Published February 20, 2012
She wrestled with the wind as it blew in blasts of snow and ice. She raised her foot, dug her toe into the ice, and raised her other foot. She had kept count of her steps, to keep her mind from whirling away with the wind; but she had long since lost track of the number. She struggled simply to place one foot in front of the other.
The wind thrashed around her like a wild animal, tearing at her hair and ripping her ragged dress. It brought the girl to her bruised knees. She wondered where her body got the strength to shiver.
There was no cover from the deadly gale anywhere—the frozen land was devoid of even solitary sagebrush.
She rose to one knee and tried to stand up. She hadn’t taken half a step before her feet were in the air and she was flat on her back against the ice.
She curled into a ball. The sight of ice thorns and drifts of snow being blown horizontally across the ground reminded her of the white ashes of her home.
She wondered if what she felt was anything compared to dying.
Prying off the pack frozen to her back, she hunched over it and held it against her chest. She felt her heart beating, racing as if competing with the storm.
All she could think about was the cold; the fire.
A tear ran slowly down her cheek and froze.
She tried to clear her mind; the sky is blue, she thought. She was twirling in the sun, wearing her favorite white dress. She was holding the hands of the two most beautiful people. If she looked up to her right, she would see her father. He would smell like wood shavings and pine needles, and if she looked up to her left, she would see her mother, laughing as the sun reflected off her golden cloak.
She remained on her knees, her eyes closed, as she wrapped her numb fingers around the metal clasps and leather straps on the pack. She held onto them until they thawed enough for her to try to open it. Inside was her mother’s cloak. She opened her eyes and stared at it in wonder.
The cloak had been weaved with golden spider’s silk. There were no seams, and the soft feel of it against one’s skin was only a misguidance, for not even a knife could penetrate the cloth. Along the hood, sleeves, and bottom was a woven geometrical pattern.
She reached into the pack and gingerly pulled the cloak out. Despite the cold, it radiated warmth. Looking to the sky, the wind threatening to pull her away with the ice thorns, she sent up a plea to her mother to be forgiving.
A sliver of ice-encrusted snow struck her face. It wedged itself into the gash stretching from the crown of her head to the dimple on her left cheek. A scream rose into the air.
None heard the cry of anguish as the wind tore it away.
She sobbed, gasping for breath, clutching the cloak to her face. Then the girl held the cloak firmly in her small hands and wrapped it around herself. She lay on the ground before the gates of death.
She was found an hour later outside of a city by a shepherd.
As she had lain on the ground, the last piece of her sanity grasped to her body while she felt her skin glowing warm in the cold, she had known she was going to die.
Her last thought was, Freedom.
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140,588 Literary Works • 673,542 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Well this was quite a powerful start here. It is hard to see where exactly this scene leads so that's a slight bit of a concern but overall, this paints quite a powerful picture here and I think it makes for an excellent start in that sense.
Anyway let's get right to it,
This is a really nice little opening here. I really like this picture that you're trying to paint here. It really gives us a sense of desperation and a feeling that things are not doing too well at all. I also love the addition of the sounds and feelings in addition to the simple visuals of the situation. This comes together to really put us readers into this situation here.
I love how this tension is now slowly starting to build. There is very much a sense of almost inevitability with how things are going and you just get the feeling that maybe we're witnessing the final moments of this person with just how severe the situation here appears to be. It definitely catches our attention as readers.
Oh this sounds like perhaps the classic flash of memories that often comes before a bit of a death sequence so this is just raising the tension here and I love that. Even though we're seeing a few more wholesome moments, there just a lovely underlying sense of tension that just makes you want to keep reading here.
Oooh perhaps maybe there is some hope after all. It looks like this cloak is going to be a bit of a literal ray of sunshine of sorts here and the fact that it all stems from her mother adds a really nice extra touch of wholesomeness which ties in nicely to the slight flashback that we saw earlier here.
Phew..this is getting more and more extreme by the minute here by the looks of things and there appears to be no real hope in sight here. It seems despite the cloak things might just end up on the sadder sound of things here.
Aaaand there we go, well it ends pretty much exactly as predicted there. Its a more bittersweet ending than I anticipated so that was a bit of a change, but otherwise, well it went about as well as could be expected, and I think you pain this pretty sad scene in a rather powerful light quite well here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, I'd say this is a pretty good piece, the only sort of thing that I'd say you need to try and change would be to incorporate more of a sense of thing to come cause this ending is a rather final one and if this is meant to be the start of a novel it doesn't quite promise much to come. Perhaps if you introduce a touch more doubt as to whether she dies or not, then people would immediately want to turn those pages and find out but here it seems all but certain that she does die.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
It flows very well. It has a good rhythme to it, and it helps with the thought of freedom as she died, very poetic. Nice detail, i would like to see this made into a book. This could be the entro and you can a book about her spirits journey.. Only a thought, but hey, it might go good. Keep writing!
Thanks demib! I posted a comment farther down the page that says I have already written this into a novel...I just have yet to post it
(the girl, in the book, ended up living). Thank you for the idea!
Cool! Your welcome for the idea!
Wow it is such a nice piece of writing and seems so deep and poetic.... I LOVED it! ♥♥♥
Thanks!!
Okay, so this is just the beginning of my other story The Elf Child redone. I did this story for NaNoWriMo; there is a lot more where this came from, I just need to edit it. A lot.