Chapter 1-Life tracker

The Main charictors, special charictor traits (very important), and plot is introduced.

Chapter 1

Life tracker

My story begins one day when I was sitting in a cafe minding my own business. You see life trackers don’t have the power at their disposal for just whenever. If you are born with the power of a life tracker it will lie dormant until you are in danger. So anyway, there I was drinking a cola I had bought when suddenly into the shop burst 2 people. The first one to enter was a big broad man with a square head and short black hair, the second was a thin slender woman with a oval head and straight blond hair that fell to just above her elbows. They walked over to me sat down on both sides of me and started talking to me as if they had known me all there life.

“How are you?” the man asked.

“Yeah it’s good to see you I hope you weren’t waiting too long for us” the woman said. Despite the friendly tone I couldn’t really ignore the knifes they had due to the fact that each one was holding one against my side in a way so that only I could see them.

“Well we don’t want to be late so come on” the man said standing and hoisting me to my feet. I couldn’t help but notice how easily and quickly they both managed to slip there knives up into their sleeves slightly so they couldn’t be seen. Once outside they pulled me into a side street that wasn’t often used and now only had foot traffic there was only enough room for two people to walk side by side and the woman was behind with the man in front. There was no way I could get away easily we turned a corner and stoped no one was using the path and no one could see as there was another corner just two meters away. They roughly shoved me against the wall.

“Give us your money and we will let you go” the woman said in a sickly sweet voice holding the knife against my throat. Suddenly my head exploded I saw my options and things that might happen the rest of my day depending on what I did it was like it was in fast forward but each detail was so sharp and so clear not a single detail escaped me one of my options was giving them my wallet after that I saw the woman slashing my throat and the man stabbing my stomach searing pain and then darkness I saw myself waiting then ducking as a bird screeched over head the man would hurt himself trying to punch me but because I ducked he would hit the solid wall behind the woman would stab me in the forehead I would get a really bad headache and then blackness. They were some of the options but there was another that I liked more than the others. I saw myself kicking the woman driving the wind out of her and her stumbling back into a wall and me running. So that’s what I did. I Lashed out with my foot catching the woman in the stomach driving the wind out of her the force of my kick forcing her back into a wall just like I had seen but I didn’t stop to think about it I just ran. Suddenly my head exploded again this time I saw myself running strait and taking a knife in the back of my shoulder the shock sending me stumbling allowing the man to catch up and stab me repeatedly pain searing through my body until darkness covered me. I saw myself dodging left and the knife catching me in the back and an immediate Darkness covering me as I fall. And I saw myself dodging right and the knife completely missing me and flying past me hitting the wall in front of me and me getting away disappearing in the crowd just around the corner. Without really thinking about it I jumped to the right and amazingly the knife had been thrown and the rest happened exactly as I had seen. The knife hit the wall of the corner and I turned left disappearing around it I heard the two thieves pounding feet coming after me but I dove into the busy crowded street before they came around the corner and I watched them hidden by the crowd they didn’t look happy at all but they didn’t try and find me either.

 

***

 

“So why did you ‘dodge right’? What made you move right” I shrugged.

“I saw myself getting stabbed if I didn’t and without really thinking I moved right and the knife flew right past me but what has that got to do with it? You have to find these people”

After escaping I came to the police. Unfortunately I hadn’t thought before I told them about seeing what would happen. I had seen this conversation happening both times.

“Maybe we should arrest you and make sure you don’t break into a place when you see you won’t get caught” the cop said the others who had heard the entire or most of conversation laughed. “get out kid stop wasting my time” I would have been angry at being called a kid as I am 18 but suddenly for the 3^rd time that day, as I move toward the door, my head explodes. If I step forward again I’m going to end up with a broken nose as the door opens and a cop comes in looking like he’s holding someone that is struggling and I will end up having a boring day in hospital if I avoided being hit I will end up running and talking apparently to myself. Knowing what was coming I stoped mid stride and the door was flung wide open and a cop came in holding a struggling woman. A few things about my vision clicked into place. For some reason I couldn’t or didn’t see some people when I saw my future and this woman was one of them in my visions it’s like they are invisible.  The woman had blond Wavy hair, pale skin, and a long angular face she was tall thin Beautiful and looked completely out of place. She noticed me and stopped struggling for a moment staring at me her eyes widened for a moment as they passed me. The she seemed to remember she was being dragged to another room and started struggling again then she turned the strength of the cop holding her to her own advantage she lifted her legs off the ground and pushed off of a desk with them send the cop holding her stumbling back slamming into a wall knocking the wind out of both of them the woman however expecting this recovered first and was on her feet in a second.

“Come on!” She said grabbing me as she ran to the door. I stumbled after her clumsily at first. I didn’t think I knew her but something told me I should follow so after a few clumsy steppes I managed to stop stumbling and run normally slightly behind her. after a few moments I heard the pound of feet behind us and immediately my head burst for a 4^th time that day all options led to being arrested unless I jumped the fence next to me cutting a corner heading right.

“Right!”  I was surprised that the woman yelled it at the same time as me we both vaulted the fence and ran vaulting the fence on the other side of the yard entering a different street.

“Right!” again we both yelled the same thing at the same time and few moment later we did it again

“Left!”The pounding feet behind us slowly went silent but we kept running now and then turning no longer saying a word about turning, we both just turned in the same direction at the same time. When we finally stopped I was surprised to find both of us standing outside my house. Despite being 18 I had already moved out of my parent’s home bought and fully paid for my own place. The woman standing next to me was looking at the house.

“I’m supposed to go in” she said. I remembered seeing what would happen if I vaulted the fence to avoided being arrested I would arrive at home and pour two drinks of course it had looked like I was alone because I still couldn’t see this woman.

“I got the keys” I said jumping to the yard she followed me.

“You live here?”

“Yeah. Moved in about two months ago” I told here opening the door “ladies first”

“Thank you” she said stepping past m

“White coffee one sugar?” I asked knowing she would say yes in some way.

“We need to talk but yes” I moved into the kitchen as she sat on the couch. I returned t the lounge room a few minutes later with a two coffees and placing one in front of her sat down.

“First things first” she said. “My names Annabel. Yours?”

“...uhh” I was stunned she was straightforward and to the point while I normally liked it she seemed to do it in a way that was meant to shock you, unarm you. “I’m Michael” I say once I recovered.

“Ok Nice to meet you Michael. Do you know what you are? Do you know what you can do?”

“Well today I started seeing what would happen for the next 24 hours of my life now and then”

“So you know nothing about how why or what it is? I nodded and she sighed

“I’m like you” Annabel stated “I can see the next 24 hours of my life depending on the choices I make too, and you may have noticed what you see is very clear but sometimes what you see goes a bit dim for a moment?” I nodded again “that is a point where you will need to make another choice which could change what you have seen happening to you in the day” she explained “people like us. People with this power are known as life trackers. Unfortunately when we see our future our power shows us it as if the other life trackers around us don’t exist but there are some signs for example I’ll bet you knew how I liked my drink because you saw yourself making two drinks one you wanted the other... a white coffee with one sugar but you didn’t see or hear me at all in the vision. Right?” I nodded.

“Always look for signs that say there is another life tracker near you. It’s very important if you want to stay alive look for signs of another life tracker near you”

“Wait!” I stopped her “what do you mean if I want to stay alive?”

“The government sees us as an abomination Dangerous and with a power that no one should have except god. And so we should die”

“Not everyone in the government is religious”

“This particular part is run by a particularly ruthless and fanatic church its almost completely secret only people in the government and life Trackers know about it. The call themselves Gods trackers and the church is known as Gods track their sole purpose is to kill Life trackers they also believe that if the kill at three life trackers they will become a demigod and if they kill 10 a minor god and if they kill 20 life trackers then they become a high god second only to the big man himself”

“Doesn’t that kind of contradict their religion?” I asked “even being a demigod would give you better powers than a life tracker and they are killing us because we have a power that ‘Only a god should have’ it’s stupid”

“I know their nutters and fanatics but that’s what they believe”. I thought about what Annabel had said for a moment and a thought occurred to me.

“Couldn’t we just see them trying to kill us a choose a track that doesn’t lead to death?”

“The reason you must always be aware of another life tracker is because the government uses them to find us pretending to give them a pardon if they help then killing them once they have help kill a life tracker”

“And because we can’t see the life tracker trying to kill us...”

“we can’t do anything to stop it though it’s not usually the other tracker that kill you usually they just find you then the church of gods track sets themselves up around you so that no matter what you do you will end up dead. Of course they don’t always work but you don’t usually survive three encounters with them I only know 5 who escaped them 4 times. 4 of them died the next time they met them the other is still alive and hasn’t met them a 5^th time yet.”

“Friend of yours?”

“It is me” Annabel looked at me as if I should have known and I suppose a lot of people would have guessed that she was talking about herself. “Today was close though, I bet you blabbed too!”

“Blabbed?”

“Told them what you are!”

“How could I have” I protested “I didn’t know what I was besides there were only cops in their”

“That’s the problem. One of the cops is a life tracker I saw him in there but didn’t see him in my visions.” Suddenly what I had said came flooding back.

“I told them, I didn’t think before I spoke and they all laughed but one of them was acting he was in the background behind the man I was speaking to behind his own desk pretending to shuffle papers around bet really he was listening I didn’t see him in my visions of the conversation because he is invisible to me” Annabel nodded.

“And now...” I saw myself running that moment out the back door climbing the fence on the right and running as fast as possible away from home as men with guns broke down the front door. Me and Annabel were racing for the back door while she finished her sentence “...there hunting us.” She said it as if  us running were prearranged proof of the fact I clambered up the fence and over Annabel seemed to grab onto the top of the fence and then push herself over by pushing down on the top of the fence with her hands. Then we were running from my home the place I had lived in for 2 months that was going to be my home for a lot longer. A place I could tell, without my powers of seeing the future, I would not be able to return to for a long time.

Reviews

[M. Mae Ringquist]

The story itself is great and I cannot wait to read more, but, in my opinion, it would greatly improve your writing to give more description when it concerns the visions. You mention his head exploding, what I would like to know is if it is in pain, and if so what dose the pain feel like, dose he get both visions at once in the same instant or one after the other? What do the visions look like? Are they blurry and indistinct, or clear and sharp? My point is, if you added more description into what he is feeling and seeing it would help bring the picture into focus for us readers.

[Kirby Inc.]

I like the concept behind this; It needs a bit of work though. There are a lot of run-on sentences and a few paragraphs that run on for too long. Give it a good look-over and it will make this chapter much easier to follow.

Onto the story now...the opening scene honestly made me expect a kidnapping rather than a mugging! Either that crime was incredibly random or it was incredibly deliberate...

I'm rather curious to know why Annabel was arrested to begin with...I find myself thinking that the police department is a large part of the Xanatos Roulette the evil cult is running to kill off Life Trackers...

Speaking of the evil cult, I'll be blunt. I don't really like the name. It seems odd to call themselves God Trackers when they see themselves as the gods and their prey, LTs, as unholy...demons, essentially.

Overall, I'm curious to see where this goes...It has a lot of potential!