Gone

My eyes flash open and dart to all of my surroundings. The ceiling is only in patches or wood boards with the tiles blown out. Ashes and other debris fall from the gloomy sky. I’m laying on the wood floor of some building, but I don’t know why. I attempt to get up, but my arm gives out instantly. I have a deep cut gushing blood on my left arm, just below my shoulder. I grab it and scream in pain. Rolling onto my knees, I push myself up. I grab a tattered curtain and tear a piece off to wrap my arm. What the hell is going on?

Looking around me, I see a long, razor sharp knife, just lying on the ground a couple feet away from me. It had fresh, bright red blood on it. I assume this was the blade used to cut my arm, but I don’t see its owner anywhere in sight. I pick it up and slide it, blade down, into the side of my boot.

The pain in my arm increases immensely as time passes. I’m losing blood. My eyes clench shut and start to water. They are burning from all of the debris flying around. I don’t understand where it’s all coming from or why. All I know is that I can’t see a thing because of the burning. I start to stumble around and find myself rummaging blindly through the objects on the tables nearby. I take hold of something slightly cool, made of plastic. A water bottle. I open it and splash the water in my eyes to clear them out. A sigh of relief escapes as the sting in my eyes ease.

Squinting, I see a door to the outside of the building I woke up in. I walk out and I don’t see much. The fog and debris keeps me from seeing more than about ten feet in front of me. Wind blowing, I stand in the doorway holding my bloody arm, looking off into the distance of nothingness.

“NOO! Please just let me go! I told you I didn’t know where or who she is!” I hear ear piercing screams relatively close to where I am. It was a woman screaming for her life. I run in the direction of the screams and as I come closer, the image starts to become clearer. The woman is on her knees, pleading in front of another woman who’s holding her by a handful of her hair. She has a knife to her throat.

“You DO know where she is! You took her!” The woman holding the knife accuses. I slowly walked closer until I realized who the woman with the knife was…

“Mom?” My voice was small and choked up, but she heard me.

She drops the woman and runs over to me, embracing me in a tight hug. “Where have you been?! I have been looking all over for you! That woman took you from me and I couldn’t find you anywhere.” She points to the other woman, but she was already gone, disappeared into the heavy fog. “Damnit! I shouldn’t have let her go. We need to get out of here. Now.”

“Mom, are you sure that was the woman? I don’t remember anything. I woke up on the ground of some building and my arm is cut open badly,” I try to explain. She tells me she isn’t sure of the woman, but whoever it was is still out there. She hands me some more water and we start walking off into the fog, in no particular direction.

I question my mom on what is actually going on. She tells me everything. The news came on and announced the end of the world, then everyone went into a frenzy. Everything happened so fast. It only took hours for the world to come to this. Stores were raided and robbed, people killing other people for everything they had, everyone started burning everything from other cars to other people to houses. Everything went up in flames, which is where all of this debri is coming from. She told me that right before everything happened, she knew how it was going to go down. She tried to get me out of the city, but someone had jumped her and took everything she had, along with me. I don’t remember any of this and I don’t know why. I remember watching the T.V., but then the news came on and everything after that is a blur.

“I’ve been looking for you for days now,” she cried. Days? It’s been days since I’ve been gone? I didn’t know what to think.

We come up to another building, a small convenient store. My mother pulls out a knife and looks back at me, “I had a gun, but she took that too”. I pull out my knife with her, expecting the worst. We walk in and look around for anyone in the store, but it was empty. She takes off her backpack and tells me to start looking for anything we might need. We rummage for a while, but we don’t find much. We head on to the next place.

More screams. More gut wrenching than the ones that came from the woman my mother had ahold of. They came straight from the direction we were heading. My mom grabs me and we make a sharp right, through an alleyway. “What are you doing? We have to help them!” I pull back.

“No, honey, we have to go. We can’t help them. It might be too late for them and It’s none of our business. We don’t have the strength to fight for others right now. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”

Tears stream down my face, burning my eyes. I don’t understand what happened to the world that made it come down to this. To walking away from people being attacked, crying out for help. We walk on, though. Weaving through all of the broken down cars. I looked down at the ground for the first time since I’ve been outside. I gasp and scream at what I see. Dead bodies everywhere.

My mom grabs me and covers my mouth. She pulls me down behind a car and tells me to be quiet. We listen. Footsteps running towards us. The voices of men shouting to each other about which way my scream came from. Some of them run past the car we were hiding behind. We crawl around the other side of the car so that we aren’t in sight of the direction they went in. We run the opposite way, but as soon as we made it out of the alleyway, we were both grabbed by more of the men. I screamed and my mom flailed around obnoxiously, trying to get away.

They laughed at us. “Calm down, ladies, ya ain’t goin nowhere,” the burly man with a machete said.

A woman comes from behind two other men. It was the same woman that my mom was threatening earlier. She carried a gun. I’m guessing it was the same gun that my mom had. “You didn’t think you could get away that easily, now could you?” She smiles a wicked smile. “You’re lucky my men weren’t still in that building when you woke up, little miss. You wouldn’t have ever seen your mom again. It’s a shame she didn’t kill me when she had the chance. You two could be running off in the sunset together as a happy little family again. Too bad.”

“What do you want with us? Just leave us alone,” I spit back at her.

“That ain’t what this world is about anymore, missy. We need you, not your mom. She’s mighty fine, but too old for us to sell. We need young, good lookin’ ones like yourself. Gets us the big bucks,” the man says.

“Selling me?” I shiver. The man tells us to shut up and start walking. We do as we’re told. We walk for about an hour until we finally come up to a new building. A large hotel by the looks of it. We walk in and up the stairs to the fifth floor. As we walk down the hall, I notice most of the doors are open, revealing young girls half naked. They lie in the beds or on the ground, dazed as if they had been drugged. I look at my mom and I see tears coming down her face. We come to one of the empty rooms. My mom is yelling at the woman, asking her how she could let young girls be trafficked like this.

“Don’t worry, we feed them. She will be well taken care of, your daughter.”

I’m shoved into the empty room and I fall to the ground. I look over and see an older man sitting on the bed, waiting. He smirks at me. I look back at my mom and she screams. She’s going crazy. I yell for her and run for the door. Just as I reach it, the door slams in my face and the rooms becomes black.

~~~

I wake up, sweat and tears pouring. Being kidnapped is one of my greatest fears and this type of nightmare occurs more often than it should.

Reviews

[N.]

I think it is a very engaging story. You did good show but don't tell to keep the reader engaged. Keep up the good work.

[Natasha]

Thank you!

[Coyote Poetry]

A wild chapter dear Natasha. World going crazy and mother trying to save her daughter. You create bad places and dangerous situations. Thank you for sharing the amazing chapter.
Coyote

[Natasha]

Thank you so much!

[Coyote Poetry]

You are welcome Natasha.

[Rynn]

"My eyes flash open and dart to all of my surroundings. The ceiling is only in patches or wood boards with the tiles blown out. Ashes and other debris fall from the gloomy sky." - I haven't read a lot of material in present tense, It was an interesting start.

" I’m laying on the wood floor of some building, but I don’t know why. I attempt to get up, but my arm gives out instantly. I have a deep cut gushing blood on my left arm, just below my shoulder. I grab it and scream in pain." - I like how intense the pace is, but it almost seems too abrupt. I would say this is a 'show don't tell' kind of situation. EX: Instead of saying the narrator screamed in pain, I think it's okay to just say that they screamed, because the pain is implied. Or possibly describe the pain instead of only indicating that it's there.

"Rolling onto my knees, I push myself up. I grab a tattered curtain and tear a piece off to wrap my arm. What the hell is going on? " - I like that the narrator is represented as going into a kind of 'survival mode' when trying to stop the bleeding. Very logical. I would have liked a little more description of the surroundings.

"Looking around me, I see a long, razor sharp knife, just lying on the ground a couple feet away from me. It had fresh, bright red blood on it." - I would say here could do for a little less cliche. I don't mean to be nit-picky, but 'razor sharp' and 'blood red' are very common sayings. I would encourage you to switch it up a bit. :)

"The pain in my arm increases immensely as time passes." - I was a little confused by the wording here. I wasn't sure how much time was supposed to have passed or if the pain just increased from the time the narrator had woken.

"I start to stumble around and find myself rummaging blindly through the objects on the tables nearby. I take hold of something slightly cool, made of plastic." - A caution for words that end in 'ly' I would add as little as possible. It's not a huge deal, but when you say something is 'slightly cool' I think you could use words such as 'lukewarm' or 'room temperature'. :)

"A sigh of relief escapes as the sting in my eyes ease." - this wording was confusing. Simply a suggestion: 'A sigh of relief escaped my lips as the sting in my eyes fades'.

"The fog and debris keeps me from seeing more than about ten feet in front of me. Wind blowing, I stand in the doorway holding my bloody arm, looking off into the distance of nothingness." - I was a little confused about setting here again, it was hard to envision it.

" “NOO! Please just let me go! I told you I didn’t know where or who she is!” I hear ear piercing screams relatively close to where I am." - I would say again, watch for cliches like 'ear piercing', but it works fine here if you feel it works well. I would caution you against using a ton of exclamation points. The punctuation will reflect the way that readers read your text :) Also watch the capitalization. In a final draft, 'NOO!' would be written as "No!". instead of adding another 'O' to it, you would have to describe that the word is being prolonged. In fiction, if you don't describe it, it's not there.

"...who’s holding her by a handful of her hair." - Nit-picky again, but I read this: 'Who's holding a handful of handful of her hair.'

"She drops the woman and runs over to me, embracing me in a tight hug. “Where have you been?! I have been looking all over for you! That woman took you from me and I couldn’t find you anywhere.” " - again, I would caution you against excessive punctuation like exclamation and "!?" because in doing that, while you get the intensity across, it's not so good at conveying complex emotions because you're not describing them, you're just using the punctuation as a placeholder for it, if that makes sense :)

"We come up to another building, a small convenient store." - 'Convenience store', and again I'm just a tad confused about placement.

"“You didn’t think you could get away that easily, now could you?” She smiles a wicked smile. “You’re lucky my men weren’t still in that building when you woke up, little miss. You wouldn’t have ever seen your mom again. It’s a shame she didn’t kill me when she had the chance. You two could be running off in the sunset together as a happy little family again. Too bad.” " - Just a formatting thing I noticed, usually dialogue is a new paragraph when someone new is talking.

"To walking away from people being attacked, crying out for help. We walk on, though. Weaving through all of the broken down cars. I looked down at the ground for the first time since I’ve been outside. I gasp and scream at what I see. Dead bodies everywhere. " I felt this part was a little abrupt, without much description.

"“What do you want with us? Just leave us alone,” I spit back at her." - I felt the Dialogue is a little stiff.

"I’m shoved into the empty room and I fall to the ground. I look over and see an older man sitting on the bed, waiting. He smirks at me. I look back at my mom and she screams. She’s going crazy. I yell for her and run for the door. Just as I reach it, the door slams in my face and the rooms becomes black." - This took an interesting turn.

Overall I enjoyed the story, other than the technical issues, I'd say you have a solid short story. I was really interested to find out what was happening the whole way through. Keep up the good work!

-Rynn

[Natasha]

Thank you and I appreciate all of your thoughts and criticism. I will definitely revise this a lot and take in to consideration all of what you said. Maybe you can re read it when I am finished and let me know if I fixed it!

[Rynn]

I would love to read a revised version of this! :) Definitely let me know.

[Natasha]

Sweet! Thanks

[barleygirl]

This is an intensely-told scene that felt realistic for this type of fantasy, until the last line when we learn it's a nightmare. Good use of description to paint word pictures of the dramatic details. You use dialogue well in some places, but I also noticed where you are TELLING about what someone said -- when this happens, try to turn it into actual dialogue, instead of describing dialogue. Good job making this a compelling read urging the reader along with good flow of events. *smile* Fondly, Margie

[Natasha]

I will look into revising that, thank you!

[J. B.]

very vivid imagery to go with the story line. keep up the good work :)

[Natasha]

Thank you!