In the oppressive darkness - caressed by the nurturing touch of a gentle breeze - a lone figure stood completely motionless. He was a tall man with unblemished flesh of ebony and midnight. Bathed in the translucent light of the phantasm beams of the overlooking moon, he appeared an ethereal being; not looking as if he belonged on this Earth.
Obsidian eyes look upon his surroundings with the intense weight of spiritual reverence. Those gem-like irises touched upon the gently swaying grass that seemed to ripple like the calm surface of a moon-kissed lake that was far from society’s destructive grasp. They gazed in wonder upon the millions of stars that seemed to flash brilliantly against the dark sky; diamonds of such calibre that they far bettered any of man’s greatest treasures.
He shifted slightly, moving from foot to foot, as he seemed to consider his surroundings for a brief moment. Even with that smallest of movements, the muscles in his legs seemed to pull taught, shifting beneath his skin in a primal show of might. His small - yet broad - shoulders squared, as he seemed to come to a decision after looking this way and that with a critical eye.
With graceful movements seldom seen in humans, he walked forwards with purposeful and fluid steps until he came to a halt, only metres from where he had previously stood. Now standing above a slightly raised hillock of soil and grass, he used the small escalation in the terrain as a superior vantage point to better take in the wild lands spread before him.
Although there appeared to be nothing significant about the small patch of earth, his shoulders slumped as if a heavy weight had been dropped down upon them. Below him, streaks of scarlet intertwined with the green and brown of the surrounding flora like some artisan had deemed Gaia’s work not fit enough and added his own creative touch. It was a gruesome addition, telling a tale of spilt blood and slain souls – phantom screams whispering and hollering along the wind.
“I shall miss you, my brother.” He muttered quietly to the empty air, touching his long fingers to his heart and then bending down to touch the crusted soil above where he stood. “The years shall be harder to withstand without your presence beside me, strong and irreplaceable.” His deep voice cracked halfway through and his head dropped down until his chin rested against the heavy muscles of his exposed chest.
A strong gust of wind tore through the air and the man smiled gently - a bittersweet curve to his full lips - his chest vibrating as a small chuckle rumbled its way up his throat.
“You have done well for yourself, brother.” The disembodied voice seemed to sweep through the air like a comforting brush of flesh against flesh - its baritone notes seeming to fill the very recesses of the trembling man’s mind. “You are strong, you have stood against many obstacles . . .” The voice faded out as the gust of wind slowed to a gentle touch. “You are free.”
“A freedom that I would not have gained without your sacrifice, it is no cause for celebration,” the man replied, a heavy weight behind his words; guilt forcing his shoulders to further droop underneath its oppressive mass.
“Feel no sadness in this moment, brother.” The voice gently reprimanded him, “You have sacrificed far more - lost far more - than those of us who have joined our Great Mother and her Warriors.” There was a small pause before the male voice spoke upon the wind again. “Do what you have come here to do, brother. I grow weary and I cannot wait for you to struggle with your guilt. It is senseless, feel it no more.”
The man nodded to his disembodied companion, “As you wish.” The atmosphere seemed to thicken as he reached up to pull a tuft of honeycomb fur from around his neck, where a worn chord of black leather had held it. There was an almost reverent air to his motions as his fingers stroked through the coarse fur.
The very night seemed to hold its breath as he reached into the back pocket of his dark jeans, withdrawing a small, red lighter. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, before they snapped back open; black orbs flashing in the moonlight. His shoulders rose as he inhaled the night air deeply, seeming to take it far within himself - savouring the moment until it was imprinted upon his very soul.
Another brief pause before he brought the lighter to the tuff of fur and a small click resounded around the silent plain. “Farewell, brother of mine; I shall be forever in your debt.” His softly murmured words faded into nothing, a slight wavering flame licking at the tip of the honeycomb fur, sending a small tendril of smoke spiralling into the stagnant air.
He watched the innocuous blaze, eyes burning with a thousand conflicting emotions; sadness, regret guilt . . . and release. The minuscule inferno lapped at his ebony skin, leaving a stinging pain along the scarred tips of his long fingers - but he paid it no mind, lost within the scorching light that moved rapidly along the strands of tawny fur.
Silence for a moment, then, “Farewell, bother.”
As ashes of the fur fell gently to the soil, he released the remaining centimetres to be caught up in the passing breeze and carried gently away to join the earth of which they had been created from. The two voices melded together as the night was once again filled with the sounds of the night.
“For Uhuru.”
The small flame flickered, and then went out.Points:
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.
140,479 Literary Works • 673,243 Reviews
I'm going to be harsh, because harsh is honest and I want you to take something away from this review and if I'm not honest you won't.
So here was my first impression, 'this is purple sentiment dolled-up and hung precariously below the rubric 'sci-fi.' Because anything goes so long as you call it sci-fi.
In fact, call it sci-fi and clichés are okay, adjectives are okay, extraneity is okay.
I won't nit pick to any great extent, because the writing is well crafted and near flawless technically. You have a fine grasp on the language and you can turn a wonderfully clear scene, but like I said my first impression left me a little underwhelmed. All these frilly descriptions but what is actually said? Presumably this is a short story, right? What do you leave the reader with? A threadbare sentiment?
Let's take a look, shall we?
This sort of prose is out of vogue and doesn't look like it's making a comeback any time soon. Most would call it purple, in fact damn near all would call it purple. By today's standards, this is too flamboyant, to distracting the story is hidden behind the adjectives. You can trim it down and it won't necessarily become lifeless dull prose, on the contrary the few adjectives and descriptions you allow yourself will be amplified. If you are going to write poetic(nauseating) prose, it's up to you as the author to prove you know exactly what you are doing, otherwise you will lose the reader.
Whether you are channelling Lovecraft deliberately or not, there is definitely a sense of influence from the grandfather of the genre, that doesn't make it okay to write purple prose, by today's stringent standards Lovecraft is verbose and sickly. But his prose is still a little leaner than this. With that being said, he relied heavily on the story itself, the exploration of his dreamscape and the invention of some rather memorable characters and extra-terrestrial phenomenon. Like I said, you better have something behind the words if you want the reader to stay with you through this adjective minefield. This style seems to clean it self up a bit after the opening paragraph. Whew. Let's move on.
Again, this sounds lovely but the image is not at all enhanced by the addition of 'midnight.' unless he is actually black and formless? Because that's all that 'midnight' could add to ebony, in terms of describing the flesh of a being.
Suddenly a little context. Stylistically, this is much stronger for me. Still nothing would be lost if you dropped 'overlooking' it's purely a stylistic choice and I'm more often accused of being sparse than over-descriptive.
Two things. Eyes are described twice, why? Some would call it extraneous. Also, The eye's gaze in wonder, this doesn't sit well with me, because you assign an emotion to his eyes when really the emotion belongs to him. It's difficult to explain, but it kind of detaches his eyes from his self, it's either a metaphor or an accident. He looks with his eye's in wonder.
Take this, for example If I were an editor and you were a young writer I would uncap my red pen. Here's what I would do.
That's if I was holding back. Now the trouble is, unless you are deliberately using some hidden linguistic scheme that I can't see (or you wanted to incorporate the repetitive soft consonant/long vowel sounds of shifted slightly for some stylistic purpose?) I see no need to describe the action twice. Like I said, this is purely a stylistic choice that you may have made but it is completely extraneous. If anything, you should mention he moved from foot to foot first and follow with the description of shifting. Shifting is ambiguous it can describe a range of things including walking from one point to another, moving your eyes moving your hands. You get my point.
The dialogue is fantastic. It's emotive and simple. I can't fault it really.
this is pretty difficult to swallow for some reason. It just doesn't seem like a small click could resound and I for one, can not actively envision or hear that.
Particularly harsh this one but I'll call it: cliche. Look, it's probably not as bad as the "I will always be in your debt" line. In fact there are a few howlers that sneak into your prose, but if I pick on the least of them, at least you will know the standard, right?
There's another one.
Like I said, this relies too heavily on how well you craft the scene and there's really not enough beneath it all. It's emotive, borderline sentimental and leaves the reader feeling little other than a vague sense of intrigue that lasts for moments. If this is the prologue of a Novel, it works because that intrigue may be enough to keep the reader, but as a short story, you cheat the reader. You hook them with a promise of something new and fresh, some insight, but you deliver nothing more than a cheap gimmick. A nebular hint at some war or act that cost some one their life and a burial right that doesn't hit home with any omph. It kind of fizzles out.
I said earlier that Sci-fi despite being genre fiction is also confined to the modern standards of the literary arts. It still needs something beneath it all that resounds with the reader.
I wouldn't have taken the time to take this apart if I didn't believe you are strong writer. The good, by all means, outweighs the bad.
JP
I will review this in due course.
There is something very, very HP Lovecraftian about this. In fact, you're probably secretly his daughter or granddaughter or something. I even misread the story's title as Cthulhu somehow, and imagine my surprise when the story itself also sounds like an excerpt from the Call of Cthulhu.
Your story chose to be artistically slow, focusing on detailed descriptions to set the atmosphere, mood, and general feel. Personally, I prefer faster paced literature, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate a great effort (and success) in creating the suffocating heaviness in your entire work, which is what you were going for, I presume!
As much as the reread factor for this is high (because I'm always afraid I miss out little plot points for stories like these, and because I do like to admire good setting descriptions), the story doesn't exactly keep me on the edge of my seat. i'm not saying a story necessarily has to be fast paced or exciting, definitely not, but it does feel like this may lack a hook of some sort, to lure the readers in and make them want more.
At the beginning of your essay, you create many questions in the reader's head. Who is this man? What is he doing in such a depressing place? Who is the disembodied voice? But at the end of the story, although the writing and style was wonderful (from an objective point of view), I cannot help but feel vaguely disappointed. Like, you may have answered several questions, but I didn't feel the satisfaction I thought I would have, and frankly, I would read a continuation, but I wouldn't exactly be anxiously waiting for it. If you never intended for a continuation, then I'd suggest revealing more about the characters by the end, like what brotherhood do they belong to, exactly, or are they actually related?
If you never intended for this story to carry a plot, and it was a sort of writing exercise, I'd say wonderful job, because come on, I just accused you of being the great granddaughter of one of the most renowned horror authors of all time.
Haha, I had to read that twice to try and respond (in a good way!) I%u2019ll have to check out this Author I have never heard of him! You are indeed heading in the right direction; this is actually the first draft of a prologue for my latest novel %u2018Uhuru,%u2019 and its companion %u201CUpendi.%u2019
It is supposed to be slow for a prologue because the %u2018spiritual,%u2019 side to this novel is highly important and is a major theme throughout the two novels. I want my readers to be drowning in the emotions of this piece, so that they are already getting attached to the character by the time the first chapter comes along. I%u2019ve had other people read the manuscript and they have said that the major draw was the draw, it could just be a personal like or dislike of this kind of writing.
I%u2019m not sure that I understand why you called it an essay? The reason those questions you speak of weren%u2019t answered is because it would give away the rest of the book (who wants to read a story they already know the answers to?) It is a deep, twisted plot with characters that are never static. The pace picks up as soon as the first chapter begins (in first person point of view.)
Thank you very much for taking the time to review and I will take your suggestions on board.
Tash xx
Hi there
How are you ?
First, you are amazing with descriptions. When you described scenery, people, voices, etc. you did an exemplary job !
I just have a few things :
1. When you do 'In the oppressive darkness-', don't forget you could also do ' In the oppressive darkness,' I say that because the hyphen looks a little out of place. I'm just a writer who has a preference towards commas. The same with 'small-yet broad-'
2. I , also, noticed a change of tense from past to present. In the second paragraph, you said, 'look', which should be 'looked' for the entire first paragraph is in past and that is in present.
3. 'forwards' should be 'forward'
4.In the statement 'where he had previously stood', you don't need the 'had'. You could extract it without hurting the sentence.
But, overall, nice story ! Your use of imagery outdid your mistakes by a long shot causing readers to be ignorant to the few number of them. Good job ! Keep writing
Thank you for the review, I personally prefer using a wider range of grammar tools and find that continuous usage of commas can become boring and make text drag. The other errors were the mere result of a first draft never being perfect and I have rectified them. That is not a mistake to pick up on %u2013 just a difference of opinion.
As for the %u2018had%u2019 that I put in that sentence, that is no error. Each writer has a different style of writing and although it may not be %u2018necessary,%u2019 it adds my own touch to the sentence and it will stay as it is.
While I very much appreciated the review, I am more interested in having my writing reviewed on a non-grammatical level.
Thank you;
Tash xx
On the comma thing, that is totally understandable. That is why I attempted to make it clear that it was a suggestion, not error. Ah, I did not know this was a first draft. And even then, there are some things that readers notice that an author won't.
Of course, I understand that. That is, again, why I attempted to make it a suggestion from a reader's POV.
I'm more of a grammar reviewer, if you could not obviously tell. So, I apologize for this review not being of any help. On a non-grammatical level, I said all I could possibly say.
On the comma thing, that is totally understandable. That is why I attempted to make it clear that it was a suggestion, not error. Ah, I did not know this was a first draft. And even then, there are some things that readers notice that an author won't.
Of course, I understand that. That is, again, why I attempted to make it a suggestion from a reader's POV.
I'm more of a grammar reviewer, if you could not obviously tell. So, I apologize for this review not being of any help. On a non-grammatical level, I said all I could possibly say.