It surrounded me. Flowed into my mind. Pure, clear liquid covered me from head to toe. I open my eyes, sunshine and bubbles. That’s all I can see, for what seemed like miles and miles water was stretched above me and every time I blinked tiny bubbles of air would float to the top.
Now it pumped though my veins. My hair floated above me and engulfed my face. I slowly move my hands towards my body and feel the lace frock rub against my skin. I spread my arms, stretch my legs and push off the soft sand.
Like a bullet I shoot though the water. I look down and all I can see is my pale feet with ripples radiating out of my toes. I finally reach the top. I open my eyes, I can see. I can breathe. ‘Where the heck am I?’ I think to myself, then the memories come flowing back.
Men. Water. Flooding. Cold. Darkness.
No colours, just black and white, and no warmth just coolness. Fresh water, I am drenched in fresh water. I look around and all I can see is trees and rocks. My head hurts like crazy and every time I move my back aches.
I stand up, wipe my face with my hands and squeeze my hair dry. The grass is moist and squishes between my toes. Strange marks and scratches cover a large pine tree to my right. I gently slide my hand over them, they're fresh.
I hear a faint rustle in the bushes on the other side of the water abyss. I freeze. Drip, drip, drip. Drops of cold water run down my bare leg, like blood of an open wound. Then nothing.
The drops gone, the rusting is gone, the marks are gone. There’s nothing here, only a trail, a trail to nowhere. A trail led by long lemongrass and tiny toadstools. And the end, the end. Well, there isn't one.
I look back, nothing there. Do I have to? I take a few steps forward, and look back again. The trail has disappeared into the ground. Shock filled my body, as I watch the last few strands of lemongrass dissolve into nothing. I keep moving. My pace fastens. By the time the fright gets to my brain, I’m at a run. No, a sprint. I look back again, and the trail is disappearing as rapidly as my heart beat.
Thoughts cloud up in my mind as an intense pain leaks into the left side of my torso. I slow down. I am at a steady walk now, and the excruciating pain starts to weaken. I look ahead of me and see something new, something foreign. I jog towards it, thats all my body will let me do. I see it! What the heck, it’s a pond.
Not a big pond, but a small one. And not a muddy pond but a clear one. on top of the pure aqua, lay a fluorescent green lily pad and a large, pink lily-flower nestled perfectly in the middle. Perched to the base of the lily pad was a small blue and grey trochilinae hummingbird who looked at me and then spun around and shook its tail.
The bird chirped its merry song like everything was normal. I dip my toes into the pond, and as I fall back from the shock of the temperature I accidentally kick the bird off of its place on the pad. I quickly check to see if she’s alright, when I notice she is nowhere to be seen.
Did she fly away? Did she disappear? Suddenly I look down and see tiny ripples on the surface of the water, oh God! I reluctantly stick my hand into the freezing cold pond, I feel the bottom, but no bird. I swirl my hand around a little and at last I feel a warm bundle of feathers.
I pull her out, thank Jesus she’s ok. She shakes some of the water off of her deep blue fuzz and looks at me with disgust. ‘I’m so sorry! It was an accident, I swear!’, she turns around and shakes her tail at me again. I laugh, as she turns back towards me and winks.
I look back down the never-ending trail, ‘Are we gonna do this, together?’. The bird looks down into the water and dips her head in. After about ten seconds she finally re-emerges with a long, silver chain in her tiny beak. On the chain is a coin-sized locket, on the back of the locket:
‘Safe forever in my arms,
Don’t fall for his deadly charms.
Everything about him is just a lie,
In the end, one shall die.’
was engraved. I open the locket, only to find a picture of a boy with what looked like ‘this is your only protection’ written across the bottom. I put it around my neck, just incase.
I look back at the creature perched back on the petals of the beautiful flower. In the blink of an eye she is gone and rested lightly on my shoulder, I look at the fascinating creature and she looks back only with determination and curiosity in her tiny black eyes. ‘Ready?’, I say to the unresponsive animal and only get a small turn of the head back. ‘I’ll take that as a yes. Let’s go.’
As I walk I get a strange feeling, a feeling we’re going the wrong way. That can’t be right though, the trail is only a one-way path to nowhere, unless we aren't supposed to follow it. What if we were meant to go the other way? Would we just go nowhere? Will this trail just go nowhere? So many questions, no one to answer them.
I turn around and look back, still nothing. By now the bird is on top my head asleep in the bundle of knotty, brown hair, thrown up in a bun. My frock is completely dry, and then I feel weird tingling feeling erupting in the back of my neck, but I can’t see it. I use the locket as a mirror and see a strange symbol tattooed into my neck. This wasn’t here before.
It’s some sort of Hamsa symbol. We learned about this at school, it means Hand of God, it’s a protective sign and I think it brings it's owner happiness, luck and health. Who did this? Why did they do it? I shake the bird off and catch it, I show her the tattoo, but she just shakes her head. Nothing else.
No one. No words. Nothing. Please, just any one, any thing. Now I think the loneliness is really getting to me, questions pop into my head left, right and centre. We need to follow this trail, we need to find someone before it’s too late.
Now, instead of food, all I can think about is civilisation and getting out of this hellhole. Once again, I’m running away. Running away from nothing. I run until I’m not even concentrating and stumble along some stones. I look up and see an identical abyss to the one I woke up in.
I step towards the crumbling ground which meets the edge of the water. I peer into the large body of fresh water. On the sandy bottom, I can faintly see the silhouette of a boy. The next thing I know I am sinking like a stone towards the bottom. I hit the soft sand and realise who this person was.
I pull the locket open and compare the boy in the picture to this stranger. It was him, my protection. I grab his limp arm and pull him up towards the surface. A waft of fresh air hit us like a large boost of turbulence and as I look around I see the same tree, with the same marks, in the same place. This wasn’t just an identical abyss, this was the abyss.
Merry, chirping and flapping her wings one-hundred-miles-per-hour, the bird helped me pull the coughing and splattering boy to shore. Just as I’m examining his beautiful face, I come across a deep brown eye. A deep brown, open eye. I jump back with shock as he sits up-right. I am instantly calmed by the happy song of the bird and the reassurance of this boy.
‘Whoa, calm down there.’, he said with a smirk, ‘My name’s Felix, thanks for helping. Hey, arghh whats your name again?’
‘Oh gosh, sorry. My name is Indigo, but you can call me Indi.’, I say tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
‘Indi.’, he said once again with a cheeky side smirk, ‘So um, can I ask where the hell we are?’
‘Well the problem is that, I’m not too sure of that either. Oh and this,’ , I say pointing to the bird, ‘is…’, I haven’t even given her a name yet! ‘And this is Willow’
Willow gave a little tweet and shook her tail, once again, as a sign of approval for her brand new name. Felix and I laugh in synchronisation, which makes us laugh even harder. This is my protection. He, is my protection.
For what seemed like hours we sat on the bank of the abyss talking. Just talking. Talking about everything. About how I got here, about the trail, about Willow, about this whole situation.
‘Here, I have something for you. I found it in my pocket when you pulled me up.’, Felix said, pulling out a small box which read: ‘Zodic Stones: Complete Set’. I open up the gold and turquoise box to find little grey stones with the zodiac symbol, and name underneath in an black rustic looking American Typewriter font.
‘Oh my gosh! They’re beautiful, Felix. Thank you so much.’
‘Its fine, Its not like I actually bought them for you or anything.’, he said with an awkward smile and laugh. I smile back. And once again a tidal wave of laughter and high pitched cackles hits the two of us.
After a more and more talking Felix pulls out a necklace from around his neck, with what looked like an identical locket to the around mine. He tugs the locket open and shows me the inside, where there is a picture of me with the words ‘Find her’ are written across the bottom. My mouth open with shock, I pull out my locket and show the boy infant of me his picture. Now we both have the same expression.
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140,699 Literary Works • 673,669 Reviews
Great Story! I am mainly just going to write my thoughts on the story and not really focus on grammar or anything. I thought you had a great smoothness to the story and their were very few spots where I felt it sort of jumped ahead. (and after rereading it I understood it more). You did great with the descriptions and the whole atmosphere of the work. The poem was nicely written as well and had a great flow to it. There were a few points in the story that I was confused about however. I was a bit confused with the significance of the poem and the whole idea of protection in it. I was also a bit puzzled by the significance of the zodiac stones. I would love to understand it more so if you want to just message me the meaning or explanation behind it I would greatly appreciate it (there may be a better way but I am new to the site). Keep up the great work!
Greetings!
Now, time for the review! 
First off, welcome to YWS! I hope you really enjoy it here! This is a really interesting story idea, one that's "not-quite-like-the-rest". I like that.
Here are two little excerpts from the same paragraph. You change tenses (surrounded, open), which disrupted the flow of your story, and can potentially become a major problem if it is not addressed. I personally like the first tense, so either change it to "I opened my eyes", or the other sentence to "It surrounds me". Just make sure the tense you're writing in is consistent.
This confused me a little bit. I know what you mean, how there isn't an end to it, but the way you write it seems awkward. I would simply write, "it seemed endless" instead of "well, there isn't one". It seems like it would fit better in this situation maybe...
Other Suggestions, Recommendations,
and possibly a few rants:A lot of what I see here is "I look around and see" and/or "there are". You tend to tell the reader what is happening, rather than show them. Here's an example.
Instead, tell me what they are doing. You do a good job with it in the next part - just make sure all parts are as fabulous as that one following sentence.
Also, there's just a slight problem with your choice of words. One of your sentences says "My pace fastens." This is one of those parts where I know what you mean, but there's a better way to put it. (Such as saying quickened, instead of fastened.)
One more thing: you have a tendency to write in fragments. Even though most all of this is her thoughts, you should be thorough with them, or at least specifically specify (that's a tongue twister) that they are her thoughts.
All in all, this is kind of hard to follow. The bird and locket scene by the pond is okay, but the beginning and ending is kind of... odd. Confusing. I'm not sure what the boy was supposed to be there for - or what the girl was doing in the first place... But it seems like a nice idea! Anyway, keep writing!
~Snazz Pizzazz
Hello! I'm here to edit your piece,
I hope it helps!
If you do change the sentence, it is a very short sentence and you could probably add a comma and describe (perhaps) the sensation of moving, aka - I shoot (or shot) through the water, leaving hardly any trails behind me. Or , leaving twin trails behind me. )
and see tiny ripples on the surface of the water, oh God! I reluctantly stick my hand into the freezing cold pond, I feel the bottom, but no bird. I swirl my hand around a little and at last I feel a warm bundle of feathers.
My frock is completely dry, and (I would use but here) then I feel weird tingling feeling erupting in the back of my neck, (you don't need a comma here 
but I can’t see it. I use the locket as a mirror and see a strange symbol tattooed into my neck. This wasn’t here before.
I loved it, I hope my edits are helpful!!!
I'm going to use these () with the edits I have in mind so you can see where it is in the story.
There is some trouble with tense in this paragraph, is it happening right now, or has it already happened?
It surrounded (if this is just happening change this to surrounds) me. Flowed (flows) into my mind. Pure, clear liquid covered (covers) me from head to toe. I open my eyes, sunshine and bubbles. That’s all I can see, for what seemed (seems) like miles and miles water was (is) stretched above me and every time I blinked (blink, I would also put a comma after blink : ) tiny bubbles of air would (if you take out 'would' you maintain the tense) float to the top.
The words you use are good and very descriptive, it's a very engaging opening, makes you wonder 'what's happening?' So I just wanted to say good job!
Now it pumped though my veins. My hair floated (floats) above me and engulfed (engulfs) my face. I slowly move my hands towards my body and feel the lace frock rub against my skin. I spread my arms, stretch my legs and push off the soft sand.
Again! Wonderful!
This first sentence could be re-written and I think you misspelled 'through'. I'll give you an example of how I might re-word it that you can use if you wish
I shot through the water, (this implies that it was so fast it just happened, whereas you have to use 'like a' which is best avoided when possible and shoot gives the imagery that it is still happening and since you end the sentence with water, it provokes an almost slow-motion picture of a bullet/person going through the water. This could be what you are going for
Like a bullet I shoot though the water. I look down and all I can see is my pale feet with ripples radiating out of (I would use between here rather than 'of' as it states more clearly what is happening rather than someone perhaps thinking... 'oh no, the water was toxic and she has radiation now!' assometimes when something should be obvious it isn't : ) my toes. I finally reach the top. I open my eyes, I can see. I can breathe. ‘Where the heck am I?’ I think to myself (instead of think to myself, you could make it a bit more simple and just use 'I wondered') , then the memories come flowing back.
Men. Water. Flooding. Cold. Darkness.
No colours, (colors XD) just black and white, and no warmth just coolness. Fresh water, I am drenched in fresh water. I look around and all I can see (you've used 'all I can see already, I would change it up a bit, maybe try "I look around and spot trees and rocks, that's it" ) is trees and rocks. My head hurts like crazy and every time I move my back aches.
I stand up, wipe my face with my hands and squeeze my hair dry. The grass is moist and squishes between my toes. Strange marks and scratches cover a large pine tree to my right. I gently slide my hand over them, they're fresh. (you could add 2 more dots for emphasis if you want)
I hear a faint rustle in the bushes on the other side of the water abyss. I freeze. (Instead of just going into the sound every time I would preface it a few times, Imagine "I can hear a steady, Drip, Drip, Drip.) Drip, drip, drip. Drops of cold water run down my bare leg, like (
this is a little incorrect, try putting 'the' in front of blood, or 'from' instead of 'of' ) blood of an open wound. Then nothing.
The drops (are) gone, the rusting is gone, the marks are gone. There’s nothing here, only a trail, a trail to nowhere. A trail led by long lemongrass and tiny toadstools. And the end, the end. Well, there isn't one.
I look back, nothing there. Do I have to? I take a few steps forward, and look back again. The trail has disappeared into the ground. Shock filled (fills) my body, as I watch the last few strands of lemongrass dissolve into nothing. I keep moving. My pace fastens. (I would combine these two, try "I keep moving, picking up my pace." does this sound better?) By the time the fright gets to my brain, I’m at a run. No, a sprint. I look back again, and the trail is disappearing as rapidly as my heart beat.
Thoughts cloud up in (I would omit 'in') my mind as an intense pain leaks into the left side of my torso. I slow down. I am at a steady walk now, and the excruciating pain starts to weaken. I look ahead of me and see something new, something (you repeat words a lot, it's a device that you use fairly well even most often writers avoid it, here however the word is "something" and I would think that you could say "something new, foreign.) foreign. I jog towards it, thats (that's) all my body will let me do. I see it! What the heck, it’s a pond.
Awesome, I love your writing style, you really capture how your character feels!
The bird chirped its merry song like everything was normal. I dip my toes into the pond, and as I fall back from the shock of the temperature I accidentally kick the bird off of its place on the pad. I quickly check to see if she’s alright, when I notice she is nowhere to be seen.
Did she fly away? Did she disappear? Suddenly I look down (would you really need to look down to notice? Weren't you just dipping your feet in... if you stood up when you looked for the bird you should write it out
I turn around and look back, still nothing. By now the bird is on top my head asleep in the bundle of knotty, brown hair, thrown up in a bun. (if you were swimming with your hair in a bun that would be a good thing to passingly mention a bit earlier
It’s some sort of Hamsa symbol. We learned about this at school, it means Hand of God, it’s a protective sign and I think it brings it's owner happiness, luck and health. Who did this? Why did they do it? I shake the bird off and catch it (You've established it's a girl so why not use 'her' rather than 'it') , I show her the tattoo, but she just shakes her head. Nothing else.
No one. No words. Nothing. Please, just any one, any thing. Now I think the loneliness is really getting to me, questions pop into my head left, right and centre. (center?)We need to follow this trail, we need to find someone before it’s too late.
Now, instead of food, all I can think about is civilisation (civilization) and getting out of this hellhole. Once again, I’m running away. Running away from nothing. I run until I’m not even concentrating and stumble along some stones. I look up and see an identical abyss to the one I woke up in.
I step towards the crumbling ground which meets the edge of the water. I peer into the large body of fresh water. On the sandy bottom, I can faintly see the silhouette of a boy. The next thing I know I am sinking like a stone towards the bottom. I hit the soft sand and realise (realize) who this person was.
I pull the locket open and compare the boy in the picture to this stranger. It was him, my protection. I grab his limp arm and pull him up towards the surface. A waft of fresh air hit (hits) us like a large boost of turbulence and as I look around I see the same tree, with the same marks, in the same place. This wasn’t just an identical abyss, this was the abyss.
Merry, chirping and flapping her wings one-hundred-miles-per-hour, the bird helped (helps) me pull the coughing and splattering boy to shore. Just as I’m examining his beautiful face, I come across a deep brown eye. A deep brown, open eye. I jump back with shock as he sits up-right. I am instantly calmed by the happy song of the bird and the reassurance of this boy.
‘Whoa, calm down there.’, he said (says) with a smirk, ‘My name’s Felix, thanks for helping. Hey, arghh whats your name again?’
‘Oh gosh, sorry. My name is Indigo, but you can call me Indi.’, I say tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
‘Indi.’, he said (says)once again with a cheeky side smirk, ‘So um, can I ask where the hell we are?’
‘Well the problem is that, I’m not too sure of that either. Oh and this,’ , I say pointing to the bird, ‘is…’, I haven’t even given her a name yet! ‘And this is Willow’
Willow gave (gives) a little tweet and shook (shakes) her tail, once again, as a sign of approval for her brand new name. Felix and I laugh in synchronisation, (synchronization ) which makes us laugh even harder. This is my protection. He, is my protection.
For what seemed like hours we sat on the bank of the abyss talking. Just talking. Talking about everything. About how I got here, about the trail, about Willow, about this whole situation.
‘Here, I have something for you. I found it in my pocket when you pulled me up.’, Felix said, pulling out a small box which read: ‘Zodic (Zodiac) Stones: Complete Set’. I open up the gold and turquoise box to find little grey stones with the zodiac symbol, and name underneath in an black rustic looking American Typewriter font.
(Why not try "We talk even longer, until Felix pulls out a necklace from around his neck that looks identical to mine." Does this sound easier to read?)
After a more and more talking Felix pulls out a necklace from around his neck, with what looked like an identical locket to the around mine. He tugs the locket open and shows me the inside, where there is a picture of me with the words ‘Find her’ are (are is incorrect here, and the sentence would be fine without it ) written across the bottom. My mouth open (opens) with shock, I pull out my locket and show the boy infant ( 'In front' is what I think you mean) of me his picture. Now we both have the same expression.
I really like your story!!!! It seems to end rather suddenly and I think you should rather just make this the first chapter and keep going with it