Author's Note: Hey there guys, I was stuck with some ideas in my head for a long time and now I decided to push the 'Fuck it.' button and write whatever I feel like. I was really afraid of fucking things up once started and just scribbled some things up until now, but you can't be sure that something isn't going to work out if you don't try it first right? So I decided to try it here (on the heaven known as NUF) and then, if I have the guts to keep pushing things on, do something on RRL latter. But hey, this is probably taking too much of your time, so, getting to the main point. I won't (for now) host this at any independent website and english is not my first language (as you may have noticed), so there will probably be some grammar mistakes here and there. I hope that such mistakes don't fuck up your immersion (if there's even one to speak of) and I'll try to keep my odd usage of words in check so take care of me from now on! m(_ _)m The title is "Silent One" btw and not that I have to say it but I'll hear any type of critic and/or suggestion made by you guys. ...Be harsh with me! *heavy breathing* Synopsis: In that misty forest resides a man. His existence as fragile as thin ice, breaking apart piece by piece, with a shadow of the past as his last support. Time forgives none, but he still continues to live knowing nothing, for he already forgot himself a long time ago. Towards him, a 'Devil' shows compassion. Promissing 'salvation' to the loved ones, he ties together two broken paths. "What did you left back there, you ask?" He snorted. "A curse. That's all. In the end of that life, everything you accomplished was a simple curse." He smiled mockingly. Then, his tone turned into that of a whisper. A sweet one, grasping into her very soul. "I have a deal for you." "A second chance and a 'White Knight', that's my part." "As for yours, my dear Agnes...." He peered directly into her eyes, looking terribly amused. Genres (it may change as the story goes by): Action, Psychological, Fantasy, Mature, Romance, Mystery, Tragedy. Table of Contents: Prologue Chapter 1.1
Prologue“------hhh----h.” It was a strange sound. “A---hhhhh--h.” Perhaps awoke by it, she slowly drifted away of her sleep. “Gah-aa-hhhhh--!” Her drowsiness swept aside, she tried to move her body, but to no avail. “Aaaaahhhhh-!!” Suddenly, that distant sound started to catch her attention. And then--- “Kha--AA--AHHHHHHH!!!!!” It tore its way through her consciousness, leaving not a shred of calmness in her heart. That sound, no, that noise crammed upon her ears, forcing her eyes open. Nothing but white filled her blurry vision. And in a similar motion, nothing but panic filled her mind. “AHHH-AHHH-A!!!” She tried again to move her body, to run away, but a silent pressure was keeping her in hold. Her limbs numb, not even twitching in response. She tried to look away and noticed the whiteness that once filled her vision gone. She couldn't feel the taste of air, she couldn't feel the touch of her own skin, she couldn't--- “Gh--AA--AHHHHH!!!” --feel anything anymore. As she drowned in a sea of pure darkness, she had the urge to scream. Scream her lungs out, scream for help, scream as a way to suppress the pain. And then she realized-- “Gah----Ah, ah, ah AHHHHHH!!!” --- her mouth was already moving, gasping for air. ‘That voice...’ ‘Is mine...’ Her mind then suddenly cooled down, as if a bucket of cold water was poured directly in her brain. Her last memories then came rushing through, giving her the final support she was searching for. ‘White coats...’ ‘Closed room….’ ‘Drugs….’ The memories were as fragmented as a torn apart photo, at a certain point they seemed to stop having any type of chronological order, just fading in and out of her vision randomly, flaring up like fireflies in the darkness of her thoughts. After everything sorted itself out, she reminisced about the last events she knew of. ‘I was in the observational section of the building, then they took me to the surgery room and...’ It stopped there. Everything stopped there. After that there was a blank, but she felt as if she could ‘fill’ it if she wanted to. Or rather, uncover what ‘filled’ it in the first place. But something kept her from doing it. This will, this instinct was directly telling her ‘You’re better without any of this.’ However, she felt that if she wanted to be able to do something here she had to be ‘complete’. So she ignored the warning and ‘trespassed it’. …. ‘Ah…..’ For a brief moment, her body and mind bore resemblance. The pain-filled screams that came from that parched throat--- And the once clear memories now revealed--- Were disgustingly alike.
Excellent choice of words, interesting plot line, and enough material for us to be satisfied. Not bad, man! It seems like this might be a good story, keep it up!
Thank you, I'm going to post the first chapter as soon as possible (but you may have to wait a little because I'm not sure of how much I can tell in a single chapter without compromising the future plot line) XD.
Tag: "Unreliable Narrator" The best kind of narrator. Despite your claim that English is your second language, you're quite fluent and I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't said so. The main issues I see are more complex grammar mistakes that even native speakers have trouble with like comma use and formatting. Feel free to PM me or "start a conversation" if you want me to point out some of the specifics and how to fix them. As long as you can find some time to write and either build up a stock to release slowly or manage to write a chapter in a timely manner, you'll do well on RRL. I'm one of the mods over on RRL.
Oh thanks! (and sorry for the wait, I was taking care of some stuff and barely managed to like your comment) I'll gladly accept your help.... When I finish chapter one, that is. (There's still some stuff to do and I created some short term goals to deal with myself. One of them includes writing at least one chapter per week and I wrote the prologue last week... Which leaves me with some hours to write the next chapter.) Thanks for the tips, I heard that the world of RRL is kinda harsh on new series but I'll think positively and try to keep it in mind as some kind of long term goal.
RRL isn't harsh on new series. It's just hard to get attention at first. A lot of people will pass on reading a series until they reach a certain amount of chapters. That's why I suggested stocking up on chapters before posting anything there. There's also an issue of a few trolls going around rating everything 0.5 stars. And then some users that'll give a low score for even the most minor mistakes. However, people don't pay attention to the rating of fictions for early stories and reviews hold more weight on the average than anonymous ratings so middle/top tier stories can counterbalance the 0.5 star ratings quite easily. If you get a bunch of bad ratings within a few hours of each other suspiciously or one right after putting up the story, let me know and I'll look into it. I'm quite willing to wipe your rating if it's still early on and I enjoy banning strawmen accounts. Other sites similar to RRL actually require politics and advertising to get any attention. You can get attention on RRL by simply writing. Even the shittiest story could keep updating and still gain readers. I've seen many a story that's barely comprehensible yet reaches 200 chapters and hit the top 50. Not that you should follow their example; write at your own pace and write what you enjoy writing. P.S. I'm one of the authors that wrote a shitty story with a lot of updates before hitting the top 50. Less impressive because there was only ~500 stories at the time and now there's almost 10,000. Another one of my later stories, which only had 7 chapters with ridiculously large chapters, is in the top 500 despite being dropped for over a year so writing long stuff is another option.
A Demon's Charm - Part OneHe looked at the ceiling and narrowed his eyes. The wood, darkened by time, seemed to symbolize his will as it withered away. The smoke drifting in the air tainted his nose and the vulgar laughs dirtied his ears. Everything here seemed to conspire together while laughing in the shadows as ‘it’ got what desired. Curses filling his mind, nausea tearing through his reason, sweet whispers repeating in his ear ‘go away’, ‘you already waited enough’, and so on. However it would be easier for everything right then and there to disappear than for him to give up after coming so far. For this was business, and business was sacred. For this was in his self-interest, and such a thing was also sacred. He wouldn’t know which one to choose even if you asked him. But he would know that such a decision would never come by, because to him these two always walked side by side. Involving his own dream and romance in his money-making, tying the two concepts that almost never touched each other (except for the reckless and young) together and so ultimately living a fulfilling life. He was now close to this, he was now unwilling to give up on this. But neither of those, nor his will nor his closeness would help him in the current situation. Tap tap The low yet clear noise woke him up from his daze. In front of his table a burly, tall, bald man smiled fiercely at him with his hand invading his personal territory, which was almost entirely denominated by the small circular wooden table separating the two. He was dressed in light clothing with a letter armor protecting his chest-plate, probably an adventurer or pathfinder trying to calm out his own urges. ‘Why the hell do I know what he want even though he didn’t say a word?’ he asked himself as he grimaced. It was a logical although obvious conclusion, really. He was already dazing off for more than an hour, he didn’t order anything from the not-so-pretty waitress and the whole place was in full swing, probably full to the brim at this point of time. Ale flew here and there, the smell of alcohol and tobacco filled the air while drunk people tasted what meant life to them. Being in a table and alone, he was an easy target for those who wanted to talk with the fists. Or rather, not talk, just swing these now meaningless lumps of flesh and bones, giving in to the primitive instincts that gnawed through their minds, stealing what could be reasoned with and putting bloodthirsty bastards in the place. Because of this and this alone there wouldn’t be any dialogue whatsoever tonight. He sighed and looked at the ceiling again, almost praying for his soon-to-be partner in the utterly ridiculous cockfight to leave him alone. Tap tap The low yet clear sound echoed again, tension filled the air of the whole place and at the same time the youth muttered in a low voice two of the holiest words in his current vocabulary. “Fuck it.” And when he was ready to bounce out of this chair, a carefree yet intimidating voice echoed through the surroundings. “Wow, what’s with the tension here?” In the entrance of that bar stood a rather poorly built man but of good stature. He looked over to see where the youth was and after spotting him, walked naturally in his direction, giving the frozen public a sidelong, passing sharp glance before getting to the main point. “Herner, right?” In the exact moment he entered the bar the atmosphere was filled with a strange, stagnated tension. Everything seemed to freeze over, not even one of the men there bore the eyes of a bloodthirsty beast anymore. Reason seemed to come back to them, but even then they did not move a muscle, forgetting how to breath for moments that felt like eternity. The youth nodded at the tall man’s words, and soon enough the two of them left, leaving the shattered silence behind, together with a bunch of drunkards not knowing what to do with the ale that suddenly lost its taste and the damaged will that caused their eyes to shine an even duller light than before. Ж Darkness embraced the barren streets of that small town. The moon shone high and gracefully as though cutting through the pitch black sky, with millions of starts as her envoys, surrounding her with their own speck of light and at the same time shining for themselves, trying to prove their might in front of the immaculate silver embrace that enveloped the closer ones and caused longing to the farthest ones. Down to the earth, Herner, the youth with unkempt shoulder length black hair and similarly black sharp eyes walked silently in a slightly absentminded motion, he appeared as though in his twenties and looked at the sky as though entranced. At his side, the poorly built yet tall man of dark brown short hair and almond eyes similarly looked up, wondering what Herner found so interesting in there. Since there was closer to no illumination in those streets, the only font of light was the moon and the starts. They truly made their presence right then and there, for tonight was a night of full moon, and that made their way a little clearer than the days before. The tall man was grateful for this, but this sight was such an everyday occurrence to him that it didn’t hold half of the enchant than it should have in a first-time experience, and such was the case for Herner. Moments passed as they walked without any particular objective in mind when suddenly Herner opened his mouth. “You’re late.” The tall man immediately responded, unaffected by the serious, almost threatening tone of Herner’s voice. “I apologize.” “Mm.” Herner tore his gaze out of the sky and looked at the man. His eyes bore a kind of calm evaluating gaze and his expression showed that his mind was working something in a slightly open corner, revealed by blatant honesty. The man returned his gaze head on, not hiding the apologetic look on his face. “…You shouldn’t do something like this again, it may scare away other people.” “Not interested in my reason for doing that?” “Not in the least. Knowing it would not change your actions nor would it help me with my ruined mood and throbbing headache, so it’s useless.” The tall man smiled wryly at Herner’s hiss and continued. “You did not mention what you came to do in your letter.” “Isn’t an appointment with an old friend good enough?” “Not if we’re talking about you and your money-oriented mind.” “Oh, is that the way you see me?” “There’s no other way to see you, but I admit that your looks have changed quite a bit since… When was it again?” “Two years ago.” “Mm, sorry for forgetting.” “Don’t mind it.” Silence filled the air once again before Herner opened his mouth once more. “… Can you name the first thing that grabs your attention if you look at north from here in a local map?" “Mm.” Despite it being a sudden and strange question, the tall man tried to remember a map he recently saw. It displayed the overall outskirts of the city in a colored and sightly detailed manner, with beautifully drawn letters forming a certain word in the corner of the darkened yellow paper. ‘Eibingen'. Certainly, there was something really ‘out of place’ in the north regions, some kilometers ahead of the ‘walls’ that surrounded the whole town. Upon remembering it, he furrowed his brows. “I wonder if I’m tired, my memory seems to be a little bad. The first thing at north from here… wasn’t it a ‘blank’?” “A ‘blank’ huh… Despite being so close to The City Founded by Braves?” Herner said with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. He looked at the tall man with expecting eyes, waiting for a response. The tall man sighed and looked at his own feet. “I found it curious too, but what do you expect from me? I’m a merchant not a----” “You'll always be a warrior Will, and you know it.” Herner cut him off, his eyes and tone bearing a strange kind of forcefulness. “… But being you a warrior or not, I doubt that it would catch your interest anyway.” As he said this he lowered his eyes, seeming embarrassed. Will sighed again, letting the previous exchange bitterly slide through his memory. “So, what about it? Aren’t blanks pretty common if we’re talking about local maps?” “Not if they’re there for more than a year.” Will stopped in his tracks and looked at Herner with a surprised look on face. “… Wait, wouldn’t this issue be already solved by now? I mean, it doesn’t matter if they actually explored the area or not, wouldn’t just fill it according to the surroundings be sufficient to sum things up? Why is it still there?” “Before I try to answer this question let’s move to a certain intriguing fact that I found out about a little while ago. The Pathfinder Guild is giving a kind of special mission to a selected number of combat specialist groups who are rather close to their inner workings. Can you guess what it is about?” Will shook his head in response. His friend always started to talk this way when fired up. He was now just like a kid with a brand new toy, his eyes sparkled as he got to the meat of the story and at this sight, Will couldn’t do nothing but comply with his every demand. “I’ll say it in their own words, ‘Explore the fog barrier and find out what’s behind it.’.” Before Will could raise his voice in astonishment and confusion, Herner brazenly fanned the flames of his doubts one more time. “And apparently they’re equipping these groups with high-grade Mana disruption goods, the kind that can fuck up a spell of an Archmagus in his prime.” Will had no more words, he just tried to work things out in his head, reading between the lines, trying to guess what his friend really wanted to say. “… H-hey Herner.” His voice shook a little, fact not noticed by himself. “Hm?” Herner said as if he already expected this. “What exactly are you trying to say…?” There were three possibilities in his mind. The first, a new kind of Beast that could manipulate magic to that extent appeared. The second, that was a protection spell of some kind of ancient ruins and the guild was after it. And the third and most improbable one---- “If I take into account a certain rumor that spread out because of the first explorers of that place, then yes, my friend----” Herner blocked up Will’s way and spread his arms wide, as if wholeheartedly showcasing the unbelievable facts. “The Great Duchy and self-proclaimed empire of Berith, after exploring this new continent for fifty years, got its first contact with one of its inhabitants.” He didn’t know why that possibility passed through his mind, but still---- “And there’s a possibility ‘he’, the 'Snow Fairy', is beyond freaking Archmagus-level too.” Dizziness assaulted him as he looked at the broad grin creeping through his friend's face. And at that moment he knew---- Herner wanted to go there and see it himself. He saw that all too clearly in the child-like but unwavering gleam of his eyes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author's Note: World building and a little of gore next chapter. If you're wondering who the ones mentioned in the synopsis are, well, wait until I get to the main plot (soon). Please inform me of any grammar mistakes, typos and such. I'll gladly accept suggestions if my wording comes out as awkward.
It's really nice.... Your hard work paid off.. The quality of the chapter was amazing... I was totally engrossed.... The tension in the atmosphere was prevalent... I'll continue to read this... Please continue the good work! And Good luck!
Whew, I don't know how to thank you enough... But I'll say this clearly now regardless if it sounds cheesy, 'Your words gave me back my motivation'. Really, really thank you. (I may be a little strange like this because I'm sleepy and dried up, don't mind it). I will try hard to release the second part of the chapter ASAP without any drop in the quality! *bows*
Don't take too much burden on yourself though... I'm glad I could help you gain back motivation... Taking some time off and refreshing your mind is a must... So take care
The progress you have from the prologue to CH 1.1 is good Ken. <Good Job> I don't know where is wrong but i like the ch 1.1 more than the prologue. I bet that right now your use of English language getting better so you can express your feeling and idea in your story more fluently. I'll following your story, Good luck there.
Thanks, I don't know how to express how grateful I feel towards you so a 'Thanks' is the best I can do at the moment. I'll try my best to make you glad for stumbling in this story, so sit tight! Muahahahaha~ In another note, I liked the prologue more than chapter 1.1, but that's because I know what happens in the future and what happened there, at that time.
Naiso! *double thumbs up* though there are some typos and sometimes I don't know who's talking, but the story is good. Hope you write some more ^^ I will look forward to it. And oh, did you just say gore?! |.+)