Heyy,
This is the first part of my ongoing novel, Foretold.
Please start reading this story with a open mind- i havent got all the sciencey part sorted out yet xD
[Please comment and review, thanks 
]
Foretold
PART ONE
Prologue
White, everything is white. Icy snow towers a mile over the mountainous terrain. In fact, it doesn't snow anymore. Wind just blows the snow around.
The faint outline of distant mountains fades in and out of view as the snowstorm outbursts irregularly. The same image you would find in any part of this world - this tiny little world. Orbiting nothing. Defying the ‘rules of gravity’. It should be in the black hole by now. Maybe it is. After their star died out, almost everything else died too. Plants, mammals, birds and reptiles. Wiped out. Never to be seen again. But some creatures did survive. They lived to the extremes, did everything they could, but they knew it wasn’t enough. The snow, which had now covered everything they had ever known, pushed them down and they waited to die, shivering and whimpering. Then we came along. This species (they called themselves humans) were fascinating-like no other in the universe. We would know. We had to save them. And we knew how. It was drastic, but there was so much experimenting to do!
There weren’t many left; the cold temperatures had killed off most. But this had helped us. The humans left were the strongest on the planet- able to endure the cold for the longest. We built a village on top of the ice, and moved them in. They thought they were saved, and in a way they were.
We soon found out we couldn’t feed on the adult humans, their skin was too tough. However, when the first baby was born, we knew all was to be well...
Now, a millennium later, the population has gone down immensely, and everything is running smoothly. Complete control, that’s what we needed. If we didn’t have that, maybe we would slip up, maybe the humans (that’s what they called themselves) would take over. We couldn’t have that, could we? We put a fake forest in, surrounding the village, a protective layer. Not that it needs to be there.
The people wouldn’t care if it wasn’t there. They can’t care.
When we first arrived here, the seas were only just freezing up. Now they are rock solid ice. We melt masses of snow each day for the people to drink. We don’t need it. There’s only one thing we feed on.
The species look lot like us, except with brownish or pinkish skin and other smaller differences. Most of them only ever see us once; when they are very small and have only just come into the world. They provide us with nourishment, and we provide them with their water, food, accommodations, life and freedom. Not that they use that freedom- they see no reason to. They all follow an unwritten routine every day.
This was the case until a young male of the species was born who- by complete accident- could feel. He being the only person he knew who could feel, and no emotion returned back to him, his frustration grew and grew- then someone new came into his life…
Chapter One - The Beginning
I woke up, but my eyes didn’t open. Karina clattered in the kitchen. Pushing the duvet up to my face, I breathed in that soft cotton smell, and sighed. My eyes fluttered open, but I squinted against the light straight away. My feet were too hot so I moved them around to find a cooler part of the duvet. After writhing around in my cocoon, I sunk back down into my bed sheets. In that moment everything felt so normal, so perfect. Though of course, in the back of my mind nothing would be perfect or normal for me.
After being wrapped in the soft sheets, I stretched and jumped out of bed. Sliding on my dressing gown, I padded through the bedroom and into the kitchen, from carpet to vinyl flooring.
She was washing the dishes. Not because she cared what they looked like. Just because it was something to do. Her hygienic instincts kicking in.
As usual.
There was only one good thing I could think of about being able to feel. This thing was that I could properly know someone- feel about someone! But she couldn’t. They all couldn’t. I was so alone in this world. Even with all my family and Karina, I felt alone.
Nobody could know me.
Nobody could feel me.
I sighed and walked up to her. Putting my hands round her waist, I kissed her neck, tracing the scar on her jaw line with my lips. She was the only thing I could thank the soul suckers for. We were paired by them, put together. When we first met, I felt resentful, but I have grown to love her. You may think 'How can he love someone, when that person can’t think, or feel, for themselves?', and I must say, I haven’t got a proper answer for that...
All I can say is that I almost know what she would be like, if she hadn’t been robbed of the ability to love, hate, grieve...
She carried on washing the dishes. My hands wandered down her waist and over her hips. I couldn’t describe the way I felt for her. It was love. This emotion was the only one I could be completely sure of. Every time I looked at her my heart pounded and I couldn’t speak. It wasn’t the same for her. It might if been though, I thought to myself grimly. Those bloody soul suckers. Taking what wasn’t theirs. The woman who I felt such strong feelings toward was emotionless and detached because of their disgusting and bizarre feeding patterns.
Karina turned to me with a blank, vacant stare. The same stare as every day.
“Torin, I’m pregnant” she said. It was a statement. No fear of my reaction. No happiness, no sadness, no nothing. Through her eyes all I saw was a deep black void of emptiness.
Then it hit me. She was carrying my baby. Our baby. My tears welled up with joy. My heart jumped up my throat; I was going to be a father! With shaking, I squeezed her tight and kissed her face. We were going to be parents. But still nothing. The same blank expression. What did I expect? A sudden burst of feeling and passion? After all these days, months together, I still hoped that suddenly she would…
No, I wasn’t going to let anything down my mood. I had my hand on the small of her back, pressing her closer to me. She had her arms around me, not in an act of fervour, out of routine. I pulled away to look at her. Suddenly, I realized she may take it the wrong way.
Maybe she thought I was pushing her away from me.
But she just went back to washing the dishes.
I walked round to the side of her and knelt down to eye her stomach.
Flat. Of course. I didn’t really expect a bump yet. I went and sat at the table of my apartment and looked at her. Her black glossy hair was pulled back from her dark skinned face in a messy bun. Her slender shoulders and arms, covered in her baggy night dress. Her legs were dark brown, and seemed to stretch on forever. My heart thumped furiously as I observed her. She glowed like an angel in the dull room. The yellow wallpaper was fading in colour, and in some places peeling away. The vinyl floor was very old and starting to show it. The only light was coming from the flickering light bulb above my head.
I turned my gaze to the big, glass doors, which lead out to the balcony. Endless white stretched out in my view. Snow, ice, snow and more snow. The giant, unnaturally white spotlights illuminated the small city. The dead, lifeless world that we all lived in. And it wasn’t just the land that was lifeless. Dust motes danced in the air- twirling and rotating down the beam of light coming from a tiny window just above the sink. The light glisten on Karina’s skin; my heart walloped against my rib cage. I hoped the baby would inherit more of her looks than mine.
The baby.
What did I know about babies? What did I know about parenting and about being a father? Maybe it’ll come naturally. Maybe it’ll be easy. I already felt a strange longing for my child that was growing in Karina’s womb. The longing felt different to what I felt for Karina, but peculiarly similar too. How would it feel about me?
I froze.
I remembered.
My heart sank and the pain which filled me was so intense, it felt like my frame would crumple onto the ground. My child would be emotionless. Sobs clogged my throat, and I retched with understanding. Empty, vacant, blank, hollow. Only a few words to describe the people of this lifeless world.
Even though life seemed so much easier for the empty people, I couldn’t bear the thought of my child, not being able to care for me, to care for its own mother.
The soul suckers would come. My arms wrapped round me, squeezing my chest, trying to soothe the incurable throbbing of my heart. Those evil, malicious…thieves.
Warm hands cupped my chin and all the horrid, painful faded away in a second. She did that to me. When she touched me all I could feel was passion and affection.
I quickly swivelled round on my chair to look into her deep, dark eyes. She stared back into mine. We stayed like that for what seemed ages. That was unusual. She usually had quite a short attention span.
Maybe she did feel something for me.
That’s what I had been telling myself over and over again for our last year together.
Maybe there was a point for me to be throwing all my love at her.
Maybe there was a point in me loving her even though I’d never get anything back
Maybe.
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125,011 Literary Works • 672,840 Reviews
Hey Ava. Thanks for the request, and I am here. Hope I'll be of some help, though I doubt it since Skinsy has already spread her magic. D:
Now if I were reading it, I would like some better opening line than this. Like the red part just ruined the fun of the second part. Maybe it's just me. But something more awesome would be better.#0000FF ">Prologue:
The opening line and the ones following it were fab, seriously. But then I think the thing that pulled me back was that you were having too much of description as we moved forward. For me, descriptions hold a great importance in a literary piece and without it the story would be bland. But in the start it has probability of giving a head ache to the reader. I understand the need of giving this story this shady look and it's possible because of descriptions only. But not in the start. Just slow down. Give the readers a bit of rest and then progress.
My other comment on the prologue would be that I felt you were adding a lot of stuff here, in a way it was good, like we have in some sci-fic books. On the other hand, I believe all this history was just like we were reading something out from a History textbook, only the difference of it being of another world, not ours. So in that way I felt it was kinda boring. You could have opted for something else-like a bit of history and then the prologue could have been shorter, which is better. I know the need, but you could have make or introduced some details later on. But anyways, your wish!
Chapter-1:
I am not sure what others exactly think of this piece but for me it was nice. The chapter-1 obviously went better than the prologue. There was much more excitement here. I won't blame anything because with the topic you had chosen for the prologue, it was the best you could do. For me, your writing skills were nice and there were some mistakes grammatically but I won't be too harsh on them considering the fact that I suck on them, too. So no comments.
Right now, for me there are some loopholes in the story and you need to fix them, but they aren't anything serious. First of all, I think you tried your best to make the plot a lot clear in the prologue, but still there were some broken pieces for me here and there. First of all, they say that they'd give the humans their food, shelter, etc, and in return use them for their own nourishment, but isn't it weird? Like how can they feed them if they are providing them with facilities. Maybe I just couldn't understand or I took it in the wrong direction. Other thing like Tiger said-how the world ended up white and snowy? Wouldn't you make us understand that? Other thing was that I felt the Soul suckers coming here and bombarding when we have no clue who they are. What they do? What's their responsibility and whether they have same emotionless stature? They were just as unknown to me like some alien. I couldn't get them. What next of them? Is it an organization or what?
I felt there were things like these that had me pull back, and a question that who was narrating the prologue, because what I get from this is that you have multiple POVs. Anyways, it can be a third voice, for the least I care. It's not that important to the story. I would really like to know how exactly these people are blind to emotions, love, etc. Make us understand all that. We would be liking it more if we have more information on how these people look. Other thing, are they human or the specie they talk of? The pink one? The setting? Is it earth or some other planet?
Anyways, I noticed one problem in the writing:
havent: It's not that but #FF4000 ">haven't.
You forget to add apostrophes here and there, so it becomes little confusing. But after working my brain hard(or without that only) I can figure out. Just thought to let you know.
I am sorry for the hopeless review.
~Shubhi
Heya aweqs.
You've already gotten some good reviews here, so I'm not sure if I'll have much more to add. Because of that, this review could be a little short... Hopefully though, I'll be able to come up with something extra for you. If not, I'll just try and emphasize what's already been said.
To be honest, I think that I have to agree with the other reviewers on most things, especially with what has been said about your characters. Right now, they feel a little flat. Torin is supposed to be the only one who can feel things, yet I'm finding his emotions a little confusing. Like the others have said; it does seem more like lust than love. The reason for that might be because we know that his girlfriend/wife can't feel, so we may be being a bit judgemental. I won't go into much detail about this though because the other reviewers have already mentioned it.
One of the problems I'm having with this is that because of the lack of knowledge, this first chapter actually feels more like something out of the middle of your novel. For example, we don't know Torin very well at all. We don't know how he and his partner got together, or how long they've been together. One thing I'm also very interested in knowing is why Torin is the only human with feelings. The blood suckers take their feelings and junk, right? If that's the case, then why didn't they take all of his emotions and feelings? What made him so special?
Right now, it feels like I can't get into this as much as I could because I don't feel much towards your characters and their situations. Before you get into all of the action, I would suggest that you give us readers time to understand the situation, and more importantly, get to know your characters. Make us really feel emotional when we find out that Torin's girlfriend is pregnant. Make us feel sorry for Torin because he's trapped in a world where only he feels. Let us get to know the blood suckers as well.
Negatives aside, this definitely does have some great potential! Your writing is good. All that you need is a little bit of practice. You have a really original idea here, and it could go anywhere from here. It's always great when the story you're writing is unpredictable. Some of your descriptions in this were really nice, and you balanced all of the aspects of a story out evenly. All that you need to do is to take into consideration what us reviewers have and will say, then edit this up a bit with the advice you get. This is full of great potential!
Keep writing,
xoxo Skins
Well, since the previous reviewers covered most of the questions, I'll just say I agree with them. There are a lot of "whys" in this story. I can understand that it may be mysterious partly to captivate the reader, and partly because you may explain them later in the story...HOWEVER, I think this needs a little more of a "base" to stand on.
Keep it up, this is better then anything I could come up with!
The beginning part was confusing...as others have said. I just kind of ignored it and breezed on to the more interesting parts, which I tend to do if I find it boring/confusing.
The main things that bugged me were what the last two reviewers said. It seemed as if Torin has little emotion, and it felt like lust when he described his emotions concerning Karina. I annoyed me. Are they married? Just living together? How did they meet? How come Karina is living with him, if she has no emotion? How does it all work? It's like he's just using her for sex, and she's just gone along with it or something. That's what I'm getting from reading this, anyhow.
How come Torin HAS emotion anyway? How come the soul stealer alien guys didn't take his too? I don't get how he somehow managed to be normal? While everybody else is "dead". Right now, I'm really not feeling anything. The characters aren't "alive" to me. They're just there. I can kinda guess you're creating the aliens as the "bad guys" and the humans as the "good guys" but right now they are both just...unimportant. I'm not like "Grr, those aliens are so mean and disgusting!" Like I normally would be in a different story.
Overall, this story is quite intriguing, and I'm going to go read the rest of the chapters. I think it could be an AMAZING story, it's interesting enough. You just need to do some editing.
Okayyyy, first I feel like I have to praise you. This is a very good story, it's original and i think if you work on it, it'll be a good story.
There are a lot of questions I have that I think you need to clear up. Like the soul suckers, i'm very interested in them. Who they are, what they look like, why they're there. Why did the earth get covered in ice? I assume it was global warming or something, but I don't want to assume, this is your story. I want to know more about Torin and Karina's realationship. How did they meet? How could they be together if she has no emotion? Did he just fall in love with her and she, having no emotion just go with the flow? Why didn't she pick any guy? So i do think there are a few kinks in your story but you shouldn't give up and I'm still going to continue to read because I think you got a good idea here.
Good job!
cover should be covers
I don't particularly like how you phrase this sentence. It seems a little long, when you could get the same effect by saying something like 'icy snow towered a mile over the the mountainous terrain' or something like that.
This sentence just looks strange. You don't need all the fancy punctuation.
In fact, it doesn't snow anymore. Wind just blows the snow around.
They are two separate statements, so you should leave out the hyphen. and the ... was unnecessary.
From the second paragraph I assume the story is in the point of view of an alien, who came to the rescue of the human race after their sun blew up.
First, (and I'm going to be picky here
Second, the blast should've killed everything and burnt the planet to smithereens.
Third, if this is not Earth, but a planet far away from the sun where it wouldn't have gotten a direct blast of the explosion, humans would not have been able to survive on it; it wouldn't been too cold.
I'm not meaning to pick this apart to shreds, but if you want this to make sense I suggest you go back and fix some of these facts.
So the aliens 'helped' them so that they could use them for food? That's what I'm picking up here.
Whose population? I thought the aliens wanted humans to live so that they could use them?
Why, then? Just for the heck of it? Why fake trees and not a concrete wall?
Notice how your sentences all start like 'I did this, I did that'? I would definitely try to change that. It sounds repetitive and boring.
An odd follow-up sentence to the first one there :/
The word 'whilst' felt strange here. I don't picture many people using it.
I thought this was funny, because I can't imagine anyone assuming that washing dishes was a 'womanly instinct'. It's just so wrong.
Sounds a little like lust to me. It feels wrong that he is in a way taking advantage of her in her state.
No need for the comma after hair.
So all in all, I think you should spend more time ironing out the kinks of this storyline. I didn't understand the point of having the alien set the scene for us in beginning if he's never going to appear again. The whole 'sun blew up' predicament is very unrealistic to me. Also, I didn't mind your main character until he started expressing how much he loved Karina. It felt too much like lust, and almost like he was taking advantage of her. In my opinion.
I hope you found my review helpful
~blacksheep
This is an interesting story so far. Are you going to keep switching points of view every chapter? You seem to have the prologue in an alien's point of view. I like the way this flows, except Torin seems a little emotionless himself. I don't know it might be the word choice, it might be the lack of italicized words to show emphasis or it might just be me. Anyway, I can't wait to see where you go with this. Keep going!
Thanks for the review,
although it seemed kinda harsh, im sure you had some good points
The reason it doesnt snow because the sun has died out, therefore the whole rain/snow cycle has stopped?
Many writers repeat phrases and points throughout there stories- to emphasise the point?
Mystery can grip the reader, but yes, i should probably tell the reader more
the Co2 thing is a very good point
These aliens can use humans for experimentation, and nutrients?!
Humans can go for 3 months without food.
The aliens want complete control, so thats why theres a smaller percentage... it explains that further in Chapter 1...
The babys have feelings at the beginning, the the aliens 'take' them, then they are left without them for the rest of their lives- again there is more explanation in Chapter 1
Well, this guy is left alone on this planet with no one else with emotions- i think you would be frustrated? xD
so yeah.
I guess i feel quite protective over my work,
buit i guess i did ask for a review...
But thanks
-Ava
Right, this is Tiger here to review; comments will be in bold.
Knowing how long this is, you should not post the Prologue and Chapter One together. Edit this and take out chapter one, then post it on its own when your story gets some followers. This combination is far too long.
Anyway, this is full of grammatical mistakes. Not to mention giant plot holes, and the fact that your story seems to be without a sense of direction. You haven't even explained why the world grew cold and all, you haven't told us how the aliens feed of the humans yet keep them alive, you haven't explained what the humans eat or why indeed the trust the aliens. You need to go over this and strip it of everything unnecessary. Having done that, make your plot BELIEVABLE and PRACTICAL. Make us care for the plight of the humans. Make us care for the story itself. Give me a heads up once you've done all that, and I'll happily review it again. The story has promise, but you need to change a few things around to make us want to read further. Good luck and KEEP WRITING,
TIGERSPRITE