This other Eden.

You've made it. You're alive. At least you think your alive, but, seeing as you have had no experience of the afterlife (unless you have, and meerly suffer amnesia and/or have had your memory wiped, one must always be open to possibilities.) you do not know if the harsh, grainy sand between your toes and in your mouth or the lapping of cold water up to your knees is an indicator of life or death. You vaguely remember running, wet spray, splintered wood, shouting, and a sense of fear; putting strength into the 'dead' argument. But you don't feel dead. Deciding to test your senses, you try sight. Sharp, harsh sunlight bites into your eyes, gouging holes in the darkness. Quickly turning over to avoid the light, you see the silhouette of a figure hunched up beside you. You try to call out for assistance, but all that comes out is a low "uurrggh."

"Ah, your awake," says the figure.

"Uurgrur." you manage to reply.

It bends over you and pulls tight a strip of cloth on your leg that you hadn't previously noticed. You squeal in pain and suddenly sit up. You immediately wish you hadn't. Pain jolts through your head and down your spinal cord, down your limbs, and screams in every part of your body. The figure, who you now recognize as a boy, about nine or ten, eases you slowly down.

"your going to have to rest now, to let your wounds heal. Go to sleep..."

And gratefully at last, you do.

"Is he ok? Will he be ok?"

The boy was clutching grimly to the side of the hospital bed, his tears dripping onto the clean white sheets.

The nurse, kneeling next to him to match his height, stroked his head reassuringly. "He'll be fine. He's just a little poorly. "

The boy wasn't very reassured. He stared at the the person in the hospital bed. Wires, attached to his head, sprouted out in every direction like a grim mock-up of hair. The left leg was wrapped in bandages, the end of one hanging lose. The boy tearfully took the loose end and reapplied it.

You awake to a slow, painful throb in your left leg, unharmoniously accompanied by a dull ache in your right. A dazzling white seagull flys by on a painfully blue backdrop, making your eyes water. slowly you regain your senses and instinctively sit up. As soon as you do you realize your foolishness, but, to your surprise, the sharp pain that accompanied your previous action is no more. True, you ache all over and feel slightly nauseous, but nothing like the earlier pain that had sizzled down your back like an electric shock. Looking around, you see a beach of coarse, golden sand, followed by a wide expanse of beautiful topaz blue sea. To the left the self same beach stretches to the horizon, as it does on the right. Behind you a copse of trees provides shelter from the scortching sun. You stare at the trees for a moment, feeling you don't have the energy to turn around or lie down again, when suddenly you notice a smell. It takes you a minute to figure out what it is, it not being somthing you would expect to find here (wherever you are). Is that bacon? Slowly and cautiously you drag yourself to the point you think the smell is coming from. You can definitely smell it now, wafting on the wind, tantalizingly close. Before you can drag yourself all the way to the edge of the woods a man, dressed in a white lab coat, walks purposefully out. He is wearing square spectacles and around his neck hangs a stethoscope. He stops and turns round, and, as if addressing the collected audience of the trees, said authoritatively, "And grab me a sandwich, I'm worked off my feet."

At this curious display, you call out to him, "Excuse me, who ever you are, can you give me a hand?" You are pleased to see your voice has returned.

At this he spins around on his back heel to face you, and, his eyes bright in surprise, he exclaims "Aha! I don't believe we've been introduced. My name is Timothy, but you can call me Tim. Would you care for some breakfast? "

You suddenly realize how hungry you are, and quickly nod an affirmative.

It is seven minutes to midnight, and somewhere in the hospital, a machine beeped. A little L.E.D. blinked in the darkness. A line flickered on a screen. But suddenly the hospital was alive. Doctors and nurses rushed, putting white coats on inside-out in their haste. Bright, sanitized light flooded the rooms, clean and white as the hospital itself.

And you scream. You scream as th world you think you knew melts around you, a cascade of false realities blurring your thoughts and memories into a waterfall of dreams, out of which you have formed this isle of comfort, this other Eden, demi paradise. This place in which you know where you are. But do you? Do you know the truth? And would it be better to die than live in a false reality?

-P.S. I have now written a sequel. :-)

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Tue Mar 11, 2014 5:19 pm

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Messenger wrote a review...

Hey Fiend I'm here as you requested! Let's get down to business.

Spoiler! :

(unless you have, and mearly suffer amnesia and/or have had your memory wiped, one must always be open to possibilities.)

This made me smile, but scratch away the period. I isn't needed. Also, it should be 'merely' not "mearly"

Sharp, harsh sunlight bites into your eyes, gouging holes in the darkness.

That was a solidly descriptive sentence.

"Uurgrur." you manage to reply.

Once again I had to laugh.

down your limbs and screams in every part of your body

You need a comma after "limbs" or else what you are saying is that there are screams in every part of your body. Since screams aren't physical things I know you didn't mean that. But it was amusing to read.

your going to have to rest now,

You need to switch "your" to 'you're' and capitalize it.

The boy was clutching grimmly to the side of the hospital bed, his tears dripping onto the clean white sheats.

The nurse, kneeling next to him to reach his hight, stroked his head reasssuringly. "He'll be fine. He's just a little poorly. "
The boy wasn't very reassured. He stared at the the person in the hospital bed. Wires, attached to his head, sprouted out in every direction like a grim mock-up of hair. The left leg was wrapped in bandages, the end of one hanging lose. The boy tearfully took the loose end and reapplied it.

I just imagine this whole scene as from a security camera. Don't ask me why but I just did. A few nitpicks though:
You are missing an E in "Height" and you have one too many S's in Reassuringly. "Sheats" should be 'sheets', and you have an unneeded double m in grimly.

A dazzling white seagull fly's by on a painfully blue backdrop, making your eyes water.

Wow something is wrong in this person's head. This is getting good.
"flys" should be 'fly's'

Behind you a copse of trees provides shelter from the scortching sun.

How would I know there are trees behind me if I didn't look?

And "scortching" doesn't need the T in it.

"And grab me a sandwich, I'm worked of my feet."

"of" should be 'off.' OK so this sentence was hilarious. Obviously the character can sense some real things, and is kind of in lullaby lands with others. But I have to say that that big paragraph was a very strong one. You had a lot of amazing imagery in it. It really painted a beautiful picture in my mind. Good job there.

At this he spins around on his back heal to face you,

"heal" should be 'heel.'

"aha! I don't believe we've been introduced.

"aha!" needs to be capitalized.

So I fished this with a dissatisfied attitude. This whole story was beautifully written; you had a lot of really good imagery, and then whole time you built up suspense, but then the ending was so rushed, so unexplained, so un-detailed, that I don't even know what happened. I may go ahead and check out the sequel, but this story didn't have a very strong ending.

I hope this helps you polish this story. It has the signs of something really, really good.

~Messenger

TakeThatYouFiend says...

Thanks; That really helped.

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Thu Nov 28, 2013 10:15 pm

TakeThatYouFiend says...

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR;
READ THIS SLOWLY OR IT MAY GET CONFUSING.

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Sun Nov 24, 2013 9:34 am

OliveDreams wrote a review...

GOOD MORNING! Here to review for the Epic Ice Cream Warriors of Pluto on this fine review day. Yes, that really is our name.

I will review as I read so that it will make a lot more sense to both me and you! I tend to get a little muddled up otherwise.

Here goes

1. I didn't think I would like the point of view that you've decided to write with but I find myself actually imagining the sand on my tongue and the sunlight biting in my eyes! WOW! I never knew this could happen lol

1a - Like Eloquent says however, be careful en you're switching back and forth all of the time. It can be a little distracting and hard to keep up.

2. Really good imagery throughout this piece… I love that I can see everything you're describing.

3. You need to work on your commas…There's a few places where I can see you need one! I'm not going to point them all out to you and be condescending so I would just give the advice of reading your own work aloud to yourself. You should be able to hear where the natural pauses fall.

4. I LOVE the final questions…what a great way to end? You could definitely make this into a novel - with this being your prologue. There's the potential!

GOOOD luck! Keep writing and I look forward to seeing more of this posted soon…i hope

Olive <3

TakeThatYouFiend says...

Thanks! I'm glad to hear you like second person so much! It's not to everyones liking. As I have said I will correct spelling etc once I have my netbook. Also, just a thought, if any reviewer would care to correct mt spellings in a review, it would be really helpful. :-)

TakeThatYouFiend says...

Hello! Now I have extended this work. :-)

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Sun Nov 24, 2013 1:05 am

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EloquentDragon wrote a review...

ED here to review.

So, you've got an interesting premise here. Unlike Fire, I would say that this works well as a stand alone piece. By no means is this a synopsis, and I feel that it would actually be rather weak as a first chapter. I like its haunting brevity, the shortness of it. It leaves a lot open for speculation, and has sort of a poetic feel to it.

Since you typed this on a phone, the grammar and spelling are impressive. However, there is a plethora of mistypes, misspells, etc. For instance, "mearly" instead of "merely," be careful of stuff like that.

I really don't like the second person pov. I realize what you were trying to do here, but it's sort of clunky, and it's over-done. Not to mention, each time you switch out of paradise and back into the hospital, it's incredibly jarring. Not in a good way. I think those transitions would be smoothed over a little better if you told this all in third person.

The dialogue is disconnected, and it needs a little polishing. I'm still scratching my head as to how all of the characters are connected. You need to connect them, otherwise they won't really function in the story.

Good, poetic imagery here, this just needs some revision I think.
~ED

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Sun Nov 24, 2013 12:11 am

FireFox wrote a review...

Hey, TakeThatYouFiend! (I wish I knew a shorter nickname to call you!) This piece was definitely something that peaked my interest and I wanted to take some time out on Review Day to give you a review! So, here it is:

Needs Improvement:
1. Grammar/spelling. I won't be nit-picky; I'll leave that to those who live to nitpick good pieces of work that have some simple grammar/spelling issues. You just might want to go back over it, eventually, and do an edit of the grammar and spelling. Spell-check at first, to get the easy stuff. But it really wasn't too bad in this department, in all honesty.

2. For some reason, I feel like this would work better as more of a synopsis for a longer story. Perhaps that's what this is, but you just did not make us (the readers/reviewers) aware of that. If it is meant to be a chapter or the beginning of something, perhaps elaborate more. Mystery is always good, but too much mystery leaves your reader confused and frustrated, like I am now! I want to know what the heck is going on with this character!

3. Does our MC have a name? A description of what he/she looks like? An age range? I'm assuming the boy who was upset with the MC's condition is his/her son? I know it's just a small piece thus far, but try to establish in the beginning of your piece exactly who we are reading about.

As I said, I think this makes for a fantastic synopsis. It certainly peaked my interested and I would read more if you were to write more and elaborate on this. I adore your imagery, especially when you described where our MC woke up and the feelings our MC felt upon waking up for the first time. I am very curious. I love stories regarding memory loss and/or amnesia, so you have me hooked! Keep up the great writing! Let me know if you add to this piece!

-FireFox

TakeThatYouFiend says...

Thanks for your review, sorry about any grammar/spelling, but I am writing all this on a phone! I had a clever (confusing) reason for second person and hazyness of character. I have tried to make it so that the reader can place themselves or their own character in there. (In the style of a solo). Originally I didn't plan to make this a first chapter, it being my first, but I may extend some ideas behind it. I too love amnesia stories, and may use that as an excuse for a second chapter. The correct abbreviation of take that you feind is TTYF!, a tunnels and trolls spell.

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This other Eden.

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