Hope you like part 2!
You are smiling. They are wondering why. They are suspicious. Stop. Stop. Stop.
I gave an inward gasp.
This was so cool. I had never met another MR in my life. And Gavin’s words were so clear, so refreshingly easy to hear, that I wanted to jump up and down or laugh.
Did you not hear me? They are suspicious. Wondering why why why. They suspect you. You need to stop. smiling. Examiners will notice.
I dropped my grin. Wow. First person I meet like me, and he’s an asshole, I thought.
He read that.
Sh.. I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m nervous. Nervous...I bet Rachel can tell… shut up shut up shut UP. I think he got preoccupied with himself then. I realized, that he was pretty dark. Not just nervous, but dark. His mind seemed...heavy, somehow.
You look fine. Sh… It’s okay. You don’t look like a...wreck. At all, okay? It’s okay. I thought the words as clearly and as loudly as I could, but his mind was none the different for the sentiment. I thought he hadn’t heard me.
Nobody can notice but me… Gavin. Don’t worry, I added, willing my words to be crisp and solid. But he still didn’t seem notice. His thoughts and feelings swirled together, without any order.
Finally, he said, so weakly into my mind, before everything disappeared into swirling, dusty fog,
Examiner MR... screwed. No matter what. I’m screwed. SCREWED. Can’t mask… hunting dogs. MRs us.We’ll be Matching. Matching. Can tell. oh.
Wait, how did he know that?
They’re coming. Not much time. try. try try. Gavin SHUT UP. Shut up! He screamed it over and over again in his brain. It hurt.
You couldn’t tell that Gavin was scared, you really couldn’t, from the outside. You really couldn’t. His brown eyes were half closed, and he was slouched almost comfortably in his red plastic elementary school chair.
I shifted to mimic him, trying to be subtle, taking a few strands of my hair, and separating them into three dark sections. I began to braid them, as if I was bored and this was all I could do to occupy myself. It actually helped me focus inward, braiding my hair, and stop listening to the voices around me. So it helped with the anxiety as well, to some degree.
But when the examiner entered the room, it all came back.
He was a youngish man, maybe thirty, or a bit younger. Less than six feet tall, with a brownish-reddish beard. Thinnish but not muscular.
He was wearing grey. All grey, this grey like cloudy nights, nights where you can’t see the stars. A grey, sterile shirt, grey sweatpants, grey shoes.
Like a uniform.
He had a kind-looking face, with big, light brown eyes and a gentle smile.
And he had that heavy feeling, like Gavin. This humidity, dampening and slowing everything else in his mind down. It was heavier with this man than in Gavin. It obscured almost everything else in his mind so I couldn’t read him quite right. It was like...the static of a television, so loud I couldn’t hear or see the program.
“Hello,” He said softly. He sounded...kind. He didn’t seem menacing, but I couldn’t read him. So. I didn’t trust him.
Gavin didn’t either.
And I think the grey man picked up on that.
There were no complicated tests. No questions. It’s not what you’d expect to be an exam. A exposing, life-ruining exam. The man just stood for a couple moments in the doorway of the little room studying us and then looked at only me and said, “ You. You’re Rachel?” And without waiting for me to answer, he pointed to Gavin and said, “And you’re Gavin. It’s nice to meet you two.” He smiled a little bit.
I'm sorry.
End of chapter
Continue to next chapter Patchworld 6Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
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.
139,560 Literary Works • 672,608 Reviews
Hello Satira! Flite here again for the second installment.
I agree with Ly about defining Alvis and Rachel's thoughts, it would make it clearer for the readers to understand what exactly is happening. I liked this chapter better in some way, and not so better in others. I found the same problem as I did in the previous that, that you're not expanding the thoughts long enough for us to gain a better understand on them. It's the second part already and the readers should by now have a pretty solid grasp on who they are. Except right now, I can't feel anything save from the fact that both of them are nervous and both of them are trying to hide it.
Yes, Alvis seems to be the darker of the two and has some hidden depths. However, these are things that we can find on any other given situation. There is a lot of interaction between Alvis and Rachel, but not some much insight into either of the characters. I would like to know what Rachel thinks about this whole test herself, and her other thoughts. She must be scared as hell too, right?
This could just be me, but Alvis's thoughts are very deliberate to me. As in, you've made them that way, too be that disjointed. It jarrs out very obviously, and frankly it feels rather odd because if someone is nervous, their thoughts don't actually tend to think in chunks. But instead, running sentences that doesn't quite make sense because their brains are trying to calm down. On the other end of the spectrum, would be complete blankness. No thoughts, just terror but I think Alvis is that nervous yet. What you have there reminds me of a dog trying to communicate with a human, and parts of the words are cut off due to communication trouble.
The examiner I feel, is a mind reader. How else would he know their names? I'm rather curious as to see where this leads.
All the best, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to tell me.
-Flite
Yes, Alvis guessed that the examiner was an MR. And he is.
the thoughts are disjointed because that's really what thoughts are. As writers, we're good at piecing those together in milliseconds, but in reality, thoughts don't come in complete sentences. like, sometimes if I don't want to say a word, even in my head, but I'll know what it is...It isn't a word. It's just a misty impression of that word.
I will get to their personalities! I need to do that! I definitely see where you're coming from! thanks for reviewing both parts!
Hey there, back to review the second part!
I really like where you're going with this, especially having the two of them being scared as hell about being caught. The build up of both their characters here is quite apparent. Alvis seems to be the one who understands what's going on and is just plain scared while Rachel is the one who seems a little too overexcited at meeting another MR. I like how the dialogue here is changed to more of mental outbursts.
One thing I would suggest is to properly define who's "thought statements" belong to who. Since you used bold for Alvis, perhaps change Rachel's thoughts to be italic? Just a suggestion here, so readers would have an easier time telling both their thoughts apart. For the writer, we usually know which statements belong to who, given that we're the ones writing it. The reader on the other hand maybe need some clarity in that sense.
Another part I thought could use be more realistic would be to give Alvis a hint of physical discomfort. After all he is scared out of his skin, maybe certain body language would really accentuate the fact that he feels that way? I know he's supposed to be the character that appears to be calm but if he's that freaked out during that point in time it could affect his physical state as well.
Still like where this is going and can't wait to read more, good job!