Young Writers Society

Adeline and Claudia are the same person. Adeline calls herself Claudia because it’s her “Pirate name”. Alanna doesn’t want to call her Claudia, but Caden doesn’t mind.

hello again! I remember liking these characters in the last stories you posted, so I'm glad to see they've made a return!

Alanna's naivety certainly shines through in this particular tale. Yes, she loves Caden but it's a very blind love, where she just doesn't seem to see anything wrong with him. I can kind of agree with her assessment that's she's a monster. I can't remember much about her character from before, but it definitely feels like her love for Caden has foolishly surpassed everything else including whatever moral compass she might have had before.

Caden is a more interesting character. I can't help but feel that he's playing her, because I can't actually imagine he's considering her feelings but that remains to be seen from the following parts.

Thanks for pinning the part about Claudia/Adeline being the same person. I found that hard to follow until I saw your note but will try and remember it for the next part.

Hope this was helpful!

Icy

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm Kate and I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression

Well looks like Alanna in her afterlife is still in love with Caden there and doesn't consider him eating her as a bad thing. Well that was not a turn I was expecting but a lovely twist it happens to be.

Anyway let's get right to: Kate's Line by Line Reactions;

The afterlife in the cave was cold and desolate. Adeline wasn’t the same, she insisted that she was destined for the “pirate life”. Caden wasn't the same, he was a thirteen-foot tall half human, half kraken sea monster, and Alanna…

Alanna didn’t know who she was anymore. She still loved Caden, without a doubt. She didn’t mind sending people over for him to eat, even if they were children.

Sometimes, she wondered if she was more a monster than Adeline and Caden. Shenever wanted to let him go. Likewise, he never let her or Adeline leave.

No. That couldn’t be it. She wasn’t a monster. She was merely in love. Any girl would do the same in her position.

She walked up to the dark mass that was Caden. He was hiding in the shadows, so she couldn’t see his full form, but she could that it was him from his towering silhouette. She had to ask him something important, something that was scratching at her brain for some time.

“Caden?” Alanna asked.

“Yes?” Caden asked, his green eyes glittering inquisitively. His throat was slightly guttural from the blood of his victims that clotted inside, but she could still hear his honey-laced voice underneath all of the grime.

He was just so perfect, so divine, so wonderful! Why, she’d do anything to see his flesh-ridden grin again!

She’d do anything, and that was why she had to ask.

“What made you a monster?” Alanna asked.

Caden sighed. Most days, he didn’t want to talk about it. Alanna hoped that she hadn’t made a mistake, but then, he said:

“The drink. The one Adeline gave me, remember?”

“Yes, but was there something more?”

“Why do you want to know?” Caden asked, his voice growing more hostile by the second. She didn’t flinch one bit, for nothing he could do would kill her. After all, he already ate her alive. What more harm could be done?

“Because I want to help.” Alanna said.

She couldn’t fear him, even after all that happened. It would ruin what their love was for, and destroy his trust. He didn’t deserve that.

“Well…there was a blond-haired, blue eyed man named Adonis. He always wore thin, cotton-blue clothes. But that’s a vague description. It’s all I remember about him. I saw Adonis in my dreams, and he always wanted me to “drink something”. “

She saw his tentacles sift into the darkness. He couldn’t shrink himself anymore with his height, but she knew that he still tried to.

Only when he wasn’t hungry, that was. He only came out of the darkness to hug her with his tentacles or eat. Other times, he’d hide. Adeline never talked, she guarded a treasure chest that she stole long ago, desperately hanging on to some kind of joy.

If she helped him, would he come out? Would he be less frightened of himself?

“Caden, why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

Caden hesitated. He didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to, it wasn’t his responsibility.

But she’d like for him to. She wanted reassurance that he wasn’t just a being that ate and then lived in fear. She wanted to know that he felt more than hunger and fright.

She wanted to know that he was still there.

“I didn’t want to bother you or Claudia.” Caden said.

Alanna sighed. Of course he didn’t. It was just in his nature for him to think that his feelings would bother them. It took a curse for him to start talking more, and even then, he still preferred to rot away with the mildew-scented bodies that were lodged in the cavern walls, that gave the stench of unholiness.

She always believed in love growing up.

She always believed that a girl or a woman should give their all to the ones they were in love with, because if they didn’t, it would all come crashing down. Everything was better if the love was tender, like the meat of the victims Caden would feast on.

It wasn’t his fault that he became a monster. Adonis, whoever he was, cursed them all. Caden needed to be saved, and she was the one who would save him, just like she did since she was a small child.

“You could never bother any of us. I’m going to find Adonis, and I’ll bring him to you so that he can pay.” Alanna said.

“Thank you, but you’ll never find him.” Caden said with a smile. A smile with bits and pieces of human meat, some of them being her own, coupled with dried blood and the stench of maggots laying waste in his mouth.

But still, she felt a flutter in her chest where her heart used to be.

He was pale, gaunt, and corpse-looking. The bottom half of him was black tentacles drenched in slick water, like the surface of oily skin when someone was close to death. His long, black hair was knotted and mangled with lobsters that looked like minuscule fish in his locks. He had blood streaked on his bare chest, none of it being his own. She kept the details ingrained in her mind, and was reminded of them whenever he smiled, because it showed that underneath it all, there was somebody hiding in the shadows.

He used to be so squeamish of everything. He was still as loving as he was when he was human, he was just made into something that he wasn’t. He was forced to be a monster. They all were. It was the only way they knew to survive.

And damnit, she wasn’t going to feel sorry about it. She was going to do what she could to make him feel good about himself again. Maybe one day she’d be able to talk to Adeline again, but it’d be one step at a time.

She was going to fix it all.