z

Young Writers Society


12+

Virus: Prologue: the first letter

by Zrillis


To whoever may see this.

Warning: do not touch this paper.

Date of writing: June 27th, 2043

What do you think when you hear the word birthday? Do you think of parties? Cake? Presents? Your friends and family coming over? Not for me. For me all my birthday means is I just survived another year of hell. My birthday means one step closer to the end of the world.

I wasnt born, I was grown. I don't have a family, I don't have friends, and my only happy memories are being able to go to sleep at night. Every day for me was a nightmare, being tested, injected, and infected. My birth place was Xcore Medical Labs, grown by the people who claim they will save this world.

Since I was created, the scientists at Xcore have injected me with Biologically enhanced diseases, along with a special drug they developed that made me immune to every new disease. My body became a weapon, and my touch meant death. Every living thing that touched me would die. Humans. Animals. Plants.

Xcore is not the world's savior, they are in fact the exact opposite. The ultimate goal of their plan is to eradicate all living life, and create a new world. They believe crime, sex, drugs, and domestic abuse are growing and can not be stopped. After they release me into the world they will lock themselves in their air tight safe house untill the world is dead. Once their goal is met, they will breed humans with their new DNA, a breed of humans incapable of sin.

Today, (see above date) is the day that Xcore sends me into the world. Today is my sixteenth birthday. Today is the day that I will go into hiding, I will attept to save the world from me, but there is one major issue. I cannot die.

If I am killed, or if I kill myself all the diseases inside me will become air born, and the world will die. I will attempt to find an airtight safe room, a place where I can be locked in forever. If you are reading this note, follow the news. I will leave more notes as to my condition and more information about Xcore, but I can not reveal my location. My final letter will be left at the door of the safehouse I find, you must lock it, chain it shut, just keep me inside.

Do not attempt to find me, please.

I am a female, age sixteen.

I have grey skin, and white hair.

My name is Sammy Drin

If you see me, run. I am not safe, I am not to be touched. I am the ultimate VIRUS

Sincerely

Sammy R. Drin


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114 Reviews


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114 Reviews


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Tue Sep 10, 2019 8:49 pm
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Necromancer14 wrote a review...



This a very interesting start. It has a genius hook to get you interested once you start reading, and it sustains your interest through the whole thing. Also, I like the idea of the main character essentially being a tool of the bad guys, but is trying to thwart their plan by not letting them use her. It's very smart.
Oh, and just a little grammar/spelling error; you forgot to put a ' in wasn't. You wrote wasnt instead.
Other than a few spelling and grammar errors, this was very good. I'm quite curious to see what will happen in chapter one.




Zrillis says...


Thank you so much. Chapter one is in process but I have several stories going as well as my fiance and are I are planning our wedding so it will be awhile



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Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:04 am
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Asith wrote a review...



WOAH, talk about an exciting premise! I love the idea of a human being grown as a time bomb to spread an epidemic - it's very up-my-alley! This'll probably be a short review just regarding plot, because your writing style appears to be sound.

It's very easy to get caught on the high of an idea and forget about the actual logistics of the story, so you have to watch out for that. You say you'll go back and change stuff once you write more, which is great, so here's a list of things you should probably look into when you're doing that.

Xcore's plan:
So these people want to eradicate all life using their viruses? Brilliant. But, it's not developed as to why they'd need Sammy. Why do they need to spread the diseases via a human they created? Why is it not possible to simply release the viruses into the world, airborne or otherwise, while they stay in their safehouses? It seems a far more simple solution. Additionally, if their plan succeeds and the virus infects the entire planet, how will they leave the safehouses? How will the new breed of humans they make survive the disease - and how exactly do they make them incapable of sin? It's fine to keep these things hidden until later - just not too far later! They should seem like secret plot threads, not plot holes.

The disease:
How exactly does killing Sammy suddenly make the virus airborne? It's not really how they work - and the spreading of the virus through just touch is even more confusing. It would be fine to just explain away using some fake pseudo-science of science fiction, but at least acknowledging it would be appropriate. Most normal viruses can spread from victims whether they are directly touched or not - just being in the vicinity is risky.
This also beings us back to the part where xcore wants to infect the whole world, and you say that if Sammy dies then this will happen - so why doesn't xcore kill Sammy themselves? They could do it remotely while keeping themselves safe, couldn't they?

These are just a few questions that I found myself asking. They're not going to stop me reading the story, so perhaps they're not that drastic. The concept of an epidemic trapped in a 16 year old is a brilliant one for young-adult + dystopian writing. I also wonder, if Sammy was created and lived in xcore her whole life, where did she learn to love the world and want to save it? Would be fun to explore layer :)




Zrillis says...


All i can say to this is, you have to wait. All those questions have answers coming



Asith says...


Wooo



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Fri Aug 16, 2019 1:19 am
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Atticus wrote a review...



Hi there Zrillis,

I'm dropping by for a short review on your piece here. I'm going to start with some nitpicks, move on to positives, and then move to some critiques. Let's get started!

The ultimate goal of their plan is to eradicate all living life, and create a new world.
Two things: 1) "Living life" is redundant, and 2) There shouldn't be a comma here since these aren't two independent clauses

all the diseases inside me will become air born
Airborne is actually one word, written just like that.

I will leave more notes as to my whereabouts, but I can not reveal my location.
This doesn't make any sense to me. If she's leaving notes to her whereabouts, wouldn't that be revealing her location?

Overall, I really liked the base of this story. Dystopian is my favorite genre, so I'm excited to see a new YWS dystopian novel, and this was a fairly unique premise. I really like the main idea of this entire novel, and I'm excited to see where you take it! Assuming that this is the first draft, you seem to have a good idea of the world that you've created and know the basic plotline. You also had an excellent hook that drew me into the story and prompted me to keep reading. Once you grabbed my attention, you started to unravel the plot little by little, which is exactly what you want to do, so good on you for nailing that!

That being said, I think there were several ways that you could make this better. The first is to make some adjustments to the structure. You go from your hook, which is about birthdays and ties into the early life of the MC, go to what Xcore has planned, and then start talking about safehouses. It's a little all-over-the-place and doesn't flow exactly as it should. I would reogranize this so that you start with the MC's name and age and why she's important. Something like "My name is Sammy Drin, I am a sixteen-year-old girl, and I am the deadliest weapon humanity has ever faced." From there, you can transition into Sammy's backstory, give a brief rundown of what Xcore is and why they're so dangerous, and then launch into the plan for protecting the world from Sammy.

Another thing I would caution you of is to be careful not to fall into a cliche here. A massive organization with plans to purge all the evil from the world and then start anew is not a new idea to be explored in fiction. It's absolutely fine if you want to use it, but make sure that you have your own twist on it and something to distance it from the hundreds of other evil organizations in other dystopian novels.

And as my final point, I want to visit the end of this prologue.
I will attempt to find an airtight safe room, a place where I can be locked in forever. If you are reading this note, follow the news. I will leave more notes as to my whereabouts, but I can not reveal my location. My final letter will be left at the door of the safehouse I find, you must lock it, chain it shut, just keep me inside.

So one thing I'm confused on here is what the purpose of this letter is. If Sammy's goal is to simply protect the world from herself, I would think that she would just acquire some type of airtight room (airtight is another idea I would like some clarification—how would that even be possible? how would the air be filtered in from outside? are there air pumps? would the disease corrode the walls over time?) and then wait her life out, for lack of a better term. It's definitely a depressing reality, but that seems like the best way to protect the world from her, which seems like her goal.

Also, what's the purpose of this scavenger hunt in the first place? Why does Sammy want people to find her? To raise awareness about the dangers of Xcore? If her goal is truly to protect the world from her, which is the impression that I'm getting, then she would want to do nothing that could potentially jeopardize that, which includes giving others hints to her location or spending time writing, since every second she's exposed increases the risk that she could die tragically and then wipe out the population of the world.

Overall, I think you have a strong idea here, but there are definitely areas that can be patched up. I hope this review was helpful in pointing out a few of those areas, and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to let me know! I hope to read more of this story soon :)

Above all, keep writing

~Tuck




Zrillis says...


I meant to say condition (as in her virus spreading condition) not whereabouts. She is leaving the notes because she herself cannot go to any people in fear of infection and she is warning them about Xcore
And the reason she needs someone to find her at air tight room is because if anyone were to open that door after she is dead the viruses were designed to stay alive even after the host dies. I say airtight here as (trying to avoid spoilers.) The room she will be sealed in is uninhabitable after sealed. There is no air to breath but she feels its the only place capable of containing the viruses.

I know my story isnt 100 percent solid yet but as i write further chapters i will most likely go back and make tweaks. Thank you for this helpful review




It's a pity the dictionary has only one definition of beauty. In my world, there are 7.9 billion types of it- all different and still beautiful.
— anne27