Published August 22, 2011
Her dainty, little hand lingered at the brass door handle, the other raised to her beating chest. She inhaled deeply before the rich timber door squeaked open, revealing the dim lit space inch by inch. First she saw the midnight blue walls; encoded with a paler floral pattern, followed by a handsome figure standing at the foot of the grand double bed, positioned in the centre of the room; his bowler hat resting on the suitcase at his side.
“The car's here,” she said cautiously in her soft voice, as if tiniest of sounds would bring down the walls around her. He simply nodded in return, putting his hat on his head and lifting the luggage from the carpeted floor. She stepped to the side, opening the door the widest it can go as his heavy footsteps approached her. Their eyes met for a split second when he passes; her glossy blues and his silvery greys. He studies her face before leaving, taking in the little details such as her luscious blond eyelashes and the faint freckles that speckled her nose. She closes the door behind him with a quiet thud.
The musky scent of the room enclosed in on her, devouring her senses. It smelt of him. She fought the urge to jump on the neatly made bed and mess it up; so it would be like be like he never left. Perhaps, she thought, I could just stay here, lie on his bed for a little while? And with that inkling of a thought, she made her way over to his favourite side of the bed, and carefully reclined as not to completely crumple the sheets.
There she stays for what she feels might have been days, drifting in and out of dreams. Dreams and memories. They clouded her vision and senses, and she starts to remember the heat of sun and the complexion of the beggar children that lined the streets of her family’s neighbourhood. But it was a voice; one voice that lead her from the lost memories of her childhood, into the nightmares of his eyes. Only nightmares due to that she would only ever see them once more; at the end. This she knew. This she could not change. But this is not what drove her mad.
What drove her mad was the small, yet ever evident whisper, that echoed in her head. It did not belong to her, and was neither a memory nor a dream. But it stayed, and resited the verses of list. A list that was forever changing. A list that was never ending. A list of names.
A list from death.
..
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138,403 Literary Works • 672,114 Reviews
helloo! A lovely bite-sized snippet of an opener (I like short things - I think we're going to get on swimmingly
) with some really intriguing descriptions and ideas being started here. Nice, nice, nice.
I wouldn't be me if I didn't go through your piece with my irritatingly fine tooth-comb - as well as my obsessive attention to grammatical detail - so I apologise in advance for the minute-ness of what I'm about to bring to your attention xD
It's the second half of this that snagged a little as I was reading - for me, I would find it better if you phrased it like this:
"She inhaled deeply before the rich timber door squeaked open, revealing the dimly lit space inch by inch."
Otherwise, beautifully descriptive!
It took me a while to decide with myself where I like to use commas and semi-colons, so this suggestion might not feel right to you but I'll propose it anyway because I personally feel it would help this read better. As it is, I get the sense that you're a little unsure of when exactly to use a semi-colon but want to use them, so here's an idea of what I'd do:
"First she saw the midnight blue walls - encoded with a paler floral pattern - followed by a handsome figure standing at the foot of the grand double bed, positioned in the centre of the room; his bowler hat rested on the suitcase at his side."
(In case you're confused with the semi-colon - and I really don't want to sound patronising because otherwise, your writing is so mature - it's basically halfway between a comma and a full stop, so the phrase after the semi-colon should work as a sentence in its own right, but the semi-colon just makes it clear that it is linked to the previous sentence. Did I explain that OK?)
Firstly, you need an apostrophe in "car's"; secondly, did you realise that you flit between present and past tenses like a butterfly? Hahaha... I do that myself, when the pace of the story changes in my head and it suddenly feels more up-front. Just make sure you decide which tense you want to use, and get it all in that tense
Again, the semi-colon. I think plain old commas would work just fine here, otherwise it feels a little TOO broken up.
Tense issues again
"due"? This sentence doesn't make that much sense to me... could you help me out?
Woah, sorry if that's kind of heavy on the details. But honestly, for something as high calibre as this, it's the details that make it. I definitely want to follow this as it progresses... keep me up to date, promise??
~*cottonrulz*~
Hi there!
This is a good start. It seems like a good prolouge to a novel. You have good imagery and really get into the main character's head. You wrote it very well and kept me reading through to the end. There weren't any spelling or grammer errors that I found.
Overall this is a great start. I can't wait to read what happens next! Keep writing!