Delivering the Beast Within

A Story by ev vileville

Soren has lived his life as a highland warrior amongst battlefield of bloodshed. Bereavement of a wife who was carrying his child in utero has prematurely faded. His firstborn, Fen, has been forsaken in possessing the strength to grieve.

Beast mode, a genetic mutation of highlanders, evolved from monotonous attacks while defending their land. A thousand years of vendetta leaves lifelong abnormality.

Fleeing sorrow, Soren recedes for a reprieve. His development of bestial type strength was inherited. He leaves his son to bury his sibling and mother.

Carrying dead knights' helmets, he trudges his blood-covered body back home. Unemotionally he strips his kilt from his body which is adorned with the helmets of deceased templars.

In solace, while he's tending his farm, Fen hastily approaches his father while bellowing in sorrow. Soren speaks to him saying, "My only regret is teaching you how to use that sword, Son."

Fen is transitioned into a young lad who is sent away to the scholars to study rather than die young by the sword. He shall spend his years penning scrolls of cultures and the learnings of all he will experience. Generations to come will learn his words. Suffering memory loss shall not defeat him after all.

The love of a damsel he met after an arena fight serves as Fen's inspiration to thrive. He will serve as her protector as she is threatened by the knights. He shall guard her against them as he did the evening they approached with plans of sieging a farm nearby.

Upon his father's abundant farmland is the place where the slaughter of the warring knights transpired. In defense of his procreator, Fen ensues fighting with a sword, annihilating the archenemy. Taking up arms, he engages in battle as Captain Hekver captures Fen's expecting lady. Fen is forced to choose to murder his lady or his warrior father.

Soren says, "Son, kill me as they command you. Loss of my kin has already doomed me to a shell of a man." Their inner beast rage arises as Fen is forced to mutilate his father with multiple stabbings of a pitchfork. As blades pierce his father's abdomen, he falls behind the forks with a bittersweet embrace.

Fen's baby is then born as healing begins. He shall be called Benjamin.

The Captain, a goliath and barbarian, inebriates himself with ale while visiting brothels. Gambling ensues intoxication as King Seth joins in.

Seth's motive in manipulating Captain Hekver to destroy Fen's scrolls eventually comes to fruition. Fen's memories are erased evolving him into a mindless war dog.

Scrolls are burnt to embers as Fen salvages one parchment page of his mother's lullabies. He reads her words as he cries.

Fen stands wearing his cloak bearing emblems on each shoulder representing the knights. He forcefully rips apart each one as he urinates on them while the Captain observes. Beast rage resumes and the full battle is engaged. Fen strikes Hekver with all his might but begins losing while being disarmed. Fist to fist brawling entails as Fen's leg is grabbed and tossed about.

A dazed and confused Fen lay wounded in mud and rain. The Captain walks towards him bragging how the battle could have been better as he stomped on Fen's chest. He fiercely grabs Fen's neck while elevating him. He says, "Your infant will never learn to know of you." Fen kicks the Captain's helmet off breaking free from his grip as his body backslides. He discovers a wooden pole to bludgeon him with. As Captain Hekver dives in for a forceful hug, Fen escapes towards him impaling his eye. The ultimate defeat is victory. Long live the Captain, no longer. He's gone. Deceased.

Fen's determination is in fleeing with his baby and lover to his inherited farm. Upon retrieving his family, her love turned to hate as she speared his heart as he reached for her. As his body dropped, he grabbed his chest while speaking the words "I loved you." As she draws for a headshot, she shouts "Oh please, I could never love a caveman-like you. You took the life of my brother."

She shoots her bow as he dodges it. Her sharp-shot arrow skims and tears off one ear. He jumps back on his feet as he grabs her neck. This time it's different as his muscles pulsate in rhythm with his loud and irregular heartbeat. As bright blood vessels in his eyes pop and turn red, he jerks the dagger out of his lower ribs and stabs her heart. He cold-heartedly drops her lifeless body out the window.

Fen goes on a rampage killing more knights. The Captain's older brother, King Seth, arrives as their battle ensues. Seth mangles and beats him while inflicting more fatal injuries despite beast rage. Fen is fading as he takes his last bit of strength and uses it to wrap a chain around Seth's neck. He chokes the living life out of him.

All knights retreat from the city in fear as Fen makes way to his son. He retrieves his infant as scholars approach. As he embraces his son, he sings him lullabies. The scholars ask if he needs a healer. Fen replies, "No, please don't let my son starve, and please teach him. Here, take my mother's lullabies and sing these to him. Tell him all about me when he gets older."

He looks upon his son and takes his last breath. The strength of his overexerted beast rage will no longer keep him alive as his heart has now slowed. He dies as he holds his son peacefully. His bloody body is lifeless but left with an everlasting smile.

Fen's son grows to inherit the position of king. He is a peaceful ruler and brings tranquility to all of the new kingdoms. As he walks to his father's grave statue and places flowers down, he says, "You did not die for nothing. May sleep and peace be your final reward." As the clouds release sunlight and shine upon hilltops, there stands a gray-haired Fen. He embraces the now thriving kingdom ruled by his son, King Benjamin, as he stares at the fruit orchards. Fen then peacefully fades away.

© 2021 ev vileville

My Review

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Reviews

JayG

Okay, you’ve written the synopsis. Why not write the story?

In its present form it reads like a report. The format, like all nonfiction, is author-centric and fact-based. You, someone who can neither be seen nor heard are talking at a high level overview, if the form, “This happens…then that happens…and here’s why that matters…and after that..."

That format is great if giving the reader information is your goal. But people read fiction as a form of entertainment. We study history books because we’re told to. But we buy fiction because we want to. As E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” Your reader wants you to make them CARE, and to worry. In fact, a reader is never happier than when you make them say, “Oh no…what do we do now?”

The idea is to make the reader feel as if they ARE the protagonist, and living the story, moment-by-moment.

Think in terms of a horror story. Your reader isn’t seeking to learn that the protagonist feels a chill. They want you to make that chill run down the reader’s back. They want you to make THEM afraid to turn out the lights when it’s time to sleep. And you cannot do that with the report-writing skills we’re given in school to prepare us for employment.

The skills of the profession we call Fiction-Writing, like any other, is acquired IN ADDITION to the general skills that are often called, The Three R’s: Reading, wRiting, and aRithhmatic. We don’t leave our schooldays ready to write a script or go to work as a journalist, but almost universally, we assume that we already have what we need to become a professional novelist—in spite of the fact that they offer four-year majors in Commercial Fiction Writing. And that includes me, when I turned to recording my campfire stories, way back in the 80’s.

As far as our being prepared fr the task... Do we know why a scene on the page is far different from one on the stage? Do we even know the elements that make one up? No. How about the three issues we need to address, quickly on entering any scene? Nope. Why a scene on the page ends in disaster—and what that means? Hell no.

But how can we write a scene if we don’t truly know what one is?

My point? I thoroughly support your desire to write fiction. But you need to know, going in, that we aren’t given the needed skills in school, and we no more learn them than by reading fiction than we become a chef by eating. Like any other, it’s a learned skill. As Ernest Hemingway put it: “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” And to that, add Mark Twain’s, “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.”

So how do you fix the problem? How do we get rid of those “just ain’t so” issues? It's simple: you add those missing skills, practice them till they’re as intuitive to use as the ones you own now, and there you are.

Will that be easy—a list of, Do this instead of that?” Naa… it’s never that easy, and in fact, simple and easy are almost never interchangeable terms. But…learning more about something you want to do isn’t a chore. And the practice is writing better and better stories. So what’s not to love?

And as to where to start, my suggestion is to begin with a few books on the basics of how to give your words wings—to trade that sturdy cart-horse we’re given in school for Pegasis. And, they're no further from you than the local library system’s fiction-writing section. Closer, in fact, if you begin with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It’s the best I’ve found at pulling back the curtain on the why’s and the how’s. And, it’s recently come out of copyright protection, which means you can read and download it on the archive sites. One such is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window at the top of any internet page and hit Return to get there. By the end of chapter two you'll have slapped your forehead at least once as you said, "But that's so obvious. How could I not have seen that, myself?"

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

And for what it might be worth, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are, in large part, based on the teaching in that book.

So dig in. That book won’t make a pro of you, but it will give you the tools to become one if it’s in you. And like chicken soup for a cold, it might not help, but it sure can’t hurt. The book has over 300 5-star reviews on Amazon.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

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

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 3 Years Ago

Okay, you’ve written the synopsis. Why not write the story?

In its present form it reads like a report. The format, like all nonfiction, is author-centric and fact-based. You, someone who can neither be seen nor heard are talking at a high level overview, if the form, “This happens…then that happens…and here’s why that matters…and after that..."

That format is great if giving the reader information is your goal. But people read fiction as a form of entertainment. We study history books because we’re told to. But we buy fiction because we want to.  As E. L. Doctorow put it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” Your reader wants you to make them CARE, and to worry. In fact, a reader is never happier than when you make them say, “Oh no…what do we do now?”

The idea is to make the reader feel as if they ARE the protagonist, and living the story, moment-by-moment.

Think in terms of a horror story. Your reader isn’t seeking to learn that the protagonist feels a chill. They want you to make that chill run down the reader’s back. They want you to make THEM afraid to turn out the lights when it’s time to sleep. And you cannot do that with the report-writing skills we’re given in school to prepare us for employment.

The skills of the profession we call Fiction-Writing, like any other, is acquired IN ADDITION to the general skills that are often called, The Three R’s: Reading, wRiting, and aRithhmatic. We don’t leave our schooldays ready to write a script or go to work as a journalist, but almost universally, we assume that we already have what we need to become a professional novelist—in spite of the fact that they offer four-year majors in Commercial Fiction Writing. And that includes me, when I turned to recording my campfire stories, way back in the 80’s.

As far as our being prepared fr the task... Do we know why a scene on the page is far different from one on the stage? Do we even know the elements that make one up? No. How about the three issues we need to address, quickly on entering any scene? Nope. Why a scene on the page ends in disaster—and what that means? Hell no.

But how can we write a scene if we don’t truly know what one is?

My point? I thoroughly support your desire to write fiction. But you need to know, going in, that we aren’t given the needed skills in school, and we no more learn them than by reading fiction than we become a chef by eating. Like any other, it’s a learned skill. As Ernest Hemingway put it: “It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” And to that, add Mark Twain’s, “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.”

So how do you fix the problem? How do we get rid of those “just ain’t so” issues? It's simple: you add those missing skills, practice them till they’re as intuitive to use as the ones you own now, and there you are.

Will that be easy—a list of, Do this instead of that?” Naa… it’s never that easy, and in fact, simple and easy are almost never interchangeable terms. But…learning more about something you want to do isn’t a chore. And the practice is writing better and better stories. So what’s not to love?

And as to where to start, my suggestion is to begin with a few books on the basics of how to give your words wings—to trade that sturdy cart-horse we’re given in school for Pegasis. And, they're no further from you than the local library system’s fiction-writing section. Closer, in fact, if you begin with Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It’s the best I’ve found at pulling back the curtain on the why’s and the how’s. And, it’s recently come out of copyright protection, which means you can read and download it on the archive sites. One such is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window at the top of any internet page and hit Return to get there. By the end of chapter two you'll have slapped your forehead at least once as you said, "But that's so obvious. How could I not have seen that, myself?"

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

And for what it might be worth, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are, in large part, based on the teaching in that book.

So dig in. That book won’t make a pro of you, but it will give you the tools to become one if it’s in you. And like chicken soup for a cold, it might not help, but it sure can’t hurt. The book has over 300 5-star reviews on Amazon.

Hang in there, and keep on writing.

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

Rating /100

2 of 4 people found this review constructive.

Vertigo Cat1111

First, the name caught my eye, and then the whole writing! It has brilliant writing and the growth of the characters throughout, mixed with the ending, it has such a good flow to it, not to mention I'm a sucker for good dialogue, it often pulls me further into the story and I can clearly see you wrote that so, so well. Welcome to Writer's Cafe, also! Keep posting and sharing and I promise you'll get the attention you deserve with this work. (:

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 3 Years Ago

0 of 1 people found this review constructive.

Re-Pete

you set an interesting stage, develop the characters and deliver a satisfying ending as your tale unwinds. good flow, grabbed and held from the start and never let go. good story. nice work ... :)

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 3 Years Ago

Fran Marie

an interesting story
you've written here
Soriin and Fen both
survive by beast mode
but seems Fen s. son
is spared from this curse
to do battle and rules the
kingdom in peace .so
the ending is satisfying
to read..

all's well that ends
well.. nice work;

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 3 Years Ago

Azifwecare

You mentioned that Soren and his son have this transformation thing going called beast mode. Does the captain and his brother Seth also have it or is it an inherited gene? I couldn't believe that Fen's wife stabbed him so cruelly. If she'd only known the full story that her brother started the fight with Fen. The story was interesting. Fast but interesting, still I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 3 Years Ago

0 of 1 people found this review constructive.

jusjen

From personally reading this, I already have to give you a huge thumbs up for taking the first step as a new writer and putting your work out there for the world to see. All new writings are going to need work but you have a basis to start with. Never give up.

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 3 Years Ago

Figmo

This story sounds much like a video game. It struggles to flow smoothly. There are too many "and"s making sentences drawn out, too lengthy. Punctuation is incorrect in compound sentences and dialogue. It is difficult to follow the story with all the 'going to do this' and 'going to do that'.

I mention these things because 1) I studied English Composition in college and Journalism, 2), I worked as a journalist for a few years, and 3) I am published. Short stories only and articles.

It is my intent to help people clean up their stories, not the subject of the stories, but how they are written.

When sentences are linked with the conjunction "and", what follows "and" must be a complete sentence, not a sentence fragment. Immediately before the "and", there must be a comma.

Immediately before diaglogue, there must be a comma. For instance:

Soren tells his son "Kill me like they are telling you to." There must be a comma after "son". The sentence would also be better if it ended with "do" instead of "to", which is a preposition.

The gist of the story is interesting, but reading it is difficult because of the run-on sentences. Some sentences go on and on and. . .

Beware of repetition. For instance:

Soon after, Soren sends Fen amongst the scholars to study to become a scholar so he will not have to die young and battle all of his life

This sentence would be smoother and have rhythm if "to become a scholar" was deleted. Also, the "of" does not need to be there. It kind of makes the sentence stumble at the end.

Commas are also needed in the sentence below:

This has been going on for 1000 years therefore they have adapted to always being attacked.

First of all, use numbers only from 1 to 10. After ten, always spell out the number. It should read "a thousand years". Commas are needed before and after "therefore". The sentence does not include "therefore". The sentence is "they have adapted. . ." , so "therefore" is a "link", not part of the sentence.

I will stop here and let you proofread your story and see if there are other ways you can improve it.

You MUST start a new paragraph if 1) the subject changes, 2) the scene changes, or 3) if the speaker changes (dialogue).

Do not change subject, scene, or dialogue within the same paragraph.

I hope this review is not hurtful, but helpful. It is great to have a good story--but WRITING it correctly is just as important.

This is my first review. I just joined about 24 hours ago. AH, yes, I used numerals instead of spelling it out. There ARE exceptions to everything. hahaha..

So, I am not sure how to rate this. Is this like in school where you get a grade from 60 to 100? I don't know, so if I error, please forgive me.

This review was written for a previous version of this writing

Posted 3 Years Ago

I mention these things because 1) I studied English Composition in college and Journalism, 2), I worked as a journalist for a few years, and 3) I am published. Short stories only and articles.

It is my intent to help people clean up their stories, not the subject of the stories, but how they are written.

When sentences are linked with the conjunction "and", what follows "and" must be a complete sentence, not a sentence fragment. Immediately before the "and", there must be a comma.

Immediately before diaglogue, there must be a comma. For instance:

Soren tells his son "Kill me like they are telling you to."  There must be a comma after "son". The sentence would also be better if it ended with "do" instead of "to", which is a preposition.

The gist of the story is interesting, but reading it is difficult because of the run-on sentences. Some sentences go on and on and. . .

Beware of repetition. For instance:

Soon after, Soren sends Fen amongst the scholars to study to become a scholar so he will not have to die young and battle all of his life

This sentence would be smoother and have rhythm if "to become a scholar" was deleted. Also, the "of" does not need to be there. It kind of makes the sentence stumble at the end.

Commas are also needed in the sentence below:

This has been going on for 1000 years therefore they have adapted to always being attacked.

First of all, use numbers only from 1 to 10. After ten, always spell out the number. It should read "a thousand years". Commas are needed before and after "therefore". The sentence does not include "therefore". The sentence is "they have adapted. . ." , so "therefore" is a "link", not part of the sentence.

I will stop here and let you proofread your story and see if there are other ways you can improve it.

You MUST start a new paragraph if 1) the subject changes, 2) the scene changes, or 3) if the speaker changes (dialogue).

Do not change subject, scene, or dialogue within the same paragraph.

I hope this review is not hurtful, but helpful. It is great to have a good story--but WRITING it correctly is just as important.

This is my first review. I just joined about 24 hours ago. AH, yes, I used numerals instead of spelling it out. There ARE exceptions to everything. hahaha..

So, I am not sure how to rate this. Is this like in school where you get a grade from 60 to 100? I don't know, so if I error, please forgive me.

Rating /100

3 Years Ago

Thank you. Pardon that i sent my response from my mother's page she was working on. I didn't know .. read more

3 Years Ago

I would appreciate a review from you in return. I posted The Diedra Lee.

KeithMansfield

Being but 6 months into writing myself I am in no position to review anyone else's work. I can relate to your need to write. I guess we both have some learning to do. Keep writing.