There is only one path, so I suppose I should be happy that I’m not going to get lost, but I would still love to be able to breathe again. The entire tunnel was carved out of stone and mud. I heard dad say that it goes on for miles, but I can’t believe that.
Somewhere off in the distance, I hear the echo of screams reverberating off of the low ceiling. What is this place? It’s one thing to hear this kind of thing when you are unwillingly forced into it, but I followed my parents.
Mom walks confidently in front, followed closely by dad and me. She walks quickly with long strides towards an intersection. She goes left, leading us through a short hallway and into an open room. The lighting dramatically increases, revealing a good twenty people working around tables and machines.
“Josh,” she shouts.
A middle-aged man looks up from a table and smiles, for a moment, and then he sees Beth.
“What happened?” he asks, sounding genuinely worried.
He stands up and quickly walks over to us. He takes one look at Sparrow and says, “You need help, now.”
He takes Beth from dad’s arms and lays her down on a metal table. Dad leans in and whispers something into his ear, causing Josh to nod slowly. Mom walks over and pulls up Beth’s skirt, revealing her wounds on her lower thigh.
Someone bumps my shoulder by accident and apologizes, but I don’t really hear them. I’m a bit busy at the moment. Where are we? This “Josh” draws a small amount of blood from Beth’s arm and gives it to another man in his twenties. A brunette comes in with a bottle of something or other and starts swabbing Beth’s brand mark.
A hand taps my shoulder and I shrug it off. I have more important things to worry about. They’re taking her temperature and removing the fabric we tied around her leg. The hand taps my shoulder again, this time more forcefully. I don’t care, leave me alone. I push it away. They are rubbing cream on her wrists and ankles, probably-
“Excuse me, you have to leave,” says a female voice.
I turn away from Beth to see a short redhead staring at me with raised eyebrows.
“I, um, my parents are-”
“Yes, I know, but you can’t stay in here.”
She’s young, maybe twenty three. Why can’t I stay in here? Where am I supposed to go?
“Come on, I’m sure you would like some coffee and something to eat,” she says more forcefully.
Instead of waiting for me to stammer out another excuse, she grabs my arm and pulls me out of the cavern and into the hall again. I pull away.
“What are you doing?” I finally shout.
“Civilians aren’t allowed inside the hospital areas. Now follow me or I’ll have to drag your parents away from their patient to do it,” she orders.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,781 Reviews
Okay, hello again!
Firstly the spelling and grammar.
Remember to keep the tense constant. In your first paragraph, you have a quick detour into the past tense which is not correct.
You have the word "twenty-three" without a hyphen in your fifteenth paragraph.
Your last paragraph does not make complete sense to me.
“Civilians aren’t allowed inside the hospital areas. Now follow me or I’ll have to drag your parents away from their patient to do it,” she orders.
To do what? That needs some rephrasing.
The chapter content:
Firstly, I agree with Snoink that the chapter needs to be longer and end with some sort of resolution. I cannot argue with the overall shape and the balance of the climaxes, though. Very well done.
On the whole novel so far:
By now, the reader ought to have at least some sense of the character's character. All that the reader is getting from Emma, is a girl acting out of shock and confusion, so they have no idea of her real behaviour under normal circumstances. We know very little of the world she is in, because you started off with the whole disruption of her daily life. There has been very little that goads her out of her contemplative silence, and, as Snoink said, she is acting a little unconcerned and detached.
Okay! Grammar nitpicks first!
In each of these sentences, you say "dad" and it's uncaptialized. But that's incorrect. It should be capitalized because it's a formal title. For instance, if you were to write:
"My dad is awesome!"
...that wouldn't be a problem because you're pointing out that your dad is awesome. No title. But, when you say:
"Did you know that Dad ate a mashmellow, flames and all?"
...that would be capitalized. It's his formal title.
The second clause here doesn't seem to match the first clause.
You said "someone" and then you say "them." This is grammatically wrong because you use a singular and then describe them as a plural. It sounds weird.
Okay, I'm done with grammar! Now, content.
Hm. I think this is too short! This chapter, unlike the other chapter endings, doesn't really resolve itself or anything. She doesn't leave, she doesn't stand off to face the person trying to take her off... she doesn't really do anything, and that's why the resolution seems a bit weird. End with something that she does! It'll seem better that way.
Also... she doesn't seem to mind at all about being led to this strange secret hiding place. If she understands where she is going, I can imagine that she might not be afraid, but for all she knows, they might be doing some scary experimentation on Sparrow, or something like that. After all, it seems like her parents usually don't go into secret walls or anything like that. Wouldn't she be a bit concerned? And I think she would be really concerned if they told her to leave... I mean, if it's going to be that bad so that she can't see it, what exactly is going on? That sort of idea. So I would definitely see if I could draw this off and make it more exciting.
Keep writing!!!