I woke up to complete darkness, and the sound of distant chattering and footsteps. The smell of mildew lingered in the air as I tried to comprehend what was happening to me. I strained my light blue eyes to try and see what was around me, but it was too dark to even see my own hand in front of my face.
I reached down to my wrist and felt my rubber band was, thankfully, still there.
"thank god"
I grabbed my shoulder length, thick blonde hair and twisted it in a bun.
I began to feel around. All I could feel was what seemed to be damp concrete and the occasional dry dirt spot. I crawled around on my hands and knees until I ran into something. It was warm, and soft, and eventually I realized this thing wasn't something, it was someone.
"Um hello?" I said, tapping the person to see if they knew any more then I did. Not one part of me thought this was a bad idea, which was confusing to me because when I was a kid I wouldn't even go on Disney websites without asking my parents permission. The person didn't respond. I continued to crawl around to see if I could find a way out, or find anything in that matter.
After what felt like a century of crawling around, I had made absolutely no progress. All I found was a paper clip, and what I thought to be a dead mouse, but I didn't stick around to find out. I felt my way around the wall and couldn't find one thing that could be an exit. Just rough concrete and spider webs. I started to rack my mind to remember how I got here.
"Chrissy, pass the salt honey" I heard my moms sweet, soothing voice say.
I slid the salt across the table with a smile.
"Chrissy, did you tell mom what you got on your College history test?" My brother Dean said with a smile.
"It's really not that big of a deal Dean" I said with a smirk on my face. I'm ahead of my junior class, and have a GPA high enough to make all the college classes.
" Mom, Chrissy got 115% for doing extra questions that the rest of the class couldn't even look at! My sisters a genius I'm telling you!" Dean bragged.
"Well she got that from your father" Mom said with a sparkle in her eye.
Dean and I never met our father, He passed when Dean was one and mom was pregnant with me. Mom doesn't talk about him much though. That upsets Dean the most and I could see it in his desperate face that he wanted to hear more when mom brought it, our dad, up just now.
"Well how would we know that, you never talk about him." Dean mumbled under his breath.
Suddenly, the table got quite. The only sound was the clicking of the loud antique clock in the living room and the scraping of our forks, and then... Everything went black.
I cant remember a thing after that night at the dinner table, and that's when I began to panic. My mind started racing with questions.
"Are mom and Dean okay?"
"Are they looking for me?"
"Was I kidnapped?"
As thoughts continued to bounce around in my head, I began to hear shuffling and then a moan.
"Hello?" I heard a boys voice say. I could hear his breathing getting shorter and louder as he began to panic.
"You're awake" I said.
"Who are you?!" The boy screamed. I could tell by his voice that he was still young, Anywhere between the ages of 16 and 25.
"Calm down... My names chrissy... and I don't know anymore then you do" I said calmly.
The boy didn't respond and I could hear him frantically moving around, searching for something, anything! Just as I had.
"It's no use, I've already searched" I said in disappointment. "What's your name?"
With no response, the boy continued to search. After quite a while of finding nothing he made his way to me sighed, and sat down.
"My name's Mikey... What's happening to us?" He asked with complete despair in his voice.
"I don't know... but if you listen carefully you can hear voices and footsteps." I said
Just as that last word came out of my mouth, We heard someone whistling. At first it was distant, but with time it got closer and closer.
"Someone's coming" Mikey whispered.
No matter how much I wanted to deny that, I knew he was right, and even though he's a stranger, He's all I have right now.
Mikey and I sat there and waited for a long 2 minutes, but it felt like we were in a shelter waiting for a tornado to pass. All of a sudden we heard a door unlatch, and from the ceiling I felt the warmth of sunlight shine in my face. My eyes stung from the brightness. I continuously blinked until I could see the large figure of a man. Once my eyes adjusted I could clearly see a man standing in the opening looking down on us. His face was scar-covered and one of his eyes were sown shut. The sight of him was enough to scare anyone, but it was his raspy voice that scared me the most.
"They're awake!" he yelled. Then looked down at Mikey and I with a rotten smile.
I don't even want to begin to think of what's going to happen.
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,820 Reviews
So I saw chapter 2, and decided to start from the start.
write onward!
"All I could feel is what seemed to be damp concrete and occasional dry dirt spots" -- Two things with this. You've written this in past tense, so you want everything to match up to sound straight, so where you have that is, you'll want a was. Secondly, and this is a suggestion for the sake of fluidity, you could say, "and the occasional dry dirt spot."
That is a very nice introduction, how the narrator bumps into something, but no! it's a someone. Great reveal.
"um hello" -- you'll want Um in caps. Sorry, if this all comes off very frank. I just call it like I see it.
"I said tapping the person" -- Whenever you elaborate with something tagging along after someone said something, it usually requires a comma directly following the said or any other word you might substitute for it, like scold.
"in that matter." -- Most people say for that matter, but we get what you're saying, and it may be your style of choice.
"After what felt like a century of crawling around I had" -- Most times, if you start a sentence with after, there's going to be a comma needed in the sentence because it shows a transition, and then what happened after. Here, the place for the comma would come right before I.
"Chrissy pass the salt honey" -- So this has to do with a recurring thing I see going on throughout the passage. When you use a name, or a title, you separate it from everything else with a comma. And with dialogue, there's always a comma when the speech comes to an end and is attached to said (or any substitute). The only times it isn't, is when you have something like this: "My dog ran away." The boy rubbed at his eyes. "We have ta get it back, mama."
"That upsets Dean the most and I could see it in his desprate face that he wanted to hear more when mom brought him up just now." -- Couple things. I don't know that much about like verb agreement and stuff like that, but sometimes things sound off. I would suggest saying something like, It upsets Dean the most... and ...when mom brought it, or dad, up just now. It took me a second to realize who "him" was. And desperate is missing an e.
"Suddenly the table got quite, the only sound was the clicking of..." It would be more effective to make "Suddenly, the table got quiet." a sentence by itself.
"shuffling and a moan." -- probably, "shuffling, and then a moan." since the shuffling happens before the moan is ever heard.
"...his breathing getting shorter and lounder as he began to panick." -- panic and louder are spelled wrong, but the real reason I bring this up, is that you could make this a sentence on it's own, and it would be a lot smoother and simple.
"the ages 16 and 25." -- the ages of
"The boy didn't respond and I could hear him frantically running around, searching for something, anything! Just as I did." -- you could say, and then he could be heard frantically scrambling ( bc I don't think he would get up and run in the pitch dark) around. And you prob don't need to comment, just as I did, bc, as the reader, I'm already making that connection. But if you wish to keep it, do change did to had?
Deny is capitalized in the middle of a sentence.
scar-covered needs that hyphen
Once my eyes adjusted, and then go on with whatever you are saying next
Since you are talking specifically about one eye, then use was instead of were. I'm pretty sure on that.
"... begin to think of what might/was about to happen?" -- a suggestion to improve flow
Other than being a little redundant, what with both kids in the dark scrambling around and panicking, this first chapter has set the scene sufficiently. We know they don't know how they got to this place and don't know where they are. Nothing stands out much about the characters yet, but the flashback was probably the part that spoke the loudest. We know a few more things about Chrissy, and we are eager to see who this Mikey is. Clean up the grammar and such, and the reader will be able to enjoy the story more, for less distraction. You have sparked my interest, so I want to see chapter two, where this thing's headed.
Hi!!
thanks a lot for this review! I'll work on these things in future writing. Haha I do know how to spell. A lot of the mistakes are because I didn't read over it well enough, but everything else, you helped with! so thanks!!
hey!! I fixed up chapter one and added a couple things about Chrissy's appearance, which was very difficult without changing a bunch of stuff. So what I have will have to do and ill work on that on future writing!
Hey there
I like the chapter it creates suspense and mAkes me want to read more !
Some things I enjoyed were the flash back to everyday life and the descriptive words.
I would caution your past and present tense. The whole story(most of it ) is past tense therefore it makes the flash back seem less significant almost. Also I noticed a lot of assumptions like the time. You say after twenty minutes ... I would try to use similes or metaphors to explain the time lapse I think it would make it a bit more in depth if that makes sense!
I look forward to reading more !
Thanks:) I'll work on those things:)
I wrote the second chapter:) If you're interested!!
Very nice and suspenseful! There were so capilization errors (i.e. dean, mikey, chrissy, and Deny), but a quick reread of would fix those problems.
The dialogue that is happening in her head - I would put that in italics just to let the reader know that she is thinking that.
In the last paragraph, she has been sitting in the dark for quite a while so when the hatch opened she would not be able to see his scar on the man's face right off. The sun would burn her retinas almost.
Let me know, when the second chapter is published! I can't wait to see what happens!
haha so should I changed the last part and lead into her seeing his scars or is it okay? Ill get those capilization errors fixed!! thank you for reviewing:) I'll let you know when I get chapter two written!! can you explain the italics part? Like a set around the whole memory at the dinner table?
I would say something about how her eyes haven't seen light in hours - just to get across how long she's been in the dark. After "I got here." maybe add "..." to signal the reader that there is a flashback but I wouldn't italicize all of that. I would just italicize
"Are mom and Dean okay?"
"Are they looking for me?"
"Was i kidnapped?"
Okay:) thanks!!:)
I wrote the second chapter!!:) If you're interested!!