Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for violence.
Where have all the flowers gone? It had been nine hundred years after the holy were saved. "The forgotten"; those not saved, were left behind.I am one of them. We haven't' aged a bit since he left us.The young, are still young. The old, are still old. We live in small cities, where no flowers grow, and the sun never gives heat. We are immortal, and the only way to die is to be killed. We are the forgotten; Those left behind by God."
"In this new world, every town centers around, the Light City, the only city with electricity.The Light City is the center of everything now. "The Spaceship", is being built there and will save people taking them to "God's earth"; The second earth created by God for the saved ones. The light City is also the center of The suicide tower, where people line up one behind each other, and push each other off falling to their death."
"The surrounding villages are ruled by a renaissance in art, especially theater since tv is rare. "Lane is the biggest actress around, she even writes plays. The plays mostly tellings of repent for sin and most ending with a murder, Which the crowds find amusing since they long for death ever since their life was turned into a new hell."
"Lane is short and she loves blue. She is always seen in a blue dress. lately, she had been very interested in,"The spaceship". Because she had fallen in love with a man named, Harley Dean and she wants to go away with him to God's new earth. I know that because I am him. We have been together for one month, and Lane is getting worried a long eternity may diminish our love. We had seen it happen dozens of times before, in each other's own past relationships. Some that lasted hundred of years, eventually died out. Lane is in love now more than ever, and we can't consider suicide. I am an engineer for "The spaceship" and Lane is the biggest play actress around."
'I met Lane after one of her plays. She and I took a slow walk over to a small river. We sat next to its waters. Lane rubbed her hand on the water and she shivered.The lack of heat had made the water almost ice. "Do you think he'll ever come back for us?" Lane asked. I thought about it like I always had tackled that question before, silent and scared. "Lane teared up with her head leaning deep on my chest. I tried to calm her, but as I opened my mouth my own sadness was heard as I choked.
"We both stared at god's new earth it floated above in the blue sky. It was ghostly like the moon." 9 more weeks and will be there", I told Lane. She looked at me now kind of smiling. "Yesterday you said 8 months" Lane said. "Were getting closer", I rsponded. "I got everyone helping me design the rockets. You know Jonathan, one of the farmers down here?" I asked her. "yeah. .why"? Lane asked. "I got him helping me. Yeah, he's kind of smart".We laughed and then a long pause.
"After we walked to town. It had gotten dark. While walking along side a wide dirt road, I saw in the distance a crowd of people who were holding bright torches. They were standing around something. Lane and I ran over "What's happening here?" I asked the nearest person gathered around the scene. "Someone was murdered! She was crucified! I could hear the shock in the person's tone. I got past enough of the crowd to see a young female nailed on a wooden cross, clothed in a white robe, blood staining it violently. "Clara"! Lane shouted. She then got close to the dead girl and began to cry. "Clara", Lane said again. I then heard a man behind me explain "She was an actress she was in a play with Lane today". It was her first play she was studying with Lane for two years, poor girl." I saw Lane her face covered in tears. "Who did this to you?" She asked.This was not the way people wanted to go. By being unwillingly killed. Clara wanted to realize her potential of becoming a great actress. Lane wiped her tears as people gathered around the cross and began taking her body down.
"Are you Lane"? A man came out the crowd and asked Lane He was a detective. He came with two other cops, one to write down notes for him. The detective cop was missing his right arm. "Whoever murdered this girl it was not mutual. Her body is bruised she was beaten, She struggled". He told Lane. "What kind of help can I provide"? Lane asked the detective, "when was the last time you saw Clara?" Today just after two, she was going to the Shakespeare Library. I was supposed to meet her tomorrow for acting lessons. "Do you about anyone who might have been close to Clara?" The detective asked. "Do you really got to do this now"?I asked the detective. "She has just seen her friend's, dead, beaten body"! The cop paused and stared at me almost suspecting I was stalling and might have something to do with Clara's death. "Okay". The detective said. "Will talk tomorrow". Lane nodded.
"That night I stayed with Lane. She sat in a chair thinking,who would have killed Clara. She didn't move much. I, afraid of her sanity, decided I would help her figure out the killer. Late that night. She had come to something. "Do you have a copy of,"Art time magazine"? She asked loudly. "Yes", I replied "Why"? "What month do you need"? She got off her chair quickly as I took out a crate of books and magazines. "I need June"! I Scurried threw the covers of magazines as Lane talked. "Harry Watts, The artist! I read about him! In that magazine, he was talking about a new kind of art a depraved, post dystopian, art. " Where he would stage live scenes of torture, murder, and rape", "To a group of art critics, and make that his art." "He stages the art anywhere"! " In the food market in the streets". "We can ask members of the art world!" I told lane."But how will we be certain they will give the description of Clara". "Because Harry Watts only uses women in his "Art".Lane said.
The next day, Lane and I met with Art critics of the popular,"Art Times Magazine".We sat with them in a conference room. The conference room had large round windows with no glass or frame. The men sat close together on one side of a long silver table, us in the other side of the table. The art critics all wore reflective, plastic- like, black suits. "We have seen many art installations from Henry Watts. Please describe Clara more specifically". One art critic said .coughing often, and inhaling from a gas tank under his feet. Lane described Clara to him. "She had dyed yellow hair and she always wore a white cloth around her neck to cover burn marks. She had gotten a long time ago. "The Cactus girl"! The man responded, laughing, and coughing quickly, inhaling his oxygen tank ferociously. "Yes, She was beaten by a long cactus plant. She never screamed! Most quiet death, Henry Watts had ever performed. She cried like a cat! The man joked. "She was murdered!" Lane said angrily, leaping off her chair. "That bastard killed her! Lane began to cry, looking at the art critic disgusted at how amusingly, he had recalled Clara's sad death. "You people made it right for this events to happen. You, see your chance to praise an insane man's fun way of burning the world, and you cash in on it calling it the newest art!" Lane slapped the coughing man. He dropped his oxygen mask quickly, picking it up now breathing very sickly and heavy "Okay, Okay will find Henry watts. Will help you get him arrested"! I wrapped my arm around Lane. Hoping she would calm down.
We waited that day in the police station, for Henry Watts to show up in cuffs. "They won't help us Lane said hopelessly.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Hello, steampowered here for a review!
I think this was an interesting concept, and definitely shows a lot of potential. However, while I enjoyed reading it and it was a very unique writing style, I think the delivery could be improved a bit by removing the quotation marks at the starts of the paragraphs. It makes the story confusing and they aren’t really necessary.
The content was really interesting, but you tend to give quite a lot away in this first chapter. For example:
This is just my opinion, but I think you’ve done an awful lot of telling in this first paragraph – in fact, the first three or four paragraphs are just world-building with not much else going on. In short, the reader knows a lot about this world before they really begin. Maybe you could make it a bit more interesting for the reader by “showing”, that is, to add in clues here and there and not do an infodump at the very start.
So, rather than simply stating that the characters are immortal, perhaps one of the characters could drop a hint by saying how long they’ve been waiting, or wondering whether they really are doomed to stay young forever – or something like that. You could always insert some of the information into later chapters, so the reader isn’t overwhelmed.
Something else I noticed was that you tend to use quite long paragraphs. For example, the whole of Clara’s crucifixion is described in just one paragraph. Maybe you could give this more dramatic impact by splitting it up into several paragraphs? Also, you need to make sure two people don’t speak in the same paragraph. For example:
As it is it’s quite confusing as the reader can’t easily tell who’s speaking. By splitting it up like this:
This is technically the correct way to format the paragraphs, and I think that by doing this you will immediately make it read much better.
Your dialogue is good, but again, the formatting could be improved. For example:
Tags (such as “she asked”) shouldn’t be capitalised, therefore it should be "Do you have a copy of,"Art time magazine"? she asked loudly.
If you don’t quite understand what I mean, have a look at this article which explains it in more detail (and also explains it better than I ever could!)
Now, I’m not sure whether this is simply the first part of a chapter, or an entire chapter. If the latter, the ending is a little abrupt. Maybe you could round it off more – perhaps have some kind of cliffhanger, end with Watts being brought into the police station, or something similar?
Overall I thought this was a promising start, and once I’d got into the flow of the story, I enjoyed reading it. I liked the pictures at the end – although I’m not sure how they relate to the story (I’m assuming they’re pictures of the main characters?) Feel free to let me know when the next chapter’s up, and I will read and review it!
The background/idea of this is very unique, even though It is a very dark/sombre setting it has a lot of potential.
Some things I noticed was you said "Will" multiple times when I believe you meant "We'll" as in "We will". It is usually at the beginning of the paragraphs, at least what I noticed.
Also you seemed to have quotations on all of your paragraphs even the ones that are not speech, so that is something to look over and edit out. Along the same lines the set up and maybe just the structure of some of the sentences seem very choppy and do not flow as well as they can. This was happening a lot when there was dialog between a few people, you couldn't really tell who was talking.
Overall It was a very interesting piece and I really liked the inclusion of pictures at the end. The title definitely fits the writing well.