Last line of the previous chapter: Cass opened her eyes.
And then she gasped, because they were standing in a completely different place than they had been before. It wasn't just that they had somehow moved a little farther or ended up beside a different tree – the landscape that greeted her was one that she had never seen before.
Everything that she recognized was suddenly missing. The trees that had towered above them had been replaced by a tunnel made solely of thick vines, all interlocking together as they stretched on for an indeterminable distance. They were so thickly woven together that she couldn't make out whatever was outside of the tunnel. The muddy hiking trail was now a floor of vines similar to the ones that the tunnel was made of, though these ones lacked the array of beautiful, unfamiliar flowers that were scattered throughout the ceiling and walls. Lanterns seemed to float above the ground ever few feet. They enveloped the breathtaking tunnel in a warm, gentle light, their flames steadily burning within the confines of the glass and intricate golden metalwork.
When she looked closely, she could see incredibly thin pieces of string going from the tops of the lantern to the ceiling. But no matter how many different lanterns she looked at, she couldn't explain how the lanterns were burning with no clear source of fuel. She couldn't even find a wick for them to be burning on – the flames were simply nestled in the very center of the glass case.
She tried to come up with an explanation for how they had ended up there, but ultimately failed. How could she explain suddenly ending up in a place like this? While her lack of knowledge on that particular subject was concerning, what was even more worrying was how she didn't even know where they were. If they had ended up in another place in town - like the flea market, or even another hiking trail - she could lead them back to one of their houses.
But here? She had no idea where to even begin. The plants alone made her suspect that they weren't anywhere near their little town. She was far from an expert on plants, but she knew the more abundant ones in their area. She should have been able to recognize something here. Yet she somehow didn't recognize a single one of the vines, or even one of the flowers - something that would have been a clear indicator of what the plant was. Take into account the unusual source of lighting, and then she was throughly confused.
"Maybe we're in a greenhouses or something?" Aspen suggested, reaching a hand out and tentatively poking one of the leaves. "This looks like the type of thing you might find in one."
Cass looked over at her. She furrowed her brows in confusion. "I've never seen a greenhouse that looks like this," she countered. The few greenhouses she had gone to did have unusual plant displays, but none ever involved seemingly endless tunnels. And if they had, there certainly would have been a price tag or two on something.
Aspen sighed, drawing her hand back and crossing arms. "So not a greenhouse, then. Well, I guess that's the least of our concerns - how did we even get here in the first place?"
She gave the tunnel another look, then glanced down at her locket. It was no longer glowing. "I think it was my locket," she quietly suggested, raising a hand up to finger it again. Even the warmth it had possessed had suddenly disappeared, now replaced by the same coldness it had when she bought it only an hour before.
Aspen stared at the locket. "...It did do that weird glowy thing before we ended up here, didn't it?" She let out another sigh, then plopped down on the ground beside Cass. "Even if the locket is responsible, we don't know how or why. And the thing to do in a situation like this is to be strongly in denial of the whole thing, right? But I can't tell myself that this is some weird dream or something, because it's definitely not. It's too real, and I know I never went to sleep. So we're just stuck here, wherever here is, and something tells me we're going to have to keep going down this tunnel if we want any sort of answers."
Cass sat down next to her. She ran her finger over the surface of the locket, hoping that the action would result in them ending back home. It didn't. They remained in the tunnel, trying to do the impossible and grapple with the strange series of events that had just happened. She turned her attention away from the tunnel and looked over at Aspen. She was in the middle of staring down at her own locket, probably wishing that it would magically bring them back to the woods.
"At least we're not in the thunderstorm anymore," Cass said with a small smile.
Aspen looked up and gave a hesitant smile back.
Then they returned to their silence. Aspen was right. They would have to go down the tunnel eventually, but Cass wasn't prepared for that just yet. She needed a moment to collect her thoughts and digest what had happened to them. It just felt so surreal, like something out of a story she might have read. But here they were, sitting in the middle of a mysterious tunnel thanks to a mysterious, glowing locket.
After a few minutes passed, Cass recalled the reason for why they had ended up here in the first place - Aspen's ankle. While she wasn't currently putting weight on it, she would undoubtedly have to when they started exploring the tunnel. She placed her backpack down beside her and began to dig through its contents. Aspen raised her head and watched her with interest.
"What are you doing?" she questioned.
"I'm getting my sneakers out," Cass replied, finally finding them after pushing aside her emergency blanket. Though it was far from easy, she managed to pull them out. She carefully placed them in Aspen's lap, much to her best friend's surprise. "I don't know how to make your ankle better, but I think wearing more supportive shoes would help. We have the same size, too, so they hopefully won't be too uncomfortable-"
Aspen suddenly leaned over and pulled her into a tight embrace. "Cassie, I'm never going to tease you about hiking bag again!" Cass ducked her head down in embarrassment as Aspen pulled away a moment later.
After Aspen had switched into more appropriate footwear, the two gathered their belongings - the stick that Cass had given to Aspen as a crutch, and Cass' backpack - and got to their feet. Aspen was clearly in pain from the way that she winced every time she put her foot down, but Cass knew that she had already done everything she could. Aspen just would have to hold out until they got to a place with medical care. But, just as an extra precaution, she slowed her pace down to match Aspen's current one. If Aspen had to hurry to keep up with her, she would likely strain her injured ankle even more.
The combination of their slow pace and the sheer length of the tunnel made the walk seem like it was lasting an eternity. Aspen tried to strike up a conversation or two, but neither one felt like talking. There was just too many other things to be thinking about. Cass couldn't help but think back to the conversation about their dreams in the jeep that morning. If her locket had brought them here, and she had been drawn to it because it made her think of her dreams, did it mean that their dreams were somehow tied to this? And if they were, how? What was the purpose of them?
Without warning, Aspen thrust her hand out in front of Cass. The two came to an abrupt stop. When Cass gave a curious look in Aspen's direction, she saw her staring up ahead.
"There's people up ahead," she whispered. "I can hear them talking."
It took Cass a second to recognize the noises she heard as voices, but, once she did, it was easy to make out more specific details. There were two voices. One higher, and one lower. Their voices were little more than whispers, their words impossible to discern.
Aspen met her gaze.
Though she said nothing, Cass knew what Aspen was suggesting. It was the only thing they could do in a situation like this. Giving a nod, she started to move forward. Aspen wasted no time joining her. Together, they approached the source of the voices.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,798 Reviews
Back once again, Mage! =)
Sooooo, turns out I was sorta wrong about my guess about what this area looked like but that's okay!! I did say "gardeny" and according to Aspen it seemed like a greenhouse. So maybe I was close. Heh.
Anyways, this seems to be taking an interesting turn. A mysterious tunnel, weird people, a crazy new place, and most importantly -- the lockets!
Oooh, people.. Maybe there's a different species? Wait, no, there's magical people! Yes. Magic, definitely. x)
Just a little thing I waned to point out was that throughout the chapters, I've noticed you're repeating a lot of your stuff and that's kinda taking away from other information. ^^'
Also, you say one word about two times in some sentences (I do that too shhhh) -- very rare but I thought I'd point it out. Like, I forgot to take note of this but at one point you did say mysterious twice.
Anyhoo! I'm onto the next chapter now! ♡
Keep on writing!
~Liberty
Hey, Saen! You're probably sick of the sight of me by now, but I'm nothing if not persistent.
Small Comments
My issue here is that you're basically repeating yourself; you tell us three times in three sentences that the landscape has changed/is unfamiliar. I actually think you could scrap everything after the end of the first sentence and jump straight to describing the tunnel.
Your expression's pretty cumbersome here. It feels like you're grasping from the right words. I'd go for something like 'when she looked closely, she saw that the lanterns hung from thin, hairlike string' - it feels preferable to create the sense that the lanterns hang down rather than the string going up.
Admittedly, I don't have much knowledge about how to treat a bad ankle, but I feel like stuffing her foot into an enclosed shoe would probably be pretty painful. I guess it depends on whether it's broken or just sprained.
'Gave' doesn't feel right here. I don't feel like you give something in a direction - you might shoot a look in someone's direction or throw a look in their direction. You give to, not in.
I'm a stickler when it comes to unnecessarily repeated nouns.
Overall Thoughts
Probably best I keep this brief because my fellow reviewers have hit all the main points. Cass and Aspen aren't freaked enough. And man, I get it. Writing by-the-numbers character freakouts is so tiresome sometimes because you just want them to adjust so you can get on with things. But it's got to be done. They need to go through the rambling disorientation phase before they start formulating theories. Everything's too casual and nonchalant at the moment.
Blue gave you some examples of portal-based fantasy, but I'm also wondering if you've ever read His Dark Materials? (Also known as the Series Pan Never Shuts Up About, but it's relevant here, I promise). The whole trilogy is heavily centred in the concept of parallel worlds and I think it handles it masterfully, so it might be a good one to look at if you haven't already. The second book actually manages to avoid the textbook hysteria of 'oh my god where are we, is this another world, what's going on?' now I think on it, because the novel establishes that people just know when they're not in their own world. It's instinctive. Which cuts out the tiresome need to fill the characters in on stuff the reader has already figured out, even if you still need to account for the disorientation and the shock.
Anyhow, I'd suggest you read HDM. The series is 100% responsible for my preoccupation with parallel worlds. I've always found it amazing for inspiration.
So, what else? I wish we had a better understanding of exactly how injured Aspen is. In the last chapter I was assuming that she'd actually broken her ankle, but the fact that she's able to put any weight on it at all suggests that the injury isn't as terrible as it first appeared. I'm surprised Cass isn't supporting her as she walks, actually. I'd expect that to be more effective than a broken-off branch serving as a walking stick.
But it's good to see that the girls are getting on again. You did well to ease the tension between them and bring them back together, and I liked that you tied the first aid bag back into the plot - it's sweet to see Cass's cautiousness come in handy, though I suspected it would at some point. The end of the chapter is definitely the most intriguing part, though. I hope for Cass and Aspen's sake - but mostly Aspen's, given her ankle - that the voices don't belong to a hostile sort. Something tells me they won't, though.
Keep writing!
~Pan
Hello Saen,
Gonna leave a brief review - a lot of great pointers were already provided by your previous reviewers.
I agree with Blue that this could be condensed a great deal. I like the descriptions regarding the tunnel, it had a great mystical feel to it, and the lanterns burning without a fuel source was a good instant indication that things are getting magical real quick, so great instincts there to promise this to your readers. However the prose relating to the tunnel went a tad too long, and when Aspen finally broke the silence, it felt as if they had been stood there without a reaction for an eternity. The amount of text you use creates the illusion of time passing. So if you put several paragraphs between two events where only a couple of seconds passed, then you're going to have a problem on your hands.
I get that this is within Aspen's character to ramble and be inappropriately casual, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me. Regardless of where they are, they know that something clearly extraordinary has occurred, yet they jump immediately into speculation rather than having a moment to freak out?
This was the strongest part for me. This was believable and natural. I live for these moments where something intense happens and then someone says something mildly humorous to break the tension. This works doubly well considering they weren't on great terms before. Again, you had great instincts here.
In summary, if you tightened the tunnel descriptions so that you can cut to the case and get to their reactions, and then also strengthen their reactions, everything afterwards would fall into a place a little smoother.
Now, to find out who those voices belong to!
-Zoom
Thanks for the review! I'm crossing my fingers that the reason for the extra-long tunnel descriptions was because I was just trying to find out how I wanted to write this novel. Hopefully, the description in future chapters won't be like that!
Hello again!!
Starting at the top and working my way through!
I liked your description of where they are. One of the things that pulls me out of fantasy a lot is feeling lost and not having a firm sense of place - it's either over-described to the point where I'm overwhelmed and lost or under-described so I have no idea what anything looks like. I think you struck a good balance here. I liked that we're focused on one thing about this world - this tunnel, so we can easily have a clear sense of place without being overwhelmed. Although I did wonder what's behind them because the girls seem to know they need to move forward down this tunnel, but what's behind them in the tunnel? Is it a dead end?
Once the girls realize they're not in Kansas anymore (Wizard of Oz :p) their processing of where they could be and how this happened felt a little to analytical for me and not realistic enough. I think more focus on their feelings and less on the analyzing would help. My guess is they're terrified - show that they're terrified. "where are we?" big eyes, shallow breathing, panic, etc. They might also be confused - again, show that. I love a good thought process, but the reader can come up with their own theories about why they're there and how it happened and there will be enough time for the girls to process it once their feelings are in order.
So then they hear voices and their thought is oh we should go to the voices??? I would be noping out of there unless I knew for sure they were friendly voices :p Maybe more feelings there about that decision or a quick debate/argument between them about what they should do in that moment and why. Do they think the people will be able to help them? Is there any fear of danger?
I'm glad we're in the magical world now and I'm excited to see more and see what's coming next! As always let me know if you have any questions or if you'd like feedback about something I didn't mention!
Hello again!!
Starting at the top and working my way through!
I liked your description of where they are. One of the things that pulls me out of fantasy a lot is feeling lost and not having a firm sense of place - it's either over-described to the point where I'm overwhelmed and lost or under-described so I have no idea what anything looks like. I think you struck a good balance here. I liked that we're focused on one thing about this world - this tunnel, so we can easily have a clear sense of place without being overwhelmed. Although I did wonder what's behind them because the girls seem to know they need to move forward down this tunnel, but what's behind them in the tunnel? Is it a dead end?
Once the girls realize they're not in Kansas anymore (Wizard of Oz :p) their processing of where they could be and how this happened felt a little to analytical for me and not realistic enough. I think more focus on their feelings and less on the analyzing would help. My guess is they're terrified - show that they're terrified. "where are we?" big eyes, shallow breathing, panic, etc. They might also be confused - again, show that. I love a good thought process, but the reader can come up with their own theories about why they're there and how it happened and there will be enough time for the girls to process it once their feelings are in order.
So then they hear voices and their thought is oh we should go to the voices??? I would be noping out of there unless I knew for sure they were friendly voices :p Maybe more feelings there about that decision or a quick debate/argument between them about what they should do in that moment and why. Do they think the people will be able to help them? Is there any fear of danger?
I'm glad we're in the magical world now and I'm excited to see more and see what's coming next! As always let me know if you have any questions or if you'd like feedback about something I didn't mention!
Hey Sae, gonna try and grab this before it gets out of the Green Room!
Nit-picks and nice moments:
I feel like it's a bit too soon to be having these sorts of detailed thoughts. This is probably still the first few seconds after it's happened, during which I think it would be more realistic to just have sheer, utter disbelief.
Again, like, the first thing said here should definitely be some sort of variation on "Oh my god! What the hell just happened?!"
This just sounds a bit nonchalant for someone who's just been seemingly teleported.
I like this is a subtle nod towards their coldness towards each other suddenly evaporating (and I also think that evaporation would be natural).
Wait, what was she wearing before? I thought they came prepared for a hike? Oh, actually I might have forgotten something because we read LMS chapters so spread out.
Overall:
So, you can probably tell from my nit-picks, but my main problem here is that they're so casual about talking about it. It's like, they went through a portal, and they're wondering how and why. This would make sense in a fantasy story, but as far as I can tell this has been the real world up until now. Imagine just after I finished writing this review I was suddenly sitting in a tunnel of vines. My reaction would be like running around hitting my hands against the walls to try and see if they were real, shouting to nobody in particular that this couldn't possibly be happening. I think this may even be an appropriate moment to pinch myself
However, it goes towards this at the end, as they hear the voices. Your sentence length starts to vary, you throw questions out to the reader and don't immediately offer answers. I would quite like to see the first half of the chapter be more like that. To be fair though, as Blue says this is a difficult thing to establish, so it's a good start ^.^
Hope this helps,
Biscuits
Thanks for the review! Hopefully, I'll be able to work this part of the story out in future drafts, and I really appreciate the pointers you gave me.
She was wearing a pair of sandals before! Cass thought that it would be a problem earlier on, but didn't make a fuss out of it because she thought Aspen was prepared to walk a lot in them. I also mentioned in the earlier chapters that Cass had a spare pair of sneakers on here, though she wasn't imagining that she would use them in a situation like this.
Ohhh yeah I remember that now. Apologies xD
Okay, so I think the end of this chapter is the most interesting part. I like the mysterious voices but also the forward momentum of the girls moving forward.
Like obviously the girls started moving forward before that, but prior to that point there was a lot of thinking and discussion that didn't really feel necessary to me? I mean, I know it's tricky because they've unexpectedly ended up in another world/dimension/thing and need to somehow realize that AND get it across to the reader AND have some curiosity about how the heck it happened...but also it can feel a little strange/obvious.
I'm trying to even think of what portal fantasy I've read.
The Chronicles of Narnia is a good one to check out, particularly The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, both of which introduce the world for the first time - the first one actually includes hopping through multiple worlds, including a middle world where you sort of get all sleepy and forget who you are and what you were doing.
Uhhhhh that's pretty much the only one that comes to mind right now. Oh, I mean, there's Fairyland, but that probably doesn't work as a study for your purposes because she always comes in in such a way that she, like, passes through Customs sorts of places and whatnot.
Anyway, to be honest the whole thing could probably take less thought and be less mysterious. Like, one minute they're in the forest; the next they're in a strange tunnel full of lanterns with no discernible fuel source and flowers they don't reognize. I feel like it would be more useful/believable/tense to have them wondering (briefly) if this is real or how they got there or something, rather than focusing on "wait is this another world? are we sure we're not somewhere weird in town?" which got tedious pretty quick.
Oooh, thank you for the suggestions! I'm going to try getting my hands on a copy of those as soon as I can so I can figure that out. I tried thinking of examples I had read in the past, but then realized the majority of the stories I know of that follow this sort of story are visual ones - like anime.