Zillah tossed the roll of gauze onto the passenger seat and slid into the car. She pulled out her dagger, holding it, watching as the blue gem, pulsed brightly. A tint of blue fashed over her. She tucked it back into her boot. And turned the car away from the curb. She turned on to the off-road again, passing a few cars. None of which gave a second glance to the young man driving, both hands planted firmly on the wheel.
Driving with one hand had proven to be difficult. Thought it was probably illegal or something to be driving with an incapacitated arm. Hence the illusion.
She'd be able to maintain some consistency while shifting the automatic. Parking would be the most difficult.
Thankfully, the dirt road was easier to navigate in the daylight. There were a few potholes that managed to sneak up on her. Providing an unwelcome surprise now and then.
Zillah aimed the car for the same spot it had been the night before
She had to line up the car. Brake than without loosening her hold on the said brake. Twist sideways, careful not to move her left arm or shoulder, and shift into park. All whilst holding the steering with her knee on her leg that wasn't holding the brake.
Exiting out a couple of times. Zillah studied the tread marks versus where the car tires were then readjusting the car.
She grabbed her gauze, pressed the lock button on the key fob then tossed them back on the seat. Zillah shut the door with a satisfying thunk. Then tucked the dagger neatly back into its sheath hidden in her boot.
Zillah swivelled to face the mountains. The shining windows of her base gone, replaced by solid rock. The only way you could see them from th outside is if you were right up informant o them. There'd been a couple of rock climbers that had to have their lines cut before they climbed. Now people thought it was breaking a taboo to climb it.
Her eyes followed the trail zigzagging up to the bluff that her base was built in. Going up was going to be a lot worse than going down. Thought at least she could see now. She set her jaw and started the trek up. After a few minutes shed stopped leaning on the rock wall that ran along on side of the trail and peered up. “Hold on-” she peered behind her, shed only gone about 300 feet. She slouched and continued her way up, her footsteps becoming a steady rhythm.
When she reached the flat top of the bluff, she sucked in a breath and sank on the nearest rock.
“Flying is SO much easier.”
She sat panting. Waving to the random strangely enthusiastic morning hikers as they passed her.
Once they bypassed and she'd checked that no more were coming up the trail, she snuck through the fence again. Popping out the other side, she walked near the edge until she found the grabbling hook. She bent double-checking it was fully retracted before kicking it into the entrance. immediately regretting the acting.
She paused, she'd have to jump in again. It wasn't a high drop only about 9 feet, but it felt like more. Signing she sat down on the edge and pushed herself in. she landed slightly better this time, though not as painless. She crumpled, laying on her back and staring at the rough rock ceiling for a few moments.
“I need to make another way in.” she got up, shifting her weight from one foot to another as she gently shook her sore ankles. Slipping off her boots. She slid around in her rumpled purple socks.
She shuffled over to a door on the far left. Opening it she turned around the simple industrial sink, to the small mini-fridge. She popped it open. Bening down, her eye scanned the continents. Than double-check.
“I thought I had a coke in here, maybe I drank it?”
She stepped out, weaving in and out of all the rooms. Checking them one by one until she got to the last one on the far right, her bedroom, scanning for an empty coke bottle.
She popped her head in the door, scanning it then halfway turned back around out she stopped. “Holdup-” she swung back in. A boy sat on her bed, looking out her window.
She stared, shocked and unsure of what to do. The boy hadn't noticed her as he kept gazing out the window, coke in hand.
Her coke.
Zillah inwardly groaned, not this again.
The villainess drew herself up, bringing the intimidating glare in her eye.
“Excuse me?”
The boy jumped and turned.
“Oh hey,” he gestured with the coke,” This ur place? It's cool.”
He held out a hand, clearly unaffected by her demeanour.
Zillah paused then shook his hand,” Yeah... uh how'd you get in?”
“You know I don't know, I kinda just fell in on the palace. I was over on the ledge, on the other side of the chain fence. On the trail on the bluff out there.”
Zillah nodded,” Don't you recognize me?” Usually, people froze or started throwing stuff at her when they met. It was only moments until realization clicked for him and he ran out screaming.
The boy shrugged, “Nah, we met?”
“No. Look I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You didn't show anyone else, where this is did you?” she swivelled, still slightly shocked at the fact he didn't seem to recognize her. At least getting him out would be easier if he wasn't running around.
“Nah, I did Instagram it tho, it was too cool to not take pics.”
Zillah froze and slowly turned.” You. What.” she gritted her teeth.
“Oh yeah, I figured it was fine, other people have probably wandered in here too? I mean it not exactly hidden.”
Zillah glared at him. He didn't move.
“Show me,” she growled.
He paused, unsure
She uncurled on fist towards him. ”Show me what you put out.”
He gingerly placed his phone in her hand, Instagram open. She looked at him then tapped on his story.
Unbelief and anger curled inside her she watched the story. It showed the boy standing in front of her leading a tour of her house, or as he called it, a bunker. As the story ended he explained how he found it and how to get in. The story ended it popped back to the main page, she clutched the phone.
Her eyes darted between the boy standing and the phone. That had only completely exposed her home. Practically an invitation for Force. Who'd probably guessed that was where she was hiding out.
Zillah truned and grunted, “follow” before swiftly storming out of the room. Making a beeline for her tall combat boots. She dropped the phone on the floor. Ignoring the crack that issued from it, and the squawk from the boy. After slipping his boots on. She raised a foot over the phone, “anything else you should tell me?”
The boy shook his head vigorously, eyes glued to her heavy boot hovering over his phone.
“Good now I suggest you start climbing out before I throw you out the window. don't tell speak of this place again, you want this back don't you?’
The boy glanced at the cement walls littered with crevices,” how am i-”
She raised her foot.
He dashed to a wall and desperately started climbing.
Zillah watch as he scaled the wall, clearly he hadn't climbed much, if at all. Once he finally heaved himself over the edge and disappeared into the ceiling. His head popped back through.
“Can I have my phone please?”
Zillah smiled, “sure,” and brought her boots down, once, then again, and again. producing a series of protesting HEYs, for the boy above.
Once the phone was a smashed place of plastic and small pieces of glass. She chucked it at the boy, whose head disappeared before it smashed into his face.
"There you go!” She yelled.
HELLO FRIEND I wanted to go back a bit and read and review this chapter as well <3
Ooh, I like the specific verb of "pulsing" with the blue gem!
Ahh, I didn't realize Zillah was capable of magic too omg :O And I love the bit of humour incorporated in this section
Ooh, I'm curious as to why your paragraphs are formatted the way they are. Maybe it was the result of transferring the chapter from another document / source? If not, I think it would help to organize this into traditional structure, as single sentences don't really need their own paragraphs. But I have a feeling this was due to how the publishing center published this work ^_^
All of these sentences, except the very first, are fragments. They lack a real subject and verb and complete thought. They're more like little phrases. These could all be combined very easily into one or two sentences with correct comma placement! c:
Ooh, I think you could go into more detail about this trek, if you so liked! How was it difficult? Was she breathing hard while going up? Were parts of her body super sore? What was the scenery / weather like? Little details like this can help add a bit more colour and make this more picturable ^_^
Yes, somebody please give me flying powers haha
In this chapter as well, you have a lot of sentences starting with either "she" or "Zillah" -> it gets repetitive after awhile, especially since each sentence is just Zillah did this or Zillah did that. Instead of always describing her actions, you could dive into her emotions and plans for the future instead of what she's currently doing. Or you could focus on her physical pain or something. Just varying up your sentence structure in general should be helpful c:
Love this piece of dialogue, it's so human and natural :)
Aha, I love the connection with the coke - I had thought it was just some small random note, but turns out it was part of a bigger picture! ^_^ Also, who is this boy >.>
Omg this kid xD He's so blunt and nonchalant haha
rip :'(
Just a small thought -> maybe "smashed" isn't the best word here, because I can't really imagine pieces of glass smashing into somebody's face, you know? Like it's seems like a gentler word would make sense. But that's just what I think! ^_^
omg Zillah xD -> these actions remind me exactly of her haha xD and I love how all of her dialogue and actions align so easily with her character.
Poor kid though haha. I'm sure he didn't mean any harm, he couldn't have known who's "bunker" it was :O
From the next chapter, I know her home searching has been a little rough >.> It's going to be hard to find a place safe from the public eye where Force won't be able to find her. Let's just hope she's able to find one soon :O
Hello LadyMysterio!
Another intriguing chapter! I can't wait to review this one.
The Good Stuff
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So, Zillah can do illusions huh?
- The way you made Zillah search for her missing coke was genius. It was a clever way of introducing the ignorant teen.
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Serious Gandalf vibes lol. This entire scene was well done!
Improvements
- Now obviously, the biggest one would be spelling. I'm not going to show EVERY single word that was misspelled because honestly that's no fun.
- Okay, so I feel like some of the wording was a little awkward. Especially when Zillah was parking the car.
It's very lengthy and I lost interest when reading this particular part. Sometimes making nitty gritty parts like this easier to understand, it's best just to make it shorter. Leave it up to the readers imagination.
Overall
Besides the awkward wording, this was a good addition to your story! Really showing Zillah's ugly side! Anyways, I hope this helps. Keep on writing and have a great rest of your day!
- Stellarjay
yayay gandalf vibesss XD
Hallooo! So for the day, this'll be raindrops last review of your chapters. Hoping to see more soon.
Okay, notice how in these three consecutive paragraphs you used her name in each. Well that's okay, but when a reader tends to read fast, mentioning her name multiple times is a bit distracting. In my mind, it kinda sound like: Zillah studied .... Zillah shut the door ..... ZillahThat's why, if the sentences separating the them are short, I think it's better to use pronouns: Zillah studied .... She shut the door ..... She
This is really funny. So I see, you have a knack for putting some comedic humor too haha, nice, nice.
But she didn't delete the post, so the infos still out in the open, at least delete it sana.
HAI HAI HAI. So this is another chapter, I think it's rather short compared to the previous ones but it did hold the same amount of twists and interesting plotlines. Now, I'm more curious to what Soren will do.