A sharp pain shoots up through my arm as I’m yanked into a side corridor. A warm hand instantly covers my mouth, distinguishing my outraged screams. I spin around, out of my assailants grip and see Elijah standing before me, warning me to stay quiet with a finger at his lips.
I frown in confusion. What could he want? Then I hear it.
A faint sobbing is coming from the door around the corner from us. It sends an all familiar shiver down my spine but I can’t quite place where I’ve heard the sound before.
It’s strange. Everyone in Shadowdale knows that rule number one is never show any weakness towards the guards. That can only mean one thing.
This is someone new.
The sobbing quickly becomes more urgent when another person enters the room.
“No. No! Please, no more!” the whimpering voice begs. It’s a girl. A young one.
“Number,” a male voice commands. The girl begins screaming. I cover my ears with my hands. I can’t listen to this.
This was me. Eleven years ago, this was me. I know exactly what this girl is feeling as the ink scratches her prison number deep beneath her skin. I know the pain. I know the fear.
It’s been years since Shadowdale has had a new inmate. The last was Alys and that was over four years ago now. Do we even remember how to welcome a new addition into our dysfunctional family?
Another chilling scream echoes down the corridor and I wince.
We have to remember. This girl’s survival depends upon it.
I look at Elijah and he seems to be on the same page as I am. He takes my wrist in his palm and pulls me away from the torture room.
Good. We’re going to watch the girl being dragged to the four walls she will come to call home. Her cell. We’ll be there to show our support.
Not helping myself, I turn to glance back at the door. It’s slightly ajar with a warm glow of candlelight spreading through the crack.
I see a flash of silver as a knife is brought down upon the desperate prisoner. I screw my eyes shut and bite down on my lip. Barely masking my sob.
Elijah glances at me as we stride towards the cells. I look away. I know he wants to talk about what we just heard but I will never be ready to talk about what happened to me that day. Especially not with him.
Thankfully, he remains silent but squeezes my wrist in comfort. I snatch it out of his reach, not realising that he still had hold of me.
Turning the final corner, we arrive with the rest of the crowds waiting to catch a glimpse of the new inmate.
Wow, news travels fast around here.
On the opposite side of the passage, I can see Alys and Bugs with their heads down and faces grim, probably being forced to relive their own incarceration day.
Down by the open cell door, Hunter stands sharpening her pocket knife on the stone wall. I scowl. She’s always watching and waiting to intimidate the fresh meat.
Hunter doesn’t have long to wait.
Two guards emerge around the bend, dragging the sobbing figure with them. The jeering and whistling begins at once from everyone else.
I take in a sharp breath as I see the prisoner for the first time. She has luminous, golden hair. Tumbling down over her face as she is pushed and pulled against her will.
It feels as though a shadow of a nightmare as creeped into my world. I see this image every time I close my eyes.
This girl could be my double. Like a ghost come to haunt me.
Suddenly, Winslow strikes from the shadows. He launches himself at the new inmate, pawing at her with his filthy hands.
Rage boils over in me. How dare he? How dare he touch her like he touched me all those years ago?
I scream in anger and move to take him out. I don’t care if I’ll be punished for it.
However, my body meets a brick wall.
Elijah is holding his arm out in front of me and no matter how hard I fight the barrier, he won’t be moved.
I hate him.
I have to watch as Winslow causes more trauma and terror to this poor girl all because of Elijah’s idiotic protectiveness.
The guards eventually pull Winslow off his prey, after a few seconds of enjoying the chaos, the launch the girl into her cell. Her head smashes against the back wall and she blacks out instantly. Probably for the best.
A guard quickly rushes inside to check that she is still alive. As he brushes her golden hair aside, icy cold realisation strikes through my heart leaving me to sway on my toes.
Her face.
I know that face.
Not a ghost come to haunt me.
My sister!
End of chapter
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140,866 Literary Works • 673,696 Reviews
Hello there!
I took a look at your portfolio, and chose to review this since your other works had so many reviews. c'x
You are really great when it comes to keeping the reader interested. Nice end also, I really didn't guess it was her sister! When it comes to sentence building, you have a lot of variation. Sometimes you use ''I'' twice in a row to start a sentence, but that's not really much to worry about!
As far I can see, your plot seems well-planned and exciting. I hope you'll get the next chapters out as well!
A little nitpicks:
When I read this sentence aloud, it feels too long. I suggest a comma before but.
Seems like the 3 people before me did a great job with their reviews, so that's all I have to say!
Good luck on your next chapters!
- Zontafer
Ooh, nice plot twist there at the end. You do a good job hooking the reader--I already want to know more about this place, why the people are prisoners there, why the guards are so completely awful, and so forth. I don't know the MC's name yet, but I like her already because of her empathy--because even before she knew the new prisoner was her sister, she was sorry for her and wanted her not to experience the trauma, even going so far as to try to protect her from the guard's assault.
I have two sort of more nitpicky things, though:
1) The prisoners are just allowed to wander around the halls? I mean, how are Elijah and the MC in the area when the new prisoner is being brought in?
2) Now, this one might be okay. We know the MC came in eleven years ago and that Alys, the last new prisoner, was brought in four years ago, but I don't know how many people came in between them. Because what's bugging me a little is that the MC is so bothered by the new girl's treatment that she even sobs at one point (before knowing this is her sister), because she's remembering her own day. But you'd think, after living in such an awful place for eleven years and seeing who-knows-how-many-people subjected to this treatment, she would've become more desensitized. Which might sound weird since we're all lucky enough not to be living that sort of life (presumably, based on the fact that we have internet access and everything), but a body can get used to anything as they say.
This isn't a problem if Alys is the only person the MC has seen incarcerated, but if many people came in between her own incarceration and Alys', then the reactions she has to the new girl's treatment (before she knows it's her sister) seem like too much. Because if it's been a lot of people, she might feel sorry for them but not sob or think too much of her own day, beyond just a "I survived it, she will too." Whereas if Alys was the only one she's seen come in, her reactions make a lot more sense.
You don't need to add that detail in just now, but it's something you need to think about and possibly mention in passing later on.
Other than that, this is good. There's really no dialogue, but it didn't feel that way at all because you had short paragraphs, a good amount of action, and silent communication between the prisoners.
Blue
Hello!
A lot of things happen to the MC, as opposed to them uh, happening in the very very first paragraph- the passive/active voice thing. Look at sentence one and two, and then look at three - a completely different picture.
The passive tends to sometimes make the reader a bit less engaged - say, able to lean back and read on, and not lean over the book with hunched shoulders and her nose tracing particular words.
I'm not saying to always use the active, but when it's an active scene, when things are happenings, etc., sometime's that the better option. I'm writing so much about it also because that was the method of the intro - the first paragraph - and so weighed heavily on the whole intake of the piece.
Also, the happening simply for variety reasons, may be appropriate for very good reasons also, but here I felt a bit left out of the scene becaue of this. I wasn't reliving what tje character when through but rather was taht cool observer.
Emotion - I'd focus a bit more on that. The emotional parts of the piece are around to words: sobbing and screams. And while when one sobs and screams, one shows a great deal of emotion, this has a tendency not to show when only those bare, naked words are spelled out.
The show/tell thingy, to a little (not big) extent.
And also, they're terribly generic words, you see. A general catch-phrase. Why should I care for a girl who sobs and screams? Look: she sobbed and scream.
I guess audiences today, or it might be just me, might in general be a little - insensitive. I'm not at all encouraging you to give bloody, detailed descriptions of a torture scene, but to add a bit more to the general words. What was the tone of the sobbing? Was it steady all the time? How was her breathing? We don't see the girl, and can go only on sounds - and it's a bit dissapoinitng to see those easy - because it's a writer shortcut, really - words used. Audio is sometimes as improtant as visuals, and here you incorporated into your story a wonderful opportunity to use more of the readers senses than just eyes.
In teh same way, what does it mean to barely mask a sob? Really? I can imagine such a person doing such a thing, but I had to pause and think on my mind, when the writer ought to have captuired my mind completely.
There are different writing styles, yes - some use their words sparsely and that is absolutely fine and can make a great story to. But this piece is sort of caught up - oh, I don't know, it feels as if a lot of details were wanted to be conveyed, but it's general thoughts and concepts, like to scream and capture a sob.
Those are words behind which very dark things - at least in this context - are suppose to be trailing. If you build around those words, a stronger atmosphere of idk, fear, etc., could be created. So that the reader doesn't lean back.
So I just wanted to focus on those to points. Please be aware that I'm not meddling in your writing for meddling's sake, and that I did like how the story flowed, and did have a nice time reading it - I try not to read those that I don't!
Have a great day.
Just a little nitpickiness, overall, the spelling and grammar was great. When you mentioned her "incarceration day" you said it like it was an occasion to be remembered. Unless you want to change some wordings, you should capitalize it, so "Incarceration Day."
Also, you forgot a letter. "they launch the girl into her cell."
Maybe the rest has been covered earlier in the book, but here goes:
I'd like a bit more description of this place, presumably a prison. Is it moldy and dripping, or dry? Are the cells big, small, square, round? It can be sprinkled around too, it doesn't have to be a chunk of description.
Along with the scenery, I only know what the main character looks like. Her friend is just an amalgamation of other characters I've read. Also the guards; though I imagine them to be big and hulking, I don't know for sure. A few words here and there could clear the confusion easily.
You said near the beginning "We have to remember. The girl's life depends on it." What do you have to remember? Your Incarceration Day? If so, you might want to make that clearer.
It's a great story, I'm sure, if the rest is like this chunk!