‘This isn’t the only pod here. We could sneak off and fly off on our own?’’ Kelly suggested.
‘But all the pods here are activated by a blast of powerful magic, we don’t have that yet.’’ Kelly and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing, about the mini supernova we saw at Aura’s house.
‘Aura,’’ we said simultaneously.
***
Ten minutes later, I was crouched down in a laundry cart, my heart beating with excitement. We were taking Aura with us! I had felt so guilty seeing her completely helpless in her glass prison. Maybe I didn’t have what it takes to be a spy, like a heart of stone. The sick pod was heavily guarded with soldiers, ready to shoot down any threat while we were in the air.
‘What’s the plan?’’ Kelly whispered.
‘Not sure, just follow my lead,’’ Claire answered, trying to sound like she knew what she was doing. She grabbed the wheels of the cart and used them to push herself up onto one of the shelves on the cart.
‘We just wait till they take us in,’’ she decided.
‘And how long will that be?’’ Dawn asked.
‘Good point,’’ Claire said, ‘Okay Teya, we are really counting on you,’’ Claire reached out and grabbed Teya’s shoulder.
After looking around thinking, Teya snapped back to attention. ‘Me? You know I can’t! Not yet! I’m only on level three training, stopping time would take a level twenty. Stop little things, yes, but I can’t stop time!’’ Teya’s eyes grew worried and they darted back and forth like she was almost scared of us counting on her.
‘Then, we’re just going to have to find something for you to freeze,’’ concluded Claire.
‘Like the ship?’’ I asked.
‘No, the guards.’’
Teya instantly sprang into action, poking her hand out of the cart and touching the ground lightly. A trail started to run from Teya’s hand and along the floor. It was like a bright red light that raced across the floor. It wriggled here and there before reaching the first guard and then darting from one guard to the other. As soon as it hit them, they froze in an instant. They were shocked, but as soon as they were struck, they assumed their normal positions.
‘The nurses Teya, the nurses!’’ urged Page as we all watched in awe.
Teya groaned a little, but the wriggly line disappeared underneath the sick pod door and reappeared again shortly afterwards. Teya breathed out a huge sigh of relief.
‘Is it tiring?’’ asked Dawn.
‘Not really, but it comes to a point were no matter how hard I push, I can’t go any further, I really had to struggle with that last nurse. The freezing won’t last forever, it’s best we hurry, and keep quiet. Holding all of these will take extreme concentration,’’ Teya slowly slid out from under the cart and beckoned us to follow. Her eyes seemed lost, like she was staring in awe at something that wasn’t there.
Page and Claire went in front while the rest of us followed behind. The sick pod was full of glass coffins, like the one Aura was in. There were only little alleyways in between each case and an occasional frozen nurse, blocking the way. Each coffin held a wide-eyed terrified child inside. It made me feel sick; I had to remind myself that we were the heroes not the villains. We could have wiped all of their memory to make them mind-less soldiers, but we didn’t, we could have stood aside and watch earth fall, but we didn’t, we could have told the children about their true origins and let them decide whether they joined us or not, but we didn’t. Wouldn’t that have been a little more heroic and a little less cruel?
I had fallen behind as the others weaved their way towards the back. I still observed every child I passed, looking for Aura, even though I knew the girls had already passed this section. As my eyes skimmed over the many children, they settled on a pale faced boy, with bright blue Utopian eyes. There was something about his short brown hair, his knowing expression, as if he knew he was going to be knocked out, and his long, chocolate brown eyelashes. I stared at him for a while. Glancing up at the girls, I saw that they were all crowded around a case, no doubt Aura’s. I looked back down at my blue-eyed boy. Without thinking, I went onto my knees and checked underneath his case. Sure enough, there were ten different buttons. I fiddled around before finding the wake up button. I hesitated before pressing it. There was a timer underneath it. Ten minutes, we should be out of here in ten minutes, shouldn’t we? I set the timer to ten minutes before rushing towards the girls.
Everyone appeared to be staring at Dawn. They seemed to have managed to open Aura’s case because Dawn held some type of paintbrush in her hand and was brushing beneath Aura’s mouth. She continued round Aura’s mouth until she had made a complete square, then in a swift motion, the square filled itself in and formed a type of mouth gag. Claire and Page carefully lifted her up and carried her out of the room. I ran ahead, thinking: Ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes, ten minutes. Goodness knows what would happen in ten minutes.
We soon reached the edge of the platform; everyone was inside their pods and oblivious to the fact that a team of Junior Utopians were tearing their way across the platform next to them, carrying a stolen patient which they helped to put in the sick pod in the first place. We jumped off the side of the platform and twisted and turned through numerous tunnels. Finally, we reached a ship station with other escape vehicles. It was a normal tunnel but, along the side was a sort of canal with numerous water ships.
‘Go to the end one!’’ ordered Claire.
Teya stopped and broke into a series of desperate pants. ‘I… lost… them…’’ she gasped.
‘C’mon’’ I knelt down and she climbed onto my back. Claire and Page started panting as well and received help from Kelly, while Dawn opened the ship door. The ship looked like a penguin on its belly on the outside.
‘The Pengwing ship,’’ Page explained. ‘All the Utopian escape pods are named after birds and can travel underwater, in the air and on ground,’’ we climbed on board. The Pengwing was white on the inside and split up into three sections: the control room, which was in the shape of a beak and at the front of the ship, the seating area, with two rows of five seats in the belly, and a toilet and a kitchen in the two back legs, all with no doors in between.
‘Quick, let’s put Aura down somewhere to wake her up.’’
‘Yes,’’ agreed Claire. ‘I’ll take the controls, Kelly? Wendy? You are both on Aura duty, we can move the sship in water but we can’t take off without one of Aura’s supernovas. If the guards and nurses are unfrozen, they’ll be after us soon. Teya, Dawn, stand guard. Page? Come help me fly this thing. I’ve never flown a sh-‘’ The Pengwing jerked forwards and started moving.
‘The control room!’’ Kelly pointed out. We all hurried inside, and there, sitting at the wheel, was my blue-eyed boy. He yelped, but quickly tried to maintain an expression that presented something serious and stern.
‘What are you doing here?’’ Claire demanded.
‘I could ask you the same thing,’’ his expression softened and he grew more relaxed, probably because he realised we were just as scared as he was.
‘What are we doing here?’’
‘No, what am I doing here?’’ he put his head in his hands and collapsed onto the wheel.
Page looked at Claire, ‘We can keep moving but we can’t take off without Aura.’’
End of chapter
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139,347 Literary Works • 672,539 Reviews
Hey, Utopia! I have not forgotten about this!
To let you know now, I will not be looking at the previous reviews, so there may be some points that I mention that were covered earlier. Sorry about that.
This may just be the fact that I haven't read this in so long, but I cannot, for the life of me, remember who most of these people are. It's difficult having not read this for a while, yes, but I do remember most of what happened, and skimming it probably won't help. There needs to be a reason by which I remember them by. I think I'll be able to remember Teya, since here you gave a really clear image on her powers and what she was like, and I know Aura because, well, who can forget her awesome star powers ^^ Just think about that more when you're writing them out, to really give us a reason to remember them.
I have some quick nitpicks ~
I didn't quite understand what was trying to be said here. Of course they would be shocked, since they are kind of getting frozen, but I'm curious how? Are they frozen like in ice or just frozen in time, like what was suggested earlier. And also, how did they assume their normal positions? What does that even mean? Describe this more and make sure it's really clear.
This line makes so much sense and I like how you used it to show Page (that's who's perspective it's in, right?) is doubting herself. However, it doesn't fit right in that context. She was talking about how they were being heroic and they weren't being bad, but this kind of is bad. They're basically abducting children! You can definitely include this, but maybe have some hesitation. Show some kind of remorse in what they've done.
Another thing which kind of threw me off is the stars. Now, I recall from the previous chapters that the stars are supposed to signal a perspective change, but here it isn't used that way. If they are to be used, keep them in consistent use. Since here it's only a ten minute time skip, that transition is alright all in of itself. The stars aren't needed. Just to keep things consistent, I recommend you take them out.
And I'm really curious about this boy. How'd he get out? When Page was looking at them all, and she noticed his eyes open, then I thought he was already awake, but are all of them like that in a comma state with their eyes wide open? And if he was scheduled to wake up in ten minutes, he couldn't have been up by then, which makes me wonder what is up with him.
Well, on to the next part! Happy Review Day and Keep on Writing,
~Wolfare~
EDIT: I just realized her name isn't Page. o.o What was it then...?
We could sneak off and fly off on our own?’
Ooh, and we can't forget the blue-eyed boy. My curiosity as to what he will be doing in this story continues to grow. You better write the next chapter soon so that we can see! The creativity keeps oozing from this story, and that makes me happy 
Hey Utopia!
It's always good to see another chapter of this posted! What I have to say is, that this was my favourite chapter so far! It had a lot more urgency to it and some of the characters that didn't have as much focus on them before got to be the star of the show. For example Teya, who has a name I absolutely love. As well as that, we get to see that maybe the good people aren't all good, and that the main character is questioning that. I liked to see that in this chapter
Hm, this is something I haven't noticed before in your previous chapters, but I see crawling all over this one! So many comma splices! A comma splice is when you use a comma in place of a conjunction, punctuation mark or to simply link two sentences together and make one when they shouldn't be. A common problem in writing, and one I am going to help you weed out of this chapter
Hm, these two sentences seem a bit disjointed and random to link after each other? I think a transition sentence is in order, where we go from her thoughts and back into the surroundings around her. Something like 'As I thought my eyes scanned the sick pod ahead of us, heavily guard with soldiers who were ready to shoot down any threat...' etc. You see how I made the small changes?
I think the 'like' in this sentence should really be a 'with'.
[quoteShe grabbed the wheels of the cart and used them to push herself up onto one of the shelves on the cart.[/quote]
You can eliminate the last three words of this sentence. We already know she is dealing with the cart, and we don't need to have that part repeated.
This is another new thing I noticed in this chapter a lot that definitely hasn't been in the previous ones. And that is run on sentences! When you use far too many commas, and there should really be conjunctions or full stops in there instead. How about I rewrite this one for you, so you can compare the two and see what I mean.
Not really, but it comes to a point were no matter how hard I push, I can’t go any further. I really had to struggle with that last nurse. The freezing won’t last forever, so it’s best we hurry and keep quiet.
I wonder, did none of the other guards notice the others freezing up? I think at least one of them might've, and cried out to warn the others. The only reason that couldn't happen was if Teya was freezing them all in very quick succession. In that case, I would think that at least the nurses would be able to see something was up with the guards and act on it. What they would do, if it's panic or raise the alarm, is up to you
You need an and between the words 'heroes' and 'not'.
Every time you use 'we could have', the comma before that should've been a full stop. Aside from that, can I tell you how much I loved this idea? She starts off with listing the good things they do, but somehow it ended on a bad note. And yes, she is asking herself a very valid question. I wonder if it gets an answer throughout the story.
Many, many people tell me this. But try not to use 'I had too much'. Instead of saying 'I had fallen', say I fell. Lowers word count and increases immediacy. Also, the others weaved their way to the back of what?
The first comma should be an 'and'. I would put a full stop after the knocked out bit, and start a new sentence with the last of that one. Then you could just mention how his long eyelashes framed his eyes. It seemed like ti was dangling on the end there, trying to clutch on to the previous sentence.
The second comma would be better off as a semi colon.
But in previous chapters you said that the pods were made of glass and were see through. So why would they be oblivious to it? What could they be focusing on that so many people miss them entirely? Remember, this is the same thing as I mentioned with the guards and nurses. No one is that ignorant, and they will notice. Having a chase put after them would only increase the suspense and action, so don't be afraid to do it. You can handle it
Really, Page, while they are in a rush to escape now is not the right time to be reciting facts xD It seems a little odd. Maybe after she says it, maybe you could have another character say something along the lines of, 'Really, now Page?' as they rush past her and into the Pengwing.
No doors between the kitchen and the toilet? Blegh, that's unhygienic. And also very um, awkward ^^
You did a great job of getting in setting descriptions as they go through with doing all this, and I always had an image of what was happening in my mind. So, good on you for that
Deanie x
Thanks for the review!
Did I not mention that the bottom half of the pods were glass and the top half were glass so they couldn't really see from the inside? Better go change that!
Timmy here!
So I think I will go through this as I read, and pull out bits to nitpick just because I will be able to find them better, and not forget little points I may see as I go along. Ready?
Let's jam - or jelly. I don't mind which one.
Going by technicalities, this isn't done properly because the sentence isn't a question, and you mark it as such. I think if you either reworded it to say: Could we sneak off... or just omitted the question mark, it would fix the little issue up easily enough.
I think with how you have things worded here, you may want an Em-dash (--) after thing instead of that comma. If you don't know how Em-dashes are normally used or such, I would ask your sis and she will show you, but I will only say that, for me, Em-dashes connect little parts of a sentence that seem disjointed by themselves, or added to the sentence with a comma. So like this: I walked down the road - not by myself, though. Something that is still the same idea, roughly, but would appear disjointed by itself or with a comma stuck on there. I don't actually know the real definition of its purpose, since I am a guy who is hopeless at grammar and punctuation definitions, but that is how I use it at least. They're awesome, too. If anyone in this world overuses them, it's me.
Whaaaa? Why the delayed response? If I was Teya, I would have responded immediately with an irate and scared response as she did, but without the thought before. It would be immediate, almost without even allowing the words to formulate before spitting them out.
Either add a conjunction after further or make the second part its own sentence, because by itself the idea is separate and disjointed when written in the way you have here.
had fallen is passive, which isn't so good to use here. Try as much as possible to stick with the active voice - so fell is what you're looking for here. So, I fell behind the others as they wove their way...
Your comma wants to be freeee there. It should be after tunnel, not but.
technical: you're missing a period there.
punctuation mishap there. Better fix it up.
So this was another great chapter! I love their teaming and how they work together with everything, and yet they are not the perfect team and have their flaws, which makes them even more fun to read about. I love how they don't know everything, they are uncertain, and they just wade through all the uncertainty and doubt to find Aura - who appears to be the person with the capability to change their future. I like how the main character isn't the one with all the power, isn't the one with all the answers and isn't the one who can do everything and anything. She is just a kid, like the others there. And I think it gives us something to grasp and relate to more than having her be a Cat-Woman or Black Widow would. We can see and relate with the character and know what it's like to be in their position, without knowing the answers and not being able to do everything by ourselves.
I really did like how the Main Character (erm, I forgot her name. Maybe you should mention it more often so we don't forget? Maybe in the dialogue and such?) helped the boy escape. It was a special moment, and when you described him and his eyes, I was just. gah. <3 You did a wonderful job with that description, and mentioning his fright and everything was good. I just really liked how she let him go, even though they didn't have any time to spare. She had sudden compassion for him, and did the only thing she could think to do. I liked that. Makes the character more personable when they do things like that, and brings them closer to the reader's heart.
As always, I am very curious as to what their next step is, and where Aura is and when he/she is going to come and... yeah. Just lots of questions I know will be answered in the following chapters. Please keep writing.
Sorry for short and shabby review. I am just not in the reviewing spirit today.~Darth Timmyjake
Hi! Happy September Review Day!!!! This is BillieJean here!!
Okay, so before I begin my review I just want to say, GOOD JOB!!!
First off, I'm going to go over a few structure errors that I found.
1.jazzydracula already mentioned this but in the line:
‘This isn’t the only pod here. We could sneak off and fly off on our own?’’ Kelly suggested. The word "off" is repetitive. (even though you only said it twice it still kind of clutters the sentence.
And also in this line:
"She grabbed the wheels of the cart and used them to push herself up onto one of the shelves on the cart."
You repeat the word "cart" which again takes away from the story a bit and as I said before it clutters the sentence.
2. I don't think you need this part here:
"about the mini supernova we saw at Aura’s house." Now the reason why is because you have already stated that they are thinking the same thing and it will make you wonder what they are thinking about if you leave it out. Plus after that they both say "Aura" at the same time.
3. Okay so to me your paragraphs seem a little long and somewhere in there I would suggest a break.
Secondly, character development:
So, I think you actually did pretty well with your characters but it wouldn't hurt to maybe do some character development exercises. Get to know you characters a little more, create some backstory. They need to be able to all have their own unique voice yet still blend together. (which I think you did fine but as I said it wouldn't hurt to do the exercise.)
Thirdly, emotion
Okay, so I believe that every good writer should be able to convey emotion in their writing-to me that is one of the main things that makes a writer good. Now I think you did an okay job at this, but it could use a little work.
In conclusion, you actually did pretty well. There was a few things you need to work on but overall your fine. You did really good on transitioning between your description/imagery and your dialogue and I really like the story. So I'm going to leave it at that. Without further ado, good job, keep up the hard work, and goodbye!!!
Hello! Happy September Review Day!! I review by writing down my thoughts as I read, so yeah, allons-y!
‘This isn’t the only pod here. We could sneak off and fly off on our own?’’ Kelly suggested.
The 'off' is a bit repetitive. How about changing 'fly off' to 'fly away'?
She grabbed the wheels of the cart and used them to push herself up onto one of the shelves on the cart.
More repetition. Try not to have the same word more than once in a sentence. Unless it's 'to' or 'a', etc.
I had fallen behind as the others weaved their way towards the back. I still observed every child I passed, looking for Aura, even though I knew the girls had already passed this section. As my eyes skimmed over the many children, they settled on a pale faced boy, with bright blue Utopian eyes. There was something about his short brown hair, his knowing expression, as if he knew he was going to be knocked out, and his long, chocolate brown eyelashes. I stared at him for a while. Glancing up at the girls, I saw that they were all crowded around a case, no doubt Aura’s. I looked back down at my blue-eyed boy. Without thinking, I went onto my knees and checked underneath his case. Sure enough, there were ten different buttons. I fiddled around before finding the wake up button. I hesitated before pressing it. There was a timer underneath it. Ten minutes, we should be out of here in ten minutes, shouldn’t we? I set the timer to ten minutes before rushing towards the girls.
This whole paragraph seems a little big. I know it might not be possible, but could you split it up into two paragraphs? It would be easier to read that way.
[b]You are both on Aura duty, we can move the sship in water but we can’t take off without one of Aura’s supernovas. [b]
Little typo on ship.
Good job overall, just fix those few little nitpicks. I like the plot that you've got going and think you could have a great novel here!