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Danger Zone

by ToluKay


Danger Zone

Episode 1

Lights Out

                              ***

The darkness vanishes as Lola flips the light switch, she picks up her book from the dusty desk, walks up to her bed singing along to Childish Gambino's "Stay Woke" as it blasts through her phone's speakers into the night's calm atmosphere. She drops into her black sheet covered bed and turns the music off then looks at the time, it's almost twelve, she drops the phone on the bed ready to do some serious reading for the next day's test. She flips the book open ready to start reading, suddenly!, she lets out a loud yelp and turns around quickly towards her desk to see where the loud squeak came from, she yells and jumps off the bed as her eyes met with the long-tailed rodent's, the huge rat stays still on the table, it's eyes looking straight into Lola's and suddenly!, there's a loud knock on the door, distracted, she looks away from the rodent quickly and back but it was gone.

Lola walks towards the door "who is it?" she asks "it's me Kay" a voice says, she unlocks the door and opens it, Kay rushes in pushing her a little as he locks up the door "what are you do..., what's going on?!" she says as she squeezes his shoulder "turn off the lights" Kay says quietly as he takes a little peep through the window. Lola walks up to him looking scared and confused "why?, will you please tell me what's going on, you're scaring me" he walks up to her and covers her mouth "they're coming, they found out" the lights go off, rays of light from outside the building settles into the room. "they are here" he says with a loud whisper as he slowly goes down to the red carpet "who?!, who are they?!" she says shivering as she slowly crouches down beside him.

The sound of automatic guns firing endless rounds of bullets into the sky blares through the neighborhood, Lola lets out a short yelp, it stops "hello everyone!" a loud voice echoes through the corridors of the storey building, "wh...." Kay grabs her and covers her mouth with his palm "ssshhh, be quiet" he whispers "A boy ran into this house just now, I know he's in one of these rooms.." says the voice as the sound of locks fills the corridors "...if you have him please kindly hand him over to me or I'll kill every last one of you to get to him if I have to. this compound is surrounded, there's no escape. give him to me and we'll leave, if you don't in 60 secs, you all die" Lola looks at Kay confused

"I can explain" he says. "57!..." says the gang leader with a loud baritone voice, Kay gets up quickly and looks through the windows, at the door and up at the ceiling "we need to find a way out of here" he says heading towards the desk. Lola follows shivering and sweating "how are we going to do that, you heard what he said, the compound is surrounded" he grabs the chair in front of the desk and lifts it then places it in front of the wall "hold on" he says as he climbs up the chair, he smashes through the ceiling with a blow and breaks it into pieces until there's a hole wide enough to go through "46!...." the loud voice travels through the corridors sending a shiver down their spines, he jumps down quickly and faces her "let's go" he says, his face plastered with fear, she stays still, still shivering, he moves closer to her and grabs her "you can't stay here, we have to go!, now!" she looks at him and brushes his arms off, she climbs up the chair while Kay follows then lifts her up, she grabs a hold of the wooden structure in the roof, with the help of Kay, she climbs up into the ceiling "35!..." Kay climbs up the chair quickly and jumps up to grab the wooden structure which he then uses to pull himself up the ceiling "it's too dark" Lola whispers "use your phone's torch" he replies "it's on my bed" she says, he brings out his phone and lights up the dark ceiling, he looks around, "this way" he says as he carefully leads the way through the wooden structure "24!..." the unknown gang member yells, louder this time.

***

Kay stops "what now?" Lola asks from behind, "we should be right above the balcony right now, once they rush in, I'll jump down and take out whoever is left, we jump down and run,it's not a very good plan I know but it's our only option" he says as he attempts to poke a hole into ceiling he could peep through with a piece of metal he found, "how are you going to take them out?" Lola asks suspiciously "5!..." he looks through the small hole and back at her "they're moving in" the sound of the ground floor's door getting kicked roars loudly through the street, the unknown man yells "1! times up!, kill everyone!" the sound of footsteps echoes rapidly through the corridors and is accompanied by the sound of gunshots tearing through doors. Lola covers her mouth with her hand, already teared up. The sound of rapid gunshots, screams and screeches fills the air "alright we have to go" he says looking at her "you stay here, I'll tell you when it's safe to come down" he jumps down through the ceiling smashing it, he drops down few feet from the balcony's closed door "hey you!, stop there!" a masked man downstairs yells as he points his gun at him, Kay dodges quickly, using the middle pillar as a shield, he pulls out his gun, the masked man pulls the trigger and the automatic gun rapidly fires rounds of bullets at the pillar and stops after awhile, Kay takes a peep at him and steps away from the pillar quickly, points his gun and continuously shoots at the threat's head till a bullet hits him in the eye, he drops dead.

Kay moves closer to the balcony's bars slowly and looks down to see if anyone else is there, he looks back at her, "jump down quickly we have to go now!!" he looks back suddenly as the gunshots stop and the footsteps get louder "they are coming up,jump" he whispers "just come out and no one else has to die!!" says the unknown voice "Ok then" he says after a brief moment of silence, the sound of machine guns firing rounds of bullets continuously fills up the air again and of course followed by screams and screeches but louder this time. Lola looks down, ready to jump, "wait!, I think someone else is down there" Kay yells as he slowly moves closer to the bars, he points his gun down from the balcony, looks up really quickly and falls on his back, "are you okay?!" Lola yells, he doesn't respond, she stays still staring at blood dripping from her unconscious boyfriend's head "No......no!, no!!" she yells as tears drops down from her eyes, she stays still, crying.

Lola gasps loudly as bullets tear through the balcony's doors, the sound of gunshots comes to a halt and there's a brief moment of silence, it was really quiet, all that can be heard is crickets and sirens, Lola stays still trying to stay as quiet as possible, the brief moment of silence comes to an end as the door creaks open, Lola moves back slowly and quietly "I found him!!" the man on the balcony yells, the sound of their steps gets louder and stops suddenly "carry him, we are done here, time to go" Lola watches from the dark ceiling as Kay's body gets lifted up by two masked men and his phone smashed, the sound of the gang marching down the stairs fills the whole place, Lola who is overwhelmed by fear tries to peep through the smashed ceiling to see what's going on, she trips and falls through, landing on her face, she gets up quickly, runs into the corridor and hides behind the balcony's door "someone's up there" says one of the masked men "Tiger, check it out quickly" says the baritone. Lola covers her mouth with her hands, her face wet with sweat,tears and blood. his footsteps gets louder and closer and rays of his torch pierces through the door through the bullet holes in it, the doors creak as Tiger opens them and checks the rooms to make sure no one in any of them is alive, he shoots the corpses just to be sure, he walks to the balcony "there's no one here" he says "let's move!" a voice replies, Tiger walks back into the corridor and towards the stairs, Lola stares through the holes, her hands still covering her mouth, breathing really fast, suddenly, she feels something crawl over her feet, she pulls her feet back really fast which sends her knee into the door causing a faint thump sound, she freezes and hopes no one heard it, it's all quiet and it seems no one heard it, she peeps through the holes but it's all dark, she leans on the wall behind in relief and suddenly light from a torch pointed directly at the door pierces through the holes, the door slowly moves away from her, uncovering her as Tiger tries to see what's behind it "move" Tiger says while pointing his gun at her and backing away slowly, Lola walks out slowly, crying irrepressibly, he touches her forehead with his gun, she looks into his eyes, teared up and suddenly, everything goes black.


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13 Reviews

Points: 74
Reviews: 13

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Wed Feb 05, 2020 6:40 am
Tere5350 wrote a review...



Hi there,

First of all, I love your descriptions and how you are able to fit a lot of actions in a single piece. Even though I feel this is a bit rushed, I am still able to get the excitement and fear in this passage.

However, I must ask you a question. I notice that most of your sentences are very long and are separated by commas instead of periods or other types of punctuation. I think, based off first impression, it might serve as a technique to build up suspense because, on a broader view, everything feels connected as if they all happen in a single moment. Is this a true interpretation or is the purpose something else?

Furthermore, I believe you story would be easier to follow if you were to separate it into minor paragraphs, especially the dialogues. I have trouble keeping up with who says what while reading.

This story is really intense which I really like. I hope you keep with with your writing!

Tere




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100 Reviews

Points: 7
Reviews: 100

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Mon Feb 03, 2020 10:38 pm
Em16 wrote a review...



Wow. I don’t know what to say. That was a lot. There was a lot of action, and I could not read fast enough. I was impressed by your fast pace- definitely keep that sense of intensity. I would, however, encourage you to spread out the action a little more. There was a lot of stuff happening for just one page. I had barely processed one catastrophe before another occurred. I would take more time to describe each event, so the reader won’t get so overwhelmed.
I was also a little confused as to what was going on. The beginning started out innocently enough, and then all of a sudden, Kay is rushing into Lola’s room and gang members have taken over the building. First of all, what did Kay do that was so bad a gang is hunting him down? Does Lola know about it? And how are the gang members allowed to take over the building? Is there no security? No police? I’d like a lot more information on what is going on.
I’d also like some more descriptions of the building. I was a bit unsure about the schematics of their escape. So, Kay pokes a hole in the ceiling and then they hide there? Wouldn’t a hole in the ceiling just lead to the apartment above them? And then, in the fifth paragraph, where did the balcony come from? Where are the “pillars” coming from? I would suggest starting out each new location change with a description of where they are.
Also, I would suggest starting out by saying Kay is Lola’s boyfriend. That’s important information, and it came as a shock to me to read so far through and then realize Kay is Lola’s boyfriend. It would explain a lot about the story, such as why she is so willing to help him. I was a little unsure why she risked her neck (and eventually died) for Kay, since I didn’t know what kind of relationship they had.
In addition, I have a few grammar notes. There were some run-on sentences, like the one in paragraph one that starts “she flips the book open ready to start reading” and ends “quickly and back but it was gone. That sentence makes up half of the paragraph and has a lot of clauses. There are certain instances where run-on sentences can be useful to the narrative, but most of the time they are distracting to the reader. I would suggest cutting up this sentence into smaller sentences.
I was also confused by the way you chose to write your dialogue. Conventionally, each time a new character speaks, you indent and start a new line. Each character’s words are their own paragraph and sentence. You wouldn’t normally have dialogue from two characters in the same sentence. I would suggest reformatting your dialogue to fit conventional grammar rules, to make it clearer and easier for the reader to understand.
There were a few times, though, where I was impressed by the little details you included. Like at the beginning, where you named the song Lola was listening to or at the end, where you mention that Kay had “his phone smashed”. I especially loved the fact that you mentioned his phone got smashed. It’s such a little detail, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but it really brought me into the moment. It made it more real, that I was able to see such a specific detail, one I wouldn’t have thought of unless you pointed it out. Keep it up! I look forward to reading more of your work.





Follow your passion. Stay true to yourself. Never follow someone else's path unless you're in the woods and you're lost and you see a path. By all means, you should follow that.
— Ellen DeGeneres