2nd chapter, please critique!
I posted my first chapter on here and thought I would do the second. (Yes I'm writing at a snails pace, don't think about it)
Would love it if anyone would comment with some critiques. I'm trying to improve a bit, but I'm not really sure where to start. If you're interested, my first chapter is posted. Check it out if you want! Btw, I do have italics on the internal thought bits and some other stuff, but it doesnt copy and paste, so sorry about that.
Quicker, Viella, don't let them catch you. I plant my foot and nearly slip, rock tumbling down, down, down to the stone far beneath me. My vision spins, and I snap my eyes up. Apparently I'm afraid of heights, something I wish I'd known before I decided to climb a mountain. My breath stutters, hands shaking furiously. Just don't look down, I tell myself, this is fine. Truthfully, I'm not convinced, but my hand lands on another jutting rock and I pull myself up, muscles straining.
I am not made for this. No matter how often Marielle tried to drill it into me, I am made for sewing, and reading, and looking at pretty things. But I guess death is good motivation. I keep climbing.
Well, I try to.
Something slams into me. Pain shoots up my leg, and the world spins. Someone's screaming, and it takes me a moment to realize that it's me. That the cliff is gone. That nothing is spinning, but that I'm falling. The ground rushes to meet me, the wind pulling brutally at my hair, my clothes, my skin. But I- No no no, I can—I can find something, I can fix this. But there's nothing, nothing but the stone beneath me, flailing arms, my heart slamming agianst my chest. I make a desperate attempt to call my magic to me. Please please please. It doesn't come. There's nothing to do, and I can't stop it, and I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna—
Something slams into my back. It's cold. Wet. Not what I thought death would feel like, if I'm honest. Then I open my eyes. Oh. I am dead. I'm floating...in a sphere of water, light rippling strangely around me. I take a breath. Water floods my lungs. Not death. Real. Very real. I can't help coughing, taking in more water. I flail around the sphere, trying to get to the top, break the surface—is that possible in floating balls of water? Apparently not, because I only swim in frantic circles, failing to reach the top. I have to stop when the pain in my leg becomes too much, though I'm not sure why it hurts. Then the sphere starts to rise, up, up, up. I can't breathe, I can't break the surface. What is happening? The edges of my vision blur. The last thing I see is blood, mingling with the water. The darkness closes in.
*
I wake in a run down room, in a bed that smells faintly of mildew. A patchwork blanket covers me, the edges unfinished, tickling my skin, as if someone intended to add on to it. It's such a contrast to the cold of the last days that I can't help but pull it closer to me, hands curling in the fabric. I hate that it feels like home; I want it to be so badly. Molly would be across the room, painting her nails or trying to decide if she wants bangs. I'd grumble at her from bed that she hated them the last time, that she kept them pinned back all year, and she'd try and get me out of bed and into the kitchen so I could make her breakfast. And so that I wouldn't be there to laugh when she inevitably gives herself a new, terrible haircut. I could be home. With Marielle and Molly. With Niko.
But the moment ends, and memories slam into me.
Blood on stone.
Falling too far.
Drowning.
I could probably be doing more important things than weeping over an ugly bed, telling myself that I'm somewhere I'm not. But it's quiet, almost eerily so compared to the chaos I last remember. There's no one else in the room.
I try to sit up, but don't make it halfway before pain shoots through my leg. Starting at my knee, running up and down to my thigh and calf. I fail to bite down a mostly stunned gasp, and tense, half expecting someone to come busting the door down. But there's only silence.
I gingerly sit all the way up, biting my cheek, and pull the blanket back. Well, the pain makes sense. The light is dim, but a lamp by the bed illuminates my leg, and my eyes trace the purple-black splotches across it. It's everywhere. Underneath my knee, fanning out to my calf, over my kneecap. Only bruising, but it looks like some kind of infection, yellow and purple mixing to create a leg fit for a corpse.
I dig through my head, non-cooperative and foggy, coming up short as to how on the Islands this could've happened. I vaguely remember falling, mostly the terror of it. The events before and after that don't quite fill out, and I note that my head is bandaged, white cloth wrapped around my forehead. I'm at a loss for how I didn't end up a bloody spot at the bottom of that mountain. Surely the kidnappers wouldn't have saved me? Maybe someone else was there, waiting. But that makes me more nervous, somehow; A known danger's better than an unknown one. They rescued me, but only so they could throw me off of a different cliff. Atleast my kidnappers don't want me dead, do they? They would've killed me when I escaped if I was replacable, right? I go back and forth, trying to convince myself that I'm safe, that it's over, that I can go home soon. But who saved me? Where am I? Are they here, too? A million questions, and it comes down to one. How can I know anything if I stay here?
*
I move slowly, pushing myself with my hands. I try not to move my knee, but it aches regardless, and I grind my teeth together. I make it to the edge of the bed and, grasping the stone wall for balance—and letting it take most of my weight, I stand. The room swims in front of me for a moment, my stomach roiling, until finally the stars leave my eyes. The bed creaks terribly, and I cringe before reminding myself that I'm not exactly incognito, anyways. Everything is sore, and it takes most of my will to half shuffle, half hop forward. I move about an inch. Well, this'll take an eternity.
*
I stand at the door, my ear pressed to the wood. Words float through the cracks, sharp, rough around the edges. They ring meaninglessly to my ears, melting into each other and becoming one long, steady chant. I don't recognize the language. They don't sound angry, whoever's speaking—a man, by the sounds of it. But they seem stern, as if lecturing a disobedient child. Another voice cuts in, this one feminine and decidedly furious. She speaks in one long, rage-fueled outburst. The man tries to cut in, maybe saying a name—something like Helen, but I can't quite decipher it from the rest of the torrent. I hear a curt word that sounds like it might mean something offensive, though I can't be sure. And then she finally stops, and the man says something with a ring of finality, and then neither of them speak again.
Weirdly, their argument comforts me a bit. It calls to mind Niko trying desperatley to go follow some of the older kids and Marielle to the city, while I tell him that it's really no fun at all. I remember he had tried to practice at home, and I'd spent an hour lecturing him about all the dangers of his magic, and how easily he could hurt someone—all of it taken straight from Marielle's mouth, from when she had given me the same speech after I'd refused to train but still wanted to use my magic. All the while he sat brooding in the chair, only to start sobbing and scream at me about how He never got to do anything!
I cover my mouth to stifle a miserable laugh. How on the Islands did I get here? Tears sting my eyes and overflow before I can stop them, and then it's truly hopeless to do anything but let myself cry. Losing whatever courage got me to the door, I turn my back to the wood, sinking to the floor. I bite my tongue to prevent the sobs that scratch my throat, silent tears crawling to my chin. I let them fall. They sink into the stone, painting the grey smoother and darker than before. How am I supposed to fight this? I ask the stone beneath me. It doesn't answer. I push my hands flat on my legs, take a deep breath, and despite my pounding head, try to think.
How did I get here? Another question I can't answer. I don't remember getting here, sure, but I can't remember where I was taken from originally, either. Surely I was at home...or maybe they caught me outside, alone? They had to have hit me hard enough to cause memory loss. Or they could've used a drug, something strong enough to knock me dead asleep for days. And to muddle up my memory; It'd be expensive. Who are these people? I ask myself. Why do they need me?
I press my hands to my face, the calm crumpling beneath my palms.
I don't know, I answer, and it feels like the hundredth time I've said it. I don't know where I am. I don't know who took me, or what to do. I don't know how to keep myself from spiraling, apparently.
But no, I do.
Find something to focus on, something simple, Marielle's voice instructs, One goal, Viella, that's all it has to be.
Even if she only meant something small, then, she would tell me to be brave, now. I don't know, so I need to find out. That's simple enough. Also feels like an impossible task, but I have to do something, anyways. She would really hate me just sitting around crying. So I gather whatever courage I might have left, and struggle up to my feet.
Low conversation has resurfaced on the other side of the door, but I can't tell if it's the same two from earlier. It sounds like more than two...No. I don't let myself think this time, don't listen for an opportunity to back out, to hide. I take a breath, two, and open the door.
Four people stand scattered around the room. All of their eyes turn on me. Oh, I should've hid. Two men and two women. All with weapons. I regret my decision.
One girl in the corner, pear shaped with white-blonde hair framing her face, breaks out into a smile that pushes her cheeks up so high she has to squint. "It's so good to see you awake! How're you feeling?" She says this in accented Theronian, which may have surprised me more had I been less baffled at her words. I almost turn to barricade myself back in the room, her kindness stranger than if she had pulled a knife. That's what I expected, at least. "I'm...I'm okay?" I reply, unsteadily, feeling obligated to say something back. She just looks so...nice. "Oh, I'm glad!" And she does seem relieved, if a bit frazzled. "Let me get a look at you, just incase." She says, pulling out a chair.
I don't move. If I'm being honest with myself, I would sit if it was just her. But the other three stand as well, all crowded into the small room, around a table that takes up half of it. None of them speak to me, and they all stare. I recognize two; the Phthinonian, eyes dancing, and the dark haired women. Both are from the wagon. The other is a man, tall and blonde and suspicious looking. He stares at me with narrowed eyes, just as wary of me as I am of him. As if he were the one kidnapped!
My being afraid doesn't seem to occur to the blonde woman. She approaches me to help, her hands hovering by my arms. "I tried my best to patch you up, but I've only been training so long." And she looks so worried, so apologetic that I don't attempt to stop her as she takes hold of my arm, leading me to the chair. "No, I'm- it's great." I sound bewildered even to my own ears. I wonder if she'll get upset. "You did a good job." I add just in case, warming my voice. She smiles that smile again, and I smile back, trying to decide if I should feel relieved or scared. But I do sit, a little happy to get off my feet, leg aching and head swimming.
Even if it means being surrounded.