There are sirens going off, echoing off the deserted walls. Red light, acting like a warning, dancing on the walls and the bare floors. Men in black suits follow in groups into and throughout the building, holding guns. Peeking around the corners, waiting. Broken windows lead into wrecked labs. Blood puddles are forming under harmless scientists and around the equipment. Latches on cages are torn and clawed. A glowing purple light is blinking, mixing with the warning red.
The head leader of the men, bends down and picks up a broken piece of glass, moving it between his fingers. Blood lightly covers his fingertips. Grimacing, he then throws the piece of glass somewhere in the room. He nods to the rest of the group, moving towards a spare room down the hall from the room. Rooms are on either side of the group, broken or torn. Innocent people are seen cut or lying dead on the cool ground.
Bloodied hoof prints are scattered throughout the hallway, leading to an open door. The head leader puts his gun behind his back and slowly walks towards the door, forcing the others to follow. Some are glancing around in few while others are holding back their scariness with a firm face.
The head leader pulls the door back slowly with his two fingers, looking in. He quickly grabs his gun and walks, in position. Blinking ceiling lights and torn lab coats. A shiny closet, pushed on its side. A rolling chair, tip over with foam overflowing from some cuts. The head leader gestured to the men to follow into the room, bending two fingers. They follow in, holding their guns still and ready.
“Where are you?” The head leader muttered, moving around the room. He stops by a desk by the farthest east wall. A small lamp is off, papers (some are covered with faint blood) are scattered, and a cracked broken picture frame, that holds a smiling family. The head leader drops his gun and picks up the picture frame. Running his index over the cracks, he smiles.
“Sir! I think we found it!” One of the men called from a walkie talkie. The head leader shakes his head and replaces the picture frame on the desk. He reaches into his pants pocket, grabbing the walkie talkie and walks.
“Where, Harrison?”
“In the room we came into, sir, but behind the lockers. Hurry, sir! It’s-it's at-” The walkie talkie goes silent, a stilled static coming into the head leader’s ear.
“Harrison? Hello?” The head leader asked, quickly before grumbling. “Crap.” He then pocketed the walkie talkie, running towards the destination. His gun felt heavier in his hands. Self-doubt washed over his nervous system. He shakes this off when reaching the lockers by the west wall. Rust is collected on a few, bumps forming over the years. The head leader looks about, hoping to find a door leading into the room where said creature was hiding. There were tattered science diagrams on the walls. Desks with forgotten labs. Colorful liquids were placed in test tubes. The head leader grumbled under his breath, growing impatience. Moving to his right, there was a steel door leading into a dimly lit room. A small flashlight was on the floor as the the head leader peeked his head in, holding his gun towards the room. The men that came into the building, were laying face down, puddles of blood forming underneath their bodies. A sickening feeling was slowly creeping into his stomach as he grimaced. Stepping into the room, the first thing that caught the head leader’s eye was a small cage in the corner.
Where is that mutant? he thinks, picking up the small flashlight. Shining it towards the cage, blood glistens from the iron bars. Inside are small bones, some broken and some nibbled on. Moving the flashlight away from the cage, the head leader moves it towards a desk. Walking towards the desk, there are papers with writings of the labs that were performed over the years. Setting the flashlight on the table, the head leader picks up on of the papers and reads it over, before doing the same to few other papers.
As he is distracted, a creature is lurking behind him. Before the man wandered in, it was enjoying a tasty meal on one of the men’s arms, savoring the meal. Upon hearing the stranger’s footsteps, the creature scurried behind a tall filing cabinet before peeking at the head leader. The creature cracked a toothy grin, slowly moving out from behind the filing cabinet.
Inky cursive writing stained the head leader’s fingers. His eyes danced upon each word, learning the new and old things the building’s science field held. A noise had startled him from reading the remainder of papers, causing him to turn around quickly and fire in the direction of the noise. A creature with goat horns and blood dripping from his chin, snarled at the head leader. It started galloping towards the head leader, foaming from the corners of the mouth. Its amber eyes were glowing, in predatory way.
The head leader continued shooting the mutant creature, echos of the gunshot. He was scared. Nervous. Will I kill it? he repeats to himself, every time he aims. The creature moving around the bullets, now running on a desk towards the head leader. As he was aiming towards the snarling creature, his gun clicked. Oh no. Why now? Patting his pockets, the head leader found no extra bullets.
Glupping, the head leader waited for his fate. His family. His daughter would run to him with open arms. His wife would be in the kitchen, making dinner. Warmth. Home. Memories from his first training session. Drinking with his friends at the pub. Graduating college. All of it flashed before his eyes.
The creature leapt onto the man, sinking his teeth into the junction where his neck and shoulder met. The last thing the head leader saw before passing out was a poster with the words, Don’t Give Up! with a sad looking kitten holding onto a branch with two paws.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Ello!
So here goes
Okay, so I'm going to get the nitpicks out of the way first before I get to the good stuff
Okay, so first off I'd suggest saying 'across the room' simply because it sounds a little less vague than somewhere in the room.
Here I'd perhaps think about deleting the 'from the room' just so that there isn't the repetition of the word 'room'
Okay so here I think that scariness is perhaps the wrong word. I'd suggest another, such as fear?
This one might have been just me, but I didn't quite understand what you were trying to say here. I'd perhaps suggest just clarifying the second half of the sentence a little.
And that is it. Other than that everything about this piece was perfect! I loved the story line, it was gripping the whole way through, I can't wait to see where you take it from here! I also loved how you had a twist at the end of the piece, it made it that bit more exciting. I'm not quite sure where this is going to go from here, which is great, because it makes me want to read on that much more.
The imagery that you had in this chapter was amazing! It was so vivid and easy to imagine. I loved it!
Burn
This is probably the best beginning for a book I've read in a while on this site. I mean, not that I didn't know the leader was going to die. For one, you didn't give him a name, so obviously he was going to die at the hands of whatever killed the scientists. No, it's not good because it was shocking--it was good because it effectively showed us how menacing the creature was.
I had a bit of a problem with how you handled the tenses, however. In the beginning, you seemed determined to use the present tense, but mid-way into the work you seemed to have lost interest and reverted back into past tense. Since past tense is generally easier to juggle with compared to present tense, I suggest you stick to that for now.
I can't comment on characters and the sort because I haven't seen anyone particularly notable, but I will say you developed the head leader very well in just one chapter, and your method is actually quite lovely--you made him an everyman that everyone can relate to, so his character didn't need much to be built upon but was just as heartwarming when he died as a main character dying. Well done there.
Now, let me stop gushing and let me hit you over the head with some grammatical errors. Three, two, one, go!
I don't think you need that comma in there.
Change scariness with fear. Scariness is the ability to make someone afraid. Fear is the emotion itself.
Impatient, not impatience. Impatience is the trait itself, while impatient describes a feeling.
It's echoes, not echos.
Great job with this piece overall.
Signing out,
--EM.
Hello there, Desdemona, from Team Team Team (Not a typo) here to drop a review.
Interesting, very interesting. I haven't encountered many 3rd person present tense stories. Those are very hard to work out.
Right, let us begin then.
"scariness" is not the right word to use in this case. That refers to how SCARY something is, rather than how SCARED it is. I would suggest using fright, or terror instead of that.
The term "head leader" also doesn't make sense, since the leader is automatically a head. You should remove "head" from there as it is not necessary.
The reason I say third person present is hard to carry out is that it is just so easy to forget that you are using the present tense and shift to the past tense, which is more comfortable.
That is exactly what you have done in your 9th paragraph (though I spotted it in your 3rd last paragraph as well), which starts with
This is very easy to fix with a lot of careful proofreading, so don't worry much about that.
Also, I have observed that you use a large number of unnecessary commas. Take this sentence as an example.
One of the commas you used, the first one, is completely redundant or unnecessary.
One more thing. When you are using present tense continuously in a story, it is a very good idea to just use "is" sometimes instead of just inserting the verb. That is something which comes with practice.
I say you take this work, and reread it a few times, see how it sounds. To me, it sounds and reads in a really messy manner. However, you can fix this with practice and care.
Good work, keep writing
-Mona