Published January 3, 2012
Chapter 4: Nadira
“Oh Mother. I wish I could speak to you. What should I do? What can any of us do?” I sighed and hugged my legs close to my body, before leaning my back against the Daiki. It was the biggest tree in this part of the forest. It was our wisdom tree, where we went to think. I closed my eyes and prayed. I prayed to my mother and hoped that without the link that the Chiyoko provided, somehow she could still hear me from this other sacred place. A small blue butterfly landed on my hand and blinked at me. I smiled. I breathed. It was so quiet here.
“Ouch! Hey what are you…. Get… Off me, get OFF!” I struggled. Rough arms clasped themselves around me, a bag was pulled down over my head and my arms were bound behind my back. I kicked as much as I could. I tried to scream, but soon a hand was pressed through the fabric. I breathed. There was a… it smelt nice. I breathed in more of it. My legs kicked slower, my arms stopped resisting. My eyelids grew heavy. I felt tired. So very… very… tired…
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140,101 Literary Works • 673,000 Reviews
And back for Chapter 4, as promised.
The first thing that really strikes me about this chapter (and the other chapter I just reviewed) is how short they are. These feel more like little scenes rather than full chapters.
This chapter in particular felt very, very short, and I think it would be much stronger if you included at least some of what happens after Nadira wakes up. As it stands, there's nothing much to this chapter except Nadira prays and gets captured. That's not a lot.
On a side note, ethers and other anesthetics don't smell "nice" from my personal experience. I've worked with quite a few in the lab while anesthetizing animals, and they generally smell sharply sweet. They also tend to make a lot of people nauseous if exposed to them for more than a few minutes at a time. It depends on the anesthetic, but the liquid-based ones also tend to work fairly slowly.
Something to keep in mind.