Published July 16, 2009
Please reveiw!!!!
Sanity’s End
Prologue
I’m afraid that it has all come down to this. The final fight for survival. Man versus the mighty forces of nature. Our luck has finally run dry, withered up like a dying tree. Many of you may be thinking, what the heck is going on? And I’ll tell you. The Earth as we know it is coming to an end.
Let me explain. These past couple weeks have been the most difficult and the most frustrating weeks of my life. It all started on the first of June, when everyone was casually watching the evening news together. The anchorman received an announcement from NASA saying, “On June 21, one of the world’s largest and most spectacular meteor showers will take place over the Pacific Ocean, eastern Asia and Australia, and western North and South America.” People were happy, excited to see the starry show on the 21st. But the bliss could not last.
Two days later, NASA gave another announcement; this one like a dark foreboding cloud. “It has come to our attention that the meteor shower forecasted to appear on June 21 has an unusually large rogue asteroid trailing behind it. It has enough power to wipe out a large percentage of life on Earth… including humans,” the crestfallen anchorman said somberly.
And thus, we then knew that the apocalypse was hurtling toward us at thousands of miles per hour in the form of a giant asteroid that had broken free of the asteroid belt that lay just beyond Mars.
Depressing, no?
With the news that their whole world was going to come to a shuddering halt in mere weeks, people began to panic, naturally. Everyone was afraid to even walk outside their own homes. They would constantly check the skies to make sure there were no signs of impending doom about to rain down. Business owners saw a window of opportunity in consumer sales, so they raised the prices of everything that would be necessary to stock up on, such as food, water, clothes, and so on. Not to mention that they began laying off their workers by the thousands. In less than a month, almost one-third of the American population was out of work. Gas had risen to over five dollars a gallon, which made it pretty much obsolete to drive a car. Most sensible people chose to ride bikes or walk everywhere.
The government did everything they could to calm the frayed nerves of the people, but their soothing words were all for naught. Riots and protests rose in streets all across the globe, each voice screaming unanimously, Help us! Do something! Don’t let us die! But there was nothing they could do, except for evacuating all cities within one thousand miles from the Pacific Ocean and bring them to the eastern safety. Bomb shelters were being erected hastily, for the work was arduous and time in short supply. The immigrants from the west were treated like vermin. The community homes built for them were of much similarity to the Jewish ghettos in World War II. The “Westies” as they were called were blamed for food shortages and the depression growing worldwide.
Here is where my story begins. It’s not just my story, but the story of the Earth, the story of human nature at its best and worst, and the story of how the will to live outlasts any weakness or cowardice. The meteor shower is just days away and tensions rise like fevered blood. Welcome to my world.
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140,280 Literary Works • 673,071 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
Anyway let's get right to it,
OKayy well this is intriguing. A bit unrealistic perhaps to have that sort of announcement happen in that sense. I assume it'd be more like NASA themselves giving some sort of press conference live with experts, I could be wrong here, maybe I've watched too many movies, but otherwise, this is a really neat way to kick things off. It is the sort of traditional method used in stories like this and it does work. This is a bit of a unique take on this world ending situation and it does get you intrigued so let's see where this takes us.
Hmm well this is an interesting side to thing that a lot of sort of disaster stories don't always touch on since we seem to always dive right into the crack team of scientists/heroes that are going to solve the situation. So this is a nice touch of detail to include. I'd say you could probably lean into this a bit heavier and show this sort of on a more ground level situation and show this impact a bit more powerful. Right now it is still powerful but it does go by a bit fast here.
That ending there is quite nice there. There's a very dramatic flair that comes with it, and its a neat way of introducing us to the situation at hand here. I think you've done quite a nice job there. That could almost work really well as a bit of a blurb there too because it really does make you want to find out more.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Like Greyed, I have to say the title intrigued me. I like it how the scope of the story started on the protagonist, then widened to include the world, then did a full circle to come back to him... I assumed it's a male
.
A very nice start, I'll definitely keep an eye out for more, learning about whose telling the story and seeing what happens. As others have said you've got quite good suspense worked up there, look forward to see what you do with it from here on
Black Panter, What were you doing on here at 3:00 in the morning? *tisk tisk tisk*
Hey, I loved your beginning so far, I think that you have great work here!
Soon I might post the beginning of my story, but still thinking about it... cause yours puts mine to shame well at least all the big words.
Keep me posted about when you post ch. 1 on ok? cause I cant wait to see it!!!
Hey everyone!
Thank you sooo much for the reveiws, its helped a lot. I'm still pretty new to YWS and writing in general so it's great to know that people like it.
Greyed- I've ordered "Life as We Knew It" and I'm waiting for it to come in the mail
I'll be sure to send you guys a PM when the 1st chapter is up
Thanks again!
~Wolfy
Interesting work. I'm curious to see where this will end up. Sounds like you have a good idea on your hands.
A few things:
I would definitely take this out if I were you. Speaking directly to the reader is strongly discouraged, as is telling them that you're about to tell a story. Everything around this sentence fits in well, and it builds up the suspense, but the direct reference to the reader throws a monkey wrench into everything.
Having said what I said above, this should probably also be removed.
I like the way this sentence was used. It adds to the suspense. However, I have a couple of small grammar nitpicks. First, the semicolon should be a comma, as "this one like a dark foreboding cloud" cannot stand on its own. Semicolons are used to connect two complete yet related thoughts. There should also be a comma after dark because you've listed two adjectives in a row.
Two adjectives in a row, again.
I like the way you broke this into its own paragraph, but the "no" is a bit off. Try rewording it, or replacing "no" with something like "right."
I must now stop to add that the entire rest of the story really drew me in. I think the descriptions of the chaos and panic that followed were quite creative. I liked them.
A few more nitpicks...
This seems a bit like an oxymoron to me. Each voice... screaming unanimously... I don't know, it may be a creative effect, but it caught me offguard a bit. When you think of 'each voice', you think of individual people, but when you think of 'unanimously', you envision an entire group. I think you might consider rewording it to something like, "all of the voices screaming unanimously," or taking out the word "unanimously." But that may just be my opinion.
"evacuating" does not agree with the rest of the sentence. It should be in the present tense (evacuate), rather than the progressive tense. Also, I believe that "from the Pacific Ocean" should be "of the Pacific Ocean."
All in all, I'm interested to see what comes next. Good job.
nice prologue. i like the name of it a lot. caught my eye.
anyways, it reminded me a lot of the book "Life as we knew it" by Susan Beth Pfeffer. the whole amazing meteor shower gone wrong thing, that starts the end of the world. if you havent read it yet, you should check it out. looking forward to your future posts~
Hi,
Good job, I liked this piece of work. I found a few errors;
"take place over the Pacific Ocean, eastern Asia and Australia, and western North and South America."
I think it should be a comma after "eastern Asia" instead of "and"
"and the story of how the will to live outlasts any weakness or cowardice."
This part doesn't make any sense.
But good job, keep at it!
~Tayla