One
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“Soul Keeper!” Fear shrieked. “Give it back!” Fear ran after his friend and laughed. His friend had stole Fear’s hairbrush, and without his hair styled, Fear thought that he looked horrendous.
Soul Keeper, though, skipped around and squealed in delight. “You have to catch me first, Fear!”
Fear pursed his lips and pouted. “That’s not fair, Soul Keeper!” he whined. Soul Keeper leaped onto Fear’s bed with his long legs, jumping up and down. “You are such a child!” Fear growled. He flashed his sharp canines at the purple haired man.
“It’s not my fault that I want to have a little fun!” Soul Keeper exclaimed, and did a back flip off of Fear’s bed. Soul Keeper barely landed, doing the splits and sticking his black forked tongue out. Fear finally caught up to the Soul Keeper, heaving, and looked down at him with slanted, serious eyes. “Why so serious?” Soul Keeper nonchalantly giggled.
When the Soul Keeper got up, he towered over Fear. Fear grunted, “You are 2,200 years old, Soul Keeper. You are four hundred years older than me; be a role model for once!”
Soul Keeper smiled sweetly and
poked Fear’s nose. “If you want a real role model, go to old man Xzanis. Or
Skrap.”
“Soul Keeper, you’re a
real lunatic,” Fear snorted. “And why in
the Emberlynn Realm would I go to
Skrap? He’s… He’s…”
“Dirty. Locked up in the dungeon. I know,” Soul Keeper sighed. He tossed the hairbrush in Fear’s hands, though he barely caught it.
“Thank you,” Fear replied. “Go feed Skrap. Now.”
“I took his food down to him while you were snuggled away in your bed, sleeping like a little angel!” Soul Keeper squealed, a wider smile exposing all of his lethally sharp, jagged teeth.
Even though Soul Keeper had no eyes, Fear always thought that Soul Keeper was still a little creepy. Gaping black holes were in place of his once beautiful grey eyes, but Soul Keeper did something unthinkable and…
And…
Well, he lost his eyes. End of the story.
Fear scurried to his bathroom and stripped his cashmere robe off. He ran a hand down his pajama shirt, down to his pajama pants. He looked at himself and let out a little sigh. He also had no eyes. Soul Keeper committed the same crime to Fear, also, just when he was a young kid. It was inhumane. Well, they weren’t humans…
At least not humans anymore… Fear thought with a frown. I just wish that I would have chosen to die and go to heaven, but…
Fear brushed the thought off and started to comb through his red and black hair. Soul Keeper suddenly appeared in the bathroom, a smile always on his face. “I’m bored, Fear. What should I do?”
“Go give Skrap a bath.”
“But I don’t wanna!” Soul Keeper complained, his smile still visible. He pressed his mouth on Fear’s ear as his tone got deep and dark. “You know what I want, boy.”
Fear shook his head. “No, Soul Keeper. You can’t have it.”
“Why, though? It wouldn’t hurt.
Well, maybe a teensy tiny bit, but I would just have to inhale it and…” the
Soul Keeper noticed the displeasure on Fear’s pale face. “Alright. But…I’ll
have it some day.”
Soul Keeper disappeared
for a moment, and then reappeared on Fear’s sink, his slender legs crossed,
with a fist propped on his chin. “It’s getting less and less fun here. I may
retire back to my carnival for a few months. My babies need me.”
“They’re not your babies, Soul Keeper,” Fear said emotionlessly, his gaze locked solely on his hair. He ran a clawed hand through it, trying to fluff it up. “As far as I know, you’re so weird that a female would never get near you, not to mention procreate.” Fear always had a hatred for people, except for his master, Xzanis.
Soul Keeper stroked the stuffed toy’s hair that he held in the crook of his arm. The toy had always spooked Fear out a bit, its X’s for eyes staring into his soul. He grinned and looked at Fear. “But, this gorgeous face of mine doesn’t make you want to stroke it? Well, you’re not a woman.”
An awkward silence followed. Fear unbuttoned his shirt and put his red undershirt on. He eyed the toy with a significant fear. “You two can leave now. I’m not going to change pants in front of a lunatic.”
“I can read your mind, you know,” Soul Keeper giggled. “Smiles is not creepy! She’s just unique, that’s all.” The man kissed the toy’s head. “She has a mind of her own, you know.”
And that made Fear a bit paranoid.
Fear, the boy thought as he walked out of his bathroom, finding his black pair of pants. That’s what I have lived in all of my life…a tormenting fear which consumed my brain and self-conscience. A gaping, nasty fear… The most terrifying fear that someone, somewhere would kill me like those children did.
The Soul Keeper gasped and wrapped his arms around Fear. “Don’t think like that, Fear! Stop that! It scares me, even, and I’m the Soul Keeper,” the man said with a shudder.
“Get off of me,” Fear snapped with hatred in his eyeless gaze, though Soul Keeper got the message. The red clad male unwrapped himself from his much shorter friend. “Go…go bother someone else.”
“Oh, Fear,” Soul Keeper cried. “Please be happier. I wouldn’t have to take…”
Fear whipped his body
around and looked at his friend with a terrified fear on his face. He knelt
down before the man as tears streamed down his cheeks. “Please, please, please…please don’t… I’ll be happier, I
promise…”
“I’ll go tell old man Xzanis that you’re getting dressed. He wouldn’t sever the body without you! And hurry up; it smells divine this morning!” Soul Keeper cheerfully exclaimed, skipping out of Fear’s room.
Fear looked at himself once more in the mirror and thought, I wish I could die.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Hello Kortez, Flite here for a review. Just a little disclaimer, this review is going to come off as blunt a deaths compare to the two you've already received. But I say everything in the hope of helping you. Ok, let's get to it. This is gonna be short and to the point.
There is no character development in this chapter, the chapter merely depicted a scene between the two characters and their reactions with it. There's nothing that shows exactly who these characters are or their background. So, with a first chapter you really want to nail several things down. Your tone, your pace, and most importantly your character. This is the place where you introduce us to your charatcers and provide the groundwork in which they will later develope. But in here, it's just all action scenes and simple dialogue exchange between the two. Nothing that reveals much.
I liked the humor exchanged between the two, and it proves that you can to a degree develop your characters with your dialogue, however, you need to add more background in.
So, I've noticed that your dialogue in the chapter doesn't quite match up with each other, so instead of the characters talking to each other like how we would in a normal conversation. It sounds like they were talking to themselves, or not really listening to what the other person was saying. Like the scene where Fear was told to give Skrap a bath, the dialogue jumped from place to place. Soul Keeper all of a sudden turned dark and ominous, when a minute before he was still bouncing around. Granted, he can switch between emotions very quickly but for the readers you need to ease into that. Maybe foreshadow it a bit, otherwise, it's too sudden and it will jolt us out of the rhythm.
This happened again when Soul was talking about Smile. I'm not sure who she is, and the entire exchange was pretty confusing and disjointed for me. x.x But it could just be me. I will tell you why I think it's a bit disjointed though.
This is mainly between the scene where Soul Keeper and Fear is talking about Smile however, Fear is suddenly terrified of something that we're not informed off. Just a little side note, I noticed you said 'a terrified fear' however, fear is an abstract term, is an emotion, so you can't pin an article onto it. If you omit the article and the fear, it would still have the same effect except this time is grammatically correct as well. I might as well add in that terrified and fear actually had the same meaning, so if you have one you don't need the other.
Anyways, let's get back to the scene, I don't know why Fear was suddenly so scared because I didn't see anything in the chapter that pointed to that. Do you know what cause and effect is? I will just explain it, this happens in a lot of works I review. So, if something happened in a story, then there must be a reason why that happened. If Fear was scared of Soul, then you need to tell us why that happened. Otherwise, the thought doesn't stand very well or connect.
The same thing happened with your last paragraph and the rest of the chapter, they're disjointed because there was no cause and effect between the two.
I think this is one of the major problems I encountered whilst reading your work, that your chapter didn't connect very well on the whole. That and also you need to add some more intimate detail for the characters.
Overall, I like this idea, the characters seem fun and I'm intrigued by what's going on. I will be back to review future chapters. If you have any questions or want help, please feel free to ask me.
-Flite
Hello~! <3
I knew that some person would critique this story very hard. And I was trying to mentally prepare myself, but I failed. DX
So there I was, trembling, reading your review, and I won't lie; I was terrified. ^^' But then I was suddenly honored, because you went out of your way to review a little newbie like me. So, thank you. <3 I really appreciate your time.
About the Soul Keeper. I tried and tried to portray his somewhat bi-polar personality, and that is why his personality shifts without any type of warning.
And I've told this to everyone: give it some time. Every story may seem confusing the first few chapters, but once I have the room to explain everything, I promise you that everything will make sense.
Also, I do know what cause and effect is, but thank you anyway for your concern.
Thank you so much for your review, and thank you for your time! ^3^ Have a great day! <3
Awww, you're really sweet, you know that? *hugs* Actually, I've finished your second chapter and it's a lot better. I will review it soon, and I'm sorry if I was too harsh. About the SoulKeeper, would you like some more information as to how to write him?
Hehe, thank you. ^u^ And sure!
Hello! Flash here for a review!
I've wanted to review this for forever now, but I haven't had the time. But I'm here now! And I intend on reviewing all of your chapters very soon. XD
Okay, I see something at the end that doesn't make sense (to me, at least). "It smells divine this morning!" Wait, what exactly smells divine? There's no evidence within the paragraphs preceding it that say anything about a smell. Unless he's talking about the smell of the air or something... But then again that's still out of context, because it shifts from "I'm telling on you because you're depressed" to "it smells great this morning." It just doesn't make sense. I feel like it's a "filler sentence."
Sorry, I know that was kind of nitpicky on my part. But now onto the positive!
This chapter does exactly what a chapter one is supposed to do: introduce the main characters. Both SK and Fear have different, distinct ways of speaking. That makes the dialogue seem even more real, because in real life people don't talk in the same manner. Fear is troubled and SK seems dominant over him, and we clearly see that through dialogue. So I applaud you, because not everyone (including myself) can FULLY introduce characters in a first chappie.
But there was one think that I wanted to see... You described their eyes, hair, and teeth, but what about their bodies? Obviously they aren't human, but do their bodies look human? Do they have different colored flesh/skin? Do they have scales? I mean, we don't really know. ("We" as in the readers.)
Anyway, that's all I've got. Keep writing!
~Flash
Hello~! <3
The body, which was smelling divine, was their breakfast.
And thank you for your review and kind words~!!! I really appreciated it!
Have a spectacular day! ^3^
~Kortez
Hey again!
Let me just say, this story is so, so good. Haha, I love it already. It's so captivating and your description is amazing. I really like the Fear and Soul Keeper too. Especially Soul Keeper
So, there was really only one thing I found while reading. Here it is:
This sentence is just awkward sounding to me. I think maybe because of the 'to's so close to each other?
Also, I'm a little confused about what happened to their eyes. So, they both don't have eyes? Did Soul Keeper do that to himself and Fear? Maybe this is supposed to be explained later? If so, ignore me haha.
So yeah! This story seems like it'll be really fun to read (and write, for you, I assume huh?
~Snow
Hello, Snow! Thank you for your review!! I really appreciated it! <3
Have a great afternoon!
Oh, I'm SO glad that you like it!! I feared (haha, pun) that no one would like it since it is so confusing right now. But, I'm ecstatic and overjoyed that you like it so much!! <3
Yeah, I'll change that sentence soon.
Oh, the eye deal will be revealed soon... and hopefully I can make it good~! And yes, the Soul Keeper did it to Fear, too, as well as some characters that I shall reveal in the next chapter that are super important. Yep, I'll explain later. XD
And yes!! It's so fun to write! It's such an adventure. <3 I will definitely post more and continue.
Thank you once again!
I don't think it's that confusing! I'm excited to find out more about the characters and what will happen from here on. Also, I feel like all fantasy stories can be confusing in the beginning because of world building and such.
You're doing a really good job with it, though!
Interesting story idea. I would like to know more about the story line here though. The first chapter is about introducing characters (which you did) and introducing the plot or conflict which you hinted at but is unclear. There can be more time for that later on though, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Questions I had while reading this were: Are Soul Keeper and Fear the same age? You refer to Fear as a boy and Soul Keeper as a man so if they are I would change them so they will be the same.
"..and I’m the Soul Keeper,” the man said with a shudder." Is he a soul keeper or is his name Soul Keeper or is he The Soul Keeper? This is an important distinction to keep as it confuses the readers.
The part in the end where Fear(?) is crying is very confusing because I'm not quite sure who is crying and why.
"Soul Keeper did the same thing that he did to his own eyes to Fear." This needs to be rephrased to make it more clear.
"nonchalantly giggled" the order needs to be switched her but the word "nonchalantly" itself is not needed and disrupts the tone of the piece, usually when one giggles it's because they're happy, carefree or silly. You would only need to add a descriptive word if it's any different.
Hope this helps! Message me if you have any questions!
(Oh my! I replied to you days ago, but I guess it didn't send!
)
Thank you!
As for your questions:
No, Fear and the Soul Keeper are not the same age. It even says so:
When the Soul Keeper got up, he towered over Fear. Fear grunted, %u201CYou are 2,200 years old, Soul Keeper. You are four hundred years older than me; be a role model for once!%u201D
Alright. So, the Soul Keeper is a soul keeper. He is the ONLY soul keeper in this story's "universe" (I guess you'd say XD), making him "THE Soul Keeper". He also goes by that name, since he absolutely hates his biological name (which will be revealed with time), so he just calls himself "Soul Keeper", though other people than Fear call him "the Soul Keeper". Fear just calls him either one. I guess that I need to stick with one in the text, though.
Fear was crying because the Soul Keeper torments him with the same desire every day, but Fear doesn't want to think about it. The Soul Keeper threatened Fear that if he wasn't happier, he would have to pursue his desire... which will be revealed during later chapters.
Thank you so much! <3 Have a great day, and thank you SO MUCH for your review~!! ^u^