Prologue
The savage oak trees loomed eerily over my head. Their scraggly branches lent me no shelter from my own memories, only the wind.
My heartbeat quickened as my Mom and I headed towards the garden behind the house. Her long, flaming red hair fell over her shoulders. Her striking green eyes, mossy as mine, watched me quietly. Her fingers traced the markings on my small face, the thin black swirls.
“I love you Nayima. I love you and never want to lose you. But you have to listen to me. You must run away from here. You must run as far and as fast as you can. Okay?” she asked. I looked down at the ground, at my eleven year old feet.
“I don't understand, Mom. I don't wanna leave,” I cried quietly. I felt her soft hand on my chin. She forced me to look at her as tears began to run down my face.
My breath came in slight gasps. Sweat ran down my face, mixing with the rainwater of the night. The silence of the forest penetrated my ears like an arrow. I screamed in anger and grief, my voice scratchy from crying.
“I know, baby. I don't want you to leave either. But you must be strong. I love you and I know you can do this. Stay safe for me, okay? Okay, baby?”
I nodded, crying. I threw my arms over her shoulders and embraced her tightly, never wanting to let her go. Why! Why! I don't understand! My blue dress became dirty as we pulled apart and I ran to the tree line, turning back once I passed the first few trees. Silence fell over the expanse of blackberry fields and the large stone house. Overhead, rain began to fall, fast and heavy.
The mud seemed to mock me as I kept falling to the ground. Tears blinded me. Adrenaline rang in my ears and drummed through my veins.
Suddenly, the faint sound of horses met my ears.
I cowered farther back into the trees as the horsemen came into my view. Far away and yet, so, so close. Their clothing is beautiful, robes and tunics made of silk and cotton. Vibrant colors of orange, blue, and green. The are horses all black, with metal plates fitted on the face and sides. Long dark hair fit most of their facial features well. My eyes widened as I noticed the tall, brown staffs they carried with snakes carved into the base. Atop every staff beamed a coal-black sphere. The sphere perfect and beautiful and yet deadly at the same time. Even from so far away, I can just feel the black magic vibrating off the horsemen.
I ran through the unmerciful trees, their branches and bark scraping my hands and knees. The blood on my body became one with the rainwater and my tears.
I watched, paralyzed with fear, as the men unmounted their horses and walked inside my house. For an eternity I heard nothing. Silence once again filled the fields and rang in my fearful ears. Then, I heard a scream. I gasped as the ringing violently shook my heart with fear. My eyes drew themselves to the door of the large house.
Mom appeared in the doorway, being pushed and dragged towards the horses. Oh God! Not mom! Please!
She yelled, she kicked, she fought, she unsheathed her hidden knife and tried to slice, but to no avail. The men, the dark wizards, dragged her across the lawn to the horses. Tears cascaded down my face as the horsemen rode away.
“Mom! No! Please, please, no! This cannot be happening!”
I screamed as I started forwards. No. I cannot follow them. She is lost to me. I screamed and flung myself into the woods, running away from my own home.
I stumbled through the woods a little ways until I slipped once more in the mud. My sobs filled my ears, the cold pierced my face like daggers. I crawled under a giant oak tree and felt exhaustion climb up my spine. I leaned my back against the tree and fell asleep with tears falling from my eyes and mixing with the freezing rain.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,010 Literary Works • 672,839 Reviews
Okay, so I really liked the start of this. Really, really liked it. (by the way, to make text italicized, just highlight what you want and click the "i" button on the top of the post. Or just put
- Code
tags around it).[i]TEXT[/i]Description: Overall, you have wonderful descriptions. They almost always show your characters feeling, which is great. Your descriptions of the forest were very good too. They were unique and really established the mood for the piece. The only thing is that sometimes you went overkill on the description. I felt that when you were describing the warriors, it was boring. Also, there was one that felt out of place.
I get it. You want us to know she's 11. But this sentence seems so awkward. Do you look down and think "Yep, I got some 15 year old feet here"? Oh course not. If you want to tell her age, try and integrate it somewhere else in the piece. It just kills the mood that you have so carefully created up to this point.
Confusing Bits: There were a lot of confusing bits that really killed this piece for me.
I was really confused by the lines that show her running through the forest. I was thinking "Wait, she's bleeding?", and things like that. It took me all the way to the end of the piece to realize that you were switching between two different times. To make that more clear, but one in italics. Otherwise, it will confuse a lot of readers.
You forgot the word "was" here.
Another very confusing line. If you just read over your piece again, you'll be able to catch most of these mistakes.
Plot: For the plot standpoint, this prolouge is likely set in the characters past, with flashes to the present, no? If that's the case, I can see how this could be very important to the motivation of the character when the actual story starts.
Overall: This was a good start to a story. If you can just clean it up a bit, it would make a great start.
This was great, suspenseful and fun to read because I felt like I was there and involved which made it all the more exciting to read. Apart from what Enigma mentioned, this has very little to nit-pick. I'll end with saying that I'm looking forward to read more of this, you've got me very interested to find out what chapter 2 will be like
Best of luck with this!
*coco
Thanks! By the way, the italics on this website for some reason do not work on my computer. So, her thoughts are actually in italics, it just does not show.
This is really suspenseful. You've got a mystery to hook the reader right off from the start. That's a good thing. You have really nice descriptions as well, like when you describe the mother and the forest. You're really good at using language to accentuate your meaning. Also, great use of dialogue to reveal the characters emotions.
I saw a couple of times in the text you slipped out of past tense and into present. I also noticed that whenever the character had a thought in her head, you didn't put it in italics. I'd recommend doing that so as not to confuse the reader. But other than those two things great job!