z

Young Writers Society


E - Everyone

Engulfed- Chapter Two (rewritten)

by writerkitty


The annoying noise of chirping birds made my eyes twitch; I tried to open them only to find that my eyelids had gotten super heavy. My whole body felt numb. I couldn’t feel my arms or my legs. A sudden gush of fear invaded me. Was I dead?

Fear allowed me to gain the strength to open my weary eyes. But I quickly closed them again because of the yellowish blinding light that hit me directly in the eyes. Wait…was I in heaven? Nah, I haven’t done enough good deeds to go to heaven.

I opened my eyes again.

This time a bit slower than before, allowing them to adjust to the light. I was lying face up, where ever I was.

The orange sun was shining in the strange greenish sky. Oddly, shaped white clouds were racing above me. I tried to raise my hand, but it was still numb. 

A type of small, strange leaves was brushing against my face. Some were blocking my field vision. A few blue fluffy birds flew above my face still chirping about high-pitched notes.

“Are you okay?” A voice came from below. Startled, I tried to turn my head, only to get a painful ‘crack’.

“That must’ve hurt a lot…” The same voice replied. It was a calm, yet tad curious feminine voice.

“Who…are you…” To my surprise, I managed to speak. My voice was a bit raspy, but it was alright compared to how the rest of my body was functioning at the moment.

“A girl.” was the short reply.

I  kinda knew she was a girl already, but that wasn’t the answer I was actually expecting.

“Are you unable to move?”

I tried to nod but quickly regretted doing so because it caused even more pain. “Yes,” I muttered through the pain.

“Then how did you get up that tree?” The girl questioned again.

Up a tree? Was she messing around with me? But my head did feel as if it was on a hard, rough tube-like surface. And that does explain why there were so many bluish leaves around me. “I don’t know…” I muttered, trying to connect out what happened to me before I passed out.



Ignoring the weird cracking sound and the pain in my neck, I turned my head. She was right, I was on a tree, the branches must’ve prevented me from falling down to the ground.

I assumed I was high above the ground and it gave me a sick feeling. “Help me…” I muttered.

“I don’t want to help strangers, and I'm taught it brings only trouble.” All my hopes vanished within a second.

“But, I helpless stranger stuck on a tree awakens my curiosity.” I heard a scraping noise and the branches shook a little, making me feel even sicker.

“It’s hard to climb these trees…” I heard her mutter.



A few minutes later, a face bent down to meet mine. Judging by all the strange colors the other objects were, I hoped she’d be purple or something. But she had normal pale skin with a few freckles on her nose. She looked completely human.

“Now let’s see…” She said rummaging through a leather bag that looked older than my great grandma. 

“It’s odd that these branches are bearing your weight…then again you are one skinny man.” She muttered. The way she called me ‘man’ felt a bit offensive because it did sound ironic.

 “Got it!” She cried joyfully, making the branches shake again.

I opened my mouth to mutter out ‘be careful’ but she propped a small glass tube right into my mouth, a weird oozy liquid poured into my mouth, it almost burned my poor cheek cells. I tried to cough it out but the girl quickly clasped her hand over my mouth preventing me from opening it.

I didn’t have the strength or the ability to struggle, so I just swallowed down the horrible liquid. It burned my throat leaving behind a sour aftertaste.

“What was that?” I shouted as she whisked her hand away.

“You can move now,” she said calmly as she threw the empty tube into her bag. “You’re welcome stranger!” Her voice sounded more bubbly now.

I tried to get up, but she quickly pinned me back down. “Wait, if you get up so quickly, you’ll just fall back again because you were out cold for awhile,” She looked thoughtful for a few seconds, “at least I hope you were. Anyway, if you do that, you’ll fall down and break your bones!”

“Okay fine…” I muttered, getting annoyed with this girl and with this stupid tree.

She smiled, showing off two dimples on either side of her cheeks. She had brown eyes which were half covered by curly red hair that ran up to her shoulder. She looked like she was fourteen or something.

“Watcha staring at?” She asked her eyes scanning my face.

“Nothing," I said searching for something to hold onto to lift myself up; I managed to grab hold of a branch that was right next to me.

“See you can move your arms now.” She said joyfully. “Now remember…get up slowly.” She said sitting down on one of the dark blue branches and swaying her feet back and forth.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” I said lifting myself up to a sitting position. 

I looked down, that was my biggest mistake. Sure, I was on a tree with strong branches and all, but the tree was super tall. My whole body started to wobble and my stomach lurched. “I…I’m afraid of heights…” I managed to mutter gripping hold of one of the branches near me.

The girl looked amused, but she then rolled her eyes, “Then why did you get up here?”

“I didn’t,” I said trying hard not to look down again. It’s a curse that you always have to look again at something you don’t want to look at all.

“Welp, it was nice talking to you, man on the tree,” She said adjusting her bad. “I’d better be on my way.”

I said the most unmanly thing to her, “Don’t leave me up here...”

“Huh?” She said looking even more amused, “You don’t expect a little girl like me to carry you all the way down now, do you?”

I shook my head, “just get…help…”

She rolled her eyes again, and started to climb down, “Sorry, but that’ll just get me into trouble.”

I was afraid of heights. That was my biggest fear.

So, I did what anyone who has Acrophobia would do, well…maybe no one would do that. I grabbed her hand before she could climb down.

“Hey, what gives, let me go!” She almost screamed trying to free her hand.

I was in a strange world and stuck on a super tall tree… the rising fear made me do stupid things.

“Don’t leave me up here...” Sweat started to pour down my face, and it was getting harder to breathe but I still gripped hold of her hand.

“Let go you creep!” She shouted tugging her arm and bashing her bag on my head with her free hand. That was a bad choice, she lost her grip and so did I.

We both started to fall down with a mighty speed. The ground kept getting closer and closer.

“You jerk!” She shouted as we both plunged to our death. “This is what I get for helping idiots!” 

I was too shocked and afraid to even talk, I closed my eyes tightly, hoping this all would just be a bad dream.


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Tue Jun 13, 2017 9:08 pm
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ExOmelas wrote a review...



Hi again!

Nit-picks:

Fear allowed me to gain the strength to open my weary eyes.

"allowed" seems a bit strange. It's not like Fear is saying "yes matt you can open your eyes". I think I'd say "enabled" instead.

I was lying face up, where ever I was.

"wherever"

Oddly, shaped white clouds were racing above me.

don't need that comma

Some were blocking my field of vision.


I muttered, trying to connect out what happened to me before I passed out.



Ignoring the weird cracking sound

Why the big gap?

“But, Ia helpless stranger

Also not sure you need that comma

Overall:

Character: That's an interesting detail about Matt - he's scared of seeming unmanly. Will keep track of this. The girl is super cool. I like her. I think you've done her well as well. Especially the "welp", that sounded very normal, which throws off the expected wondrous differences etc

Setting: This is done really well again. Specifically I like how you work the setting into Matt's fear at the start, then focus on the tree in the second half.

Plot: This was pretty much fine, but I think I would like Matt to ask where the hell he is. That would be the first question on my mind and it seems quite unlikely that it wouldn't be the first thing out of Matt's mouth.

Flow: When you do this:

"Speech speech speech. Speechety speech," I said looking around."

it flows better if you put a comma after "said", as you are starting a new clause.

Hope this helps,
Biscuits :)




writerkitty says...


^-^ Thank you so much for the review!!!



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Tue May 23, 2017 1:02 pm
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Brigadier wrote a review...



Hey there writerkitty. It's just lizzy dropping by real quick, so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin.

1. I read this the other day but then there were exams going on, so sorry if I am a bit late. I try not to drop into novels right in the middle but the combination of the title and the action you included, made it very easy for me to get a hang of what was going on. It opens up to a very mysterious scene: the character not knowing where they are, what they are doing, how they got there or who the heck is on the ground talking to them. Love it when there's lots of questions to be answered right off the bat. As a setup this is nice, a way to keep the reader's attention from the last chapter. I'm half assuming you left it on a cliffhanger but to set up a surprise beginning, the end has to have some sort of twist on it.

2. You already have these two sentence half paragraph things but they're disrupting the flow and thought process of this work. Might want to consider combining them together a bit. And this is really the main problem with the work. It's either stopping and starting or running together too quickly, and flying by my face. It's not the pacing of the work itself, just how the words are written together in a manner that is loose and doesn't keep attention for long. So you look at it and spot the details, then move along once you think you have the main point, possibly without reading all of the content. That's how I went through on the first read because the pieces put themselves together too easily, you need to spread it out a bit.

3. Now onto some specific things about grammar and content and such. The ellipsis were just a touch overdone for me because ellipsis are something you shouldn't use too often. they carry a very heavy weight of emotion when you take them out on a work and the repeated trailing off just wasn't working here. A comma would have served you just as well without the thought of there is no other thought. Trailing off the final end of a sentence is understandable but mid-sentence it just doesn't work.
The dialogue was here and there in quality, the tags a bit overdone if you ask me. I think if you focused more on what they were saying instead of the way they were saying it, it would spike more interest in your readers.

Well that's all for now.
If you have any questions about this review, PM me.
~Lady Lizz




writerkitty says...


Thank you for the review!! :D



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Fri May 12, 2017 6:34 am
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phoephernelia wrote a review...



I have to say I haven't read the other chapters, but reading this one really makes me want to read the others! I loved your description of the girl, I could really picture her in my head. He seems a little like a jerk, but then again he was super scared of heights so I would understand why. There were some grammatical and spelling errors here and there, but good over all. I wanna read more! Keep posting them, I'm intrigued!




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Fri May 12, 2017 12:20 am
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Mathy wrote a review...



Hiya! ZeldaIsShiek here for another review on another chapter of the ENGULFED series! I really like this series, and I was surprised to see this chapter rewritten with an entirely different storyline. I think the old one and this one should tie together and this should be chapter three, since that would tie their stories together, in a way. Let's begin!

Though I think the grammar issues are mostly fixed, I think that the missing commas will confuse the reader. The only other concern I have is that the dialogue does not feel very smooth, but I understand this. The reason I mainly write Haiku and poetry is because I have ADHD and it is hard for me to write a story smoothly when all I want to do is get into the action and start the characters fighting!

I really do like the rewrite! However, I have noticed that it is really short. This is not a problem, it's just that most children's books (Warriors, Wings of Fire, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, etc.) have much longer chapters and they are a lot more fun to read because of that. I think that the way you introduce the alien world feels like the quintessential story of a human becoming lost in another world. I think that story could actually go somewhere, if you give it enough effort and slow down every once and a while.

I rate this piece 7.5/10, while last chapter's rating was 6/10. Great work! I really enjoy this, and that's a pretty high rating for a chapter book like this.

Great work! ZeldaIsShiek- out!




writerkitty says...


Thank you so much for the review!! :D




The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch somebody else doing it wrong, without comment.
— T. H. White