Chapter 9 - Control
Days went by, growing colder, shorter. The leaves covered with a thin sheet of glimmering ice, and the wind made deep scratches on their smooth surface as frozen snowflakes twirled within it. The skies lost colour and sheltered with clouds, allowing the sun to illuminate them for counted hours of the day. However, there was always something beautiful about the turn of the season, for Renjin at least.
He woke up completely oblivious to the day and hour, and slightly confused about his location. But, after a quick glance around the room, he instantly regained the memory of how he got there. The smell of antiseptic seemed to prevail around him, it was largely quiet and peaceful apart from the occasional footsteps outside. The room was white all over, so was the bed that he lay on. There was an armchair next to the bed, and small bedside table with aspirin pills and a glass of water. He felt comfortable and warm, moreover safe, slightly drowsy from the ten-hour sleep. His cheek still felt hot and swollen, his arm numb and stomach sore, but all in a lesser degree than the day before. He reached over to the table with an arm that he could still move without difficulty, and picked up the aspirin pill. The wind scratched against the window, the world outside immersed in a pre-winter storm. Renijn sat up, and hid his arms beneath the blanket, patiently waiting for a visitor that would soon enough appear in, surely enough, an overly worried state. But, Renjin already knew what he was going to tell him. During his stay in the hospital, he had plenty of time to think.
He heard fast approaching footsteps outside the room, and sighed to prepare himself for the lecture that was to follow. Risedo marched in, and seated himself, without uttering a single word yet. Renjin did his best to look guilty, even though he didn't really think himself as such.
''What in the world happened to you?'', Risedo said with slight pity, observing the bruises on his face.
Renjin struggled to answer the question because he didn't know where to start. The whole week up until now, despite an effort many would call incredible, the 'team' made very little progress. They sometimes found themselves simply staring blankly at their notes, at their watches, watching time drag past, time that ended up wasted. The murders had stopped, and criminals that had felt Odilia's omniscience protecting them now also disappeared into the shadows and their fake identities. A statement had been released that Odilia was suffering from a difficult disease, to stop gossip from spreading, even though it hadn't yet. For everyone outside the Anthill, everything was back to normal - most of the population knew nothing about the murders at all. The main problem had been outlined by Renjin back at the Anthill: there was no way to find witnesses or evidence for a case so secretive. Nevertheless, not one of them accepted their helplessness, and found faults in 'the system' or others to shield their frustration at themselves. No one had mentioned it, but the idea of them being 'next' wasn't impossible. Surely enough, the technique of witholding anger wasn't going to work.
As for Renjin, he would wake up screaming in the night on occasion, suffering from nightmarish visions of him being in jail on false accusation, or his lifeless body in a fountain, in his fist clenching a small ruby... He tried as much as possible to resume a life just like he had before, and many that knew him didn't notice a change in him. Neither did Renjin, at first. He walked the streets to the Old Temple, to calm himself, to feel the cool breeze, taking just one glance at the faces of the bypassers, and somewhere deep inside, it angered him how everyone could be so calm, moreover happy. He would work deep into the night, going over the notes that he made again and again, trying to come up with solutions until each one sounded ridiculous.
''Well, I've been really out of touch lately'', Renjin finally spoke.
''That's an underestimation, I'm guessing.''
''Look, it's no big deal. I was returning from the Old Temple, and some guy tried to rob me. He got what he asked for. I tried to run, but saw no other option.''
Risedo clasped his hands, and shook his head in disappointment.
''Does it look bad? I haven't seen myself in the mirror since I got here'', Renjin asked quickly to cut Risedo off from scolding him.
''Your face is badly bruised. I'm guessing the injuries don't end there, but you won't show me because you don't want me to be worried.''
Renjin took a moment to word what he was going to say, but figured there was no way to make it seem any less serious:
''My shoulder's twisted and the guy tried to slash my stomach open. He failed, thankfully.''
Risedo let out a deep, sorrowful sigh.
''How do you feel?''
''Glad you're here. Glad I'm not worse than this. I can't feel my other arm, I haven't moved it for about a day, the food is terrible and...''
''That's not what I mean.''
Risedo reached deep into his pocket, and pulled out a small, transparent and unopened bottle of green, round pills.
''I'm in control, Risedo. I told you that many times. You can't blame me for self-defense.''
''How badly injured is the robber?'', Risedo asked, placing the bottle on the bedside table.
''...He needs the hospital more than I do, that's for sure. He'll live, though. I did not lose my temper.''
''Did you not?''
Renjin clenched his teeth, and said once again:
''I told you. This is the thing Daniel can use to destroy my career and life. I cannot let him know about it. He probably already figured out why you're buying Seroquel when you're not the one with anger management issues.''
''He did indeed. But, he doesn't have solid proof until he gets hold of your medical record, and that is confidential even for him.''
''But he has access to my criminal record, doesn't he?''
''He won't use that against you.''
Renjin raised his eyebrows in surprise:
''How do you know?''
''I just... I just do, that's all you need to know for now, Renjin.''
''Oh, fine, you'll just keep it in secret?'', RJ asked, giving the judge the disappointed look.
''It's for the best. Trust me.''
Risedo leaned onto the side of the bed, now staring at the floor. He hadn't moved from the bed in hours, yet somehow felt worn out by the pain.
''Are you going to be okay?'', Risedo asked.
''Of course. You need to be somewhere. Go.''
''I've asked Anna to come see you. Maybe Daniel will come at one point, who knows. Will you take the pills?''
''I appreciate that you worry about me, but I'm not sixteen anymore.''
Risedo lifted himself slowly from his seat, and said his goodbyes. As he exited the hospital, an odd feeling of worry had overcome him, though the supposed 'worst' had already happened.
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139,616 Literary Works • 672,626 Reviews
Hey there; here to review!
You've got a pretty solid chapter here; I shall have to go back and read the previous ones later, because now I'm curious as to what's going on. Now, for the critiques:
First off, there was a pretty big punctuation error throughout the story.
The comma should be inside the quotation marks; like I said, this error is repeated throughout the story, so you might want to proofread for those.
The rhythm in this piece seemed a little forced; it starts off with a nice bit of setting description, but the conversation between between Risedo and Renjin seems forced somehow. It doesn't have the absorbing quality that the opening paragraph had. The dialogue itself is alright -- though it could use some work -- but some of the actions/additions outside the dialogue seem to slow down the flow, partly because you use a lot of standard wording: "Renjin raised his eyebrows in surprise" and "Risedo let out a deep, sorrowful sigh." I'm not saying you have to use a bunch of funky words, but this is a case of showing instead of telling. Color the emotion behind their actions instead of just generalizing it, and chances are it'll be more eye-catching.
Also, you use the name RJ in this line:
I'm guessing it's supposed to say Renjin?
I can't really comment much on the plot at this point, as I don't know what's going on, but you've managed to write a chapter that stands solidly on its own. I could get a grasp of what was going on without actually having a backstory, which is sometimes a hard thing to pull off.
Overall, you have a pretty good chapter here, and it has definitely made me want to read the previous chapters.
Keep up the good work!
Looks good! But I'd make a change to the way the chapter is structured.
Right now, it begins with a lot of description. A lot of description. It seemed somewhat overbearing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either. A lot of works in this genre are structured similarly.
But, I'd still try to cut some of it down some. By this point, the reader should already be well familiar with what's going on, so repeating the events are more likely to bore the reader than to inform them. Indeed, this is written more as a first chapter than as chapter 9.
Regarding the dialogue, check out this article by beckiw:
Writing good dialogue
Right now, your dialogue has no emotion or feel to it. Here's a world-weary warrior, and he's talking like someone who's bored in gym class.
Getting dialogue right is extremely tough, but for right now I'd focus on cutting down the perfect English. Have your characters talk in slang a little bit. You could drop their g's, have them swear some, or yell uncontrollably. Have some fun with it!
Howdy. I'm here to review your work for Review Day. Now, I can't remember which previous chapter I had a crack at, but this one is much better. Would it be at all possible for you to just delete that other chapter? This is the kind of stuff people want to read.
Continuity: You mention Renjin doesn't know the day or hour, but you say he likes the season... o.o And then you mention he feels safe from his 10 hour sleep. How did he know he was asleep for 10 hours if he didn't know the time. I feel like you're weaving in and out from between Renjin's point of view and omni present narrator. You have to choose one and stick to it. To clarify, you mention the turning of the season, and that Renjin like it, but then he just wakes up.
Realism: Now that I know Risedo is a judge, I can only question the realism of your piece. A true judge is laden down, burdened with work. There really wouldn't be time for him to visit someone in the hospital, even if it were a client. In fact, a judge would be warned against visiting someone he precided over.
Story-telling via dialogue: You need to be careful here. If the reader has already read about Renjin's travels and what he's done, would they really need to, or want to, read about it again via a condensed death by dialogue speech?
Time travel: I stopped reading reading (as in, at this point I knew I'd stop reading and just start scanning) when you said:
If this is a summary of what the reader already knows, this is terrible. If this is an introduction of what has happened because you didn't take the time to write about it beforehand, this is terrible. You can't afford to alienate your readers by travelling back and forth in time. Try and make your story linear so readers can follow it without having to think back a week ago, so on and so forth.
Hope this helps somewhat.
- jhoi