Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Okayy well this is quite the prologue right here. I will say though, this one could perhaps do with being split in two. The first couple of parts work wonderfully for the prologue, but the latter part seems a bit more fitting to be in a first chapter because that seems a bit too much to be happening just hanging out in a prologue there.
Anyway let's get right to it,
The rain blinded me as I watched her as she slowly drifted away from me. It was my fault that she was there.
“Audrey!”, I shouted. “Audrey!” I checked my wrist watch, checking her vitals. Her heart rate was so low that I thought she was already dead. I started to cry.
“Audrey!” I shouted. But no response. I was swimming as fast as I could. I tried to scream her name again, but water flooded my lungs. I spit out the water and took a deep breath. “AUDREY!!!”, I screamed. It was fruitless.
Well this is quite a powerful start. Nothing quite like a start with a person clearly struggling for their life, and bonus points if we've got a friend who appears to be trying somewhat in vain to help them. Definitely gets our attention pretty nicely here and introduces us to what the surroundings are like too.
As I got closer I could see that her head was completely submerged in the water. If she couldn’t breathe, she was going to die. Her unconscious body drifted farther out. I swam faster. My arms and legs were on fire. I had to save her. This was all my fault. I never should have let her go out in this weather. The rain got harder.
I checked my watch and the screen flashed, the weather interfering with my signal to her watch. I looked up and screamed her name. “AUDREY!!!”
Well that definitely does not look good. I really love the unforgiving destructive vibe we're getting from everything around them here as the situation slowly seems to be growing more and more futile. Given the context here it is quite obvious that death is the only place this is headed but you've done enough to give us those tiny little glimmers of hope shining through.
And then I saw it. The massive wave headed right for her. Her vitals said twenty-five more seconds. I was still at least a minutes swim away. I swam so hard I could barely breathe. “AUDREY!!!” I screamed, and screamed. Fifteen seconds left, thirty seconds out. The wave got bigger, and closer. Ten seconds left, fifteen seconds out.
The wave hit her, and sent her boogie-board and unconscious body tumbling. She was dead. I felt it in my gut. I just lost my daughter. And it was all my fault.
Well that happened faster than I though it was going to but I suppose it was inevitable. I think you did well enough to dance around the idea there to give us readers hope, which is quite a powerful thing to be able to instill in such a short piece especially to character we have never met before.
FOX broke the story first. “Sixteen-year-old Audrey Mason drowned at Virginia beach last night, after a fight with her father. Nicodemous, the father, provides no comment at this time, but his guilt was evident last night, as he dragged her lifeless body ashore. Why would he ever let his teenage daughter go swimming in a thunder-storm, you ask? Again, no comment at this ti—” I jammed my thumb into the power-button on my remote, shutting it down. I sighed.
Well that one's a pretty terrible way to report that particular piece of information, not exactly the most surprising move, this is just startlingly true to how things tend to go down in real life but well, let's see what part it plays in this here.
After FOX’s horrible news report, I made a tough decision. Time to make a friendly bet. With two-hundred thousand dollars at stake. I called Charity, David, Alyssa, and Kyle. I told them about Audrey and about my new idea.
“Project Elanor”, I advertised to the gang. “We each design one girl. A perfect, smart, ‘straight A’, girl, and then we reverse her, each creating two girls. Okay?” I paused. There was a chorus of confused, “Okay?’s”
I continued. “We create a name for the good one, and break it up, for the bad one. For example, Audrey—good one, and Aud—bad one.” I smiled, satisfied with the idea of bringing back my daughter.
Well that took quite the turn. I can see how once can jump from that whole horrifying experience to how the world there ended up portraying it to it them actually ending up here, but that was certainly something I did not see coming. Color me very intrigued though.
“Alright!”, Kyle enthused. “I’m in. I’ve already got my idea.”
“Sure”, Alyssa said, her voice trilling.
“Okay. David said, he sounded like he had a mouthful of chips.
“I'm in. But I have one question”, Charity said.
“Shoot”, I said.
“Why did you have to name the project off of your ex-wife?” I pictured her light grey-blue pixie cut and frail frame, and almost laughed at her stern-almost-chastising-question.
But I answered in all seriousness, “Because she’s Audrey’s mother.”
Well that is a bit of a dun dun moment I think although it feels a bit more manufactured than it perhaps should be. Its not the quite the cliffhanger it is trying to be I feel, although it is definitely qualifying as a bit of a cliffhanger because there is something a little extra in there.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, a pretty strong prologue I think. It definitely did enough to get me wanting to find out more here. I was hooked quite quickly there and judging from the end the premise of this story also proves to be more than interesting enough that I would certainly love to know more about what happens.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Points: 254038
Reviews: 4101
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