With one swift movement, Exiurim slide out the door to the headquarters and shut it. Excitement and bliss gave her energy. She had gotten another shot. Yes, was the only thing her brain could think. Bounding down the sidewalk, Exiurim hummed. She swung her head from side to side, looking for cars, in beat with the song. Unintentional snapping joined the success party. Eat it! I get my respect back, and my mission is easy.
That feeling faded from her as ten minutes passed and Exiurim had yet to see a car. Surely there is a car here. At least one person has to have one. But what if they don’t? Exiurim pushed that option from her head by thinking of other things. Somehow her mind train led to thinking about how the city got this way. Her parents were around 30 when it happened. They would tell Exiurim stories about it. They said bad people came and scared everyone into staying, or something like that. Whenever she asked to know more, her parents just looked away.
That brought her back to the rainy night. Before the images could flash into her eyes, Exiurim thought of what Mercy said to her. She reeled it over and over in her brain, reliving the relief. After doing this a couple of times Exiurim looked deeper into what Mercy had really said, “disposed of.” The word “disposed” was used more for items or trash. Sadness and disappointment washed over her as she realized Mercy thought no more of her as worthless junk.
The thought gave Exiurim strength. I will find a car and I will impress Mercy. She held onto that and kept walking up and down the city streets. At one point she saw a vehicle, but it was too small to meet Exiurim’s expectations.
She came to an alley way with a truck. Finally! Exiurim hurried over to it, while also making as little noise as possible. Firmly planting her foot on the step of the car, she opened the door. Thank gosh it’s open. Exiurim sat down in the seat. Keys, keys. She moved around stuff and checked the visor. No keys? Just great. Then she saw the armrest had a small lever. Exiurim pushed it and a cubby revealed itself. After a stack of papers had been shuffled around the keys appeared. Exiurim put them into the ignition. Wait, I don’t know how to drive. She examined the front seat for a minute, working things out. Well, I just turn the wheel to turn the car, push down one pedal to stop and another to go forward. Simple enough. Exiurim started the car and almost jumped when the engine let out a growl. Now to find out which pedal is which. She forced one down and jerked forward. Ok, on to actually driving. Pushing down the same pedal, Exiurim moved carefully out of the alley and onto the road.
Maneuvering the streets was hectic; multiple times she almost hit a building. When the headquarters came into view, Exiurim let out a thankful sigh. She parked the truck in front, turned it off, and got out. To her surprise, Twist was waiting for her.
“You finally came back.” His voice was bland and his face reflected that.
“You were waiting for me?” Exiurim was interested to know why he was out instead of Gray Moon or Mercy.
“Boss asked me to wait for you,” he said, his voice the same. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“Nice to know you care,” Exiurim added sarcastically. What did it matter to her that Twist didn’t want to do this?
“So the beggar has arrived.”
Exiurim whirled around to look at Mercy, a proud face on. “What do you think of my catch?” Mercy had to be impressed. This was possibly the best vehicle Exiurim could have gotten.
“It’s alright.” Mercy’s indifferent tone nearly crushed her. How was she so unfeeling about this? Exiurim then noticed the only time Mercy had shown real emotion was when Exiurim had caught her daydreaming. She shrugged it off. Perhaps it was better for leaders to not care.
Mercy turned to Twist, “Get this in the back.”
***
That night Exiurim’s dreams were plagued. The same memory replayed over and over. The rain splattering her fists as she tried, and failed, to ward off the attackers. Eyes stared through the darkness and a force hit her temple, and Exiurim woke up, gasping for breath. Why was this still bothering her? She had proved herself useful. What would it take to make it go away? After a long time of thinking Exiurim realized that the only way to make the images go away was to get revenge.
I know this is short, but including more would have ended with a double chapter.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,017 Literary Works • 672,850 Reviews
Timmy here!
I enjoyed the content of this chapter, and the massive amount of thought your character has. It's the most prominent thing in this story, I think. There is a lot of thought - and that is perfectly fine, really. It just adds one more thing to your style, and makes it more unique. Also, the story was very interesting to read, and the character quite believable. There seems to be more to this than merely a car-theft. That seems like just a little background thing, brought up to full view for this chapter only.
Comma after movement.
Comma after more.
Comma after eyes
Comma after Twist.
So, judging by my nitpicks here, you can probably see something you may want to work on. Commas. Yup. They aren't a big deal, and you learn how to use them mostly by experience, but looking up their rules and how they work always helps people. This is a reference I send many people to, so perhaps it'll help you out, too. This link may be helpful. I hope you find something useful in it.
One thing I found super weird, and almost unrealistic was the ease in which she stole the vehicle. It was almost too good to be true that the only vehicle she would have wanted was 1) unlocked and easy to get into and 2) the keys were already there. Now that was too good to be true. I don't think anyone with half a brain would have left their keys just sitting there, especially in such a place as you described. I don't know. It just didn't seem right to me, and I thought I would mention that. For realistic sake, perhaps she knows how to hotwire the vehicle? I don't know. One of them being true (of my two points) is a possibility, but two of them being true seemed a bit much.
I hope this helped! Sorry for the short length.
~Darth Timmyjake
Hey!
This chapter is actually pretty well done. It's short, yes, but it's just a small part of the whole plot, the beginning of things to say the least and it was great.
Reading through the chapter, I noticed that sensory details and elaborations were not really present. It felt almost rushed. For example you would state something, period, state something else, period, state something else, etc. I know that the chapter is short but I think that if you elaborated more on how Exiurim was feeling and processing certain things, the chapter would be longer and full of detail. I did notice that you included lots of thoughts (in italic) but I felt a bit as though you was depending too much on those moments of thought to explain Exiurim's emotions. Perhaps mixing the thought and description in the story would make a better balance. For example, you wrote:
"Exiurim sat down in the seat. Keys, keys. She moved around stuff and checked the visor. No keys? Just great. Then she saw the armrest had a small lever. Exiurim pushed it and a cubby revealed itself. After a stack of papers had been shuffled around the keys appeared. Exiurim put them into the ignition. Wait, I don’t know how to drive. She examined the front seat for a minute, working things out. Well, I just turn the wheel to turn the car, push down one pedal to stop and another to go forward. Simple enough. Exiurim started the car and almost jumped when the engine let out a growl. Now to find out which pedal is which. She forced one down and jerked forward. Ok, on to actually driving."
I feel like you could have taken this one driving experience to a whole different level; one that captures the reader's attention and keeps them engaged and involved in Exiurim's experience. By that, I mean go ahead and describe how Exiurim remembered how her parents (or other drivers) used to hide their keys in glove compartments--which would explain why she would even look in the armrest first than looking around the car and under the seats as most people would do. Go ahead and describe how Exiurim's heart began to race and her breathing became uneasy as she realized that she couldn't drive yet she was sitting alone behind a truck. Show her panicking from the sound of the engine; show her trying to calm herself down as she gripped the wheel and tried to focus on the basic driving motions she had noticed years ago.
Basically put yourself in the place of the main character and don't be scared to emphasize certain emotions or reactions that you know that you yourself would feel in such a situation. Trust me, it will make everything seem more realistic and engaging.
All in all, you did well with this chapter and I encourage you to keep on writing!!