The sound of silence supplanted the atmosphere as Britain came to the reality of what had just been reported. Prince Henry, the beloved eldest son of King Charles, had been assassinated during the Commonwealth Tour, a day after his father told the world that he would be the one to succeed him. King Charles was terribly ill and unfit to rule, so it was inevitable that someone had to take his place and who better than his popular son, the 'Man of the People'.
The anti-monarchists were named as suspects to Henry's death. They hated the royals and wanted them eradicated so that the government could take full control of Britain. In the past they'd started riots and petitions against them. Would they go as far as to killing a royal to accomplish their goal?
Suddenly the heavens began crying heavy tears that slammed against Henry's coffin as it was being lowered into his grave. His family watched with grieving eyes, wearing death, some more confidently than others.
Elizabeth, Henry's sister, cried uncontrollably, her tears marking her face with black mascara streaks. She moved her damp brown hair out of her face, revealing her blue eyes as she threw a rose in his grave.
William the youngest kept a straight face in an attempt to keep his composure, he didn't want to show weakness in public, his father always told him: 'a man is not a man if he cries shamelessly in public'. So he stood stiff and stared calmly as threw a rose in his grave.
After the burial they were escorted threw the mourning crowd that lingered outside the graveyard and into their black Bentley Mulsanne. When they got back to Buckingham Place, King Charles summoned them to the throne room. On a small platform at the back of the room, King Charles was sat on his golden throne.
He coughed violently, mimicking that of a barking dog, William and Elizabeth looked at him with concerned eyes.
"Since you are both twins, you both are viable for the throne," King Charles stated and Elizabeth raised her head high, wearing a victorious smile as if she knew the outcome. She was the popular child after Henry, Britain adored her. "But in the spirit of tradition, I've chosen William as my heir."
Elizabeth lowered her head in disappointment as William bowed gratefully to his father.
"Thank you, Father, I will not disappoint you," William said.
"Be sure that you don't, I have a legacy to uphold," King Charles warned.
***
In the afternoon, King Charles, William and Elizabeth went out on the balcony and greeted the crowd below. Thousands of excited hands waved at them, swaying their arms back and forth like wheat in the wind.
A servant lowered the mic stand so that King Charles could speak, the crowd looked at him with piteous eyes as he was wheeled onto the balcony in his wheelchair. He took hold of the mic and spoke to the crowd, assuring them that the death of Henry will be accounted for and that Britain will move past this. Little did he know, the stars were aligned against him.
On a distant roof a sniper was setting up their rifle, their attire was black and their face covered with a Guy Fawkes mask. Today wasn't November the 5th but there sure as hell would be a bonfire!
"Henry is gone, there's no bringing him back but Henry wouldn't want this nation to cripple because of his death but recover from it," King Charles proclaimed and the crowd roared.
The sniper loaded the bullet into the rifle and took aim, their breath steady and their posture strong.
"Hence, I have made the decision..."
The sniper's finger hovered over the trigger. "Goodbye and goodnight."
"To name-"
King Charles gagged as the bullet flung him backwards causing the wheelchair to crash to the floor, he clung to his chest, his hands plastered with blood.
"Father!" Elizabeth screamed and he touched her cheek wiping her tears away, painting her face with death before his arm gave up and dropped to the ground.
Her eyes widened in shock, he was dead but she wasn't given enough time to come to the reality of it as she and William were hastily pulled back inside. They were escorted to the safe room in the basement of the palace where they'd wait till it was safe.
"It was those fucking monarchists, wasn't it!" William cursed at one of the guards.
"There's a possibility, yes," the guard confirmed. "But we're looking into it."
When William noticed that Elizabeth was crying, he opened his arms and she flung herself into his embrace.
"I promise you Elizabeth," William said stroking her hair as she cried into his chest. "On my life, I will not rest until I find who's killing our family and then, I'll kill them myself."
***
Following King Charles death, William and Elizabeth hired a group of private investigators who investigated the deaths of Henry and King Charles. They helped in the investigation in anyway possible, they didn't feel comfortable sitting in the palace waiting for answers.
"I've got something!" one of them exclaimed and William and Elizabeth scurried to his side.
He pointed to his computer and showed them security footage of an anti-monarchist politician meeting with a masked man in an alley, giving him a black briefcase.
"What's in the briefcase?" William asked.
"Were not sure yet," the man admitted nervously.
William grabbed his shirt and slammed him against the wall. "I didn't hire you to hear 'not sure' or 'maybe', I hired you to get answers!"
The man stared fearfully at William who's eyes were filled with raging fire, if you glared any longer he'd burn him and the whole building into a crisp. Elizabeth tugged his sleeve as a warning that he should stop and he immediately let him go.
"Excuse him, he's just tired," Elizabeth apologized.
***
Then late one evening, they got a call from one of the private investigators saying that an anonymous source has information they'd want to hear. So they meet up with him at the palace and he drives them to an alley which leads to an empty square. Cautiously, they walk through the alley, Elizabeth's arm looped tightly around William's. When they get to the square no one is there.
"Hello?" William calls. "Are you there?"
Suddenly, they hear the sound of a gun being loaded behind them. William swerves on his heel to see the private investigator pointing the gun at him.
"I'm here," he says.
William puts his hand in front of Elizabeth and pushes her behind him. "Who are you?"
"I'm merely a belief holding a gun at the non-believers."
"And what do you believe?"
"In a new era, one were you do not rule."
William sniggers. "And who will replace us the government?"
Suddenly William feels an excruciating pain in his back, his eyes widen in horror as he crashes to his knees and Elizabeth towers over him, her lips curled into a devilish smile.
"Me," Elizabeth states. "Come on brother, didn't you swear on your life that you wouldn't rest till you found our parents murder? Well you found me, I'm just fulfilling your promise."
She began violently stabbing him until he was motionless and drowning in his own crimson pool.
"Such a waste," she said disappointed as she closed his eyes.
The private investigator bowed. "Long live the Queen."
***
At William's funeral Elizabeth shed fake tears and delivered an feigned eulogy about how much she loved him and how life without him will be incomplete. But inside she was dying of laughter, rolling on the floor like a dog for a treat, she deserved one for fooling her family and the whole world.
Her coronation was held a few days later and in front of the world she was crowned, Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,781 Reviews
Hello there Raven, it's me outvaders. I'm just stopping by for a review this nice Review Day. Let's get right into the beef.
Your story is a quite smooth reading experience. It's got a consistently efficient pace and has little grammatical errors. It's simply very easy to read, and I love that style. However, it doesn't come without its flaws. Here, I'll enumerate and explain three of them.
First is the lack of mood in some key scenes due to the lack of contrast in the writing style. Meaning, there were parts where the story didn't convey the feeling that it wanted to convey to the readers because of the same writing style I praised. Take the scene where Henry selects the next heir as an example. We know that William wants the throne, but Elizabeth wants the it more. There is something great at stake for each of these characters, so there should be a great deal of tension and stress as well. However, the story doesn't convey the stress felt by each character. The writing style still keeps at its usual efficient pace instead of slowing down and focusing on that one scene.
Whenever there are important scenes like that, just slow down and focus on that scene. Then convey to the readers the feeling of the scene: thickness of the air in the room of that scene, or the beads of sweat that ran down William's temples as he awaited his father's announcement, or the feeling of devastation that Elizabeth tried to hide after William usurped her throne. Dramatic contrast, that's what they call it. By the way, this also happened in the "great revelation."
The next thing I'd like to critique is the lack of character development in Elizabeth. How much more powerful would it be if we actually pitied Elizabeth before she turned out to be the mastermind of the plan? We could bring the viewers to pity or invest their emotions in her by developing her character. Give her dreams, motivations, personal beliefs, a backstory, a distinct personality, among other things. But don't stop there: add subtle elements to her. For example, you could add subtle elements to her by carefully tailoring her dialogue so that it can hint to her personality. Do this and you will have your readers rooting for this character from the very beginning, because they register Elizabeth as an actual, breathing human being. Then when the great moment of revelation comes, when all the cards are shown on the table, it's going to hit the viewers hard.
The last thing I'd like to critique is the incorrect rating, even though there are some swears. Please crank up the rating in the second step of the publishing center to 18+. It's important for people to know what they're getting into before they read. Or else you might get called out for misleading viewers.
Anyways, that's it for my review. I hope you learned something from me. Despite all that was said, this short story is a very smooth read, and it was a pleasure reading the simplicity of your story. Just keep at this style as you write while applying the critique points of all those who review you, then you'll be on your way to becoming a great writer. Have a great Review Day.
-outvaders
Thanks so much for the review! I agree with what your saying but I had a word limit of 1500 or 1550 words max and this is 1547 words. Should I take some parts out?
Hey there Raven,
I have just a couple of things that I liked and disliked about this book:
First, what I liked-
1. Your characters all reacted as I would expect them to in these cases- especially when they were under stress or frustrated. That was really well done.
2. You had a great plot twist at the ending that tied up your story as well as spice it up.
3. You arranged a nice setting and scenario for your story to take place in. The situation was believable and the way the characters reacted was very natural and quite a plausible reaction to a reali-life situation in which something like this happened.
Now for some things that I disliked-
1. Your language- was it really necessary to the storyline to include the f word? There is only one case of strong language that I think could be easily replaced with another more appropriate word so that younger readers could read this too
2. Your goriness- there seemed to be one unnecessarily gory scene at the end where Elizabeth stabs William repeatedly. I think only one stab would suffice and wouldn't be unnecessarily violent
3. I saw a LOT of grammatical errors, a minor thing but definitely something you would want to fix. It comes across as more professional when your spelling and grammar is correct
4. Punctuation- your comma usage was questionable at best. In some cases you forgot commas, where in other paragraphs you had way too many commas and should have separated the sentences. Again, I think a nice reread and appropriate corrections will fix that.
5. The beginning was very well-written and seemed to have taken a while, and I'm sure it did, but the ending part seemed rushed and not well put together. The last few paragraphs should be edited so that they are as well written as the other parts of the story and to finish nice and strong. Since you do have an important plot twist at the end, it's important not to get sloppy towards the end of your writing
Sorry if my review came across as harsh-its a big improvement from last draft but still does need some editing,especially for the last part. But otherwise good job, you're almost there on delivering a solid and well-written story.
Best wishes,
MJ
Thank you so much for the review, I agree with what you said, I was rushing it so that's probably why most of the story was grammatically incorrect. Plus I always have this habit of making things gory and inappropriate with the character or context, thanks for pointing out that it was unnecessary as I didn't see that.
Thanks again.
Don't worry about the harshness, I'd rather criticism be truthfully and honest.