Chapter 1 Luana's Promotion

Luana's becomes a Reaper Hunter.

 

     Luana  trudged into the plush modern office. Of all days to be called in to work early, it had to be the day after working a double shift. pushing some dirty-blonde locks away from her cold grey eyes, she moved through the mostly empty room to the wall of glass. why call me in early if she isn't even going to show up, she thought bitterly. she stalked to one of the silver chairs sitting in front of the plain black desk attempting to hide the slight twitch of her left hand.

        "Luana, wonderful to see you as cheerful as ever." She nodded at the soft soprano resounding through the room. A short middle-aged woman strolled towards the desk. "I have heard some rumors roaming the halls recently." Luana tensed at the woman's words. Thoughts of being fired ran through her mind. "It's always so nice to have such promising young candidates choose the League!"

        Visibly relaxing, she plastered a smile on her sun-kissed face. "Why thank you, Mrs. Schmidt . It's been a pleasure working for you." Her eyes never leaving her pale green ones.

        Caitlyn Schmidt glanced over at Luana before bursting into laughter. "Ms. Fogg, please!" She paused to catch her breath. " You don't have to act like that anymore. The newest hunter gets to say as she pleases." Luana's steel orbs widened. She couldn't believe it, finally a hunter.

        "Ma-am, me? I get to..." Fogg's sentence died in her throat as the news finally registered.

        "Yes, from now on you are Luana Fogg, Reaper Hunter 72. Congratulations." She threw a badge at her then gave a knowing wink. "Now you need to go see my husband, Otto, for all the proper setup." Luana quickly saluted her now ex-boss before quickly exiting the room. Caitlyn chuckled, "Kid acts like this is her whole life."

        Luana bound down the hall to the elevator examining the golden crest-like badge. She slammed the button for the basement floor once inside. Many images of what the fabled basement actually looked like flashing through her mind. With a ding, the elevator released the excited 23-year-old into a typical office setting. Her heart sank. She was done with desk work and cleaning up after reapers. Why were there more cubicles? A hand waving in front of her face drug Luana out of her thoughts. 

    "Ah! There you are 72. Welcome to the Basement! We already have everything set up for you in your new cubicle." Her excitable new boss was already taking long strides away. She blessed her tall stature and quickly followed behind.

    "S-Sir, I thought I came here to be a reaper hunter not just another office job." Luana quickly bit her tongue to quiet herself. Mr. Schmidt  stopped abruptly at an empty cubicle and waved Luana to inspect it.

    "Of course you are, and your first mission will begin in a week. However, you will always need a place to work from. Did you really think hunter jobs were just about fighting illegals and the glory?" He paused to click his tongue in disapproval. "You will need to do a lot of research just like the rest of us." Luana hung her head in shame, quickly sitting in her new chair. Otto smiled at her and pulled a sucker from his trench coat, handing it to Luana. "I can tell you're going to fit in just fine Ms. Fogg"

    Otto patted her head and walked off. Knowing with all certainty what would be coming next. He counted down from three on his fingers, when he hit one a loud screech could be heard from Luana's cubicle.

    "AGAIN! I have to take this stupid test, AGAIN! This is the third time!" Luana huffed and crossed her slender arms. "you'd think since I AM a reaper, I would know this s**t." Grumbling, she disinterestedly read the questions to herself.  She just couldn't wrap her mind around why she needed to repeat the same information every time she was promoted. She grimaced at the computer and decided to get to work.

    "Fine, first question is always the same. When and where did the Reaper Disease begin? It started when some jackasses decided to dump it in the water systems about fifty years ago. Still don't get why but they did." Luana boredly clicked the right answer and moved on. "Which president allowed Reapers to have human rights as long as they wore their necklace? The same one who decided he wanted to segregate our communities. Smart move there, bud." She clicked the name and fiddled with the padlock charm on her chain  necklace that marked her and her fellow reapers as monsters.

    "I am already so bored of this. Let me guess, next one is what is the Reaper Disease?" she paused to read, "Sure is. It's the only disease we know that targets soul. what a surprise those are an actual thing. If you don't mind being a cannibal you can even have cool powers." Luana stretched and continued to the last question. "Oh, yes my personal favorite, Why haven't Reapers been destroyed? It's because we are stronger than you average human. the bull s**t right answer is the one about that old lady finding a way to make artificial souls for us to eat." she pulled a face at that. "They are pretty nasty, though." A ding sounded from Fogg's computer.

    "Oh look. I aced the test. now I can actually USE my computer." Luana instantly perked up, her eyes scanning the different folders on her desktop in renewed excitement. "There is so much stuff here!." She peeked around before smirking and moving her cursor over to the criminal database. "He DID say that this desk is for research."

    "Yes it is. However, it is for research on YOUR cases not personal inquiries." The deep honeyed voice of her boss made Luana jump out of her chair and gag on her sucker. "Now that the test is over, I suppose it's time to show you around. Don't need a nosy child like you wandering the halls." 

    "You get way too much enjoyment out of screwing with people." Luana glared at Otto until a realization hit her. "Your hair. It was pink when I came down here. Why is it purple now? What is your power being a chameleon?" Schmidt laughed delightedly.

    "No. I just hated the fading." He proudly pushed his long ponytail over his shoulder. "besides, what's life like without any fun?" Luana stifled a laugh at his shenanigans and motioned for him to continue on with his tour. The two continued to banter and tease each other throughout the tour. It wasn't till the day ended that things went wrong.

    "Wouldn't you believe that guy never came near me again! It was hilarious, Dad." Luana froze in terror. Her world came crashing down around her once again. Memories of water lashing around violently and blood covering grass. Luana shook herself out of the horror and hid the tears forming in her eyes. "I'm sorry, sir. A slip of the tongue." Before Otto could reply, she disappeared. He simply shook his head and sighed.

        "It's fine. Anything that traumatic is going to leave those scars." Otto shrugged and walked off to write this new behavior down in Fogg's record. "At least you cracked that shell of yours. I knew you weren't just some revenge-crazed lunatic." the gears in his mind turning on how to open her shell further.

    luana laid her head down on her dining table and berated herself over her mistake. "Yes, he sounds and acts like him, but he's not moron. Dad's dead. He will always BE dead." Tears stained her face as she stumbled to the bathroom. "That quack said the flashbacks would stop." flinging the medicine cabinet open, she reached for a bottle of medication. "This is getting ridiculous." Luana quickly washed the pills down with couple gulps of water. She drug herself back to her living room and slumped down onto the couch. Her tired eyes just beginning to close. Until her phone rang anyhow. "Ugh. WHAT!"

    She snatched her phone up and stared at the caller ID. Luana didn't recognize the number. She immediately rejected it and went to set it down, but it rang again. Same number. Growling, she accepted this time. "Hello, you have reached Luana Fogg."

    "You sound like the start of a voicemail." Luana jolted up. That was Otto's voice.  "Your abilities are beyond expected." She blushed and stammered out a thank you.

    "Sir, about what i said..." Otto was quick to interrupt.

    "Don't worry about that. I've read your file before you came down."  Luana sighed in pure relief. 

 

Author's Note

I need more than just grammar, however, grammar is still appreciated.

Reviews

[JordanBaker]

Hey Alex, i''m not sure if my review will make any sense but i'll try. At first read, everything is quite confusing. It makes me think 'what's going on???' because there are words like the Reaper and a reference to some 'league' i know you purposely left out the explanation and it will come later. But for a first chapter...this will not be a good part to start with. The setting is in an office, i think the time setting will be kindof dystopian...whatever that means... Something from the future. So yeah, as a first chapter, this will not interest the reader, this will not make the reader continue to the next chapter because the first one sounds uninteresting. Imagine, such interesting character like Luana, a reaper and you choose to introduced her in an uninteresting way. In an office. She's a heroine, it's in your title. It would be very very very good if your first chapter will be her fighting the diseased, assuming the diseased are like humanoids or zombies. It will be good to introduced your heroine in the field, being a badass with futuristic getup and weapons,fighting her a*s out in a world with burn-out buildings perhaps or depends upon you what the place setting would be since you are the one who knows what the story is about.. Oh, yes that also.. You did not described what she's wearing or how she looks like overall, does she have a smirk or a tattoo or what distinct characteristic or physical attribute does she have apart from her 'cold grey eyes.' Lastly, this chapter will be better off on the second chapter or the later part of the first chapter which will show the other side of the heroine which is a seemingly normal office girl who hate answering surveys like us humans. But you have a great concept here alex, so work on it and off you go... Wil look forward to the next.

[AUU]

Jordan has some good advice for you. A day at the office isn't quite the most enticing way to introduce a character, especially when the world appears so interesting.

Not to draw on that easy comparison, but your set up seems familiar to the world of MIB. Not that it couldn't have been done, but how'd you like if they introduce Will Smith's character in the office, getting the run down in joining in the first scene? It's not as compelling.

I say the content you have is good (I thought it was clever using the test as a way to feed us some exposition), it's just not a great hook. I'm having similar problems with my own writing, so I know the difficulty of the game.

Where I disagree with Jordan on, is your character's description. Don't feel like you hastily need to jump into a laundry list of descriptions of your POV. Not only can that be clunky, it's also not fun for the reader. There are some authors out there who prefer giving very vague descriptions of POV so the readers have to fill in the rest. Character traits are important though, so those must be strong and interwoven within the story....just not all at once. Give the readers some breadth to grow WITH your character.

Keep at it :)