The Key to Autus
"Mom!!! Help me!!!"
A young girl's screech rang out over the silent crowd. They sat in the large darkened room, all of them trying not to show emotion, but many had tears threatening to run down their grimy cheeks.
"Mom, no!!! Don't let them take me!! Mommy!!!!!" The recorded voice rings out again, then static was heard. A few seconds later, a strange and harsh voice is heard. "Human inhabitants of Burnamor.. This is the commander of the Quetwon fleet. If you do not put up your weapons and surrender the Key, we will be forced to take all needed actions to stop your foolishness before you can cause more havoc! If you do not give a sign of surrender in the next 2 Earth hours, we will proceed to destroy your entire city and find the key ourselves. You have already seen many of your kind disappear in the last few days. They are on our ship and being processed.." The voice went on and on, discussing what would happen to the prisoners but a young girl near the back couldn't listen. She looked over the masses crowded into this small space and she couldn't control the tears. "Truly Burnamor has fallen.." She whispered to herself, putting her hands about her waist in an effort to suppress the grueling hunger pains. She saw every mother hugging her children to her chest. Husbands had their hands over their wives' shoulders and elderly couples gripped each others hands. "How could this have happened to us?" The girl thought, her mind too tired to think clearly. Just then, a boy grabbed her arm. "Faith! I thought you had been left behind!" Faith looked at the boy, then flung herself into his arms, her tears dampening his broad shoulder and her hands clasped around his neck. "Gabriel! They told me you were slain in the first shots!" He gently pried her off his shoulder and placed his calloused hands on both her arms. "There's no time for this, Faith. If you want us both to get through this alive, you need to follow me." He took her hand gently and elbowed his way roughly through the sober crowd until they reached the back wall. Several strong and able-looking boys stood there, who all managed a smile at Faith. "These are some buddies of mine.." Gabe murmured to Faith. "They're coming with us?" Faith asked, eying them doubtfully. Gabe merely nodded, then snatched a black cloak from one of the boy's hands and held it out to Faith. "Here.. This should help us to get through unnoticed." Faith's eyes looked up into Gabe's eyes. "You sure we're going to get through this??" He smiled and kissed the top of her head, hugging her briefly. "We'll be fine, Faith.. We'll be fine.." He motioned for one of the boys to pry off the floorboards off the section they stood by. A rusty ladder extended into darkness, which seemed to stretch on forever downwards. One of the boys, whom Gabe called Micah, went down into the pitch blackness first. Faith went next, then Gabe and the other two boys. The massive crowd didn't seem to notice as one by one, the group went down the ladder. But there was one eye in the audience that watched until the floorboards were replaced by the last boy. This one saw everything and he wasn't about to keep it to himself...
Gabe extended his hand when he got to the bottom, touching Faith's shoulder. "See? That wasn't so bad." She was shaking. "Y-yeah it w-as.. I'm s-so c-c-cold.." He picked up the cloak she had dropped on the ground and looked at her, trying to suppress a smile. "How about this, your majesty?" She grabbed it, giving him a playful elbow and giggled. "Oh, you just hush!" Just then, the shortest boy, who was called Josh, put his hand on Gabe's shoulder. "We need to get moving.. They'll be after us soon." He muttered quietly. Gabe simply nodded. "Alright guys, let's get moving. Josh, you and Micah go in front. Faith'll go in the middle and Christian and I will bring up the rear. As they moved steadily onward down the damp tunnel, Faith conversed quietly with Josh. "So, where exactly are you from?" Josh paused for a moment. "I'm from here. But I'm not from Burnamor. I'm from the outer section of the Waryear plains." "Oh, that's the battleground of the galaxy war, right?" She asked quietly. Josh nodded. "Aye.. No one'll go near there in the first place, but now there's rumors of some kind of alien life form there. So naturally everyone but the fools left immediately.. Those fools haven't been seen since." Faith processed all this. "Hm.. But where are we going?" Gabe looked grim. "We have to pass through the presumed alien territory in order to escape the Quetwon fleet.. Our lives depend on them being friendly.." Christian and Gabe exchanged glances. "But don't worry, Faith.. Christian's going to make sure you get out safely." Faith looked confused and scared. "But.. What about you?? I don't want to live without you!" She clung to his shoulder. Gabe grabbed her shoulders, his eyes looking wet. "Don't do this, Faith." His breath caught in his throat. "I guess now is a good a time as ever to tell you.." Faith gripped his arm and her voice rose. "What?? Tell me what?" Gabe adverted his eyes. "I was sent by the Council to protect you.. I had to get as close to you as possible and pretend to fall deeply in love with you, in order to be next to you at any time of danger." He looked up at Faith's stunned face. "You are the one the Quetwon fleet is after.. You're the reason they're here." He put his finger to her lips. "Faith, this isn't your fault. But YOU are the key to the greatest source of power any man has ever seen or had.. You're the Key to Autus." Faith couldn't speak. "How??" She thought frantically, sinking to the ground. Gabe looked at her face. "You can't be taken by them.. It doesn't matter if the rest of Burnamor has to die first.. If the Quetwons had you, they could easily destroy any life form, planet or galaxy they wanted." He picked the still stunned Faith up off the cold earth and set her upright. "I'm going to get you out of this, Faith! No mater what it takes."
Christian walked next to Faith as the group moved on, his hand near a strange device on his belt. Faith was still quiet and unsure what to think. Dozens of thoughts crowded her numb mind. What if Gabe was killed? What if she WAS captured? Are the aliens ahead of us friendly or not? Why did Josh just collapse on the ground? She was jolted back to reality when Christian pulled her down onto the hard ground. A jolt of energy barely missed her head. Josh was stunned and passed out a few feet away from her. Gabe tried to grab Josh and pull him back, but had to retreat hastily when another jolt slammed beside him. Christian pulled Faith against the wall and put his hand up. "Stay there! Don't move.." He pulled out the device, which made a muffled cranking noise as he wound it. He rolled out into the middle of the hallway and shot at the dark figures at the end. One seemed to collapse and all the rest scattered towards the exit. Christian crowed in victory and followed the other three as they dashed towards the figure. Faith heard them pounding down the hallway, then empty silence. Her eyebrows knotted together. When she peeked around the corner a few moments later, all of them were gone! Her eyes widened but she had no time to hurry forward or call out their names. A strong arm hooked around her neck and a calloused hand clamped over her mouth. She passed out almost immediately but not before seeing the heavily scarred and torn face of her hefty captor. And she knew who it was too. It was one of the men that had been banished from the planet 2 years ago for treason and murder and had reportedly killed the guards who escorted them off the planet. "I'm so having a horrible day.." ran through her mind before blackness closed in.
End of chapter
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137,718 Literary Works • 672,065 Reviews
Ok, I've read this already, and told you what I think in real life, but I'm gonna do it again. It flows very well, and just kinda draws you in. However there are some places that could use some more description or explanation because we don't really know everything that's going on in the story at this point. Also, some places the way you put the dialogue in seems just kinda awkward. Other than that, great work!!
Hm.. I'm working on those bits and pieces little by little. But hopefully, it'll make sense later on as the story continues. But I understand your point!
It looks like you've got a good start to a story here and an interesting plot developing. My main piece of advice is to break up these paragraphs - they're very long and include speech from multiple different characters. Every time a new character starts speaking you must start a new line or it can get a little confusing. Also, when writing speech that's followed by a statement giving who said it, the speech should end with a ?, ! or a comma and the statement following it should start with a lowercase letter unless it's a proper noun or I.
Another thing you should take note of is that in narratives you should spell out smaller numbers rather than using the symbol. For bigger numbers you don't have to but for smaller numbers you always should.
I like the sense of mystery you have here and the relationship you're developing between your characters. Well done and good luck with writing more.
Hm.. I'll keep all that in mind as I'm revising. Thank you!
-Lady Ariana, The Silver Knight
Okay. So, good story. I really liked your plot. My favorite part was when she finds she is the key and has to escape the place with a total stranger. But you also had quite a few problems. Note that all I say is my opinion. If you don't like it, don't change it. It's your story.
So first paragraph first. I liked the beginning, but I didn't understand the part of the little girl. What exactly was that for? To strike terror in the hearts of the humans? And this part in your dialogue of the commander of the Quetwon fleet:
"If you do not put up your weapons and surrender the Key, we will be forced to take all needed actions..."
Maybe instead of all needed actions, you could say all necessary actions. It might flow a little better with that. What else...? Oh, the part where you say she tries to suppress her hunger pains. Why is she hungry? It kind of just mentions that without any reason. And this:
"Just then, a boy grabbed her arm."
Try changing "Just then" to something more surprising. I'm assuming you want the reader to feel that it was quite sudden?
Second paragraph:
Mostly here, you need a lot more description. Everything kind of moved fast. There was no emotion from Faith or any of the others. How scared they were or how they could have felt running away and leaving everyone else to their fate. I love your dialogue. But that being said, I think you need to fix this part:
"But.. What about you?? I don't want to live without you!"
It kind of sounds like she knows already exactly what he's going to do when she doesn't and also sounds a little despairing. Maybe you could forget the last part and just say "But.. What about you???"
And dragonpheonix is right when he said that the emotional rollercoaster with Gabe and Faith moved a little to fast. But also the part where she finds out she is the "key". It was all too sudden for me.
The third paragraph was good. It had good description and feel. Except for the ending. That was kind of weird:
"I'm so having a horrible day.." ran through her mind before blackness closed in.
That kind of made her feel like she was so... well, unfeeling. I'm not sure what you could do to fix this, but just so you know.
That's it! Over all, it was great. I can't wait to read more. Keep up the good work!
I understand what you're getting at there.. I'm working on answering a couple more questions that are left in the air but as I said, the story revolves around the characters, so I want to keep the reader guessing. I'm hoping everything will be understood in the end. But thanks for the advice!
-Ariana (Silver Lady)
All right, the first section begins in past tense, but then you transition briefly to present tense in the next paragraph before ditching that for past tense for the rest of the chapter. I'd suggest fixing those problem paragraphs.
"Gabe adverted his eyes". I believe the word you wanted was "averted".
And with that whole group, you should take a second to say how many are in the group, and what their names are. And perhaps give a little one line description of each.
For that matter, everything needs more description. THANK YOU for giving everyone names, but then you could give a little description for each character. You don't need a ton. And a brief focus on what their surroundings look like, and where they are and such, would also be helpful.
Plot-wise: The whole Gabe-Faith thing feels really clichéd, and way too early for readers to identify with Faith on that. It's just so "Oh you're madly in love with him; oh wait it's totally fake [but wait he still might have feelings for you]." I hope that makes sense.
Hope this helps!
Well, many of those things are planning to be answered in future chapters, since the whole story basically revolves around the characters, which is discovered as more are introduced. (Any spelling mistakes I blame on autocorrect, but I'm trying to get rid of them.) But I'm still working on revising this and I really appreciate the advice!