“I used to run..” Silas murmured, crouched under a vinyl chair and untenable to the shakes that ravaged his paralyzed form. Kadence noticed her father glance over at him, as if at last vindicating the possibility that the only other survivor had doubled as culprit.
The scent of hospital soap, mixed with rancid sulfur, cement and rain, filled the air. Until this moment - hours, days, centuries after the explosion - she found she had been subject to some sort of strange sensory deprivation. This sudden rush of her senses, of peripheral sound and taste, reminded her of all the times as a child she had laughed so hard that no sound was emitted. It had been a fulfilling time in her life, a buoyant childhood, with those slow-motioned and inaudible laughs. But her past wavered in and out of her mind, like some sort of dreamy prelude that the explosion had unplugged from reality.
The memory of normalcy had been severed from her person now.
Her eyes fell on the crumpled older man, still seated in the corner close to Silas. She hadn’t recognized his grandson - a congenial student, well-known for his incredible reaction time in her school’s track events - until the plastered ceiling of the doctor’s office had begun to crumble and the building rattled a second time. Like the rest of them, he had scrambled under the waiting room chair nearest him, begging his grandfather to follow. But the man had refused by simply taking out the string of rosary beads in his pocket, repeating, “Hail Mary... pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” His rustic murmurs ceased at the chime of the fourth explosion, when the roof finally caved in and his exposed form conceded with the end of his prayer. Now, the expression on his face was peaceful, his eyes closed, the white plaster around him stained with his blood. The whole thing still felt like a dream.
How long has it been since the earth beneath them first shuddered? she thought to herself, seeing her own question reflected in the dilated eyes of her father. When will it be safe to seek safety?
She had been studying the pattern of cross-hatches on the underside of the maroon chair since the deafening stillness had shocked her senses. Abstract replaced reality, and she had drifted in and out of consciousness, like the other two survivors and the one deceased. But with her father’s grip on reality waning beside her, she knew that out of the three survivors, she would have to be the one to find the answer. She emerged from the steel legs of the chair that had sheltered her during the explosions. The slight wind stung her face and the rivulets of blood and tears that ran through the settled smoke on her cheeks. She shuffled through the sheetrock and shingles, the smoke and the shrapnel. The last thing she heard before she climbed out of a broken windowpane was Silas whispering, “I used to run.. I used to run when it rained.”
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
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Heyo Indie
Okay, so nitpicks first.
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This should probably be it's own line. The next paragraph could start like: She was crouched...
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That last comma isn't needed.
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One line statements are usually reserved for dialogue only. Though don'y quote me on that, I might be wrong >.<
The rest of it looks fine to me, except that quote in the middle of the line >.>
As for the story itself, you definitely surprised me! Who knew a poet like you would have a thing for short stories? The connection between the beginning and end was lovely and I think it was great how you were able to tie everything together that way. Everything flowed well and you had just the right amount of detail to keep me intrigued.
Well I shouldn't say that, some might say you over described things. Too me there's no such thing as too much details, but it might bore some readers. Other than that I thought it was fine
Keep up the good work
Okay, hey Indie, Black here for a Review.
Nice work, it was interesting, though a bit hard to read, and quite well written. The problems are mainly in the grammar and the presentation/description, but really: Overall you did great, it has that original feel to it that I just LOVE - originality is a very important thing to me.
So, here's what I saw wrong - mainly.
Well, first: I don't get what this "[tentative]" is doing in the cover, I mean, a cover names something, it doesn't describe it. I'd advise you to put it in better or cut it all the way out.
Your presentation (The way you show what you mean) is really hard to follow, I mean, a reader's mind should just flow right through what you write, they shouldn't have to strive to understand what you're saying . . . Should they? Have you ever read a really slow book, maybe . . . The count of Monte Christo? With huge sections were it's such a bore to read you just want to skip pages.
Well, I'll give you this, your writing isn't quite there, but it's on the way. First off: Your paragraphs are too big, they're hard to read, and they're lacking action. You wrote everything here in Narrative summary and description, with practically no action. Remember a good writer always lives by the 'show, don't tell' rule, if you go 'tell, don't show' then your reader doesn't get the action that they bought your book for! A reader never bought a book because they wanted to be bored.
So what do you do? Change the description and Narrative summary to action (Most of it anyway) and cut these paragraphs down to size!
Remember this is action: "With a yell, Jason kicked the first thug in the stomach and then, spinning around, caught the second by the throat, squeezing the air out of him", but this isn't "Jason yelled and kicked the first thug in the stomach. Then he spun around and grabbed the second one by the throat, and squeezed" - well, not real action.
. . . get it?
Now, your description, I said that you have a problem with it as well, well you do: It's in this, we don't know enough about your story right now to understand it. It's usually not wise to start a story with action because your reader cannot sympathize with what's happening - were as if your reader has already gotten to know your character, he'll feel sorry for him when he gets kicked in the face.
You need more description on your characters, on what's going on, on what's happened. You do not have enough of it right now.
I don't have time for nit-picking right now - have to go.
Overall? Work on your description! Work on your back work, work on your information and emotions!
Good work!
~Black~
Wow. This was really good. And its nice to find another 14 year old on this website. I thought it was like 15-16+.
But yeah, I liked the underlaying backstory. Some kind of world changing disaster right? I love survival stories. This story makes me want to read more about what Kandence and Silas's fate ends up being. Like I said, the underlaying stroy of "What's going on?" leaves me in suspence. Gimme more!