Darkness filled his eyes for as far as he could see. His legs moved of their own accord, footsteps echoing around him as s door appeared before him, seemingly out of no where. It was solid white with spiraling gold spirals trailing down the sides and dripping over the edges. Tipping his head, he stared at it curiously, his aqua eyes brimming with interest. He reached out a hand for the handle, his long fingers closing around the glistening silver. A hiss of surprise escaped from between his teeth as the meal seared red, burning into his skin. He jerked his hand back, shaking it in a poor attempt to strip the pain away. The door opened softly before him as he backed away, the crackling of flames coming from deep inside. Shielding himself from the sudden bright light, he squinted his eyes against the bickering fire. More weary now, he stepped forward rather unwillingly into the burning heat. He walked into the flames, fear crawling into his stomach. He moved quicker as he spied a dark silhouette, knowing he had very little time. A voice called out to him, familiar but at the same time slightly foreign.
"Help!"
The flames crackled around him, stroking his skin as he glided through. He gasped as he neared the figure, his eyes growing wide with surprise. The humanoid shape before him was that of a man, dark green eyes glinting with a rare fear.
"Night?" He whispered, his hand reaching for him.
Night's eyes locked with his, panicked and full of desperation. A dark wooden pole stood dark against the blaze around them, pressing into Night's back. Upon closer inspection, he could see that his hands had been bound around the pole with a sturdy, thick coiled rope. His hand twitched towards the knife that was normally strapped to his waist, though it collided with air. He looked down in surprise as a slight figure passed through his chest, her dark head brushing below his chin. He shivered involuntarily, stepping away from the pair. You think I'd be used to this by now. The thought surfaced to his mind, momentarily blocking everything out. He shook his head, his dark blond hair flying around his face as he cleared the block in his mind. He starred as the girl's face came into focus, the wild terror on her smooth features clear as a freshwater river.
"No, no you can't be here. You'll die." Night was coughing now, black blood dribbling down from his lip.
"No! I won't leave you!" Her voice cracked through the air like a whip.
"Ry-Ryker." He retched violently. "He's waiting outside for you. Go to him. He and Winter will get you somewhere safe."
She threw her arms around his neck, her small chest pressing against Night. "No." She repeated, a quiet sob escaping her throat.
Night shrugged her away. "Go." He responded, his voice clutching to a quiet authority.
He stepped back as the vision began to fade, fear for his Night finally overwhelming him. No. His mind raced as he tried to decipher the vision while it was still clear in his mind. A voice filled his head, wrapping itself around his brain like a venomous snake. The girl will be his undoing. He fought against it's hold, lashing out at the darkness that surrounded him once more. No! I will save him! A cold laughter echoed around the deep chambers of his mind. You know there is nothing you can do. An overwhelming feeling of helplessness flooded him, driving him to his knees. There is nothing I can do...
A rough hand shook him awake, pushing and pulling his body around on the stiff bed. "Ryker! Ryker wake up! You're dreaming again!" A voice sounded off close to his ear, sounding more irritated than anything.
Ryker bolted up, his blond hair sticking to his forehead. He looked around the room, eyeing his companions with a steely gaze. A young man sat in front of him at the foot of the bed, his sugary brown eyes fixated on him. Another stood behind him, bare chested and his black hair tousled with sleep. The one who had awoken him wore all black, his dark hair hanging into his deep green eyes, his tanned skin standing out against the Ryker's gray clothing. Ryker turned and fixed his once aqua green and faced the man who had awoken him.
"Ryker?" The shirtless man asked, his glassy green eyes dark with worry. "Your eyes....their different."
"They're silver." The second man said in awe.
"He will be her undoing." The raspy words slid between his clenched teeth.
The man with the green eyes, Jasper, grabbed his shoulder again, his voice dropping to a deep rumble.
"Who? Who Ryker who?"
Ryker's eyes rolled back in his head and he fell back down onto his bed, loosing himself in sleep once more.
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Greetings, Vingi's here with a review for you!
This was a pretty interesting prologue to read and I'm really intrigued to read the next installment of this series.
At first, I was slightly confused about what was happening, because I got kinda lost at the part where Night talks with the little girl.
I know it's a vision/dream Ryker had, but I got a little confused at that part because you were mentioning the situation and all with the aid of Ryker's perspective and then it seemed like you suddenly switched to another without allowing the reader to grasp what's exactly going on.
(maybe it's just my bad...)
I love your descriptions. Descriptions really help the reader to picture everything that's going on in the story...but, over-using descriptions can sometimes get in the way.
What I mean is, think that you're writing about a battle scene. You gotta explain the setting to the reader, but if you just go on explaining about the blood, bodies and all the armor, the reader will soon lose interest in reading your story.
Descriptions are essential, I agree, but we have to keep in mind that a story has a lot more than just descriptions. (I mean in general...your story wasn't just a description or anything, it was really interesting ^-^ )
So, my suggestion is, you can reduce the description a bit and add a tad more dialogue (but be careful when you're changing perspective)
Next off, about the characters. Since, this is only the prologue it's hard to tell anything much about the characters, but I assume the girl will play some kind of an important role in the future chapters.
The last part of the Prologue sure increased my curiosity. I'm definitely going to read the next chapter because I'm hooked to the plot. (that's a really good thing)
A found a few nit-picks,
Using 'Its' seems more appropriate here.
Try using the 'through' instead of 'around' because it seems more effective here. (just a suggestion)
'They're' seems more appropriate.
Overall this is a great start with an interesting plot, and I'm looking forward to reading the rest.
Never stop writing, and have an awesome day!
Vingi
I was really confused reading this. It was only on my third reading that I figured out what was going on, and I'm still not entirely sure that I know.
I think we're reading from Ryker's perspective in the first paragraph, and then switch to Night's perspective after he walks through the door?
Because I didn't see any names until the second paragraph, I assumed the main character was called Night, and that Night just turned from a boy into a girl after walking through the magic door.
I only figured out that the main character was Ryker the whole time by reasoning that it's Ryker's dream so it must be about Ryker. Except switching perspectives in the middle of a dream doesn't work, because that implies that either Ryker and Night are both having the exact same dream in real time, or that Ryker dreamed he was himself, then dreamed he was Night for a bit, then went back to dreaming he was himself.
Protip- changing perspectives in the middle of a scene makes people really really confused. Please have one perspective per chapter. (It's possible to pull off a perspective change during a chapter, but not recommended. It's still immersion breaking. As for changing perspective during a scene, there's really no way to make that work.)
The paragraph after Ryker wakes up is almost entirely a pile of eye descriptions. It's hard to sort them all out. Normally if a character is described but not named, I assume that the protagonist doesn't know them, but Ryker acts like he knows these people, so I'm baffled as to why they have no names. It's just confusing.
I come out of this beautiful dramatic dream sequence, that's good, then the whole thing screeches to a stop so I can read a list of descriptions of nameless secondary characters for a bit. By the time I get to the end I forget if there's three guys in the room, or four.
(Also, 'The man with the green eyes, Jasper,' is kinda weird. Eye colour isn't normally prioritized over names in introductions. Giving me his eye colour first, and then his name a few sentences later just makes me have to double back to sort out which character he is again. And it makes me wonder why you didn't just give me his name to begin with.)
Just to sum that up, it'd be easier to follow if you gave those secondary characters names, and maybe limit the descriptions a bit too.
Right, sorry it took me a while to get to this, but there was legit good stuff. I found the dream sequence to be vivid and engaging, and if you work out the kinks that make it a bit hard to follow, it'll be really gripping.
Well good luck, bye
Hi, I'm Joe.
While I'm not usually a fan of dream sequences, and especially not dream sequences to start a story... wow. You did a great job here. That vision was intense. You captured the disorientation of dreaming beautifully while providing enough solid description and action to keep it engaging instead of confusing. Like I said- not typically a fan of dream sequences, but only because they're rarely done well.
Some of your descriptive words caught me off guard, however. "Aqua eyes" was one of them. "Bickering fire" and "rare fear" were two others. I can see where you may have been trying to go for an unconventional way to describe things, but it ended up just distracting me. In the case of "aqua eyes," it felt like a forced way to describe the character to the audience. In his dream I doubt he'd be very aware of his own eye color. As for "bickering fire" and "rare fear," they don't paint a real image in my head because I don't feel like I know what they're describing. There are other instances of this, but I picked those two out because they seem to be clear examples of "thesaurus syndrome." It's good to find new ways to describe common images, but going too far forces the reader to start trying to figure out what you're saying. Is the fire talking? Does bickering mean it's yelling- so it's being loud? I just get caught on them trying to figure out what's being said.
That being said, the overall scene was brilliantly vivid. I love the dark and the twisted, and the image of being tied to a burning stake is intense and brutal. You use italics artfully and flow is a major strength in the overall piece. I get the sense that this story is going to be full of magic and that the images in this dream at definitely going to come to play out later.
I'm fascinated. I'll be looking at your next chapter shortly. Great work, and keep writing.
Joe