Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence.
A few clouds rolled over the sun as I walked through the streets of the city. These were the nicer parts, around the rich and upper middle class. The farther you go from the center, the more decrepit and decayed things get. In fact, some of the tallest buildings in the city are old decrepit buildings leftover from far in the past. Those were way out on the outskirts.
There was really much to say about the city these days. At least I wasn’t around during the war times. Everything was destroyed. At least, that’s what they told us. I’m not sure if they’re a trustworthy source. Nobody is, to be honest. For all I know, there could be an entire world to explore outside these walls. Or, as they’d have you believe, an empty void of nothingness.
At last, I arrived to the monument. It was a huge, towering statue, and just glancing at it for a second was enough to fill someone with inspiration.
“Of course, Jay’s here first. What a huge surprise.”
With that, I flipped around to see Kate and Wyatt standing before me. I ran up to them, and gave Kate a hug. Realizing what I’ve done, I stepped back. Wyatt stared at me with a look of both confusion and anger. “Way to make everything awkward, Jay.” I thought solemnly.
The three of us walked over to one of the picnic tables near the statue, and took our usual seats. It had been so long since we’ve been able to have a meeting like this. The rebels had gotten very serious about hunting down the government lately, and any sort of public meeting was practically a death sentence. I suppose that you can’t really trust anyone when you’re a secret organization trying to kill a tyrannous government.
We sat and talked for a while, and it was all in good fun. Wyatt, of course, was full of plenty of random video game tidbits to share. Kate was her usual quiet self, although she did laugh at a few of Wyatt’s terrible jokes. The two of them did look kinda cute together, even if I hated to admit it.
Then suddenly, there was a sound of a shot firing nearby. Terrified, the three of us froze. Was it the gov, or maybe the rebels? We looked at each other, and shook our heads in unison. From there, Wyatt and Kate ran to some other tables, and ducked underneath them. I crawled down underneath the table we were sitting at.
Sure enough, the sound of multiple footsteps was heard. I looked around, and I saw a pair of legs slowly walking towards were Kate was hiding. “Oh, no… Did… did they see her… I… I have to do something… I have too!” But I couldn’t. I had become completely paralyzed with fear.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
It was Wyatt’s voice, screaming from where he now stood. The person belonging to the pair of legs seemed to turn immediately, and I heard the sound of a shot firing. The legs then ran over to where Kate was hiding, and the person crouched down, and pulled her up from underneath the table.
I heard the sound of another shot, and now another pair of legs was approaching me. A man bent down and pulled me out from under the table. He pinned me against it, and I heard a loud, audible bang before everything seemed to go black…
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140,830 Literary Works • 673,694 Reviews
Hey there, Hiraeth here for a review. I'll be nice and quick with this review.
There's two major problems here, your character development and the actual content of the chapter. I've read over chapter one and this applies to both. All of your characters at the moment is under developed, you can take a look here, it gives you some great tips of how to develop your characters. At the moment, we're only scratching the surface with these characters we're not getting into their motives, and they don't really seem to have any personality outside of the run-of-the-mill teenageness. I don't mean to sound harsh, this partially has to do with the pacing of the chapter too. This is a lot of action packed into one chapter, take your time and slow down. Take one scene and then develop it. That way, you'll give the readers time to absorb what's going on and it'll also give you time to open the characters up.
I have several questions regarding this story, what exactly is Wyatt and group doing here? They're not the rebels, nor are they the government? Why are meet-ups banned? If they're the rebels or the government, I can understand why but they seem to be in neutral territory so I'm not sure as to why it'd be dangerous for them. I think you could also spend some time describing the setting to us, setting is incredibly important in a story like this because it sets the atmosphere and the mood. Not only so, it also provides important background clues. The pacing of this chapter is really quick, and some details are somewhat unrealistic.
If the shots are being fired, then the smart thing to do would be to get the hell away from there. If they are used to this sort of thing, then they should have established some sort of escape route by now. If they got caught in the middle of escaping then that was ok, if Jay saw Kate and Wyatt being taken. Wouldn't he try to run? Or is he frozen in fear? if he is, I'm not seeing any signs of it. So, the part of them getting captured just frustrates me a bit.
I'm sorry if this came across as harsh, you can throw some seashells at my door if you want. c: If you've got any questions, please don't hesitate to ask me.
-Hir
The first thing I noticed as soon as I started reading was that you started describing the atmosphere, but neglected to give a title description for the city; like say is it bustling, is it not so crowded, is it dimly lit, is it soulless? Just think you could've put an adjective in between "the" and "city" but didn't do it for some reason.
Your setting is very interesting, you have my eyes ^^ The outskirts of the city are run down, but the center is upscale, which seems like a fascinating setting for a story.
Did you mean "wasn't" here?
Watch the tenses
Not a fan of this shift; the mood change is too abrupt, and not dramatic enough. Try not to fall back on the word "Suddenly", it's often unnecessary to tell your story.
Don't be lazy, spell the words completely
You used the wrong "to", plus this whole line comes off as rather cheesy to me.
Again, don't just have him tell us how he's feeling, have him show it with his emotions. Don't be afraid to get more attached to your story, in return, we will become more attached, also.
[quote[]“GET AWAY FROM HER!”[/quote]
Use italics to convey shouting, not capitalization.
Good ending. "Loud, audible bang" is a strange phrase though, obviously if something is loud, it's audible, we know that. Don't know about why there are ellipses there too.
I realize this review was super condescending and negative, I'm sorry. I just notice mistakes and don't want you to repeat them again is all. This plot is actually really interesting and I hope you haven't given up on it, as long as you're having fun writing it you should keep going!! Let me know if you need points to put up the next part.