After a few minutes, Mrs. Michelle arrived, carrying a tray of kuihs, bite-size snacks consisting a selection of cakes, cookies, and so on. Along with her was Damon, who stayed at the door, not knowing what to do. She put the tray on the study table and pushed hims forward. He was wearing a brown cardigan that blended well with his rich chocolate skin, and a simple black trousers.
“This young man was in front of the house just now,” she said, patting Damon’s shoulder. “Said he was your friend. You’ve never brought him home, but you make more friends, which is good.” She turned to him. “Make yourself at home, honey, but don’t push it in Sarah’s room.” With a wink, she left.
Damon closed the door and turned at us. “Did I miss anything?” he said. Mauvine came out from his chest and joined the lights on the bed besides Sarah.
I shook my head and gave him a sweet smile. “No, you didn’t miss anything. Just our plan to search for the bad lights’ bases,” I said, taking the tray and placing it on the bed.
He scowled at me and sat besides me. He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s exactly five o’clock. Why did you guys start without me?”
“Merah always come to my house a tad earlier than the one being planned. It’s a good habit,” Sarah said.
I nodded and told him about the plan, taking a cucur udang, deep fried fritter studded with a whole unshelled prawn. Along with the cucurs were curry puffs, small pies in a dee-fried pastry shell filled with a curried filling which was perhaps chicken, and kuih lapises, sweet steamed cake made from rice flour, coconut milk, sugar and various shades of edible food colouring done with many individual layers. Yummy indeed.
After the explanation, I expected Mauvine to object in some ways of having to be with Scarlet, but that didn’t happen as the light let out a simple “Okay”. Damon, of course, scowled at me, but didn’t say anything against the plan. It seemed to me that while the pair had some attitude problems, they could cooperate pretty easily.
Now that we had done something for the bad lights, I brought up the thing that had been bothering me. “Anyway, Mrs. Michelle - Sarah’s mom - told me about the disappearance of a girl. She had the girl was in the car and no one saw anyone brought her out of it, abducting her. Do you guys think this has something to do with the lights?”
“Every light clan has its own ability,” Sunglow said. “Scarlet clan has telekinesis. Mauvine’s has the ability to turn parts of one’s body to the element of the things one touches while Silver’s can produce illusions that affect the five traditional senses. There’s a possibility that a bad light which was originally an Azure could turn one invisible and able to go through objects.”
“There’s a possibility,” I said. “We need to check that out. I’ll ask Mrs. Michelle later about it.” With that being said, I had to think of the reasons why I asked her about an abduction that was clearly had nothing to do with me.
“You have taken care of enemy bases. How about lights’ portals?” Mauvine asked.
“One of them has been sealed by the bad lights,” Imran said, reaching to the fashion magazine and reading it again. “I expect the same with others.”
“You have to find a solution to destroy the seal. As it stands, Damon has yet to reach the needed level to overcome it,” Mauvine said with a vibration that seemed to be his insistence.
Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Overcome it? How?”
“You would see. Right now, I need to ask, how does the seal look like?”
“It’s one of your brethren,” I said. “The seal is a flat purple light covering the holes in the isolated building. I assume the walls also contain it, which means it’s a barrier. When the lights come into contact with it, they would stuck, and the light seems to absorb their energy. When a human tries to touch it, it burns him like a laser.”
Mauvine hummed, thinking about my words. “A laser. It is most likely Phlox is the cause of it. They produce lasers, and can manipulate them into any shape they like. If this is true, someone needs to become his light companion, which means humans are involved.”
“The number of lights that can possess other beings are limited, and they are a minority,” Silver said. “With this theory, I believe some humans might actually become light companions voluntarily.”
“Why would they do that?” Sarah said.
Damon shrugged. “They are humans like us. They have desires and needs, and the lights tend to approach a human by granting him a wish.”
“This just forces us to be extra careful tomorrow,” Scarlet said. “We can’t trust anyone easily, and any light can’t expose himself on public as while a human cannot see him, other light can.”
I clapped my hands. “With that being said, the meeting is over. We can go back to our houses, and make sure to observe everything in case something unusually happens at your surrounding. Damon, give me your phone number. All of us will be in touch from time to time.”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,004 Literary Works • 672,792 Reviews
Hey there! I'm finally here! I have now caught up, and I figured I'd start reviewing here.
General Thoughts So Far
So, your plot is really interesting, and it seems to be laid out pretty well. Your characters don't really jump out at me, but they don't feel flat either, and of course you're probably still developing them. (I know I am with Shaping Faith.)
By far the most interesting characters are the lights. There are times where they feel very alien, and as a reader I really want to know more about them.
So far my main issue is one aspect of how this has followed on from the prologue. Your prologue was excellently written, but the reason it hooked me was because of the last line. I desperately wanted to know what her father had done to deserve death, and whether or not she would actually go through with it.
And although I understand it's not the main plot and she was never likely to kill him, I'm a bit disappointed that you haven't done much with it at all. We've hardly seen the father so far - all he's really done is refused to hold her hand during prayer and have a second wife that he prefers to stay with. And I just don't think that's a reason for her to want to kill him.
Right now, her father is more marked by his absence than anything - the idea that he should be being kind and loving but he's not even there, even more so since we hardly see anything of him in the narrative. And I think typically a child/teenager would wish for her father to come back, not want to kill him. Basically, I was expecting the father to have done/be doing something terrible - abuse, things like that, not just neglect. The neglect angle could still work (see Shallan in WoR), but you'd need to show more of the emotional damage it has caused, which is really what I'm not seeing here and what I'm disappointed by.
My only other problem I've had is that sometimes your explanations of things relating to the lights don't quite make sense, though I think it's just a problem of awkward wording. For example, in the last few chapters I've been having a hard time getting a handle on Damon and understanding what his power is and why it means he didn't kill the girl. Here, I understand what the barrier is and that it's being caused by an evil light, but them calling it a "laser" confused me because lasers are beams of light, not a field.
And that is something I've seen throughout most of your chapters - you tend to have some awkward sentence structures and/or grammatical errors. I figure that's probably because you've had to write quickly for LMS, but it does impede readability sometimes. Reading your work out loud is great for this sort of thing, to see if it sounds natural.
One last thing I want to say is that I really like that this is set where it is, in a largely Muslim (right?) country, because I haven't read many books with a setting like that and I think it's really interesting. However, I'm not actually quite sure where this is set, so I'd love it if you mentioned the country specifically at some point. And in general I'd just like more of the setting because I'd like to learn more about it. Right now, there are some things I don't understand that I would like to - how the school system works is the major one. I'd love to see more of the culture as well, and I really like how you include the religous worship in their lives.
Anyway, this "General Thoughts" section turned out really long, so I think I'll just leave it here and go review the next chapter.
Thanks for the review! Yeah, it's a country majorly inhabited by Muslims.
I'll try to fix my wording and focus a bit on the settings. 
Hello again!
I think your chapters are definitely improving! I appreciated that once Damon showed up you didn't re-tell everything we just read in the previous scene - perfect use of telling there. I like that their plan is really starting to come together and that everyone had a say in it (at least I think so... did everyone talk or put in their input at some point? If not, try to do that). I also loved the cultural element you added in with the snacks Mrs. Michelle provides. I thought that was described really well and it was a nice addition to the story.
Some things to think about character wise... I like that Damon has some attitude because it's boring if all of your characters are super nice and get along really well :p However, going forward, at some point I'm going to want to know why he is the way he is. Why does he come off the way he does? Why does he act the way he does? Since he's still a pretty new character I don't need to know yet (mystery is good). And he doesn't have to have a long, depressing back story or anything, but it's just something to think about.
I don't really get the mom yet. I think she's kind of awkward. I'm sure it's a cultural thing with not trusting unfamiliar guys in your daughter's room, but I don't know, I thought this was an awkward thing to say.
This goes back to what I talked about in a previous chapter about transitions. I think you could have a much smoother transition here. To me, this felt wordy and cumbersome. Maybe give an action like "I looked around at my friends and said..." or "I reached for my last treat and said..." and then go right into what he wants to talk about. Right now it feels like you're announcing that he wants to change subjects, but in a real conversation, people just change subjects, you know?
I thought this was an awkward transition, too. Boom the meeting is over, go home? What if they want to keep casually hanging out? Does it have to be so final - like we're done talking about what we said we were going to talk about so go home? He could definitely conclude the meeting with the wrap-up he said "Keep observing everything in case something usual happens". But I don't see why they all need to leave right now. And I thought the "all of us will be in touch from time to time" was awkward. It makes it sound like their communication will be forced and planned. I don't think you need to include the part about getting Damon's phone number and being in contact with one another.
Looking forward to seeing how this continues!
Thanks for the review! Merah and Imran has limited time to be in Sarah's house since they should be back before seven to pray with the family; you can't really hang out freely in someone's house in this country. xD I do like the hanging part though; I think I'll implement that in future meetings.
Hey again!
Does this mean that they're assuming a lack of human involvement in the abduction? Otherwise my first thought that it's another case of telekinesis and that the light opened the door. If an Azure did move through the car, and it was more of a 'forced posession,' then it's still unlikely that the authorities would assume a kidnapping over a runaway case. I would clarify this idea for the reader.I didn't notice much in this part either, and some of it is kind of the same thing as in the last part:
Other than that, I only saw minor grammar mistakes/ a few spots with a bit of an awkward flow.
This is actually a bit awkward and confusing to read. I would add in an exhange Sarah and her mom to break it up. SOmething like 'You've never brought him around before' 'yeah, he's a friend mom, we made plans to hang out yeasterday' 'ok, well at least you're reaching out to new people...' (OK that wasn't a great example, but you get the jist)
I think you mean Scarlet's
I'm pretty sure should be 'will see'
But that's it, the rest was great! I particularly like how you're charaterizing the new relationships between Damon and the group!
-backroadstraveler
Ah, I think I should change the car door to being locked. I'm sure that's what I intend it to be.
I want to make it Scarlet clan because there are more Scarlets around, like Potter family that has many Potters, you know? So yeah.
Thanks for the review!
Aha! That makes sooo much more sense!
And sure thing!