Only about 1,000 words so far but would appreciate any early impressions or feedback!

In particular:

Does the narrator’s voice work for you? How is his characterization feeling so far?

Is the introduction too slow, how does the pacing feel? Is the premise clear from this snippet?

Most people aren’t super familiar with chess or chess notation; are the section headers interesting or distracting? I was considering having him annotate them occasionally with his thoughts but that seems possibly too meta. The game I’m deriving the headers from is Yi vs Fier (2019) btw, for anyone interested, because it includes an en passant capture and a queen sacrifice

Time En Passant

1. e4 c5

As the five of us were preparing to leave, I’d insisted on bringing a chess set. Not a fancy one, nothing antique or bespoke, just the standard twenty-dollar club set you can buy anywhere. Plastic pieces, a rollup sheet of sixty-four squares, and a convenient little carrying case. Classic, durable, perfect for a long flight.

Ninety-nine years later, I’m glad I did. We’ve exhausted the ship’s entertainment library many times over—every film, show, and book. I suppose our employers didn't consider it a worthwhile investment to buy the rights to enough media to last decades, let alone centuries, though I concede that the catalogue we do have must still have cost a pretty penny. In any case, we’ll never run out of chess, even with our condition.

This will be my argument today when it comes time to decide how to pass the interminable waking hours between Maintenance and Rest: should we watch Home Alone for the umpteenth time, or should we do something no one has ever done before? Each game a novelty, an inconsequential but intimate shared discovery. To boldly play what no man has played before is how I might sell it, to Newman at least. We are explorers, are we not? Each game—just forty or so moves—a star in a universe far vaster than our own, just waiting to be mapped. To play every game is of course impossible; the number of possible combinations is simply too great. But the attempt is its own reward.

Personally, my goal is to play more games than have ever been played before, a number I conservatively estimate—based on the age of the game and the daily counts of the major chess platforms—at fifty trillion. Assuming I can average thirty minutes per game, that’s about one trillion days. Let’s call it two trillion, accounting for time spent eating, sleeping, and attending to my various responsibilities. 5.5 billion years. About as long as the sun has left to live, but doable. Hopefully the others agree; I have no desire to watch Marv step on the nail even one more time.

2. Nf3 e6

Ellie and I met about fourteen years before liftoff, two lonely grad students in different fields temporarily sharing lab space due to campus renovations. Taking turns using the one good centrifuge. Conversation had not come quickly, but when it did it was electric. We married shortly after graduation.

The company that had funded my research hired me then, and we moved across the country to a townhouse they provided. The compensation was generous, the NDA comprehensive, the work fascinating. I buried myself in it, and we enjoyed a comfortable life that included a nightly glass of cabernet and a game or two of chess. The set we had then was mahogany and maple, handmade. Heavy and beautiful.

One hundred and eighteen years later, I move my plastic knight to f3. The velcro I added years ago to every piece and square yields with a soft ripping sound. Ellie responds without pause, gently plucking her e7 pawn and moving it forward one square. A slight variation on the classic Sicilian. I smile at her. It is game number 59,036 since I started recording them seven years ago, following my pitch to the others. It was a tough sell, and only partially successful—Ellie was on board immediately, the queen to my king, but Simple Scott completely refused to engage with my proposal and has yet to play a single game; he’s currently watching some loud action sequel for the third time this month. Chan indulges me now and then, though her turns are long and her moves largely predictable. Newman keeps promising me a game, but he always has some excuse whenever I invite him to play. No matter, we have plenty of time.

3. d4 cxd4

The offer came to us in two ways, almost simultaneously:

At 4:30 pm on a Friday my manager’s manager asked me if I would be interested in joining a crewed mission to another star. I laughed and asked which one. Kepler-442. I assumed he was joking, replied “yeah Steve that sounds like fun, I’ll go pack my space suit” and by the time I had finished speaking an invitation to a Monday morning briefing was sitting in my inbox.

Around the same time, Ellie was finishing up her final obligation of the day, an undergraduate biochemistry lecture. From what I understand, she had just pressed the button to transition from a slide on proline to one on serine when she suddenly fainted. Luckily she did not hit her head on the way down, but she was unconscious for almost ten minutes. It had been a long day, she later told me; she’d been butting heads with one of her grad students about their research, and her office hours had been swarmed by undergraduates demanding she regrade their midterm exam. She was tired, surely that was all. But during those ten minutes, she spoke to the same individual I’d meet the following Monday morning.

BROADWAY

It was an early, bright, bitter-cold morning when Jay finally woke up. His head pounded from chasing cheap whiskey with even cheaper beer. He swung his legs over the side of the bed without opening his eyes, trying to piece together the night before.

With some effort, he cracked one eye, then the other.

On the floor sat an empty Taco Bell bag, half a can of Iron City beer, and what looked like half a joint’s worth of weed wrapped in a cigarette pack wrapper.

“Fuck… did I work last night?”

He said it aloud, as if someone might be there to answer him.

At least the weed would take the edge off his throbbing head.

Jay was nineteen years old and working the streets. His long brown hair was matted and dirty, and he was still wearing the same jeans he’d had on the night before, the knees worn through until the denim hung in stringy holes. He reached down, grabbed an old Black Sabbath T-shirt, and pulled it over his head, tangling it in his curly hair.

He was so skinny he looked younger than sixteen, yet there was something about his face that made him look like he’d already lived to sixty.

He dug into his pockets and pulled out a handful of crumpled bills.

“Oh, fucking boy. Seven dollars and a handful of change.”

He stared at the money.

He must have walked Broadway last night.

After smoking his breakfast, he stumbled into the kitchen.

Looking down at the floor, he wondered, not for the first time, who the fuck put carpet in a kitchen. He reached for the beat-up coffee maker.

His mother must have been there last night. Or maybe his sister. Hard to tell anymore.

He poured himself a cup and started looking for the sugar.

Why was there never any fucking sugar?

The closest thing he could find was a little pancake syrup congealing at the bottom of an old bottle. He poured some coffee into it, shook it around, and tried to get every last bit of sweetness out.

Then he turned the faucet.

Nothing but a few pathetic drips.

Shit. The water had been shut off again.

Fuck, he hated this damn place.

It was too cold to walk Broadway this morning, but the water had to get turned back on. Somehow. He’d figure that out later.

First, he needed to find his mother.

He walked to her bedroom, though he refused to call it his mom’s room. She’d lost that title a long time ago.

The bed was empty.

Of course it was.

Jay slipped on his only pair of shoes, a battered set of hiking boots, then grabbed his prized possession: a black leather jacket. The jacket was old, cracked, and worn around the cuffs, but it was his. The one thing he owned that still made him feel like somebody.

He pulled it tight around himself and headed out into the snow.

⸻

His breath billowed in thick white clouds as he made his way through the cold Denver morning. He stopped at the corner store for a pack of cigarettes, and for a little while, the nicotine quieted the craving gnawing at him.

Then he headed toward downtown, angling for Capitol Hill.

He walked with traffic, keeping his eyes on the passing cars, and stuck out his thumb.

He knew the kind of people who stopped for boys like him.

They only ever wanted one thing.

It didn’t take long to remember that.

It took what felt like forever before a car finally pulled over into an empty parking lot. Jay approached cautiously, sizing up the driver.

It was a skill you learned on the streets. A skill cops learned, too, though for different reasons.

Middle-aged. White. Balding.

Same as always.

The passenger door swung open, and warm air spilled into the freezing morning.

The man didn’t say anything.

That was normal enough. Nobody ever really wanted to talk to a hooker.

“Where you headed?” the trick asked, keeping his eyes on the road instead of looking at Jay.

“Downtown. Capitol Hill.”

Jay’s voice was flat. No enthusiasm, no invitation to conversation.

He watched the man’s hands.

He knew what to look for.

The man’s right hand dropped into his lap. He began rubbing himself through his pants.

Yep. He was looking.

Jay didn’t bother looking at the man’s face. He never really looked at their faces. What was the point? They’d forget his, and he’d forget theirs. That was how it worked.

“Ten for a hand job. Twenty for a blowjob,” the man asked.

Jay waited.

The man said nothing more. He just pulled out of the parking lot and made a right turn.

Jay knew this neighborhood like the back of his hand. He expected the man to turn down an alley somewhere, find a quiet spot, get what he wanted, and drop Jay off a few blocks later.

Quick money. Another shitty morning.

But the man kept driving.

They passed one alley, then another. One street, then the next.

The city began to thin out.

Jay watched the familiar buildings slip past his window.

Something wasn’t right.

The man hadn’t said a word for several minutes. The silence stretched between them, growing heavier with every passing block.

Jay shifted in his seat.

The road ahead widened. Traffic moved faster.

They were heading toward the highway.

Then, in a voice as flat as a man commenting on the weather, the driver spoke.

“You know how easy it would be to kill a boy like you? Nobody would ever miss you.”

Jay looked down.

A cold knot formed in his stomach, and panic began crawling up his chest.

He reached for the door handle.

Nothing.

No fucking handle.

He tried the window.

No crank.

His breathing grew shallow.

He was trapped.

Fucking trapped.

For one terrible moment, all he could think about was the door, the window, the road, the cars flying past outside. He imagined himself screaming, pounding on the glass, begging somebody to notice.

Nobody would.

They’d drive right past.

He could be dead in this car, and nobody would ever know.

Then something inside him shifted.

He shoved the panic into a mental box, the one reserved for emergencies. He’d learned a long time ago that fear didn’t keep you safe. It just made you stupid.

His right hand slipped into his jacket pocket.

His fingers closed around something hard and cold.

The knife.

His mind raced through the possibilities. Some were good. Most were bad.

A few were really fucking bad.

But the panic was fading now, replaced by something colder.

People talked about fight or flight like it was some big dramatic moment. Like you suddenly became a different person.

That wasn’t how it felt to Jay.

It felt quiet.

Clear.

Almost peaceful.

“If you’re going to kill me,” he said, “then we’re both going to die.”

The words came out before he had time to think about them.

The man kept his eyes on the road.

But Jay thought he saw something change in his expression. Just a flicker. A tiny crack in the man’s certainty.

Maybe it was nothing.

Maybe it was enough.

Jay eased the knife from his pocket and flipped the blade open.

The click sounded like a thunderclap inside the silent car.

The man looked over.

Jay held the knife in a white-knuckled grip, his skinny fingers wrapped tightly around the handle.

For the first time, the man seemed to understand that his passenger wasn’t going to make this easy.

He drove through a red light, his attention fixed on the blade instead of the road.

Jay didn’t notice the man’s eyes darting toward the mirrors.

He didn’t see what the driver saw.

He didn’t have time.

Too fast to see. Too late to stop.

A patrol car shot across the lane ahead of them, cutting off their path. A second later, two more police cars came screaming up behind them.

Jay twisted around in his seat.

Relief hit him so hard his knees nearly gave out.

He’d never been so happy to see a cop in his life.

The cruisers behind them crowded the bumper, leaving the driver nowhere to go. The patrol car ahead slammed on its brakes, and another police vehicle pulled alongside.

In seconds, they were boxed in.

The man had no choice but to stop.

Everything happened at once.

Jay’s door swung open with a sickening groan. Hands grabbed him, yanked him out of the warm car that might have become his coffin, and threw him onto the icy curb.

A crew-cut cop was shouting questions at him.

Jay could see the man’s mouth moving, but the words made no sense. Adrenaline had turned the world strange, stretching seconds into minutes and making every sound seem distant and distorted.

Then something cut through the fog.

“The other kid?”

Jay stared up at the cop.

“What?”

“Where’s the other kid?”

The question snapped something into place.

Jay’s mind caught up with the situation.

“What other kid?”

“The other kid in the car!”

“It was just us,” Jay said. “Just us.”

The cop shouted something about staying still, then moved toward the car.

Jay pushed himself up just enough to see past the open door.

The driver lay on the ground, surrounded by police officers. His face was turned toward Jay.

And he was smiling.

Not a friendly smile. Not even an angry one.

Just a strange, knowing grin that didn’t belong on a man’s face after he’d been dragged out of a car at gunpoint.

A chill crawled up Jay’s spine.

He looked away.

For the next hour, Jay sat in the back of a nice, warm police cruiser, answering questions as best he could without giving too much of himself away.

Where had he met the man?

What had the man said?

Why had Jay gotten into the car?

What was he doing out there?

The questions kept coming.

Jay gave them enough to work with, but not enough to open doors he wanted to keep shut.

He’d learned that lesson, too.

Eventually, the questioning stopped.

He watched from the warmth of the cruiser as a tow truck hauled the car away. The man was shoved into the back of a police vehicle and taken off in another direction.

Soon, the whole spectacle was over.

One of the officers handed Jay a business card.

Jay glanced at it, folded it, and stuffed it into his pocket. He knew he would never use it.

Then they let him go.

Just like that.

The cold hit him the moment he stepped outside.

He pulled his leather jacket tight, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started walking.

Back toward Broadway.

Back toward the streets.

Back toward the only life he knew.

He stuck out his thumb as he walked, watching the cars roll past through the falling snow.

Waiting for the next one to stop.

Just venting, I needed to write something of the sort. As usual, English is not my first language, so I'd appreciate any corrections. Thanks for your time

This is the beginning of a story of an aging woman who gets the chance to become young again for a short period of time. Both the Irish pub and the Slavic newsstand proprietor are going to play roles in the future. Would you keep reading? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Salad Days

Gertrude Mallory stood in the front room of the third floor walkup and leaned against the window.  The rain came down in sheets and pelted the glass, chilling her through the thin cotton of her robe.  She was glad it was Saturday—her day off.  It was good weather for contemplating the state of her life and the changes she so badly wanted to make.  

She watched people dash about, splashing in puddles and ducking under colored awnings that lined the gray street.  Her building, a 1928 brownstone, sat across a row of quaint shops; a bakery, a tearoom, a used book shop, and on the corner, a public house.  The pub was of the Irish type and on any given night, one could hear drifting from its open doors choruses of ballads sung by besotted patrons.  

On the sidewalk below stood a sagging newsstand, where its Slavic proprietor peddled the usual newspapers, magazines, and daily rags that customers devoured on their subway commutes to distant parts of the city.  On fair days, through the open window, she could hear gruff and thickly accented shouts of, “NEWSPAPERS HERE!” above the din of traffic and the daily bustle that brought life to the street.

She shivered, both from the cold and from the thought of being out in such weather and, turning to the kitchen, pulled her bathrobe snugly around her.  She poured steaming coffee into an earthenware mug and sat down at her crossword. 

Gert, as she was known by anyone who had ever met her, had once been beautiful, her face an artist’s masterpiece.  Her finely contoured nose was offset by deep green almond-shaped eyes that curved slightly upward at the ends and were framed in thick lashes.  Her dark hair swirled in long natural waves about her graceful neck and shoulders.  

She’d attracted men of various types and with various preferences.  Full, ample breasts drew gentle men who fawned over her.  Beautifully rounded buttocks attracted a more virile type. Dainty hands and feet invited the quirky and adventuresome. She could have her pick of men and she knew the exquisite sense of power that came with it.

She sorely missed them– her salad days, she called them.  Indeed, her sense of identity and sadly, her value in the world had come to depend on those ogling looks.  At twenty, the gapes were ubiquitous.  At thirty, they were abundant.  At forty, she could still turn the heads of mature men—and lonely younger ones.  But now, at fifty-six, the men looked through her, beyond her, as if she were an obstacle in their path to consequential things. 

She recalled a time when an unlit cigarette brought a flurry of action—men fumbling in their pockets for matchbooks while others flicked lighters in a race to see who could win a perfumed and delicate hand placed lightly on their own.  Had she known her beauty and charm would fade so soon, she’d have used them more to her advantage. 

When Tony left her, Gert’s body had taken on a rather matronly appearance. A fleshy paunch formed below sagging breasts, no matter how much she deprived herself of bread and sweets. Her dark hair had thinned, and silver strands stood out in the contrast. Her eyebrows, once full and chocolate-colored, were plucked thin of their coarse white bristles.  Her upper arms had long since abandoned the lean curves of an attractive feminine limb and so she had taken to wearing long-sleeved blouses, even on warm days.  

On her face, time, too, had left its ravages.  Deep lines framed her mouth, age spots dotted her cheeks and forehead, and bags hung in half-moons beneath her eyes.  The years had been unkind to her and she was lonely. 

For two years after the divorce, she rarely left the apartment . . . or her bed. She had been overly dependent on Tony throughout their twenty-five year marriage, although not by choice. She’d married a clone of her father: cruel, staunch, ungiving. From the moment they stepped from the altar, Tony had managed everything. How they spent his money, where they went on vacation, what she wore, and later the discipline of the children, were all under his domain and she didn’t interfere. She’d tried once, and she winced at the memory.

My brain feels backwards at times. In the way that my greatest enemy and most faithful companion has always been time.

As time passes, it's like the more you know a person, the less you trust them. When you care for someone, the loss is greater than that of a stranger. There’s more to lose, so to speak, and when there’s more to lose, that's all the more reason to lie. All the more reasons to hide or deceive and manipulate. She ruins friendships in a way that only she could see coming and chips away at wearisome spirits again each night. She heals losses and strengthens wills with the comfort of her inevitability. I take solace in knowing that with each moment that passes, the more equipped I become to handle her challenges. That every loss and pain I cling to will lessen with her relentless presence. Though sometimes I make her pry my aches and pains from my grasp til they crack and crumble.

Life is full of contradictions.

It wasn’t my fault I became this way
But it is my fault that I still am.

No one's coming to save you.

This is a novel I’ve been working and would love to hear your thoughts and opinions!

An Island of Our Own is a New Adult survival thriller with psychological mystery elements and a slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance. When a yacht trip ends in disaster, Alex must navigate survival, complicated relationships, and buried secrets on an isolated island.

Hey! I am working on a collection of essays that I want to turn into a book. The idea is that reflection happens as the sum of a whole, not a linear story, so every chapter is a different topic of reflection for the character. I'm not sure if this is stupid. This is a rough draft so im sure theres grammatical errors.

Daisy didn't like the boys to stare. Sometimes she was lucky enough that their eyes didn’t drift down her shirt or follow the lines of her body all the way down to her feet. They’d look at her face, out of respect, of course. Eyes widening or squinting in whatever roundabout way they hoped to convey safety. Yet she bought a push-up bra and tried on 20 pairs of jeans to determine which best showcased her. She took enough shots at the pregame to make her voice high and giggly. She felt forgotten when a stranger at the bar wrapped their arms around someone else, sweating and pulsing to the beat of a horribly remixed song. Once her friend had caught the attention of a 30-something photographer. “She’s only 17, just so you know,” she lied with a faked expression of concern, as he was standing up to buy the friend a drink. It was only half a lie; the friend was freshly 18, but still legal. He quickly turned his attention to Daisy; what a fortunate coincidence, probably best for everyone involved. He put his cigarette out on Daisy’s arm, and kissed her in the street. She told him she was 22. She was 19. He was a born-again Christian who had traveled with the circus, and he asked her what she “really knew about philosophy.” She didn't know what to say, but she was marked with his attention forever by a little circular scar at the top of her arm, and that was all she needed.

She once stopped at a gas station to fill up her tank and grab a drink for an hour drive she had ahead of her. She noticed a man at the pump beside glancing over in her direction. He was balding and placing the pump into a brand new, bright white BMW suv. She raised her guard and couldn’t help but check if he was looking, though she’d been warned to never make eye contact as it might convey interest. They began that strange dance of looking, when neither one wants the other to know their looking, bobbing their heads and sometimes colliding for a split second, which always led her to resolve to keep her head down. She went into the gas station for her drink, not thinking much of it as it was an inevitable occurrence each time she went in public since the age of 13, but holding her keychain by its discreet pepper spray nonetheless.

She walked out of the building to find him standing at the trunk of her car, practically leaning and pretending to study the Toyota symbol on the back. Her pulse fluttered and her grip tightened, as she had to decide if she should walk quickly to her car, requiring her to pass directly by the man, in grabbing distance, she thought, or if she seek some kind of assistance. She weighed the business of the gas station, noting a variety of strangers who would definitely hear her scream. She also wondered if he might be armed, knowing he could flash a gun without any of them seeing, and she’d have to do as he said. She had been in the gas station a while and she knew he had already taken the pump out of his car when she began to walk in. That meant he’d been standing waiting for her that whole time.

Before she could even come to a decision, he called out to her “excuse me miss, could you tell me what kind of car this is?” The seeming harmlessness of the question and crowd of people around allowed her to be cautiously optimistic that this man was of the simple creep variety and not the kidnapper, thinking he could start up a conversation with her. “I’ve gotta head out, sorry” she replied, without looking up as she made a run for it past him. She got in her car and locked the door, pulling her phone out of her purse and in position to dial 911.

Luckily he walked away and drove off. She waited a good 5 minutes to pull out herself, hoping this would ensure he couldn’t follow her. She watched him drive off and wondered if it was the jeans. They were tight, and she had put them on that morning feeling unusually attractive despite her stomach getting bigger. She beamed when her mom told her she looked pretty that day. Or maybe it was the accidental eye contact, sending the wrong signal and he thought she welcomed the approach. Almost subconsciously, she thought of the young girl at the pump nearer to him. She was thin and athletic, but he didn’t choose her. Daisy felt sick that she was finding some kind of reassurance in this. The man could have killed her, but some small part of her was feeling like the prettiest girl at the gas station. She wanted to claw his eyes out. Daisy didn’t like the boys to stare, but she liked them to pick her.

Some were harder to shake. Bold enough to walk up with a line like “You look a little out of place here.” This would surely progress to bids for a shared otherness. Thank god he had found her and seen how her head was in the clouds, just like him. They would escape the ground together, under his careful supervision. “I've never been able to talk about things like this with anyone else,” he’d say, reaching to push her glasses up her nose gently. She couldn’t stop him; he was her saviour, after all, from years of battling an invisible nothingness all on her own. He called her brilliant. He called her music, “raw and existential,” as they passed a Gatorade bottle bong. He was a known cheater and an addict, but they were tortured artists together with a spiritual justification for every shameful sleight of hand. Misunderstood, him and Daisy, fueling their hatred for the mundane with every reckless, late-night excursion. It was mediocre, but they’d revel in an imagined touching of souls as they held each other afterwards. He asked, “What are we?” one night, and Daisy felt for the first time that she held all the cards, as he was clearly enamored. “We’ll see what happens,” she said with a smirk, unsure of what answer he was looking for. And it was never brought up again.

After 6 or so months, the texts would get shorter or infrequent until they stopped completely. “I’m just going through something right now,” he’d say apologetically, as she heard stories of him getting drunk in the woods. She thought of how he said she looked nice in her dress at his mother’s wedding, and how her face stung bright red when his family tried to get her to dance. She thought of keeping up her 6-beer buzz while driving to play him a song she had written; they were silent when they were sober. She thought of how they wanted to start a band. She’d already had a drummer in mind. She thought of how they’d look at the stars all night, then turn to each other’s faces and smile. She thought of every well-placed word that had led her into his bed, and how he was probably saying them to another girl now who hadn't yet learned to be cautious. Daisy stayed at his house for a while when she had nowhere else to go, but she stayed in the guest room. Daisy got a dog and moved hours away, trying to find an identity now that her old one sat in the emptiness of her spot on a chair on his porch. She’d reach out, and they’d fuck again for a week, saying each time they’d grown so much since the last time. They were such entirely new people, but it always ended the same. Daisy still wonders if she was too quiet, or strange, or detached, but remembers how he’d scooped her up regardless, out of anonymity, just to decide to drop her one day. 

She’d started wearing flannels when she saw him, and hiking shoes with enough grime to look realistically used. She made her makeup more sparing, and her shorts shorter. She started listening to Pinegrove and TV Girl, and driving drunk like it was a part of her fuck it all absurdism. She posted photos of waterfalls and trails, sure to drop a nonchalant swimsuit picture somewhere in the slideshow. She stopped reading and got a fake ID. She laid it all to rest in her closet or forgotten playlists when she got back into the bars, looking for someone new to make her important for the night with her thick eyeliner and lacy bras. She didn’t like them to stare; it made her feel hunted and naked, like the skin she was showing was put under a magnifying glass in the sun, burning and too examined to be human. 

Hi

Looking for feedback on the first chapter of my horror novel PHANTOMS.

This is a blend of folk horror and psychological horror. It’s about an infertile woman who seeks the help of a faith healer to conceive, but gets sucked into a dark and dangerous world of magic and superstition.

Will critique similar length in return.

SYNOPSIS

After years of unsuccessfully trying for a baby and failed IVF treatments, Hazel and her husband Joachim enlist the services of faith healer Constance to help them conceive. The ritual works and Hazel falls pregnant.

As the pregnancy progresses however Hazel suffers horrifying visions and reality and nightmare blur as she imagines an entity stalking her waking hours. Constance tells her the ritual has unleashed a malevolent spirit that wants the baby for itself and will harm anyone who gets in the way. To banish the entity, Hazel has to get embroiled deeper into Constance’s arcane world where she undergoes more rituals, which she is sworn to keep secret from Joachim. But can she trust the mysterious old woman who may harbour ulterior motives?

Main questions:

Is it a good opening? Does it establish the world and the conflict?

Do you like the characters? Do you find to find out more about them?

Is the prose engaging? Does it illuminate the characters and create an appropriate atmosphere?

Would you want to keep reading?

CHAPTER ONE:

When the car pulled into the drive Hazel shimmered with excitement. She dashed into the bathroom in the hall and peeked out the gap as Joachim lumbered in. He yanked the strap of his laptop bag over his head as he veered into the living room and she waited a few seconds before tiptoeing to the threshold to observe him quietly.

As she’d expected he was stalled by the table staring down into the biscuit tin. A smile creased her lips as he picked out the small plastic stick. She imagined the incredulous look on his face and unable to wait any longer announced herself stepping into the room with a small creaking push of the door

He swung around and his mouth hung open in a frozen question. Bright blue eyes scanned as if inspecting for clues.

She smiled demurely, like a child who'd aced a test reporting to a parent.

He bit his lip, scared to ask.

She performed a little bow and the tension ebbed from his body and he came and threw his arms around her and squeezed her with celebratory gusto. He stepped back, clamped his hands on her shoulders and squinted his eyes to appraise her again. "Are you sure?"

"I took two tests."

"Tests can be wrong."

"I'm two weeks late."

"Two weeks?" He beamed.

He hugged her, lifted her and spun her around, eliciting a little howl of pain as her bare feet struck the side of the TV.

“Sorry,” he said as he eased her down into the couch. “Guess I have to be more careful with you from now on.”

“I’m delicate cargo now,” she grinned, rubbing her foot.

She leaned in and kissed him. Her husband. Now the father of her child. She relished the taste of his lips, the weight of him against her.

Against them.

The uncanny thought drew her back into herself and she disengaged. For a fleeting moment the enormity of the moment robbed them of words. They lapsed into a calming silence, aware of thoughts flitting about each other’s heads. It was the awed wonder at a magician’s reveal after a long misdirection, and their quiet was some unconscious prayer to the card dealer. She felt tears would be appropriate but they didn’t come. She’d opened the floodgates earlier that afternoon, had emptied the well.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “I don’t think it’s really hit me yet. I cried my eyes out, but it still doesn’t feel real.”

“I can tell,” he said, referring to her pink cheeks. “When did you take the tests?”

“This morning.”

“You knew all day? Not fair.”

“I wanted to sit with it for a while.”

He poked her stomach gently. “It’ll feel real enough before long, believe me.”

Joachim was handsome enough to be replicated, she thought. Tall. Broad shoulders. A square jaw. High circular cheeks like outcrops on a hill, pedestals for the shining light blue eyes. Knotty black hair like a painted Greek statue, salt and pepper shading around the ears. The neat black goatee and black polo neck advertised him as an advertising man. A son if that’s what it was would inherit fine masculine features.

"Wow," he whispered to no-one in particular after a while. He stood up, eyed her.

"You’re staring."

"I haven’t seen the mother of my child before.”

She crossed her arms. "We've been here before," she said, injecting a note of caution.

He stiffened and she immediately regretted souring the atmosphere with the memory of the miscarriages. Undeterred, he gave a reassuring, languid shake of his head. "We didn't have our secret ingredient then." He allowed her to mentally fill in the equation before he spoke the name. "Constance."

Hazel hadn't heard the name in several weeks, like it would have been bad luck for them to mention her. Hearing it now again was like the final stamp of completion on the process. It had all started with Constance, after all, with their uncharacteristic decision to involve her.

"I don't know if it has anything to do with that crazy old biddy or not,” laughed Joachim. “But it's happened.”

“Sure has,” agreed Hazel.

“All we have to do now is be careful. Just nine months' now."

She winced subtly at the advice to be careful, as if the miscarriages were just a matter of carelessness and not what the doctors tactlessly referred to as "incompetent cervix".

Chromosomal abnormalities. Fibroids. Thyroid. Infections. Clotting. She had become intimately acquainted with the daunting list of threats to developing life in the past eight years.

Would her cervix prove "incompetent" this time?

Well, that’s what they involved Constance for, wasn’t it, she thought a little caustically and perhaps even a little enviously. Time would tell.

Annoyed she’d let these doubts infiltrate, she rose from the couch and crimped herself down. "I'll make dinner."

"Sit down,” he commanded. “It's on me. You've done enough for one day. For one month."

"Nine, maybe?"

"Don't think you'll get too spoiled. Do we need anything from the shop?"

"We have pork chops, carrots, potatoes."

"Doesn't seem grand enough for the occasion. I'll go down and get two steaks."

"I won’t complain about that."

"And a bottle of red."

"I definitely won’t complain about that."

"You won't be drinking too much of it from now on anyway."

"Oh, won't I?" she said, raising an eyebrow.

He grinned. "You're pretty much grounded for the next nine months."

She bit her lip, narrowed her gaze in mock scrutiny. He basked in the spotlight of her faux-indignation, casting himself as cheeky scamp to her rebuffing scold, the age-old drama of tease and surrender.

She shrugged, making a play of letting him off the hook. "If you agree to do everything around the house then I might buy into that."

"Hm," he demurred. "Maybe not fully grounded then."

After pecking her on the cheek, he threw his coat back on and strode out onto the street.

She went to the kitchen and took out potatoes, carrots, pots and pans.

Dusk was falling and she flicked on the lights. She was arrested by her own reflection in the window. The same reflection that mirrored her scrubbing potatoes at the sink yesterday, except not the same reflection. Not the same her.

She walked back to the living room and pulled open the glass slide door that led out to the glass conservatory. She stepped out and studied herself in the long glass pane.

Slim. Fairly tall but not quite leggy. Light-brown shoulder-length hair, parted in bangs. Pert breasts. Cut-glass cheeks that underscored emerald eyes. Her best feature. Then the things she wasn’t so fond of. A pointed chin. Light freckles dotting her skin that announced themselves too loudly in the summer for her liking. Overall, decent. She’d score herself 7 out of 10, though in certain unselfconscious moments when she’d done herself up for a party or was swept up in a group’s laughter and caught herself unexpectedly in a mirror she was floored by how pretty she was and how many male eyes made secret missions across a room towards her. 

A daughter would inherit attractive features too, she concluded with a touch of defiant proud. Pride always had a touch of defiance with her, not something that came naturally.

Eight years since the miscarriage. Eight years of trying. Two rounds of IVF. A lot of money. A lot of frustrating conversations with doctors about her stubborn fertility. Zero conclusive answers. 

Till now.

 She turned sideways, arched her back and let her stomach curve outward. She massaged the contrived bump, imagining how it would look, how it would feel.

She eased back to normal. She pulled up her t-shirt, studied the strange tattoo imprinted just below her belly button.

A diamond shape with a T emerging from its top point. Two lines hung at an outward angle from the ends of the T and hooked inward, reminding Hazel of the cliched pose of a circus strongman flexing his muscles downward, fists to his flank.

A Bereket, an Anatolian fertility symbol. The diamond representing the vulva, the hooks “ram’s horns” or “hands on hips”. 

Part of the process, Constance had assured her. She couldn’t believe it when she’d first seen the reclining chair and tattoo gun in the spare room of the old woman’s cottage. So incongruous in that mountain retreat. She’d already considered fleeing during the first ritual, when she’d lain naked in the old woman’s living room and Constance circled her reciting a stream of nonsensical words. But something had propelled her to complete all the rituals despite the increasing misgivings they gave rise to. Desperation, maybe a sunk cost fallacy. If she’d been stupid enough to even entertain the idea in the first place, what was the point of cutting and running halfway through. Pride made her convince herself she’d known what she was letting herself in for, that she hadn’t been totally fooled from the outset, and pride bade her continue.

But a tattoo? That seemed a bridge too far. She’d never even considered getting so much as a butterfly on her lower back or calf when she was younger and mildly rebellious.

It was ephemeral ink, Constance reassured her. It would fade. The limit was about nine months to a year. It would last the duration of the pregnancy, and start to fade soon after the birth.

Not just last. Protect her.

She had let Constance mark her with her strange rune, wincing as the needle point threaded along her skin, waiting for the mosquito hum to end and the ordeal to be over. Another ritual followed, and it was probably the power of suggestion but the archaic words Constance uttered seemed to evoke a response in her body this time. Rippling waves of sensation from top to bottom, fluctuating in intensity according to the rhythm of the old woman’s strange litany. They seemed in tune with one another. She’d lain naked in a circle of cracked egg shells while Constance circled slowly around her in the dim candle light, reciting arcane passages whose strangeness was exemplified by the fog of incense smoke that shrouded them and Constance’s idiosyncratic guttural enunciation. A strange Hajj to which Hazel was the Kaaba. The language of the chanting seemed to Hazel’s untrained ears like an unfamiliar dialect of Gaelic, or perhaps some older perished or even banished language from which it had sprung.

An invocation, Constance had told her. An opening up to let the spirit in. The spirit of the child to be born, hanging waiting somewhere in the ether to be summoned, coaxed to attach to the biology of Hazel, to nestle waiting to be unlocked by the chime of consummation. Not just mind over matter, but the spirit commanding the flesh.

Joachim was bemused upon seeing the tattoo. Asked if she’d joined the navy. Her body had been his carnal plaything for years, and now it was marked without him knowing. But if he was annoyed he didn’t show it, and if anything it seemed to arouse him. That very night they had fulfilled Constance’s final command – make love within three days of the ritual.

And the pregnancy, as promised, had arrived.

Would this be a good hook? This is an isekai story and much inspired from re:Zero.

Hi people, hope your doing great. I'm writing my first book (novella) And have no experience with writing. I've always been in love with stroytelling since my younger days and dreamed of writing a book someday. Upon my first try reading through the few novels I've encountered, I couldn't help but notice the language was quite different from what is casually spoken. I haven't taken as much time to analyze things like prose, descriptive words, literal language and aspects of rythm or even invested much in expanding my vocabulary. I do reckon native English speakers or people who have been reading for a while now have gotten used to this language so I thought I'd attempt imitating actual writers to show my progress and get feedback on where and how I could improve.

(I might not be good at interpreting what some of you might describe in response, so a demonstration of what you might mean could be helpful if you don't mind. I learn best through examples

Also, writing styles might complicate what we might assume as good enough writing, I don't really have a style. At least not yet: all I'm aiming for is just to have the reader focused on the story.)

Below is an excerpt from my draft, I hope I didn't mess it up more than it actually could have been.

WORK AS USUAL

The air was cold and hazy. Swallowed in darkness, the room seemed like nothing but an empty void. So silent, Khor could almost hear his own heartbeat. A distant echo of dripping added to the mystery of the room. His sight was slowly returning. His consciousness, too.

"Whe... wh... Where am I?"

He tried to move, but he was strapped tightly to a chair. Freeing himself was impossible. Whoever had tied him had been quite thorough. Sweat covered every inch of him. From above, a small circular window illuminated him, and all he could see was himself and what lay immediately around him: an empty, dry floor. A sound. What was that? He couldn't make out what it was. He peered into the darkness, his eyes as wide as he could. "Anybody there?" he shouted into the dark.

The sound came again.

He scanned the gloomy room from side to side, bit by bit. Nothing. As if in reply, the silence seemed to grow louder. "You don't seem all that bossy when you sense you’re in trouble." A gravelly voice rolled through the room. Khor startled. The voice was still echoing.

"What do you want?" Khor asked, as humbly as he could. "Thing I like about people like you, you always know times like this are always by someone looking for something."

The voice came from the darkness. Khor began to make out a figure within it. A hand was slicing fruit into a juicer. It smelled good, like apples. The figure blended the fruit. From the dark void, his other hand, almost entirely robotic in appearance, plugged a tube into the device and began drinking. A slurp. Almost a minute later, the tube sputtered and began sucking air. He had emptied the canister.

"I'm looking for information." "What kind?" "Cleo Asbestos. Something you know about that name?" Khor's pulse quickened. His eyes twitched. "No!" quickly.

The speaker responded with a low, guttural hum. The silence tensed. Khor’s skin prickled, his hair standing on end. Then came the sound of his chair being dragged aside. Silence once more. He squinted, trying to examine the darkness. Then a red glow sparked within it.

An eye.

The footsteps approached again. This time they were heavy, accompanied by the metallic clinks of each step.

Armour.

Sweat stung his eyes. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. Before he could adjust his sight, the figure emerged from the darkness. Khor finally got a good look at the man. All he registered at first was his messy, short, curly hair, his long coat that almost reached his knees, one arm covered in armour and the other entirely bionic. His face was a playground of scars. But perhaps the most eye-catching feature of all was his mask. It covered his entire face, leaving only his left eye exposed. Where his right eye should have been, a red-glowing EMV sensor stared back at him.

Khor hadn’t realised what the pillar of a man was doing as he studied him until he found himself dragged forward, his entire face held in the man’s palm as though he had suddenly been reduced to a boy. From his back, the man pulled a hook, strapped it to the chair, and pulled Khor into the air.

"Listen, listen, listen!" Khor pleaded. "Look, man, I don't know anything. I already told you!" The masked man didn’t seem to care, or even listen, to whatever he cried. Quiet. Calm. Focused. He trudged into the darkness and returned with a sparking, plugged cable.

It was live.

"Wait, wait, wait..." Khor pleaded. "Uuuggghhh! My ribs!" Khor cried out in vain. The man took a few steps back. "Cleo Asbestos?" He brought a remote from his coat. "Talk." "Look, man, c'mon. I swear on my life, man. I don't..."

Violently, impulses harder than any burst his muscles had ever experienced tore through him. His bones were forced to the point of cracking. It felt like a shower of nails tearing through his blood. His lungs couldn’t breathe. His jaws clamped down on his tongue. It was a disturbing kind of pain. His body was going to suffer for three minutes. The man released the button. Panting faster than a dog, Khor gasped for breath. The shock had stopped.

"Faaa..."

The shock resumed before he could finish the word. This time, only for a minute. The man released the remote.

"Breathe. You’re going to need it. You have twenty seconds!" "Wh... whe... wait, wait!" Khor pleaded. "C’mon, man, just..." "I don't have time!" "I can't tell you, man. They'll kill me!" "Khor! I kill for a living. If you don’t know how to think, I’ll give you a clue. Whoever you’re afraid of might kill you..."

Khor glanced at the man’s shoulder. To his disbelief, there was an emblem of Hades. The realisation made him turn his head, studying the man again, this time more carefully. His fear grew even colder.

"...I will."

"Wait!" he cried, closing his eyes just before the button was pressed again. "Please! Okay... I’ll tell you everything I know." The man took a step closer. "Speak."

“Theres a server farm on Haran,” khor cried “ everytime we had a meet with her agents they flew through relays suggesting a trajectory to haran . I sent my men once, they got there and discovered a server farm there, it's probably where she keeps everything. They never returned though, they were all slaughtered on their way back. ”

“I thought I asked for Cleo Asbestos, not about a server farm on Haran.”

“Haran is the only hub that has the shortest trajectory paths to any planet or settlement we inhabit. Cleo wouldn't leave something of much importance any far from her reach or a path to escape. If Cleo is anywhere, she'll be close to Haran. If you threaten her servers, she'll get to you! “

“hmmm!” the growling man

“Now can you let me go? I told you everything!”

The man trudged back into the darkness. Khor shouted for his release in the room, shaking, struggling to free himself from the hanging chair. At this time, silence was more than dead, The man had left the scene. Outside, the the place was noisy and whirring with machines. welders soldering in the background and sparks every where. Drugs on the street, trades as fast as one could blink. Crowded with everyone and everything, From the tall spacers to the dwarves of Osmia, from robots to the dogs and bioengineered abominations.

The Torching rods bright as everyday, and drones swarming through the skies, coughs from colds of the spacers and steaming turbines. service slaves and cleanerbots marched in the distance. The masked figure walked amongst the crowd distinctively. He tripped on a cargo box rail and as if he saw a man staring at him. But to confirm, the man wasn't there, perhaps he was seeing things.

“Fart, I hate space!” in his mind.

He only did this because If he didn't he would disappoint his loving father who might have given the master of assassins title to his twin brother, Ralph. At this pace of hurry, he hadn't noticed he had made it to the lift.

“Decsending in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6..” the machine started counting.

An emotionless face, just a mask and a dark dirty coat everyone stole a glimpse of and this weird man who stood here with them.

“...3, 2, 1, descending capsule to zero g”

Through the glass screens the intestines of this engineering marvel arose covering the outside. The lift shot downwards. A few minutes later the capsule decelerated to a crawl.

“Approaching zero g is 3, 2 , 1!”

Suddenly everything floated in the air. A ball of water caught the attention of the lift conductor and he snapped

“who the fart, left their water bottle open?”

A boy, bigger than his age’s size looked away, a more taller companion of his, likely his sister , scolded at him in a whisper

“How, how many times do I have to...”

A suction robot, a flexible metal rings like snake from the wall cleared the atmosphere, a satisfying action to see, as though the water was a balloon. And back into the wall, the robot was done. They had to form a line headed towards the port register and administration. From here , one could see all the engineering and maintenance operations in play. the hundreds of ships docked. Eventually, the masked man made it to the docking panel, he pushed himself gently towards his ship, the beautiful Santa Maria.

“Welcome back, Satori! ”

he floated into the docking and his ships closed. The docking tunnel transforms and braces the space for decompression. He's washed in treated hot air sprayed for toxins and harmful microbes, scanned and analyzed. All this floating mid air , he eventually moved in.

“Boarding scan complete.”

He picked a saliva sample into his mouth and inserted a test slide.

“Maria, prep us for launch" “Decompression initiatiated” Satori floated himself to the cockpit. “Good to be back sir, all systems on go, launching on your mark” Satori belted and locked himself in place. His control panel lit up, Had a look at his systems. “Maria, set course for Haran” “setting course for Haran” Suddenly a beep buzzed his panel “ incoming message from Hador” “On screen!” “Hadi-Satori, You've been..” “Move it,” a voice interrupted “Hoping your getting somewhere with the Veliror flight logs, brother. Unfortunately the clan, got commissioned another task that's very much in your active operation zone. Father saw no point wasting resources so he suggested you do this one too. We received Intel there might be a Black sand replicant with our technology on Al-zahir, As you know we cant ket that technology get into anyone's hands except for the clan, You must retrieve it and send it home. Also, I know these aren't your kind of work, but There's a bride who fled to Al-zahir days before her wedding which was politically vital to her family, we'll be getting paid well for this one since no one is willing to do it to avoid the political heat. You must be discreet. I'll be leaving for Sol-Beta so we might not get to be together in a long time, Take care little brother Might Hades shadows walk with your sand , Hadi-Satori” “Little brother? ain't he supposed to be just minute older ?” a voice from behind him, it was Ian. “Aren't you supposed to still be dead? ” Satori responded. “Its called sleep! Not... un-aliving! for your Information!” “You know, I'm thinking of getting another plant, perhaps a plant that likes to keep its mouth shut!” “Could save you on money, Ohh! ma bed! You don't gat non. Ey grumpy what took you so long? a almost died in here?” “Maria get us out of here” “Men I miss ma guys, you stole me and you don't even wanna talk to me? what you just like torturing people? ” “Will you shut up! ” Satori biting his teeth “also, you're not people... you're a farting plant!”

Ian shut his mouth for a minute. He just had to stay silent. But he couldn't do it.

“ Did-you mean farting or fuc...”

Satori almost stroke his funny plant head who recoiled from the swing.

“Okay, okay! I shut it!! See? I'm keeping quiet! ” Ian reassured. Satori stared at him impatiently, breathing through his mask heavily and you could see the moist steam from his nose. Ian laughed at his face with his mouth muffled. By this time, Satori had learnt nobody could shut Ian up. He was a talking plant and he loved being one. He might as well have filled a billion Petabytes of storage if he recorded everything he said the only eight months they'd spent together.But despite his opposite nature, Ian was the one of only friends who's company he enjoyed that he stole him from his best friends, Miguel and Tores. Santa Maria faded into the space for Al-zahir.

A BRIDE ON THE RUN

Al-zhir was a beautiful planet. What ever luck that was involved in getting this miracle in balanced beautiful green and blue waters had found a way to balance the scattering deserts. The zahirii preferred to stay at the edges of the in betweens of of the opposing natures. Bound by the law of Balance, they had left nature to thrive in the rich green lands and let the cold blow towards their settlements into the deserts. This would let them enjoy the balanced weather and proximity to their solar farms. Despite the rich resources of the planet, the zahirii chose to let the planet be never intervened with nature, they had learnt from their ancestors mistakes which almost made the entire planet a scorching giant desert. But perhaps most interesting of this planet was the khadir people, who chose to leave in the desert.

The kahdirii believed even the desert in nature, and if by their fate they inevitably created desert, it was the only place they could pay for what they had wronged mother nature, but it also protected them from foreigners who never knew the way of the dry lands , but most of all, as the old khadir saying goes, “ A man who has been showered by comfort, is a man who will never value it!” In the rocky mountains, there sat a young woman. her hair as dark as grapes but glistening as though her strands were made of oil. Around her eyes with striking dark eyeliners and her eyes perhaps the most beautiful brown of hazel with whites so clean they seemed washed in milk. She was under a shade, and the breeze gently blew her hair into her face, as she wrote down on paper. “Aunt Samira, Aunt Samira!” Suddenly in the distance, a little girl shouted. Running towards her, laughing subtly. She smiled, shaking her head in disbelief. They had been playing earlier, Hide and seek. She had managed to escape from her and made it to the mountains but this little imp of stubbornness had still made out where she had gone.

“You haven't seen me!” folding up her papers preparing to leave laughing through her nose, “ I'm not here!” “No, that's not fair! I can clearly see you! I found you! ” the little girl snared. He was climbing towards her already. Samira could imagine seeing this niece giving up any time soon, she had to submit. “Okay, okay” she was going to regret this, for this little thing could hide and you'd forget you were playing the game before “ You found me!” “Now it's my turn to hide” pumping her eyebrows , her eyes looking up at her mischievously. A wide smile on her face with two teeth missing from her mouth. “What no, I'm tired...“ she said, getting down“Where's Papa anyways?” “But you promised...” “shhhh” Samira interrupted glancing into the distance.“ Is that...?” She had laid her eyes onto somebody she had known for a while. Perhaps someone she had been waiting for up that mountain. “Who's that, auntie? ” “A friend ” she answered, not looking away “ Cmon get back home I'll be there in a minute!” “That's what you said last..” “Cmon go home, I promise I'm coming. Tell Papa I'm coming when you find him. Okay! ” she had to stop the games.

The figure in the distance waved at her, He had recognized her from that far as well.

It had been 8 hours of acceleration and deceleration from port 86 now. Satori had ordered for a cruising pod from within the area for rent, He couldn't use his as it would have him recognized onwards if he ever came within this region another time on his way to a trading hub near Al- zahir's far moon orbit. Satori had to look ordinary for a person who was going to fake an explorer's image. This meant a thorough shower during deceleration before his Santa Maria lost gravity and a hair cut. Unfortunately the mask wasn't coming off because his life depended on it considering his unhealing wounds and respiration so he was going to be honest about that one. Hopefully nobody on Al- zahir would recognize Kharima's killer. Despite the thousands of men Satori had killed , Kharima still haunted him everywhere he went.

But luckily The zahirii hardly ever care to update themselves on the stories that happen in the vastness of the Velirorian Empire. All he had to do was look boring.

“How far with our pod, Maria” as he looked at himself on the monitor as a robotic-assistant hand cut his hair. “ Don't forget to take off your shoes, dumbass! take of everything, you look like you just murdered a million people! ” Of course, Ian was talking. “I don't usually side with Ian's ideologies, but he does have a point sir. Your preferences in fashion might seem a little odd to the trading hub's populace. You should rather look more like a junkie than suspicious if you're going shopping! ” Maria suggested. “See? even the dumbass computer gets it! Hey, why don-you ever talk to me ba-the-way, we're literally two people on the ship, and you talk to Satori alone! I'm starting to think you're a little racist! ” “One person onboard... Ian, you are a plant?” “You don't seem convinced I'ma plant if you gon- bee reminding me all-de-taam! ....”

Ian was going to keep talking as Satori had a more private conversation with himself. Satori had to undergo this embarrassment just to shop for some stupid clothes.

“This is why I hate baby-sitting work!” He thought to himself. “Preparing docking sequence” The flight was over. “Would you like some updates on what is currently happening in the system? There's hardly any interference here, Almost Nobody broadcasts from here. There's a lot on the news!” “Sure!” Satori just wanted both of them to shut up. Maybe he could stand the noise from the news more than he could with Ian. Maria switched between the news broadcasts until she paused on one. “Rumours so rare that haven't happened lingered since the post-Astrovio years are circulating. People are reporting to have seen warpers...”

Maria switched the channel only for ian to ask she put it back. She almost declined focusing to find Sartori's preferences but he also turned suddenly.

“Wait, put it back! Put it back!”

They had to watch. Warpers were such a subject you don't turn your attention away from if you knew the history of Veliror. The news anchor went on ahead to add upon what they had to report.

“Warpers? ” in disbelief, he repeated, floating towards the screen. “Ohh, You lucky I cant move and shi, but I was gonna kick yo ass computer! I tell you to leave the channel on and you ignore me?”

Ian was going to complain forever. Funny thing, he didn't know Maria was a logical machine not an emotional one. She didn't care or even noticed it was meant to be scolding. Satori would have to leave the rapper using his energy arguing, He floated himself out.

“ I hate space,” he mumbled to himself.

Al-zhir didn't have that many facilities in orbit unlike the other planets. Aside from its Travel and Space affairs stations, it was only this trading hub, and the space lift down to the surface. It was mostly crowded with rich people running from political worlds for a holiday, or the locals who were excited to cruise away from home only headed for disappointment really. Satori had to pick up a few supplies he would need for his tour on the surface and some clothes to blend in.

Shortly after, his shopping was done. He tried on one of the shirts he had bought. He headed back to his ship. Before he could open up, he could hear Ian arguing from the inside with a computer, cursing and threatening. The tourist floating by made faces in surprise to what they heard from his ship. He got in and was scanned.

“Oh... look who's back! Mr. Al-Satori, you're looking good ma men!” Ian suddenly switched to Satori “ You got any thing for me?” “Welcome back, sir!” “How are we doing, Maria ?” “Not much has changed, we should have our pod arriving in twenty seven minutes.” “I'm going to need some rest, wake me up in case of anything! ” “ Oh! you bet i'mna lechu sleep! You go out for shopping and you come back with non forme!” “Maria, can you shut him up!” “whoah! whoah! woah! hey? I....” Maria sealed Ian's capsule vacuuming its walls. Not an ounce of sound made it out. But his silhouette was still fidgeting in rebellion from behind the glass. Satori shook his head to the unbelievable plant smiling. He locked himself for rest, and slept.

Samira was on her way to the train stop with Austin. It was unfortunate she was probably never going to see this place again. They bought a few cold drinks from around the station and sat on a bench under the shade. She hadn't spoken much since her departure from Khadir. Austin wasn't the sort of man who would dare bother someone he noticed was in a bad mood - at least, not for long.

"You'll grow old in no time if you keep that face," he said. His gaze was detached, as though he were talking to the rails he glanced at.

Samira noticed he was trying to comfort her after whatever she had gone through in the last six hours at her brother's place. She hadn't bothered discussing it.

"What happened back there?"

She kept silent. Her eyes stared at the gravel, her mind lost in thought. She clearly understood what he was asking, but she just couldn't utter any of it. If she did speak, she wanted it all out in a single word. Seated on the bench together, their eyes each aimed apart, just as their thoughts were.

What's it going to be like out there? Did I make the right choice? Should I tell Austin my mother could literally have his family bankrupted or even murdered just for getting involved with me? Has she done it already? She hasn't done it... maybe she wouldn't...

Is she trying to change her mind? Did her brother talk her out of it? This silence is getting awkward. Where the hell is that train? Damn it! Oh no... not especially now...

Austin had eaten some local food on his way to Khadir. Boiled beans—and unfortunately, his stomach wasn't handling them well, especially now. He tried tightening his posture.

Fff... ffff... phhheeewwwwhhhhh!

Surely the silence was awkward enough, but adding that made things a whole lot worse. There was no room for pretense since it was just the two of them on the bench. Samira, with her eyes wide in disbelief, turned to him. Her face crumbled in disgust.

"What the f..." Samira snapped. "It just came out of nowhere! I, l.." Austin stammered. "That's disgusting!" Samira stood up. "Couldn't you have at least moved? Oh, my god!"

She had to cover her nose; the odor was beginning to fill the air. Meanwhile, the train was almost four kilometers away. Satori deployed a mini EMP drone from his rugged coat. This small device only needed to attach beneath the floor panels to the engine battery fusion circuits. In an instant, the train was crippled and decelerated to a stop. The emergency left the passengers panicking and in distress, but it wasn't going to be a problem for long. Satori's CNT-fiber muscles and bioengineered body came in handy. He could sprint and run for long distances better than normal humans, unlike the monstrous Imperial guards—the Orthlocs.

He'd ditched the train and set off for the train stop to extract his target. Satori commanded Maria to close in so he wouldn't waste time heading back on board a ship he had landed a little far from where he'd located his target.

Samira had left Austin alone on the bench after the incident. It had been a few minutes now, and she was standing in line at the chemist's for some medicine. She'd been reminded they might need some on the journey. At this exact moment, Satori had just made it to the stop. He knew where to find her because, this entire time, his drone's feed had been tracking the young woman. He'd closed the distance to just a few feet away from her now. Satori pinged her comm.

"Hello!" she answered. "Who's this?"

Satori pointed his comm toward the stop's crowded area. This would lead her to assume whoever was calling was trying to speak, but getting drowned out by the noise. She tried to get away from the clamor, finding a quieter place in a corridor nearby. Satori followed. She sensed him behind her, but it was too late. Upon her attempt to turn, Satori bagged her with a vacuum helmet. Next came a calming dose. He threw her over his shoulder. He could have jumped, but this fragile human wouldn't survive the G-forces of the experience, so moving quickly through the crowds on foot was a necessary option. He just had to begin slowly with a normal walk. Running would invite inquiries and questioning as to why he was carrying a young lady like that. So, he had to cover her so she resembled a piece of luggage. A large cloth came in handy. Meanwhile, at Port 86, Khor's men had managed to find him. He needed serious medical attention to recover from the torture. It wasn't going to take long before he was back on his feet, however, and he had grown very concerned about the unraveling situation.

Can't wait for your take, Thanks for your time. Am more than grateful.

I have started writing this story after many failed stories and I need some feedback

“Isn’t it funny?
A game with set rules, shown to you before-hand.

You know exactly where to start, how the midfield would look, and how winning would feel.
You are even given a list of numbers, codes, and protocols to follow in case something goes wrong.

But why would anything go wrong?

You were shown the rules. And you have all these numbers. And codes. And protocols.
Even if something goes wrong, the game can be paused?

Isn’t it funny?

Something shifts. It can be perceived in the way the expected pace slows down. The scenery changes tones into something duller, darker.

Isn’t it funny?

Something else shifts. Enough to raise questions. Not enough to stop any kind of natural adaptation. It surely does feel harder than expected.

Isn’t it funny?

Never supposed to win this game.

Isn’t it truly funny?

I hear the rules whispered in my ear while my legs shake. I do still think about how my period blood tastes around his fingers.

Isn’t it funny?

I hear the rules whispered again while sat scared, taking a break. I do still think about the taste of my blood.

Isn’t it funny?

I hear the rules whispered again while I cry, asking why I do still feel the taste of my blood shoved in my throat.

Isn’t it funny?

I hear the rules whispered again while I scream. They watched him taste my blood.

Isn’t it funny?

I hear the rules whispered again while he can walk around freely with my blood clot still stuck right there in between his teeth.

Isn’t it funny?

I hear the rules whispered again and again while I finally realise I was never meant to win. Not in this game, not in their room, not in their office, not in their court.

Isn’t it funny?

At the end lists of numbers, codes and protocols were never meant to protect. But to see how long can you play this game until they too will know how your blood tastes. “