Are We There Yet? Chapter 1

I briskly walk, my breath becoming more and more heavy. There’s pin drop silence, except the shrill howling of the street dogs. To my relief, I don’t see any recognizable face. I turn back once more. Yes, I’ve come far enough. Clutching my duffle bag closer to my chest, I increase my pace.

I have to be out of this city as soon as possible.

The night is extremely chilly, goose bumps break over my body. Not due to cold, but fear. I shudder. Decision to escape was made impulsively, but I managed to scribble the phone numbers that would come in handy. My phone is in my bag, switched off. I can’t take the risk of getting my phone tracked, possibility is slim but it’s best to be careful. It’s pitch dark, I can barely see ahead, my eyes squinting for a feeble ray of light. The howling of the dogs gets shriller and louder, cutting through the thick, absolute silence. I shuffle hurriedly, half running and half walking. Just a few hours more, everyone would know I am gone. The festive intoxication will wear off and all hell will break loose. Every attempt to find me will fail, because by that time I would be far, far away from this place.

Far away from my beloved home.

After walking for another 15 to 20 minutes, I find myself standing on an endless, two lane road with absolutely no idea where I am. In broad daylight, it’s very easy to identify locations but now, my senses have started numbing. By any means, I have to reach the nearest bus stop or a train station before the dawn. Pausing to re centre myself, I scan my surroundings. The road is lined with huge, green trees but there are no vehicles. Helplessness grips me, I can’t recognize the area at all.

What am I going to do now?

The clock is ticking, my invaluable time to claim freedom is slipping by, just like the white, quartz sand of the hourglass. The option to go back is still open. I’ll change and sleep. And pretend as if nothing happened the next morning. Momentarily, I consider it.

No. No, no, no.

I can’t go back to the fate I am so desperately running from. Trying to calm myself down, I open my duffle bag to retrieve the phone. Only when I hold it I realize that I’ve been shivering. The screen springs back to life, this is against what I planned but there’s no other way. With fumbling fingers, I try searching the closest escape route. I feel the tension leaving my body, even if it’s just a little. Tomorrow I would be free, in some new city. I would be living a normal life or better, my dream life. Relief gushes over me, probably after hours of anxiety. A tiny prospect of freedom too holds incredible power. I stand there, a bit relaxed but not for long. A chill runs through my spine when I hear distant voices.

Rooted on spot, I slowly crane my neck to look behind. Four men dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, their feet unsteady as they walk, have their gaze fixed on me. It doesn’t take the IQ of Einstein to conclude they are drunk, a little too much. I look ahead and start walking as fast as I can.

They wouldn’t do anything, they aren’t awake enough for that.

I turn my attention back towards my phone, taking firm, long strides at the same time. I groan inwardly when I see it receiving no signal. Nevertheless, I can’t stop, I have to keep moving. And fast. Adrenaline rushes through my veins. Stumbling a little, I increase my speed. Though sure of having left those men far behind now, I look back again to double check. My blood freezes at what I see.

The drunkards have been following me.

And they aren’t half as unaware as I initially thought. The knife and pepper spray I packed give me a little sense of security, no matter how false it is. There’s no way I can put up a fight, only one thing can be done. I break into a run, frantically hoping there would be someone ahead, hoping the road isn’t as deserted as it is now. The drunkards don’t run but don’t stop walking either. A streetlight enlightens their faces, they all have scrubby looking beards and dishevelled hair. But it’s their eyes that catch my attention. There’s surprise as well as thrill and excitement shining through those, it’s the same look a hunter gives it’s prey before sucking out it’s life. Afterall, it isn’t everyday you find a young, lost woman on the streets. I sprint, the duffle bag bounces up and down, hitting me periodically. The men begin walking faster, wanting to end the chase as soon as possible. The hair on my nape shoot up. Apprehensively, I check for the signal again, holding my phone in my clammy palms.

 None.

 I want to shout but there’s no one to hear my screams. The only sound audible is the thudding of my heart and my heavy breath. I run, and run some more. The men would close up on me any time, I should’ve gone back. At least I would be safe, it’s far more important than being happy. My thoughts are brought to an abrupt halt when I see a white, sleek car pulling up beside me, it’s tires screeching through the silence of the dead night. The car stops and the glass of the window descends to reveal a young, masculine face. His eyes meet mine.

“ Get in” the deep, husky voice commands.

“ What?” I say with utter disbelief.

He takes a look at his rear view mirror. “ I said get in, they’re not very far behind. Come on now, be quick.”

I swallow a lump in my throat. “ I don’t even know who you are.”

He lets out a deep grunt. “ Look, if you don’t want to get in, it’s okay. But I don’t think you have a lot of options” he says, glancing over the rear view mirror again.

Fear encapsulates me. He is right, I don’t have any option. The drunkards have stopped walking, perplexed. My eyes dart over the place, there isn’t any other vehicle around. Surprisingly, my survival instinct’s voice smothers the one of my reasoning. And before I know it, I open the car door and hop in.

 I pull the door to close it, but he accelerates with an alarming speed. I am jerked forward due to inertia, but manage to slam the door shut. In less than thirty seconds, I loose the sight of my unpleasant followers. Still struggling to wrap my head around the latest happenings, I glance at my saviour. He’s staring ahead determinedly, driving in silence . His brows are furrowed but his calm demeanour doesn’t exude any worry. Long, thin fingers hold the steering wheel, one of them has a gold ring on. He is dressed in a casual Nike T shirt and blue jeans. Concern and confidence, both span the sharp features. I look ahead, the car headlights illuminate the road, it’s the only thing to be visible in the dark. The realization hits me hard, I’m in a company of a total stranger, perfectly capable of inflicting harm. I don’t know how many minutes pass, but the road seems never ending.

“ What on earth were you doing there?” he says with a tone seared with annoyance as well as amusement.

I wish I knew the answer myself, I think. He gives me a sideways, lingering glance and takes in my appearance. I’m wearing a white and red full sleeved tunic, teamed up with black slacks. I’ve my brother’s backpack and the duffle bag. My waist length hair are tied in a low ponytail. His eyes pause on my hands, beautifully decorated with intricate henna designs. I pull the sleeves of my tunic down, suddenly conscious, having no interest in doling out unnecessary details.

 “ Thank you so much for what you did. Please do me another favour, drop me at the bus or train station” I implore.

“ Of course, so that you get brutalized by another group of drunkards. Where do you want to go exactly?” he asks.

I let out a heavy sigh and fumble with my senses, trying to come up with a satisfactory explanation without saying too much.

“ Just listen. I have to get out from here, by hook or by crook. Drop me off”.

He doesn’t reply but slows down the car. I peek out of the window, the eerie darkness makes my skin tingle with fear. Gradually, the speed of the car recedes and we come to a halt. The boy unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to face me. Though it’s the second time we lock eyes, I realize there’s much more to his face than what my mind had registered. He has dark brown eyes accentuated by thick brows. The hair is jet black and untidy but very well taken care of. A light stubble covers the sharp jawline and dark circles span the area under his eyes.

“ I have no idea who you are and what you’re running from. But I assure you,  looking for a public commute isn’t the best idea at 2:45 in the morning” he says with a stern tone. I would’ve readily challenged him on this if I was sure of his inaccuracy, which I’m not.

“ Where are you going by the way?” he questions.

I don’t know, but any place where my opinion is respected will do.

“ Mumbai” I say. Lata, my childhood friend’s face flashes before my eyes. She lives there, she can help me.

“ I don’t think you’ll find a train to Mumbai, but let’s see.”

For five minutes, he drives without a word. The moment we hit the station, my hopes are crushed. Homeless people lay sound asleep on the platforms, no passengers are to be seen. Upon a little inquiry with the still awake vendor on the main gate, we find out the last train left two hours ago. There are no arrivals and departures scheduled for any place, let alone Mumbai, until the clock strikes six. The vendor eyes us suspiciously, causing the boy to quickly thank him and drive ahead.

“ You’re out of luck” he says, parking the car at a considerable distance from the station gate.

My heart shatters into a million pieces as I meet the last dead end. Tears sting my eyes. He looks up and shifts uncomfortably in his seat, thinking what to say next. I conclude he isn’t very good at handling emotional people.

“ Finding a bus too is out of question now, I can leave you here with someone trustworthy until…”
“ I’m not going back !”

He is stunned at my not so polite gesture and his face hardens.

“ Let me get it straight. You’re adamant to not stay here. Also, you want to go to Mumbai at 3 in the morning but don’t know how. If you’ve got any better plans, please let me know ”he snaps.

I avert my gaze. “ I had no time to plan. One moment I was lying on my bed thinking about tomorrow where I would walk in as a bride to marry a man I don’t want to marry but have to, and the next moment I was packing my bags.” I say all this very fast and by the time I end, I’m out of breath. The boy’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“ Oh, so you’re running away from a marriage?” he asks, bemused.

I blink back my tears. The last thing I want to do is shed big, fat tears in front of a total stranger. After a few moments of composing myself, I say, “ I just cannot go back.”

He shrugs and turns off the ignition. “ Because if I go back,” I continue, “ my life would change in a way I don’t want it to, nothing will ever be the same.”

The boy’s hardened expressions melt away. He looks at me empathetically and thinks for a few moments, then gives an affirmative nod.

“ Okay, thank the stars you crossed my path.” He turns back towards the steering wheel. “ I was heading to Mumbai, you can come along.”

My mouth falls open, setting off an alarm in my head. I stare at him, absolutely astonished. Decent intentions can’t be propelling such extraordinary kindness.

“ No, thank you” I reply, a little too firmly.

“ Why are you so stubborn?” he asks, genuinely irritated.

“ Because I don’t know who you are, what if you’re a deranged serial killer who would kill me and sell my kidneys?”

He tilts his head to a side, gives me a are-you-serious look and smiles. This is the first time I’ve seen him smile.

“ I get you” he smirks. “ I’ll leave you at the train station, good luck fending off the drunk hyenas, all by yourself.” He buckles up his seatbelt.

Oh, no.

My thoughts drift back to the drunk men, the memory of being followed wouldn’t leave me so easily. Their hungry eyes, lethal expressions and the harm that could’ve been done, everything flashes in front of my eyes. I shudder. As though reading my mind, the boy says, “ Don’t worry. You’re much  safer with me than a deserted train station.”

My head spins with haphazard thoughts.

I do have pepper spray in my bag, he’s alone, I can stab him if he does anything inappropriate, at least he doesn’t look harmful, not on the surface. He’s so unlike those men…

“ Decide fast, I don’t have all night” he says, drumming his long fingers on the steering wheel. For the second time in a night, my survival instinct overpowers my ability to reason, causing me to slump in my seat. I hang my head, exhale deeply and say, “ Okay, let’s go.”

“ Yes, let’s go” he declares, turning on the ignition. The engine roars back to life. And the next minute, I embark on the craziest, most unexpected road trip with a total stranger.

 

Author's Note

I'm new to writing, how gripping is the beginning and how good is it?

Reviews

[JayG]

Well, you did ask. And the things I have to say will sting, but they’re not related to your talent, how well you write, or the story.

The problem you face is one you share with pretty much all hopeful writers, and is the result of what I call, The Great Misunderstanding. Simply put: After spending more than a decade practicing your writing skills, primarily by being assigned endless numbers of reports and essays, you reached the understandable conclusion that the word “writing” that’s part of the profession we call, Fiction-Writing, points to that skill. But it doesn’t. Not even close. In our school days we're given literally none of the techniques of writing fiction. Why? Because professional skills and knowledge are acquired in addition to the general skill set we get in school.

The goal of a report and essays is to inform the reader. It’s techniques are fact-based and author-centric. You, the author, talk directly to the reader, reporting and explaining, providing fact after fact. Great for nonfiction where the reader wants facts. But the fiction reader? E. L. Doctorow put it well when he said, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” Use the nonfiction skills we were given for fiction and what you get reads like an essay or report.

The problem is one you, the author, will never notice, because for you the story works. When you read the story the voice of the narrator is filled with the emotion you intend the reader to hear. When the reader does, they have only punctuation telling them how to read it. To hear what that reader gets, use your computer’s narrator program and have it read the story to you.

But more than that, you cheat. You start reading the story with things the reader lacks: Context and intent. You know where we are, what’s going on, and whose skin we wear. The reader has what the words you choose suggest to that reader word-by-word. Look at the opening, not as the all-knowing author, but as the reader, who must make do with what you provide, and take the meaning from the words suggest as-they-read.

• I briskly walk, my breath becoming more and more heavy.

So in an unknown place, in an unknown year, someone we know not the slightest thing about, save that they’re out of shape and become winded while walking, could be in a gym, in the woods, walking a long corridor, or pretty much any place else. Why are they walking? Dunno. Where are they bound? No idea. Why does it matter that this unknown person is becoming winded after an unknown time spent walking? No way to tell. But if we read on, fifteen minutes later it hasn’t become a problem, so all we really learned was that someone unknown breathes heavier when walking than when not walking. Is that important enough to devote the first line of the novel to? Wouldn’t it make more sense to orient the reader in time and space, first; to make them know WHY this person is walking, and to where; to know what their objective is? Lacking that, can the reader have context? I ask because without context it's words in a row, meaning unknown.

In short, as currently presented, the line is meaningless to anyone but you, because as part of your education, no one mentioned the three issues we need to address quickly on entering any scene, so you didn't. In fact, they never explained what a scene on the page was, and does, because they were readying you for the needs of employment, not the profession of Fiction-Writing.

Will the reader learn those unknown things if they read on? Perhaps, but missing information isn’t a mystery, only missing information.

I know this is terrible news, given the hard work and your emotional involvement with the story, but on the other hand, you can’t fix the problem you don’t see as being one, or use the tool you’re not aware exist. As Mark Twain put it: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And as I said at the start, the problem isn’t one of talent, only knowledge of the profession that no one ever told you that you needed. And that’s fixable.

Think of yourself reading a horror story. Do you want the author to inform you that the protagonist feels terror? Or do you want the WRITING to terrorize you, and make you afraid to turn out the lights? No way in hell can you do that with nonfiction writing tools.

So, the solution is simple Add the skills the pros take for granted, and practice them till they’re as intuitive to use as the nonfiction skills you now use. Will it be a nice simple list of, “Do this instead of that?” if only…. Any profession takes time, practice, study, and dedication. No way around that. But if you are meant to write, the learning will be a lot like going backstage at a professional theater. And the practice is writing and better and better stories. So what’s not to love? And if it isn’t fun? Well, you’ve just learned something important about yourself. So it’s win/win. Right?

My personal suggestion is to begin in the library’s fiction-writing section, because you work at your own pace. There are no tests, and no pressure. And the best book I’ve found to date on writing scenes that will sing to the reader is available free at the address just below this paragraph. Copy/paste it to the URL window at the top of any Internet page and hit Return to get to the site (A film school’s library). It’s an older book, and talks about your typewriter, not keyboard, but still, it’s the best I’ve found to date. So grab a copy and give it a try.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

And for what it may be worth, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are mostly based on what’s taught in that book.

As a minor point: To present work here with proper paragraph indentation, Use MS Word, and set the indentation via the top ruler, not manual spaces or tabs.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Anam Namazi]

Hello there!
Thanks for the critique, this is exactly what I've been looking for. You're right, it's extremely important to get into the skin of the character, especially if it's the first person point of view. I'm very new to this, hence I tried my best to show and not tell. In the beginning, I tried to showcase the dread and uncertainty of the protagonist so the reader remains bound to the story due to curiosity. As a result, I didn't give all the details at once. How can you build curiosity and anticipation to get the reader hooked and still give them optimum level of information?

[JayG]

• As a result, I didn't give all the details at once. How can you build curiosity and anticipation to get the reader hooked and still give them optimum level of information?

That's easy. You, the author, aren't on the scene, so you can't "give details," without having your external voice intrude. And if it does, the one living the scene must react to that voice and ask who you are. If they don't, but simply pause what they're doing, and wait, politely, till you finish, how can it seem real?

Look on Youtube, for the trailer to, Stranger Than Fiction, to see how that would actually go (a film only writers can truly appreciate). And that's true, no matter the personal pronouns you use, because viewpoint and point of view are two very different things, and it's viewpoint that's meant by the word "show."

It's not a matter of making the reader know what's happening, moment-by-moment. It's making them live what's happening, as-the-protagonist. And nothing you learned in your school days can do that because those techniques are author, not character centric.

When you open with "I briskly walk, my breath becoming more and more heavy." you, the narrator, are telling the reader what's being done and what can be seen. But the one living the scene isn't simply walking. They're filled with intent, concern, and urgency. It's what's driving them. The walking is the result of that, and incidental. So in the character's viewpoint, as against POV, it might be something like,

"As I hurried toward the edge of town I looked back over my shoulder, even though I knew pursuit was unlikely. Still, the feeling that..."

See the difference? Incidentally, we learn the destination, without an invisible narrator lecturing. We learn the protagonist's state of mind, and their fear, even the probability of detection, and do it in a single glance rearward, because we ARE the protagonist, not simply reading about him/her. Our perceptions are being calibrated to match theirs. And a the end of the first sentence the reader is wondering why the protagonist is in a hurry, and why they have the feeling that...

In other words, emotion-based and character-centric, rather than fact-based and author-centric,

See how different they are?

[Winwin4ever]

Your description is vivid, but briskly walking is not particularly strong or unique. With briskly walking, we have no context. It can practically lead anywhere. Cemetery, store, zoo, birthday party, whatever.

In the first sentence, it has to establish the skeletal structure for the entire story.

Also, the end of the chapter should tie back to the intro. I get it, you started off with briskly walking and you are ending with an unexpected road trip. How can you possibly tie it together?

You need to start off with an interesting sentence.
Your story is good, but the MC is one dimensional and all too common. Mc is narrating the events and physical happenings. There is no depth. Build layers with interesting inner thinking.

Every single action is predictable and nothing stands out. All in all, your story is not unique, you have description, but once the reader understands the situation, running away, we can guess everything that happens. If we know what’s going to happen, why should we read your story.

I must tell you, it is clear you care about this story, but a story must have idiosyncrasies. Otherwise, it is merely drinking boiling water.

This story has lots of potential, and I’m sure you will improve.