesting as showing us that they're that powerful. Show us what they can do. Can they wipe off an entire army? Lift a tonne cement block? Well, if they can, then show us. Say:
Okay, so, that might not be how they work, but, do you see how much better it is if you show us rather than tell? It makes the story much more interesting and alive.
With the overall idea, I really liked the setting of this world with the shifters and all that. It's quite original and it's also interesting. Keep writing!
Hey there! I'm Icy and I shall be reviewing for you!
I'm going to start with nitpicks, because that' how I roll!
I've quoted the whole thing because I have quite a lot of comments to make at the beginning. I'm not sure if there will be less at the bottom though.
As far as I can tell your main problems here are grammer use and making the story progress too quickly. Allow the reader to feel what the MC is feeling at the same time that he is. Don't just tell us things that happened, show us in detail and give us reasons for why they do.
Good luck