Wordlessly, Gray exhaled another cloud of black smoke, which filled up nearly the entire room.
The moon was staring at him through the windows. He glanced down at his hands to see the skin bluer than it had been during the day.
As he flipped his hands over a few times, a rip formed on the back of his left hand. Black poured out of it.
“Did I trust him?” Gray questioned himself, staring at the black blood.
For a long while, he didn’t move. The vast, desolate silence settled into him softly, whispering, reassuring.
Then he brought the bleeding hand to his eyes and whispered back; “Yes, I did.”
* * *
Faint sunlight broke through the old, dusty windows.
Gray struggled up from the cold spot, where he had been sitting in front of the door. He glanced at his hand, and saw that the rip from the wound before was slowly closing. Even as he watched, the wound completely sealed. Yet, the skin around it was now black.
Three knocks on the door reached his ears. Gray pulled the door open to see Ispen standing in front of him, fist still raised. She smiled hesitantly. “I thought you would be still sleeping,” she told him. “I mean, you used to…”
Blinking, Gray stared at Ispen. “I don’t sleep,” he responded.
“What do you mean, you don’t—“ realization slammed into Ispen’s face like a blow from a hammer. Her eyes quivered, then hardened. She stepped into the room and slammed the door behind her. “Viska, I want to talk to you,” she began. Her fists were clenched by her sides.
“Ispen, I’m Gray. Not Viska,” Gray responded quietly, stepping back to provide her with more space.
Ispen raised her hand and struck him across his face.
There was no pain, yet Gray reflexively backed away a step. He glanced at Ispen to see her eyes nearly overflowing with tears. “You’ve always been so selfish,” she seethed. “But how dare you cast that spell. How dare you—how dare you forget.”
“It wasn’t my choice,” Gray replied quietly.
“Well, I don’t care. If you were going to come back like this, you shouldn’t have come back at all!” Ispen screamed. Her face was already glistening wet with tears. “I despise you. And I will until world caves into hell. You know why?”
Gray shook his head.
Still crying, Ispen grabbed the collar of Gray’s shirt and slammed him into the wall. “It was a book,” she began. Her voice was forcibly compressed into calmness. “I found it in the royal library just a few hours ago. And it said—do you know what it said?”
Again, Gray shook his head.
Ispen’s head sank down to her chest. “The spell doesn’t take away memories,” she said, laughing with wide eyes. “It doesn’t. It isn’t meant to. It isn’t meant to. It was never meant to.”
“Does it matter now?” Gray asked quietly.
A long, cold silence passed. “I can’t believe that I ever welcomed you,” finally, Ispen murmured back. Her voice was dry. “And no. It doesn’t.”
Slowly, Gray took Ispen’s hands off of himself. “I feel that it’ll be better for us to end our relation here,” he told her. Then he glanced down at where their hands met. Blue against human skin. He quickly brushed Ispen away. “It’ll only disturb us both.”
For a while, Ispen was silent.
“You know,” she, at last, said. “I think that you remember me. But you’re just trying not to. And it’s working.”
“Ispen.”
“Rubera,” she snapped.
Instantly, Gray felt something change. His mouth instantly filled with foul-tasting blood, and his tongue suddenly felt much lumpier. “What,” He tried to speak, yet found that he couldn’t, just like himself, sitting on that black cliff. He coughed a few times, blood spilling out of his mouth.
He looked at Ispen. She looked at him.
“Die, Gray,” she whispered hoarsely. “I want nothing about me on you. You’re right. You’re not Viska. You’re just a corpse. Die for me.”
In that very moment, Gray felt as if his heart was supposed to torture him, squeeze, skip a beat; yet it didn’t. It remained cold.
Trembling, Ispen wiped away the last remains of her tears. With visible difficulty, she twisted up the corners of her lips. “You selfish son of a bitch,” she chuckled emptily, and stumbled out of the room.
Right after she did so, Gray frantically reached for the pipe that he had temporarily abandoned on his bed. He inhaled, exhaled. Inhaled, exhaled. Soon enough, black smoke surrounded him once more.
The door opened behind him. He didn’t bother to turn.
“We’re leaving,” Fell’s voice said. “Your majesty says that you can leave without farewell.” There was a painfully long pause. “So come out of there,” he finally finished, and softly shut the door.
Gray’s lips twitched. He staggered over to the bed, and sank down onto it. He closed his eyes tightly and pressed his palms into them.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
125,008 Literary Works • 672,830 Reviews
And here I am again!
I'm appreciating that we're digging more into Gray's and Ispen's emotions (or, lack thereof) in this chapter. We've not had a lot of access to these interior thoughts or emotions throughout the novel so far, so it feels good to finally get some of that!
On the other hand, because we've been kept at an arm's length from these characters and their interior lives for pretty much the entire novel thus far, we as readers feel little or no connection to them now. I don't feel bad for Gray or Ispen in this moment. I'm not even sure who I'm supposed to be sympathizing with here (and it clearly has to be someone; the scene is structuring itself to create a "winner" and a "loser" even if both characters are partly the "loser"). At this point I don't care what happens to anyone in this novel. I don't know any of these people, I don't really know what the stakes are (past some vague guess-work), and I don't know what their world is like. If I had pulled this novel from the shelf of a library or bookstore, I would have stopped reading.
Luckily, though, this is not the case! I'm not reading this book on my own leisure reading time, I'm reading it on YWS where I can offer you my reactions and insights so that you may continue to hone your craft and create this story.
The main issue, I think, is that lack of sympathetic connection to the characters. We simply don't know how they're experiencing the world around them, which is our primary method of sympathizing with characters in fiction. They don't have to act or think or feel the same ways we do, but we have to be able to look at those actions or thoughts or feelings and understand them in our real world context. If we can understand how they're navigating their worlds, we're able to connect to them and cheer for them.
Now, this doesn't mean we want to see every other sentence as "Viska thought..." or "Viska was sad" or "Ispen was really angry at Viska". You can, of course, do those things and tell us directly what the characters are feeling (whether you're saying something like "this upset Viska" or showing us a physical reaction that we can attach to the emotion "upset" based on our own personal experience in the world). There are plenty of other ways to express a character's interiority, though, too. Such as using the setting to reflect a characters mood ("on a dark and stormy night" is a very classic, rather cliche example of this; we can tell the character we meet is going to resemble that dark and stormy night on some level) or by using objects to reflect the ways a character is feeling (A door slamming to indicate frustration, a window rattling to suggest fear or anxiety). Oftentimes we have characters who are just not going to grant us access to their interior selves for some reason or another (they might be unreliable, they might not be able to speak or think in ways we would understand, etc) and these are effective ways to give us a sense of interiority without actually having that character tell us how they feel.
In this novel, though, you have the awesome benefit of an omniscient third person point of view. You're not restricted to whose head you can get into, and so you have so many outlets to use to tell us about these characters. Characters can tell us about themselves as well as about each other, and give us that stronger connection to them as people.
tl;dr: as I continue to read this novel I feel myself lacking any sort of concern for what happens to the characters I am reading about which is a result of minimal/no access to the interior lives of these characters.
Thanks so much for sharing, and definitely keep writing! I'm interested to see where this goes next.
-Lauren-
Thank you so much for your review!
As I read it, yes, I feel that I should definitely fix that issue... I wanted to focus more on the small things as I wrote this, like each individual, not kingdoms and big things... if you get what I mean?
Well, let's go past that for a moment. By now I realize that it was a big fail, but I was trying to convey emotions and clues about those interior thoughts with the character's small actions. Or the lack of emotional actions. Gray's a character who's, to say, gray. I wanted to give him that sort of gray feeling that would make him feel disconnected from the world, kind of like concrete... I feel like I miserably failed, yes. Now I realize it's a bad thing that you're not able to care about the characters.
Thanks anyway for your review, and I really mean it! It's helping me along so much. I'll try to go back and make some changes about the things that you pointed out.
Mephis
I think that all the work you've already done is a really great foundation, so don't get me wrong! I get what you're saying about Gray being disconnected, and I think that's a really interesting thing to aim for as well (though I think there are ways the reader can feel connected to Gray without Gray seeming connected to the world). The good thing is I want to care about these characters, so you're already doing so much good work! With a little push, it'll be right there where it ought to be.
Not a bad write in the least. If anything, i found what was happening in this piece to be rather intriguing. But I have to wonder. Is this a chapter or a prologue or some sort? I can't really tell. It felt like a prologue by the way you wrote it, but the title doesn't say so. Nonetheless, I spotted some errors that I think you should go back and fix.
1.) 'Then he brought the bleeding hand to his eyes and whispered back; “Yes, I did.”
I doubt that there should even be a semi colon there in the first place. I would suggest rewriting it into something like this:
'He then brought the a bleeding hand to his eyes and whispered back, "Yes, I did." or even: 'He brought the bleeding hand to his eyes. "Yes, I did," he whispered back.
2.) 'You’ve always been so selfish,” she seethed. “But how dare you cast that spell. How dare you—how dare you forget.”
I'm sure that there's supposed to be a question mark at the end of question after 'forget'?
3.) 'Her face was already glistening wet with tears. “I despise you. And I will until world caves into hell. You know why?”
There should be 'the' after 'until' and I think you should get rid of the period after 'you'. So 'I despise you and I will until the world caves in hell. You know why?'
Or something like that.
4.) 'A long, cold silence passed. “I can’t believe that I ever welcomed you,” finally, Ispen murmured back.
The last bit should be changed into something like 'Ispen finally murmured back. It sounds awful when you read it out loud.
5.) '“You know,” she, at last, said. “I think that you remember me. But you’re just trying not to. And it’s working.”
You should change the beginning. Go with 'You know,' she said at last.' Again, the arrangement of the words sounds horrible when you read it out loud.
6.) 'In that very moment, Gray felt as if his heart was supposed to torture him, squeeze, skip a beat; yet it didn’t. It remained cold.
Try rewriting this into something like this: In that very moment, Gray felt as if his heart was set to torture him. To squeeze or skip a beat (You should also describe this more because I don't see how this would even be pain or 'torture' for anybody'). Yet it didn't. It remained cold.
7.) “You selfish son of a bitch,” she chuckled emptily, and stumbled out of the room."
There shouldn't be a comma after 'and'. Still, it's a very awesome read and I enjoyed it very much. Great job on this! -IceWinifredd
This chapter is promising and full of conflict.
My review:
The only issue is that everything is happening so fast that the reader has no time or knowledge of the characters emotions to feel what the characters are feeling.
In the first line, is the smoke that he exhales the one that fills up the whole room or had the room already been filled with the smoke he previously exhaled? A little punctuation can make it clearer.
e.g. "Wordlessly, Gray exhaled another cloud of black smoke, which filled up nearly the entire room."
Instead try: ' Wordlessly, Gray exhaled another cloud of black smoke. The entire room was nearly filled to the brim with it.
- Semi colons are not necessary here: " whispered back; “Yes, I did.” instead: " whispered back, “Yes, I did.”
- At the end of the chapter Gray staggered to his bed. In the beginning of the chapter, Gray was seated on the chair. As a reader, it is confusing how the changed setting from chair to bed occurred. If the bed had already been there, you could mention it as you are describing the room.
- At the end of the chapter we hear Fells voice. As the reader, we did not know that Fell was within hearing distance or anywhere near the scene so it comes as a surprise to see dialogue from Fell.
Hope this work. I know this story has potential to be an emotional ride, you are getting there.