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Janderson

The Gateway

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Ok this is my first Fanfic, if you are going to criticise please make it constructive.


Doom: The Gateway-Prologue
The Martian, Eevyl City was said to be the place where it all happened. Settlers said the same sort of things about America, ‘the streets are paved with gold’ and ‘there’s an opportunity around every corner.’ Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The streets were actually paved with iron rust dust. the city was an industrial labyrinth, a maze of chimneys and stacks. The air was hard to breathe in, because of the dust and the smog, which the great stacks of industry threw up into the air with unerring mercilessness. The artificial atmosphere waxed and waned until one day the ozone would rip open. Despite the artificial oceans the sky remained its evil red, and at night the sky would illuminate with the eerie dark red and turn the white, blue, and yellow stars into magnified evil eyes.
For a second there was silence.
Then suddenly the ear-splitting cry, which sounded, like thunder echoed through the dark streets. All of a sudden a great scream, as though God himself was in agony, resounded through the city. A great ball flame appeared in the sky. As it plummeted, at sonic speeds, towards the ground, it unexpectedly slowed before hitting the floor, then with a long shriek it arched towards the city hospice…

The Lost Soul
In the cancer ward of St Lucifer’s Hospice, Chloe suddenly sat bolt upright, cold sweat dripped from her limbs; she had heard a sound, a sudden sense of dread came over her. The noise was like a lock clicking shut and yet it seemed far more sinister.
The buzzer indicated the nurse had finished patrolling the corridors for now, at this time she had to swap shifts.
Painfully, the deathly ill girl scrambled out of her creaking bed and stumbled towards the light switch. The sky’s red glow entered the room and made her glad to turn on the lights, half blinded she watched the eerie red recede to the curtains, and there it stayed.
The light reflected off the mirror, catching Chloe’s eye, forgetting the noise for now she examined herself. Since the day she was born she had been infested with cancer, the cause no one knew or understood, the only reason she had survived so far was because the doctors pumped medicine through her body daily. Yesterday though, her only friend had died in an industrial accident, he electrocuted himself while attempting to fix a factory generator, after hearing this Chloe had opted for euthanasia. She had been off the medication for twenty-eight hours, she looked awful, her skin was bloated, her eyes were red and gold, most of her body was disfigured, she was only sixteen and she had lost all her hair. She looked around the empty white, sterile walls and at the empty, laminated beds, she was all alone. She suddenly felt scared.
The noise sounded again, making Chloe jump it was louder this time louder this time. It was coming from outside the window. Then a different noise occurred; it was a knock on the window. What could that be? She thought; the ward was on the third floor. Slowly she walked to the window. Another knock made Chloe stop dead. Quickly now she ran and pulled the curtains open, her mouth dropped open.
A ball of flame was moving away from the window, quickly it turned; it had a face. It was an enflamed human skull, its mouth was a permanent grin, a small hole was its nose and its eyes bulged with fierce malevolence. The top part of skull was cracked, but not missing. It was trying to get in. As it noticed Chloe it opened its mouth and clicked it shut again. released an unearthly wail. Then as if the sight of it shot at the window at full speed sending out a great screech like that of a tram when the driver slams on the brakes.
Chloe dived out of its way as the skull destroyed the window sending shards flying all over the room. The skull moved quickly and it turned to avoid the oncoming wall and hurled itself at Chloe. It hit her in the stomach and she let out a breathless whimper.
It came again. This time she was faster and ducked. The flaming skull crashed into the bed making burning holes in the bed and trapping it in side. While it was stranded on an enflamed duvet she made a run for the door. She was only a few feet away when she slipped on the shards of glass; she hit the floor with the back her head and lay winded and dazed.
From the burning bed the skull flew up along the ceiling, then, it plummeted towards the floored girl’s head. She began to scream. On connection the skull shattered.
* * * *
The male nurse was late for his shift, he raced down the corridor against hospice rules. 'It’s only been five minutes.' He thought. 'What could have happened in five minutes?'
He had finally reached his post. He gave a sigh of relief. He sat back and waited for the morning. That’s when he smelt the stench of burning rubber and fabric. He looked towards the cancer wards; smoke was begining to come out from under the door. He wafted the smoke towards the smoke detector. Nothing happened. ‘Goddamn this, cheap-ass, fire budget.’ He said to himself while angrily hammering the fire alarm button on the wall. Bells sang throughout the building.
He was about to depart to the fire assembly point when he remembered that the ward had an occupant. Maybe he, or she, was trapped! Quickly he opened the door, and searched the large room, his eyes adjusting to the inferno. All around the room there were great plumes of flames rising from the beds, smoke and fumes clung to the ceiling and on the floor were shards of glass and bone. Right at his feet was the charred remains of a skull; it looked up at him with lifeless sockets as the flames tormented its shadow. What the hell is this? He thought. ‘Is anyone in here?’ He shouted at the tumult of flames.
Terrified patients and docters were jogging past him to the fire exit, the nurse looked for an excuse to do the same. 'She's probably already dead.'
Then he noticed the open window behind the inferno, the ignited curtains fluttering like the wings of a phoenix. The occupant must have escaped!
The nurse was about to leave when from out of the inferno walked a figure, the figure of a bald child. ‘Hey! Hey!’ He screamed. ‘Get out of there!’ Chloe’s silhouette walked calmly towards him and he was in awe to see that she appeared uninjured. He himself began spluttering, the fumes were becoming to immense for him; he covered his mouth. ‘Hurry!’ Came his muffled voice again. She was now only two paces away. He leaned forward and pulled her into the ringing corridor.
He looked at her, her eyes were glowing. ‘What the?’ He said, half to himself. He shook himself; ‘Come on!’ he said. She did not move but looked up at him, her face was neutral her eyes, malevolent. He shook her shoulders. ‘Lets get out—‘ He gave a little yell and fell forwards. Chloe stepped back and let the body fall to the floor; blood gushed from his neck. Chloe slipped the surgical scalpel back into her pyjama pocket then walked to the fire exit.


Improvements?

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Ok this is my first Fanfic, if you are going to criticise please make it constructive.

#%¤OMFG, WORST STORY EVAR!!!!!!!#£¤&

Just kidding, here's the serious part:

You've done a great job describing a number of things, but perhaps a few more emotions are needed - just a suggestion.

I'm wondering if there is still a desease like cancer around at the time where Doom takes place - maybe, but it might not be as life threatening and dangerous as it is now. I would assume that it'd be more likely that cancer was replaced by new, more complex diseases, but that's just a matter of opinion of course and it's nothing big.

And then there's the problem about the story picking up much too fast - you don't spend nearly enough time describing the city, but hurry on to the terror. You need to "create" the scenery, imagine it and describe in detail what you imagine - that way, the setting seems more compelling and the story is more likely to get people interested.

It's a shame that you didn't put a little more effort to the introduction, for the actual meat of the story is quite ok. You have displayed a number of pretty interesting ideas - the artificial atmosphere thing, the polluted air caused by industrialization to point out a few and telling the story from an ill, defenseless person like Chloe here, is both original and interesting.

I hope to see more stories from you, but take these small things into consideration.

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Nicely done.

I'll add just a couple more points:

One thing to try is to write your sentences so they don't disrupt the flow of the story. For example:

"All of a sudden a great scream, as though God himself was in agony, resounded through the city."

The parenthetical in the middle of the sentence doesn't quite fit in with the flow of the rest of the paragraph. This can be solved by just a simple rewrite:

"All of a sudden, a great scream resounded through the city, as though God himself was in agony."

Personally, I avoid using "sudden" since this pulls the reader out of the narrative (you are in effect saying to the reader "look at this"), and let the verbage iself give the "sudden" feeling.

This can be done any number of ways, but I like to use contrast:

"On that night the silence exploded in an ear-splitting cry, thundering through the dark streets."

This is much more active than what you have and gives a good contrast that highlights the abrupt change in the setting. I used the word exploded because when you read it, it feels like something has suddenly happened.

Notice too, I added a connection between your intro and the subsequent action: "On that night".

This fixes in the mind of the reader that the action is an explanation of "where it all happened" in the first sentence.

Just some thoughts for whatever they are worth. :)

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I'm the grammar police, heh, and you've a few errors here 'n' there, but-eh, I'm too lazy to point 'em out. It's the things Microsoft's Word probably won't pick up; you gottah read through the story to find 'em.

In any event, contrary to dsm's opinion, I don't believe a large explanation of the city was required. But I think differently. Me, as soon as I finished reading that small excerpt I already had a good idea of what YOU wanted us to see; I just filled in the blanks by default. But like I said, I think differently. A little more deatil now and then doesn't hurt anyone or anything.

Lastly, good work. I'm spooked now; can't wait to read more.

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