Today had not gone well. First of all, someone had bled on his bike while he was at work. Sure, they had bled all over the parking lot, but he particularly liked his bike and the blood smelled off, a little like cheap canned mushrooms. Those rubbery, tasteless kind that he was currently staring at on the shelf of canned goods in his local supermarket. Unfortunately, it seemed like those would once again make up a large part of his diet. He began to calculate just how long he might be able to live off of the check in his coat pocket, the last one he'd probably get for a while. You're a good employee Perez, but we just can't afford to have this many employees in this economy. That's what his manager had said anyway. In a way he was right, all those recent phenomena had made normal life hard for everyone, inflation or not. Hell, for all he knew this was the beginning of the end of the world, although he didn't think anything like this was mentioned in any religion.
He walked over to the fridges and pulled out a package of ground beef. If everything was going to fall apart, he might as well enjoy a few good meals before total chaos. The change is his pocket jingled as he walked towards the counter. Rahul was sitting there as usual, watching the small television to the side of the register. There was something different about him, but Leon thought it would be rude to mention the metal shard protruding from his head.
“Anything interesting happen?” said Leon as he placed the beef on the counter and reached into his pocket for his change.
Rahul scoffed and waved towards the TV. “Again with the portals, always with the portals. Do they care about people who might get injured by things falling out of them?” he said, as he pointed to the noticeably sharp piece of metal. “No, it's always about finding out where they lead, or where they will come. They don't even try to control the creatures who come out anymore.”
Leon nodded, remembering the way the police just gave up on chasing that giant wormy creature last week, or the way there were little to no actions taken against the random people that sometimes showed up as well. He picked up the plastic bag with the ground beef in it and started to head towards the door.
“Times are changing. If I were you, I'd invest in a good pistol or a sword,” Rahul called out as Leon stepped out the door and towards his bike.
“If I were you, I'd go to the hospital,” replied Leon as the doors closed behind him.
“No one else cares about it, so why should I? In any case, I'd have no one to manage the store” said Rahul, more to himself than anyone else.
Leon rode home in the evening night, the grocery bag dangling from one of the handlebars. The streets were emptier tonight than they usually were. Maybe people were just playing it safe and staying in their own homes. He stopped at a red light and put one hand up to his mouth to yawn. Suddenly, a massive scaly thing crossed his path, charging through the nearly empty intersection. Was that just a dragon? Leon leaned over and caught a view of it pounding down the street. It sure looked like one from where he was standing, wings and all. The light turned green and Leon sat there for a moment, considering his options. He could just keep going straight, reach home and ignore the whole thing. He turned down the street and slowly started riding after the creature.
Leon pulled up in front of the old parking garage near the edge of town. He had been following the thing for quite a while now from a respectful distance, and he could've sworn he saw it turn and head inside. Did he really want to go in? It was late, but he could still head back if he really wanted to. He took a deep breath, got off his bike and walked inside with it. When looking inside he could see claw marks leading down towards the underground levels of the parking garage. Great. He took out his phone for light and followed the trail of scratches downwards, keeping an ear out for any strange sounds. After what felt like hours of quietly descending the few levels, he reached the bottom floor. Leaning his bike on a pillar, he grabbed his bag and walked forwards, making sure to keep the light angled more towards the ground. He didn't know if light would aggravate it, and he didn't really want to find out. Suddenly, he head a low growl coming form the darkness ahead of him, and a small burst of flames erupted from the creature's mouth for just a moment, Lighting up the darkness and letting Leon see the beast's silhouette. Leon stopped walking, and slowly lowered his body closer to the floor, carefully placing the bag down in the process.
“It's alright, you won't get hurt,” said Leon, but it was directed towards him more than it was towards the dragon. He reached into his bag, pulled out the package of ground beef and carefully removed the top of it, sliding it towards the massive thing in front of him. The creature sniffed at the package for a moment before sticking its snout inside, scarfing down the meat in a matter of seconds. It raised its head and eyed Leon for a few moments, the two amber eyes piercing through the darkness and straight through Leon. It then let out a small snort before giving its wings a shake and stretching out, as if to show that it didn't consider him a threat. Leon slowly took a few steps forward, paying close attention to its body movements. When he was just a few paces away from it, he heard a deep rumble coming from its stomach. From this distance, he could also see that one of its legs was cut, perhaps on debris from a building or car. The dragon looked up and gazed intently at him. Leon felt like if it had eyebrows they would be raised at him right now, as if to say “Well? What are you going to do about it?” He didn't have any more food on him, and he didn't want to become its meal, so he slowly backed away.
“It's okay, I'll get you more food,” he told it as he slowly backed out of the garage. He waited until he was a safe distance away before turning his back on it. He ran out of the parking garage and mounted his bike. A real life dragon, and it didn't eat him. Leon still couldn't really believe this was happening, and before he knew it he was back at the supermarket. He locked his bike in the stands, and waved at Rahul, who was still manning the counter looking as bored as he always did. As he walked down the aisle towards the meat, he remembered his financial situation. He no longer had a steady source of income, and meat wasn't cheap. If he wanted to keep the dragon and himself alive, he'd have to find an alternative to feed the dragon. He stopped moving towards the meat aisle and looked around him. From a shelf to his left, the word “Beans” shouted out at him from the sides of a hundred different cans.
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140,275 Literary Works • 673,070 Reviews
Hi, haredrier! Mage here to do the long overdue, promised review! So let's get to it, shall we?
I love every chapter more than I did the last. This has to be one of my favorites in the book so far; the introduction of someone more "normal", in the eyes of the reader, was an interesting inclusion and I'm excited to see how this plays out in the future. It was also interesting seeing how people viewed Einar and the dragon rather than just seeing how Einar thinks of it.
Now onto the specifics!
There should be a comma after "way" and a period after "right". I would also suggest changing "those" to "the" to make that section of the story flow better.
"Head" should be "heard", and "form" should be "from". Because this is a run-on sentence, I would suggest changing it to something along the lines of "Suddenly, he heard a low growl coming from the darkness ahead of him. A small burst of flames of flames erupted from the creatures mouth for just a moment, lighting up the darkness and letting Leon seeing the beast's silhouette."
I'm guessing that Einar is going to be having more "Beans" in the near future?
I'm really interested in seeing what Einar's thoughts on this encounter are, so I hope I'll get to see those in future chapters! ^_^
I'm sorry if my review seemed harsh. That wasn't my intention whatsoever; I had fun reading this! If you have any questions about what I said, please ask and I'll clear things up! Keep up the great work - which I doubt you'll have trouble with - and good luck on your writing endeavors! Have a wonderful day/night! ^_^
It's so cool to see how much you've improved since the first chapter of the story I read. Your narration is so much more enthusiastic, your sense of detail is more precise, your dialogue is charming and I like the characters. I find Leon interesting just because he didn't do what I would expect him to do. The part where he goes into the parking garage after the dragon was so tense and nerve wracking, you definitely had me on edge. Overall I think you can emote the characters thoughts and actions a bit better, but that's about it. Your writing has come a long ways.
This seems like an awkward transition for the plot -- I think you can come up with a better, more clear than "noun". "Was that just a dragon?" comes off as rather silly because I don't see why that would be someone's first guess, and so casually.
Again -- this comes off as a bit silly, because the emotion isn't there. I'd rather you describe how surprised he was by showing the reader his heart pounding, his body shaking, him sweating than you just saying "oh hey, he didn't eat him." Put the reader in the position of the character.
Why does Leon feel the need to feed the dragon? I hope that's a question you answer in the coming chapters.
dang, this was alright. could only spot one or two little grammar errors.
one small hitch i found was the flow of the story. you had a few clunky sentences. examples:
>“Anything interesting happen?” said Leon as he placed the beef on the counter and reached into his pocket for his change.
>“It's okay, I'll get you more food,” he told it as he slowly backed out of the garage.
i found your writing a little plain, to be honest. didn't feel much from the story, and it didn't feel like i was seeing it from a character's point of view. it was like a list of stuff that happened. this is especially relevant when Leon's first seeing the dragon. you'd think a dude would be a little more "oh-no-it's-a-dragon" when running into one like that, but nope.
you had whole paragraphs consisting of only super-long sentences. i can count on my fingers the amount of short ones you had to break up the monotony.
>“It's alright, you won't get hurt,” said Leon, but it was directed towards him more than it was towards the dragon. He reached into his bag, pulled out the package of ground beef and carefully removed the top of it, sliding it towards the massive thing in front of him. The creature sniffed at the package for a moment before sticking its snout inside, scarfing down the meat in a matter of seconds. It raised its head and eyed Leon for a few moments, the two amber eyes piercing through the darkness and straight through Leon. It then let out a small snort before giving its wings a shake and stretching out, as if to show that it didn't consider him a threat. Leon slowly took a few steps forward, paying close attention to its body movements. When he was just a few paces away from it, he heard a deep rumble coming from its stomach. From this distance, he could also see that one of its legs was cut, perhaps on debris from a building or car. The dragon looked up and gazed intently at him. Leon felt like if it had eyebrows they would be raised at him right now, as if to say “Well? What are you going to do about it?” He didn't have any more food on him, and he didn't want to become its meal, so he slowly backed away.
read that aloud, see what i mean?