The sunlight was already out, but that wasn't what woke me up the next morning. Ben, once again, stood over me, shaking my shoulders.
"You fell asleep!" He was yelling at me now, and I shook my head, dazed.
"What...?" I croaked, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. Johnny was already up, drawing on the stone floor with a stick, and Martin was gathering supplies back into the backpacks.
"The freakin' raccoons got in and took the backpack!" Ben threw his hands up in the air, cursing silently. I sat up quickly. Too quick. My head slammed against the rock, and I immediately laid back down, aching.
Ben ignored me as he yanked the blanket off. He folded furiously and stuffed it in his pack. "At least it was yours," he muttered. I finally managed to get up, and I remembered.
I had fallen asleep. I was supposed to be guarding. What would the punishment be once we got to The Shadow Elite's home-base? A cut finger? Death? Johnny stood up and yelled over at me.
"I drew a picture," he squealed, pointing at the ground. Ben swept Johnny up, placing him on the seat to the hoverboard. "No!" He kicked and screamed. "I don't wanna' go!"
"We're wasting daylight," I walked over to Johnny, trying to calm him down. Ben didn't have to be so soldier-like about everything. And the force he used on Johnny was, disturbing, to say the least. Ben stomped out the last burning embers and looked up at me. Whatever kindness he had shown me last night was long gone.
"Let's go," and to Martin, "that's good enough. Just get your pack and let's go. Same order as before."
Before I knew it, Ben was out of the cave. I jumped on, swaying a bit, and followed. We kept following the rising sun, never turning, never stopping. Ben was too persistent, and even when Johnny started wailing for to rest because he was hot, he said "no".
I was too tired and sore to try and make him give us a break, so I just kept following. Martin was the most talkative out of all of us, probably taking his snow-cone joke last night as a huge win.
"Did you know that when you mix blue and yellow with snowcone syrup, it doesn't make green? Nah, I'm just kidding. But it makes a really weird tasting watermelon." We were now in complete grassland, and there were no trees in sight - nothing really, to be honest. I peered ahead of Ben, and noticed a shimmer not too far in the distance. Maybe we were getting closer.
As we approached the shimmer, a large dirt wall with shiny coil on the top loomed into view. When we got closer, four people with mud-streaked faces shrieked and ran at us with small weapons. Johnny started to whimper, and I almost stopped, but none of them backed down.
"Cool your pants, buddy," Ben snapped at the one in front. Ben flashed a badge from his bag. The four of them fell back, and escorted us through the one entrance in the entire wall.
Inside, it was a whole different world. The place was alive, and bustling with activity. There were children running around, and in fact, most of the occupants seemed to be children, or at least teenagers. I only counted three adults, each of them well into their older years.
Ben hopped off his hoverboard, and I did the same. Unbuckling Johnny, I looked at Ben. "Where are we-" He cut me off by taking my board. I put Johnny down, and held onto his hand as the the four of us, now un-escorted, walked through the activity.
"We're meeting the leader," was all that Ben said to us as he shouldered past kid after kid. I squeezed Johnny's hand, pulling him in tighter. It would be easy to lose him in a place like this.
Finally, the activity died down as we moved away from the entrance. There were a few shabby homes, and then little straw huts under the random tree that had found its way into the coarse ground.
The house we were approaching wasn't much different, except for a shiny plaque on the front, which read, "LEADER" in golden letters. Ben motioned us to stay back, and knocked once, paused, and then knocked three times. The door swung open not a second later, and a small. skinny girl opened the door.
"Listen," she leaned against the door frame, looking Ben in the eye. "I'm really busy right now, so if you come again later, I'll be happy to fix your doorknob or whatever. Now if you will please excu-" she stopped talking altogether when her eyes met mine.
"You brought her," still in a daze, the girl, who couldn't of been over the age of 13, looked at Martin. "You came back, and you brought her..." She walked past Ben and gave Martin a quick hug. "You said you didn't know her," she murmured softly.
Martin only nodded. "Actually, I've got a little explaining to do," he muttered. "To you, and her," he pointed at me.
Fed up again for the second time that week, I let go of Johnny and marched over to the girl. "Who exactly are you?" She didn't seem taken aback at all by me.
"I, am Addilys Cartwell, and I run this place."
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139,403 Literary Works • 672,552 Reviews
I put it off for days, and I'm finally on the last chapter of Blotted Out before I move on to your next work, Fortissimo (hope I spelled that right). I'm sad now...
Same grammar issues as before (of instead of have, for example), but they're getting less in number, which is good.
And...you had to end it on a cliffhanger. :p I hope you continue this soon.
Hello, hello!! So sorry this took me like a week to get to; I haven't been as active lately. But I'm here now and I'm ready to give you a quick review.
Anyway, I'm just a little disappointed that he isn't included very much. To me, he had a lot of potential.
See you around, Snazzy! Nice work! <3
I feel like this is really picking up now. We've reached our destination--I think--and now hopefully juicy things are going to start happening. xD I don't really have much to critique about this chapter other than I was a little bothered by the way Ben acted in this. The whole cool-guy aggressive thing he has going on is a major turn-off for me and I hope he goes back to the way he was in the previous chapter. This did, however, give him more character and give us more clues as to who he is as a person, which is good. So I wouldn't fret about it much at all.
It seems like to me that Martin just keeps getting pushed farther and farther away from the limelight. Personally, in the earlier chapters, I really enjoyed his character and was eager to learn more about him, but now it seems that he's really not that important anymore. You did give him a moment of talking in this chapter, but in all honesty it felt sort of random to me.
"and a small. skinny girl opened the door." This is the only mistake I noticed. You just accidentally put a period instead of a comma.
Well, that's all.
- BookWolf
Thanks for the review!
(And no worries - I haven't been as active either.)
Why, hello there.
Again, this is such a major nit-pick, but it's a small detail that's important, methinks. I get that this place appears to be very out of the way, but considering we have Google Earth and what not nowadays, who knows what they'd have in the future to find places.
Oooooo, stuff. I did have some concerns in previous chapters regarding things moving a bit slowly at times, but they're really starting to get into gear now, so I'm loving that. I feel like there's a lot more to this Addilys chick than meets the eye too, so it'll be interesting to discover more about that. How d'you pronounce her name, by the way? Due to my confusing, Celtic-language infused upbringing, I'm pronouncing it like the dd sorta sounds like th and the ilys in a way idek how to explain... So yeah, I'm probably pronouncing it like a neanderthal. Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm really curious to find out more about this place. Why is everyone so young? What are they all about exactly? Who is this Addilys chick?? They're all good questions that encourage me to keep reading.
I don't really have any major critiques, just some niggly stuff. Firstly. I found the keeping guard thing a bit confusing. This kind of stems from a critique I gave you in the last chapter, regarding Maggie not being the best night guard. Once she swapped with Ben, it seems weird that they'd just leave it to her for the rest of the night. I'd gotten the impression that Ben was the first watcher, then he switched to Maggie, who I assumed would switch to Martin a little later. Did Martin keep watch at any point? Even if he did, but it just wasn't mentioned, to leave it up to Maggie for the rest of the night seems a little dumb. Again, she's young, inexperienced, not used to sleeping so erratically, is probably pretty exhausted after all the events going on e.t.c. This is really picky, I know, but it's bugging me!
Secondly, I'm having some issues with the hideout place thingy. The way in which you described it made it seem quite in your face. Considering these guys seem to want to be very much on the down low, that seems so weird. It's kind of like in old cartoons (they could be in modern ones too but idk 'cause I'm, like, 80) where the baddie would have an evil lair and it would be massive and at the very top of a big hill or something, and it would make you chuckle because of it's sillyness. I mean, you literally described this place (or part of it anyway) as shiny
The only 'deeper' critique I have is in regards to Ben's reaction (when he realised the backpack had been taken due to Maggie falling asleep). I like that he switched from the really nice guy to someone much colder because it adds depth to him, and increases my curiosity towards him. I just felt it may have been a wee bit to much, and perhaps lasted a bit too long. I mean, not even Johnny could soften him up a bit! I'm not saying he should suddenly turn cheery again, but try and make his anger seem a little more natural. A bit more passive aggressive as opposed to actively aggressive, y'know? It's hardly a big thing, but I figured I'd mention it
so I had something decent to sayjust to be wary.But yeah, critiques aside, this novel is starting to shape up nicely. You're answering questions while presenting us with more, which is a writing technique that I love. Granted, I may be biased because my writing drowns in that stuff, but it genuinely is a good technique to use. It keeps readers interested, and by answering some questions, you don't make them overly confused or anything. As always, you know where to find me if you have any questions
Keep writing,
xoxo Skins
Thanks so much for the review!
I know the night-watch thing is kind of off, although I needed Ben and Maggie to be right after each other (at least for the answers)... Although I see what you mean. I can switch it up so that after Maggie watches, she wakes Ben up for his watch. Or something. 
I'll make sure to fix it. 
Though I was kind of going off another name I liked (Addy). 
And about the hideout - I kind of was trying to make it a kind of "hide in plain sight" thing, although since it's in the middle of the desert-ish field, I guess that's too much in plain sight.
Addilys is pronounced Add (literally like "add 2") uh-liss (like list without the t). So, Add-uh-liss.
Yeah, the night-watch scenario is hardly a big issue, I'm just fussy
Ah I see, I generally think of hidden in plain sight things as really normal looking (hence the plain sight, no one suspecting thing), so I think the big-ass shiny element seemed weird to me.
And yay, thanks, now I can pronounce it correctly!