Being woken from vampire sleep is like being punched in the head by an iron fist. It has only happened to be twice in my lifetime. Once when I had been a mere fledgling, only a week old. I had dug my grave too shallow and had been jolted awake by not only the unruly sensation of a blow to the head, but also the searing pain of my skin crisping from my bones. After that morning I have always made sure to dig at least another four feet deeper.
The second time is right now. At first I had suspected the nausea I was feeling to be a symptom of my early rise. But now that my vision is back in focus and my consciousness has fully returned to my body, I realise that I am actually being tossed around in the back of a moving van. A van with no windows, thankfully, but I can still feel the weight of the sun bearing down on me, trying to coax me back to slumber. But I must fight against the urge because I had taken rest under the dirt and now it appears I have been unearthed like I am some sort of buried treasure. What is the meaning of this?
A deep pot hole in the road sends me crashing against the side of the cage built within the van to contain me. A bolt of electricity shoots through my entire body at the contact, rattling my teeth. I drop to the floor in a ball, spasms clenching my muscles.
What is happening to me? This van has clearly been altered to contain something strong. Something like me. Am I really some sort of treasure that these people have been searching for?
“What do you want?” I try to shout but it comes out as nothing but a fragile whisper. I should be asleep. The nausea is getting worse. In a matter of minutes, I feel my body giving in. Blackness clouds my vision and I shut down.
I’m being moved. Strong hands squeeze my upper arms and haul me out of the van and into the blazing sun. I cry out and hiss at the pain as the light scorches my face. My captors seem to not react. I cannot see due to the light but my ears tune in to the heavy breathing and grunting of the men either side of me as they drag me, my knees scraping across the dirt.
In the distance I hear the clucking of chickens and now I smell the stench of the farmland. That explains the rough terrain we had travelled through. We are far out in the country now.
Right before the agonising pain for my burning flesh knocks me unconscious, I hear a large, heavy sounding metal door being opened.
The next time I wake is much more fluid. First my ears adjust to the soft shufflings around me. Then my limbs start to twitch, feeling the hard rock beneath me. And then my eyes flicker open and stare up at the glistening black rock that shelters me.
I pick myself up off the ground and cringe at my tearing skin. It is night now so my burns should heal quicker. Slowly, I rest my back against the rocks and outstretch my legs before me. I’m in yet another cage. This one I doubt is electrified due to the dampness of this cave-like chasm.
It must be almost pitch black down here but the moonlight filtering in from the grid above makes the trickling water shimmer on the rocky surface. And when I look straight ahead passed my cage and into the cell set into the rock opposite me, I notice that I am not alone.
A smile cracks across the pale face before me. Her hair, as red as blood, looks striking in the strip of light that bathes her.
“Awake at last,” she rejoices jovially. “I was getting worried.”
“Where am I?” I ask, my voice hoarse. I need blood, these wounds have weakened me greatly.
“I am not too sure of where but I can tell you why,” she replies.
I watch her suspiciously for a moment as she continues to smile too tight. She is sat mirroring me, in a dark dress that flows to her crossed ankles and a smart black jacket buttoned to the top. She is human. I can smell her blood, can hear it pulsing through her veins. She appears to be in the same predicament as me, locked up and hidden away – then why does she seem to not care?
“Do you want to know?” she asks after my long pause.
“Yes, I do.” But do I really? Perhaps ignorance is bliss.
“It’s this backwards, hillbilly family. You know the type – when the uncle is the father and the daughter is the sister.” She pauses, as if waiting for a reaction for me but I just continue to watch her. “Anyway, don’t ask me how but they know about your kind – our kind.” She corrects herself then pulls a face. “The supernatural.”
My jaw clenches and I look down at my lap. When she doesn’t say anything, I catch her looking at me, her head tilted slightly with the pitiful, careful expression of someone approaching a wounded animal.
“Are you ashamed of what you are, laddy?” she asks.
“You are not like me,” I counter, bypassing the question. “You’re human.”
“Aye.” She smiles. “I am human. But I have meddled with dark forces for centuries so apparently that makes me a bad person.” She shrugs innocently.
“You’re a witch,” I conclude.
“One of the best.” She raises her chin haughtily. “Ignore what the bitches from my old coven say. They were just too weak to follow my practices.”
“Are we the only two down here?” I ask because I can’t see beyond our two cells.
“Not at all. This cavern spans all the way back there.” She gestures to my left.
“What do they want with us?”
“Ah, yes, as I was saying.” She brushes a fallen strand of hair back behind her ear. “The family, they are a morbid bunch. Used to get the jollies from hunting innocent animals. When they got bored of that they upped their game to predators then somehow they discovered real life monsters and started hunting them.”
“Then shouldn’t I – we – be dead?”
She pressed a delicate, pale finger to her lips. “I’m not finished. After realising that killing vampires, ghouls, shapeshifters and whathaveyou was hard work – maybe a couple of them got killed along the way. Let’s hope so.” She grinned. “Anyway, now they have come up with a game. Capturing monsters is a lot easier than killing them once you know all the entrapment runes needed.” She pointed skyward to the glowing carvings above her. There is nothing carved above me because I cannot transport myself like a witch can.
“What is this game?” I ask.
“They set two supernatural beings against each other in a ring and bet on who will win. Oh, don’t look so worried, laddy, they’ll make sure to send you out at night so you have a chance. They even gave me a spell book.” She pats a heavy looking leather book by her side, then rolls her eyes. “Not that its much use without ingredients. What do they expect me to do, beat my opponent over the head with it?”
“You seem awfully at ease at the notion of impending doom.”
She shrugs. “I’ve got time yet. I’m not as interesting as all you other guys.”
“How do you know so much? Have you been here long?”
“Word gets spread by the winners. I’ve only been here for about a week myself so nothing I say is from them directly. There hasn’t been any new information since the latest winner came. He’s not much of a talker.”
I get up now, intrigued by the other beings imprisoned down here. When I grasp the bars before me and try to pry them apart but it is fruitless. It surprises me how long it has taken me to attempt it. It appears that the witch is not the only one who is awfully at ease.
From where I am standing now I can just make out the bars of the cell beside the witches. They are separated by a wall of black rock which makes the cells look like they have been chiselled into the rock itself.
“The latest winner?” I inquire.
“Aye, he’s known as the Beast. That’s what they call him, you see. He’s up there right now. No doubt you’ll see him soon, he’s up against a fae. She’s got no chance.”
“What is he?”
“A werewolf,” she replies nonchalantly but then her mouth quirks up when my shoulders stiffen. “They like to put him up against your kind so you probably won’t be down here as long as me.
“He’s killed vampires?”
“Aye. You know, I’ve never really understood this universal hatred between werewolves and vampires. The two of you are so similar. You’re not born what you are but are instead turned by another, and you all seem to despise what you have become.”
“We are nothing alike,” I grit out and grip the bars. “Werewolves hunt in packs. They get a sniff of our dead blood and they track us for sport. We are solitary. We stay hidden. And those of us who still have a moral code live off animal blood. Werewolves are savages.”
The witch seems to be satisfied by my answer. “Well, he certainly is.”
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,007 Literary Works • 672,816 Reviews
Hello
So, I liked this piece a lot, and I saw that myjaspercat already wrote a review sort of detailing any grammatical errors, but I figured it wouldn't hurt you to have a couple of opinions to help with your editing.
"It has only happened to be twice in my lifetime."--I'm sure you meant me, instead of be, and that's fine we all make mistakes like that. I would just suggest looking over your work a little before submitting it because these errors are east to make.
" men either side"--on either side I presume. Once again, it's a simple mistake so I wouldn't worry about it too much
Anything else I found was pretty much covered by myjasparcat.
On a less critical note though, I loved the beginning of this. The first paragraph was enticing, and informing to the reader, but didn't give away too much information. I liked your dialogue, I felt that it was very natural and not too forced which I, as a reader, appreciated. Overall, I liked reading this and suggest that you continue to write about vampires or something of the supernatural type because you seem very natural at doing so.
Hi!
Thank you for taking the time to read and review, I will be getting to those mistakes at some point. Most of the stuff I write is about the supernatural so I'm glad you think I do it well!
Hey there MissGangamash,
Myjaspercat here to leave you a review.
Nit-picks/Line-by-line
Spoiler
Overview
Ok, well that was an interesting beginning. I like the concept you have here and I think if you write it well, it can be very good. However there are some things I want to mention.
1. You used the words 'me' and 'my' a lot. In fact I bolded every time you used either in the line-by-line. However, so you don't have to, I already counted up each time you used them:
My=35
Me= 31
Now this may not seem like a lot, but it becomes so tedious to read when every sentence [for the most part] has at least one or two of these. You can cut down on this count by combing sentences or replacing words.
2. Your narrator/character pretty much tells us everything that is happening in the chapter. This can become boring. I'm not going to go into the whole show don't tell thing, but just know that that implies here.
3. Stick to "said". One of the biggest invisible words in prose is the dialogue tag "said." This word can come up thousands of times in a book and the reader probably won't even absorb it. This is especially useful because, when it comes to dialogue, what the reader should be noticing and taking in is the dialogue itself, not the dialogue tag.
But here's the problem: words that aren't "said" and "asked" stick out and jar the reader. Suddenly they have to actually read the word, and usually it's not worth it. Telling us how a character is saying something in the dialogue is telling, and just as unengaging as if it was telling in prose. Showing us, through his words, how he's saying something will be far more engaging.A reader becomes engaged with writing when they're allowed to bring their own interpretation to it. It's because a reader can imagine the way Bob is saying this that they are immersed in the story. If you hold their hand the entire way, they never get to enjoy their own adventure, and your story becomes boring.
Another caveat: Using modifiers is cheating. So even "he said quietly" doesn't work, even though you've stuck to said. I cover this more in the guide to cutting word count.
3. This is the last thing I want to mention for this chapter; dialogue doesn't tell the story. While it's always nice to have dialogue in a story, too much can make the piece boring. You have more dialogue then you do prose and I feel like it just brings down the piece a bit. All the same, the prose that you do have lacks the rather umph that it should have.
All in all, I do think you have a good start. It needs to be edited a bit [as most drafts do] but it's not bad enough to severely drag down the piece. Quick caveat: I would work on the hook in this chapter [which should flow through the full piece since it's the beginning] just to make it a bit stronger. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Continue writing and good job. I hope I didn't sound to rude.
Thank you for taking the time to read and review!
I'll have a look over your suggestions when I'm editing
Some of your nitpicks were just the English spellings of words though, haha. We tend to use 's' instead of 'z' a lot.
The 'seem to not react' part is because he can't see. So he presumes they haven't reacted because he can't hear a reaction, but they could have reacted in a visual way.
And I meant laddy, not lady. The vampire is male. 'Laddy' is a term for a young boy.
ok cool, thanks for clearing all that up. I would suggest maybe making it a bit clearer that when he's taken from the van that he cant see, that would be great.
It says 'I cannot see due to the light' straight after. Perhaps you missed it.
I might have. Thanks for clearing it all up.