As the midday sun warmed the dead grass beneath my clawed feet, I slowed to a steady gait. I had finally escaped into the sleepy bush land where I waited for the beating of my hearts to calm to steady pluses, side by side in my chest. Exhaling slowly, I reassured myself it was safer in the dense scrub. A bead of sweat trailed down my skull.
For first time in our lives we were very close to abandoning a mission. How awkward it was to huddle close together, desperate for survival rather than finishing off what should be a simple job. Soon, we will return home, where the final decision might have to be made… unless we did something now.
It was only a few nights and days ago we arrived at this diseased world. We sought refuge in an uncomfortably small hut and unloaded our tools, not expecting the landscape to already be this bruised. The first things we noticed were the pitch-black strips that strapped across parched soil, and the thin wires strung across the sky. Coughs of smoke could be spotted in the distance. These unnatural growths needed further inspection and we became busy with the task minutes after arrival.
My brothers and sisters struggled working in the sweltering heat, which was like nothing we had ever experienced; the way it scorched our tongues and dried the fluid from our eyes. Our interest was peaked at the sight of so many drooling beasts roaming the land and creating a foul smell wherever they clustered. All was calm and easy.
Then we discovered the main infestation.
In this world, there was an abundance of upright, fleshy and pale apes dressed in intricate rags and made unique by the tufts of fur above their forehead. We agreed to stay away from them after discovering there where, in fact, billions of these creatures swarming over this world, and could turn up anywhere. On the first night, we made an analysis, and came to a conclusion that not all of us agreed on. My brothers and sisters argued. We finally settled on a conclusion to stay a further night to see what could be done.
Half believed the situation was out of our control and should be settled when we returned home. Half thought it best to stay and control the infection before it could get worse. It was frightening to discover on the second night the parasites where already beginning to spread to their own moon and new planets.
We were safe in the abandoned refuge for those few days, protected from the heat waves and far from the populated areas. We only had to wait a little longer for the rift to recharge and we would be summoned back to give a full report on the situation. Though we were quiet about it, level 7 extermination was a high possibility.
After checking over my shoulder and listening out for the sound of stomping I convince myself the pest has been avoided. Slowly, the thick door swung inwards to reveal darkness.
The first thing that hit me was the stench.
I wasn’t sure what was causing the smell and I didn’t want to find out. Actually, I knew what it was, but I didn’t want to believe it yet. My small eyes slowly began to adjust to the dimness, and I stopped in the doorway to look down.
Blood pooled thickly at my feet, oozing over the floorboards and away from the very still and very unmoving bodies of my brothers and sisters. I could begin to see the outlines of their limbs and their– something was missing– I couldn’t tell. I glanced up nervously once my eyes adjust to the darkness and see my brothers and sisters decapitated heads, suspended in the beams of the refuge. I quickly hit the light generator on and stagger back from the sight. One second later I turn and get out of the refuge, closing the door as quickly as I could.
“This ones still alive, guys.”
Before me, stood three parasites in the early stages of their development. Weaker, we had noted, but violent.
“Alright! Put its head on a spike!”
They chanted something at me and I backed up to the door, unarmed and alone. I had two choices left to make, and if I made it out alive it would be up to me to make the final decision on the fate of this planet. What were the chances for me alone? If they took out all my brothers and sisters– what chance did I have? Without thinking I panic and pull the door back open, slipping inside and heaving the door closed once more. I fumble in the darkness, searching for the soothing glow of the rift key that would send me to safety. I hear a loud bang behind me and get the key into my claws at last. The cold blue light surrounds me as the rift comes to life. With my siblings dead and our research lost, it was up to me to try to make a choice when I returned home. To cure or end this rabid world? It is at the last moment, my heart stopped. I look down at the key as it slowly, but surely, fades and powers down, in my shivering claws.
(Note: I rarely write in first creature person and this work is purely experimental and great fun)
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140,733 Literary Works • 673,683 Reviews
It was a very good experiment, and it's fun to see humans from an alien's standpoint.
One thing I noted was that you kept changing tenses from past to present. I think your main tense is past, so it would be good to change all present verbs to past. It wasn't a major problem, but it was dashed here and there enough to be noticeable.
Another thing. Your second and third paragraphs are little too mysterious and give too little to the reader. I would either reword them and mention the 'brothers and sisters' instead of 'we' or put them lower in the story along with some rewording. I don't know. It just threw me off when I saw 'we' and I couldn't figure out who 'we' was.
Also, check yourself for apostrophe usage when someone has something. For instance, 'My brothers and sisters heads' would be 'my brothers' and sisters' heads'. In the same paragraph, there was also some repetition with 'the very still and very unmoving bodies', and I would recommend you pick a word and scrap or change the other to not mean the same thing.
Again, minor things to me, and I liked reading it. I'll check out your other work. Keep writing!
Thanks for the review, I know tense is something I should really work on. I'm glad you liked the story and picked up those little things, I like to know what my readers think c:
Hey Hero!
Short stories are my favorite on the site, my favorite genre is science fiction, and I'm a big fan of horror. There's a lot of good reasons to check out your work.
In short, I thought this was a really cool idea, which could have been executed a lot better. I've read similar things before, and I really liked it. This has a lot of good writing in it as well. I'll quickly go through it.
I'm a big fan of taking something known, like alien creatures visiting the Earth, and the doing something diffrent with it. Like showing their POV. That's good. It's different, though it's been done a lot of times too.
Your narrator is pretty good. I like his voice.
However, the narration does have some hiccups here and there. And for a short story, I'm not really getting as much into the story as I would like. There's a lot of elements missing that I would want.
I'd want more desciptions of these creatures. I have no idea what they look like. This is trickier, as you're writing this in first person, but still not that hard. He has others with him there, he could just mention what they look like etc. There's a good oppurtunity when he finds their dead bodies, bleeding on the floor. You could easily drop some hints as to what they look like there. I know they have claws, so I'm tempted to picture them with fur, like some sort of werewolf creatures of some kind, but I have no idea.
I'd want hints of more background. It's only a short story, sure, but you could give us more here. Why are these creatures here? Why is the Earth like this? Why don't they have more information of the planet? I'll get back to some of these.
Alright, I'll write as I go along:
You write here that he has mulitiple hearts. I like this. It's a good addition to an alien creature. However, in your final sentence, you write that his 'heart' stops. Singular. So which one is it?
Edit
Quick typo.
Reading through this, I want to edit to this 'brow', rather than 'skull'. But this is just another example of how I don't really know what these creatures look like.
In a lot of instances in writing, it works with having protagonists which you can't really picture. But I'll say that takes a lot of skill within first person, and writing itself. It doesn't really work here. I need more.
I really liked this line. Especially the inclusion of 'bruised'. It reads well. In addition, the rest of this paragraph is good as well. It hints at the background of what has happened on Earth. War.
And I'm guessing the plague comes in at some point as well? Although, the thing is, I'm not sure whether there has been a plague or not? They arrive in this post-apocalyptic Earth, where humanity isn't what it once was, and they encounter them. But they consider the humans themselves to be the plague? I think that's how I envision it.
Like I said, I'd want this a bit clearer.
So, here's another one I picked up on. These creatures came to the planet, right? But they had no idea what inhabited it? That doesn't seem right.
In addition to this, they describe the humans as 'pale apes'. Do they also have apes where they are from? Because otherwise, that's a bad description. I'd rather characterize them as 'humanoid creatures' or something similar. And how did they then suddenly know that there were 'billions' of these creatures on the planet?
I'm going back and forth here, but this makes me sure that there isn't actually any plague going on, just them viewing the humans as a plague. Which is douchy. They way it's portrayed now, it seems like these just popped up here to explore the planet. They did no research before coming here, and now they view the humans as a plague.
What has the humans done? If there's no post-apocalypse going on, then these creatures came here now, in modern day. I suppose the creatures are bleeding hearts.
I'm guessing these are kids? And they've encountered these alien creatures... and killed them? Again, unsure of what these creatures these are, but they've got claws. I sort of view them as dangerous, and yet, some kids took them down. And they're so violent and casual about it?
I don't know. I'm not such a fan of how you're portraying the humans here. You don't really give any other indication of how they are, other than how you make them treat these alien creatures.
I like the fact the alien creatures could look very much like beasts though, yet they care more for the planet than humans do.
Lastly:
I'm actually not sure of what happens here. I guess he didn't make it back home? His heart stopped before he could use the key and teleport back?
Grim ending.
All in all, I really like it. It has a few things I've got issues with, but overall, it's good. Your writing is very good, and there's little to no grammatical errros in the piece.
Oh, and a belated welcome to the site! I'm looking forward to reading more of your works.
Keep it up, Hero!
Cheers
Birkhoff
Hey thanks for the review! I really appreciate the effort you've put into it. Since I didn't have the intention of building on the story very much I've left quite a few unanswered questions about my creatures. The image I had working in my mind were plague doctors (with bird-like appearance) and I felt that they were quiet peaceful beings who had connections with galaxies and planets. I suppose I wanted to twist the notion that extraterrestrial beings are a threat and depict humans as the real problem on Earth. I'm glad I can see more clearly where it needs work. Thanks for the review, it's very helpful and I'll be working on my short story skills in the future~
Hello! Flash here for a review! I commented earlier and now I'm back to actually review this awesome piece.
First, let's look at the technical aspects. I didn't see any grammar mistakes. Good job on that! However, I did find these two things:
"...and see my brothers and sisters decapitated heads..."
"Brothers" and "sisters" should be "brothers'" and "sisters'."
And:
"This ones still alive, guys."
Same with above. "One's" or "one is" would fix this mistake. These are very simple mistakes, and I'm sure they were easy to overlook.
Now, with that out of the way, I will speak about the story itself. This. Was. GREAT!! I loved this story, and I agree with the reviewer below that I really like the idea of how the humans are the pests.
The title drew me in and while it was different than what I thought, I was not disappointed. It has an awesome, descriptive style (which you nailed 1st POV) and it was somewhat suspenseful. Awesome job on this.
Well, that's all from me! Keep writing!
-Flash
Thanks for finding those typos! I knew there would be at least one or two. I'm happy you liked this story because the suspence aspect of my writing is what I'm trying to improve. Thanks again for the review~
Hi there!
Let me know if you choose to continue it!
I noticed you put at the bottom that you don't usually write in the third person... By the time I was finished, I actually noted to myself that your writing looked a lot like mine when I started to force myself to try and write in the first person (I say that like it was years ago... it was only a few months XD ). Do you usually write in third? I guess we carry over a way of wording things from one POV to the next.
Anyways, moving on... this was very interesting! As soon as I realized the humans were the 'parasites', I fell in love. Nobody writes like this anymore! I've read maybe one or two books--usually with dragons or something of the like--where they viewed humans as a lesser race, and from their point of view, were disgusting infestations. Nothing against the human race. It's just nice to see it show up again
As I said, this is an amazing story you've started... Unfortunately it's in 'Short Story', but I really hope you decide to keep building on it! I'm still not entirely sure who the main character is--or what, exactly--and I really want to know!
So for nitpicks, I don't have much... Here "We finally settled on a conclusion to stay a further night to see what could be done." I had to reread that several times to figure out why it bugged me. Eventually I pinpointed the word 'further'; I sounded strange when I read it aloud for this particular sentence. Usually you see 'another' in place of this word, but I noticed you have a unique writing style and don't often use the vocabulary that is usually put in place. I run into this problem a lot... um... I don't really know what to replace it with that would suit your style, so I'll just leave it at "You may want to consider altering this, if you want" and leave it at that.
That was actually all I could find that tripped me up. I didn't noticed any other typos or errors or anything like that, so you're good to go!
Again, this is absolutely amazing!
Great work, and happy writing! :3
Thanks! I'm so glad you liked it and I will update you if I continue this story. I've always prefered writing in third person so this was a little different for me. Nothing wrong with stepping outside a comfort zone though. Thanks for the review, I'll look into those particular sentences.
Ooh! This seems interesting! I'll be back to review this once I have the time!