“If only, if only,” she sighed, looking around the small, life-less room and wishing for something to do. A small gust of wind ruffled the faded blue curtain, the only activity in the room.
“If only I could get away. If only there were something to do in this god-forsaken town. If only I were anywhere but here.” Her voice came out as a saddened song full of homesickness. The quiet was beginning to take its toll on her. Letting out a longwinded sigh, she sat up in bed and dropped her feet to the cold hardwood floor. One last look at the room, her eyes flicking over two band posters, a light fixture about to fall out of the ceiling, a bed that was on its last life, and a full-length black framed mirror. Her eyes stopped for a moment on the mirror and the girl looking back at her. Ivy-green eyes, messy chocolate brown hair cut medium length, and an average body build.
'Normal and boring, just like my life.' she thought dolefully. Turning her back to the mirror, she left the room and shut the door behind her with a quiet click. She flew down the stairs and upon reaching the bottom, slipped on her shoes before heading to the back door.
“Where do you think you're going?” an angry voice sounded behind her. She turned quickly to find Colton behind her, impatiently awaiting an answer with a heated look upon his face. “For a walk” she said, her voice barely breaking a whisper. He shot her a disapproving glare before muttering “be back before dark. I mean it.” she nodded and nearly bolted out the door.
The backyard lead straight to woods. There was just enough light shining through the dense trees to see the ground ahead of her. Taking one last look at the old house behind her, with its sloping foundation and rotting wood, she began walking through the thick undergrowth that covered the ground beneath her feet. She listened carefully for wild animals that she knew frequented the area. About fifteen minutes into her walk she came across a creek in a fairly well light area. Bending down, she let her fingers feel the current of the water, the gentle waves washing over her hot skin with ease. Her fingers glided across slick rocks which littered the bottom of the shallow creek. She smiled as the water ran between her open fingers.
Suddenly, she noticed a massive black dog across the water. His fur was black as night, matted in some places, with large slate grey eyes clashed with his otherwise midnight face. He sat, staring at her. His paws, she noticed, where monstrous in proportion to his body, with sharp, jagged claws protruding from the tips of them. After a few moments of nothing but the sound of the creek to accompany the two, he looked straight up into the sky and let out a loud, chilling howl that seemed to drag by the slow seconds. He then looked back to her before slowly rising, turning, and ambling away. She sat, transfixed, and watched him go.
He took no more than ten steps before turning his head round and gazing straight at her. “Well aren't you coming?” he asked in a honey-coated voice. She gasped and sat, rooted in place. She had heard his voice, clear as day, though his mouth had not moved.
I must be hearing things. There’s just…no…there’s just no way.
“Come, girl. I haven't got all day you know.” and at that, he began to walk away once more. She struggled to choke out something, anything; but the words were stuck in her throat. I must be mad. Mesmerized, she stood and began to follow him into the woods.
* * *
After a lot of walking, or so it had seemed though the sun had not changed its position in the sky, the odd couple came across a huge tree in a clearing. The girl gazed at the dog from time to time, his massive size making her nervous but feeling somehow safe. His gaze, however, never deviated from his set path. Claw marks from various wild animals ran down its front, and a single bird sat atop one of the branches not far above them. The bird chirped three times in a rhythmic pattern to which the dog responded with a long, deep howl. The bird left its branch and began to twitter in a high-pitched tone that made the girl want to knock it out of the sky to shut it up. She began to wince at the ear-splitting noise as it continued to rise in pitch to an almost unbearable level.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, the tree began to quiver and cracks began to run up its roots and round its trunk in the shape of a doorway. At the sight of this, the bird immediately ceased all noise and landed on a neighboring branch to watch. She stood, amazed, as a nearly perfect cut of a doorway appeared out of nowhere on the tree before her. The dog just sat, staring, without a change in demeanor as though this was just another piece of his daily routine.
The girl peered cautiously into the tree's new doorway. The dog sat beside her, still staring straight ahead.
“This could be your escape.” The sound of his voice made her jump.
“Escape?” she asked in a timid voice. “Why would I need an escape?”
Her voice showed the very edges of her suspicion. She knew very well why she needed one, and even better how badly, but she liked to believe that she could hide that truth from anyone else, no matter how far into her they peered.
“Everyone needs an escape. No one can make it through life without one. He who thinks he can is a blind fool.”
She glanced at him for a long while, trying to take it all in. How can a dog be so wise? How can the dog even talk? Most of all, how the hell could the magically appearing doorway, which she found courtesy of the magical talking dog, possibly be an escape? Maybe I’m just dreaming. Or maybe I really have lost it.
While she stood, pondering her now questionable sanity, the dog walked to the doorway and through it, disappearing into a bright white light. Deciding, finally, that she was dreaming, she determined that no harm could possibly come to her in a dream, and she followed the dog into the light.
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139,289 Literary Works • 672,524 Reviews
Hi, whoaitsbritt!
This is brilliant, the descriptions are incredibly put together! I love how you've described every scene and thrown us into a new one practically every minute.
The look of the dog almost reminds me of Lupa from Roman mythology, I don't know why, put this dog seems to have an almost imperial majesty, how he stands even symbolizes how much he is in control of everything.
However, there are a few points to consider to improve this a bit:
First of all, 'lead' should be in its past tense form in this instance, so it should be 'led' instead.
Also, tell us where and when everything comes into perspective, otherwise the reader will become confused from so much switching from scene to scene without any hand to guide them if you know what I mean.
But otherwise, this is a really great start and I look forward to the next chapter!
LordofLit101
Amazing. This story is great. I love the detail and the magical part of it all. I can visualize it very well and thats always something that you want for your readers. I also love the concept so far. The storyline is interesting. The little cliff hanger at the end makes you want to read more. I know I want to read more. My only suggestion is to slow the pace. Don't worry, I struggle with this as well. You kind of just dive in from the beginning. Most stories (at least the ones I've read) have a pretty slow first few chapters. I assume they do this because if you are three are four chapters in, you can't stop, might as well finish what you've started. But, anyway, thats it! It's a great story and I'm excited for it.
John David
Hey there, whoaitsbritt! I'm Melissa! I've been writing for 14 years - I'm 22 now, so you do the math! I like to think I'm pretty knowledgable as far as fiction writing goes (not to mention I was an English major in college and took many, many writing/English classes), so if you have any questions, always feel free to pm me! Without further ado, I will jump right into my review.
First thing's first - you've got multiple grammatical and spelling errors here BUT the writing process is all about organization, in my opinion, and organization/editing and all that jazz is something that you go about later on in the writing process, after all of your actual story writing is finished and it is time to get serious about editing. So don't worry about that for the time being. Just keep in mind that this is something you will have to go over when the time comes.
Alright, so I have to tell you that I agree with BellaRoma in that this has a very "Alice in Wonderland" feel to it, which I love! Every - and I mean every - story line is a spin off of a once told tale. I like to remind myself that there are no new stories, there are only new ways to tell them. Additionally, I am digging the dog's attitude/personality. He reminds me of an old soul, which is a very likable quality in a character.
On the flip side, though, I've got to admit that talking animals make me very wary for a few reasons. I've recently (over the past few years) come to the conclusion that talking animals are meant for children's books and should be kept there. If this were a children's book, I would have no problem with this, but if this is a book for teens/young adults or adults, I would have to strongly disagree with the usage of a talking animal. Why? Because it's not realistic, and as logical, thinking individuals and readers, we love realism. There are a select few who are of the older crowd (by older, I mean not children) and enjoy fantasy/make believe and talking animals, but that crowd is few and far between. I, for one, have always loved fantasy books since I read my first Harry Potter book at least a decade ago, so I am all for made up worlds, dragons, elves, hobbits, all that jazz. BUT talking dogs, random portals, things like that give me the shivers and I worry for the rest of the story. It would take a lot of skill to make it work and I'm sure you could do it, but just be aware that it will be quite the job and not for the weak! Haha.
Anyway, my last comment is regarding your MC. The MC is perhaps one of the top five most important pieces of your story. And I have to be honest when I say that your MC is not quite likable to me. I can clearly tell that MC's life is not wonderful and you could probably even call it tragic. But I still feel no sympathy for him/her. Why? Because this MC is so over-dramatic (at least in my opinion). He/she is throwing him/herself a pity party and this is something that readers loathe. Your MC doesn't have to be a hero/heroine, or a gorgeous, popular person, or a confident go-getter. Your MC can and damn well should have issues. In fact, it's necessary in order for your story to be interesting in the slightest. BUT I am not bonding with this character because of the drama factor. It is not very difficult at all to fix this, though, and I feel that this story truly has some potential as a fantasy story/novel.
As I said, if you have any questions for me, simply reply to this review or send me a pm! I am happy to help or elaborate if necessary, and do not want to discourage you by any means! I was once a young writer myself and liked to write things like this. They were not necessarily bad, but they were not terribly likable and I am glad that I have improved, and continue to improve, through lots of practice!
Hello, whoaitsbritt. Nice to meet you! My name's Bella and I thought I would just drop by and leave you a review on your as yet untitled story.
I see that I'm leaving the first review on this, so I shall dive right in...
First thing's first, I thought this was a really intriguing prologue/first chapter. I think I will be coming back to read more of this if and when you post it. This has left me with questions. Who is this girl? What’s she like (I'm looking forward to more description of her)? What exactly does she hope to escape from, so much she'll follow a dog through a tree to do so?
There is lots of suspense here, so I'm sure this will make for an interesting plotline...
I kind of liked the whole Alice in Wonderland feel to this beginning. The black dog immediately made my mind jump to the white rabbit XD Just be careful not to overdo it in later chapters, because it's your original story, after all.
Okay, I have a couple of nitpicks...
You might want to consider splitting "backyard" into two words ("back yard"). I know that the single word is technically correct, but it seemed sort of odd to me in terms of sentence flow. That's obviously just my preference, so you can ignore it if you so choose.
"Lifeless" is actually one word. No hyphen needed.
Next thing: dialogue. Every new speaker requires a new line/paragraph. This is so readers know exactly who is speaking and when. Also, when you're not using a period/full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark, you should put a comma inside the speech marks before the dialogue tags. That's just the rules, and loads of people have trouble with them to start with. I did.
Other than that, I think there's nothing else to critique. I will just say good luck with your story and keep me posted if you upload any more of it. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have about anything.
That's all from me!
~Bella~
Thanks for the comments! I'll definitely go back and reread it for the dialogue and fix the other two notes.
No worries!