z

Young Writers Society


12+

Chapter 7: Experiment

by Miraculor77


No POV

A small, tinted window lets in a painfully small amount of light, which shines weakly in a small, gray square on the hard concrete floor. There's a table there; a cold metallic thing, and a small figure is curled on it. She tightly clings to a raggedy blanket, a scrap of cloth barely big enough to cover her rail-thin form.

Then the people come.

They appear to be doctors of some sort, wearing the classic white coat that doctors from the previous era used to wear. As though sensing them, the girl lets out a shriek and tries to get off the table, her bony fingers scrabbling furiously for release.

They ignore her. One--a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair pulled up in a tight low bun-- reaches out and grabs the girl's gaunt wrist, injecting something into her bloodstream. Almost unwillingly, the girl relaxes, her face an outward picture of calm. Her pale gray eyes, however, are widened in fear.

The middle-aged woman straightens out the girl's bony form on the table, smoothing out the wrinkles from the thin white slip dress that she is wearing. The girl's body remains unnaturally limp.

Another one of the doctors, this time a young man, barely twenty, pulls on latex gloves. With one hand he pulls back her inky black hair, and with the other, he takes a needle, its thin point so sharp the girl barely feels it as he inserts it into a spot just behind her ear. Job done, he lets her hair fall back into place on the table and steps back, his hands shaking.

The other doctors huddle in a group around the table, whispering among themselves, noting her pulse, her heart rate, the way her eyelids flutter over her blind eyes. Her breathing turns irregular, and her fingers twitch slightly, a sign that she is fighting the vision that is playing out in her mind from the serum. The doctors' chatter turns excited as they note her reactions to the experiment.

The young man watches them, his blond hair falling slightly over his eyes. Sighing, he walks over to a small glass table in the back corner of the room.

With a quick tap from his index finger, the glass's surface ripples and reveals the daily log that he keeps as a record of the experiment for the Government.

He scrolls through the feed, ignoring the past entries, and pauses when he sees a date: April 3rd. There is no year; the Government had lost track of it when it came to power, and no one bothered to start the system again.

He starts filling it out, his fingers tapping rapidly on the touch-screen:

Name of person filling this out: Guest Doctor Hal N. and Government Scientist Team of Beta Experimental Technologies: Dream Realities.

Name of subject: Elena (no surname)

Updates in experimental technology: Downsized into needle, clearer, more believable images projected into mind.

Subject's reactions: |

Swallowing his disgust at the whole thing, Hal leaves the last opening blank for the rest of the team to fill out. Then, leaving the form open, he turns and quietly steps through the door, not wanting to stay in the same room as Elena--the subject, he reminds himself. He's only in this job for the money, and so he keeps his thoughts about it to himself.

It's for the best.


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Mon Jul 06, 2020 6:36 am
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KateHardy wrote a review...



Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

And One third done I think. Almost.

First Impression: Well that was an interesting detour right there. I think you should just say narrator instead of No POV but that's just personal preference.

Anyway let's dissect this one.

A small, tinted window lets in a painfully small amount of light, which shines weakly in a small, gray square on the hard concrete floor. There's a table there; a cold metallic thing, and a small figure is curled on it. She tightly clings to a raggedy blanket, a scrap of cloth barely big enough to cover her rail-thin form.


Nice description there to start things off.

They ignore her. One--a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair pulled up in a tight low bun-- reaches out and grabs the girl's gaunt wrist, injecting something into her bloodstream. Almost unwillingly, the girl relaxes, her face an outward picture of calm. Her pale gray eyes, however, are widened in fear.


Well that's not very nice of her.

Another one of the doctors, this time a young man, barely twenty, pulls on latex gloves. With one hand he pulls back her inky black hair, and with the other, he takes a needle, its thin point so sharp the girl barely feels it as he inserts it into a spot just behind her ear. Job done, he lets her hair fall back into place on the table and steps back, his hands shaking.


Okay if your going to continue to call them doctors and this is a narrator of sorts in that earlier passage it would probably be better to straightaway refer to them as doctors rather than "they appeared to be doctors."

The other doctors huddle in a group around the table, whispering among themselves, noting her pulse, her heart rate, the way her eyelids flutter over her blind eyes. Her breathing turns irregular, and her fingers twitch slightly, a sign that she is fighting the vision that is playing out in her mind from the serum. The doctors' chatter turns excited as they note her reactions to the experiment.


Well that seems interesting.

He scrolls through the feed, ignoring the past entries, and pauses when he sees a date: April 3rd. There is no year; the Government had lost track of it when it came to power, and no one bothered to start the system again.


How exactly does one lose track of the year? That doesn't seem like a plausible thing there.

Swallowing his disgust at the whole thing, Hal leaves the last opening blank for the rest of the team to fill out. Then, leaving the form open, he turns and quietly steps through the door, not wanting to stay in the same room as Elena--the subject, he reminds himself. He's only in this job for the money, and so he keeps his thoughts about it to himself.

It's for the best.


Well that's an interesting twist foreshadowed neatly by the shaking hands from earlier. I feel though hat if you want to show this better it should probably be from this Hal's point of view. Then it would be easier to show his thoughts and also clearer than just randomly mentioning the thoughts here.

And that's it for this one.

Overall: Okay let's see...plot taking on some more complications. And so our protagonists' sister appears to be suffering here though whether this is from the present or the past is still unclear. Let's see how things pan out.

As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.

Stay Safe
Harry




Miraculor77 says...


And the plot takes on some holes as well as some complications. I'm just writing this as I go without planning, so fingers crossed I'll be able to keep up with the story. Thank you for the review!



KateHardy says...


Your Welcome!!
Ahhh....that is usually very hard to do. I did that several times and ended up with either crappy stories or ones that were never finished. Usually before you start you should at least know how it ends and then by around Chapter five it should be planned out. But Good Luck keeping up with the story!! :D



Miraculor77 says...


Yeah... I tried planning so many times but it just doesn't work. I just can't do it. I do have a slight idea of what's gonna happen, but nothing is set in stone as of now. I'll probably just ride it out here and fix all the holes in the second draft when I have a clearer idea of what's happening.



KateHardy says...


Ha...good luck with that!! That sort of seat of the pants style can work as long as you catch all the holes by the second draft. Good luck again!!



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Sat Jan 18, 2020 1:58 am
dahlia58 says...



This chapter is fairly short, so there's not too much to edit. If I had to make a suggestion, maybe you could replace "people" with another word, as it makes Elena sound like she's not a person? But this is trivial. Perhaps you could add some more detail regarding Elena's physiological reactions to the serum. This may help build up drama. Other than that, I don't see much of a problem with this chapter.




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Sat Jan 18, 2020 1:58 am
dahlia58 wrote a review...



YWS copied my review twice, so I deleted the second one.




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Mon Aug 12, 2019 11:42 am
Awru wrote a review...



I can't believe its still in the green room. Absolutely outrageous!! So I am here to rescue it.
First of all this chap was mostly based on descriptions of different things from emotions to appearences. And i think you did a wondergul job on that. I certainly did not get bored which happens to me during reading long descriptions. Hey!! Dont judge me. I have concentration problems.
You did a great job maintaining that same despicable face of the government and also putting more emphasis on it. Ok! So my theory here is that little girl is the now Boss in Kyre's life. Which makes the whole idea even more intriguing. Hope you post the next chaps real soon. Plzzzzzzzzz!!

Keep Up the Ezcellent Work :smt038

peace out




Miraculor77 says...


Hi! I really forgot to respond to this about a month ago, so I figured that I might as well do it now. :)
Your theory seems pretty interesting, but I won't give you any spoilers. :D
Thanks for the review!



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Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:20 am
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DottieSnark wrote a review...



This chapter was actually quite terrifying. You painted a picture with your words of a scary, sterile room and a terrified child. You're first few paragraphs really showcase Elena's terror. Here are the lines I like the best:

One--a middle-aged woman with graying brown hair pulled up in a tight low bun-- reaches out and grabs the girl's gaunt wrist, injecting something into her bloodstream. Almost unwillingly, the girl relaxes, her face an outward picture of calm. Her pale gray eyes, however, are widened in fear.


With one hand he pulls back her inky black hair, and with the other he takes a needle, its thin point so sharp the girl barely feels it as he inserts it into a spot just behind her ear.


Also, you told me so much about the world and Hal (and I haven't read your previous chapters) in so few words. I know he's working for a corrupt and perhaps dysfunctional government and that he hates what he's doing but trying to be pragmatic instead of emotional and moral. You have a real talent for showing not telling, but I hope I can help you really showcase that talent.

Let's talk about your physical descriptions. I really do think you do them better than most people. You keep them very brief, but I want to warn you to make sure to limit the information to important things. Knowing that someone is a blond usually doesn't actually tell me something about their character, but telling me their hair is graying tells me they're older and willing to show their age. Likewise, I don't care that Elena's eyes are a pale gray or her hair is an inky black. I'd rather know what state it's in. Is it clean or unwashed? Is the hair cut into a style or just hacked off?

Hair actually tells us a lot about a person, it tells us about their hygiene and style and in a case like Elena who's probably not being given freedom over-performing her own haircare it tells us how they're being treated. I'm focusing on a small thing like this because this is how you show instead of tell. Small things like that can show personality and treatment without ever actually saying what the personality or treatment is, but you have to focus on the right thing.

Anyway, great chapter.




Miraculor77 says...


I just put the description of the hair to help the reader imagine the setting, and the fact that the girl has dark hair and gray eyes does relate to other parts of the story. Nonetheless, thank you for your review! I'll try to put that advice to use in future chapters when I feel that they need it.



DottieSnark says...


Oh yeah, I didn't mean that you can never have those types of descriptions, but just that you should value the types of description that actually tell you something about the character more, and used the hair as an example of how to do that. As it stands this piece is already really good and has some very high quality descriptions.




Irresponsibly-conceived assignments don't deserve responsibly-executed complies.
— Persistence