Two Halves: chapter 22

two halves chapter 22, :D

“They sent us up with the next garbage load. Took nearly an hour for us to get up there. Me and em just sitting among the trash, smiling at each other. Thinkin we were goin to a better place.” his cigarette was nearly gone. Darris took one last big draw on it and tossed it into the pile with the others. “Turned out that is was a Salex service station, and once we stepped on it. We became Salex property. Salex needed kids like us; they needed kids who nobody come runnin if they go missin. Street kids and thieves and all the other s**t this city breeds. Salex was tired of hirin mercenaries for their security operations. They wanted somethin easier to deal with. They chose us; they took us and fed us well. They become our heroes, saviors of the poor. What they were really doin was turnin us into soldiers. They brainwashed us, taught us that no one but them mattered. That Salex’s word was law. They trained us, dependin on what we were good at they sent us in different directions. I was chosen to be one of their light infantry. I showed discipline and leadership skills, and I was captaining a squad nearly the second I got out of the academy. Bestalel went another way. He was chosen for a special program. In the academy we called em the shadows. Salex’s black ops; assassins, infiltrators, spies, and a whole host of bad guys were runnin around with em.”

 

“One day I gotta assignment. Track down a man callin himself “The Laughing Cowboy” leader of the infamous gang the Rust River Raiders.” Darris chuckled at this memory. His smile slightly spoiled by the grief in his eyes. “I tracked him for months. Never comin up with more than a trace. He had led several raids against Salex owned facilities, and made off as his teams could carry. Finally I gotta break. One of his men had stayed behind, and I found em. I took em in to question him; I tortured him for that information. He finally cracked, and so did I. I didn’t stop when he had told me. I kept goin until he was beggin for me to stop. I wasn’t human back then. I was a machine. A god damn machine!” tears welled up in his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, and he fell silent for a long time. Darris cupped his face in his hands and took a shaking breath in. Then looked up.

 

“I threw the man into the Salex jail, and followed his information to where “The Laughing Cowboy’s” hide out supposedly was. Turns out it was false info, and an ambush. The man had known he was going to be tortured, and that he sacrificin himself. I was captured and my team was run off. They brought me down here, to this island. This is where he lived. Later I learned his name was John, John Krensman. He showed me what the world really was. The stuff he stole, well it was food. He stole to feed the poor. He was tryin to keep as many people alive as possible. Course at first I didn’t care at first, but he didn’t give up. He kept taking me to more and more people. Showin more and more things he had saved, and showin me how much Salex was tryin to f**k it up!” he hammered his fist onto the arm of his chair. The thud rang out around the hut, and he continued.

 

“I finally saw reason. I saw that these were people, not numbers, not obstacles on Salex’s road to success. Then he began to train me. I had never learned magic, not even the simplest incantation.  He taught me an art that was nearly lost to the world, Gun magic. He showed me how to fuse technology with magic and turn it a fightin force. After ‘bout a year of trainin, this was ‘bout ten years ago, he brought me with him on an official Rust River Raiders mission. As the leader of the raiders he told them to accept me despite what I had done. They didn’t, at least not at first. It took them so long to accept me as a fellow warrior looking towards a better tomorrow.”

 

“After two years of me being in the raiders Bestalel called me. He said that he had seen the light, that he wanted to change and that what he had done was wrong. I welcomed him, even though John was against it. I told him it was fine, and that I new Bestalel like a brother. He was lying.” Darris’s eyes were again filling with tears, but he continued despite them “He killed John the moment he saw em. A blade in the stomach coated with poison, and then slipped away. Just ran away. I stayed with him; Machone and me were the only ones there. With his last words he told me why I was chosen. I was to become the next “Laughing Cowboy”. I was supposed to continue the raiders. I took the seat as “Laughing Cowboy”. I never saw Bestalel again, ‘bout two years ago a rumor came flying around that he had disappeared. That he had found god or something and ran away to Earth-1; I never believed it.”

 

“He came to me today, unarmed and unafraid. He told me what he had done. That he had found reason, and now wanted to take down Salex as much as I did. Then he gave me the option. Kill him where he stood, or help. I chose option number three. I told him to bring me to you, so I could see the great Alchemist for myself. You proved all that I expected from a clan head.” he finished his story and that sat there in silence for a long while. The oil lapped against the dam on the edge of the world with a soft, even pattering sound. Suddenly Darris took in a huge rattling breath.

 

“So, there’s my story. I still haven’t forgiven Bestalel, but I trust you. You have the look in your eyes. Not like Bestalel, and me all we got is darkness in our eyes. You got somethin else; you have light in your eyes.” he jumped to his feet and walked around the corner before shouting back. “Better we get back home, I bet Bestalel and Machone are worrin themselves sick over us.”

Author's Note

So that is who Darris and Bestalel really are. I hope you like their back story.

Reviews

[Miss Coral]

Interesting- it could use some cleaning up though.
In a couple of instances throughout your writing, you've been using sentences a bit oddly. For example: "and once we stepped on it. We became Salex property."
This doesn't make any sense grammatically. Also, with dialogue, you do the same thing. After dialogue, you can either end it in a comma rather than a period, or capitalize the next sentence, severing it completely into something new. I've brought it up in other comments, but it's still being repeated in new pieces. Another thing with dialogue is that when you're giving a character an accent, you need to use accent marks, for example " 'im " instead of "im", as it allows the reader to tell what you're doing. Otherwise, it's just confusing.
If you clean up the grammar, I think that this could be a great book.

[Daniel Gardner]

just a funny...you ever heard the song that never ends? lol well i think they should change it to the story that never ends keep it up.

[James Watts]

Me and em just sitting among the trash, smiling at each other. (Em?)

A lot better on varied sentences in this one. I agree on the dialogue. Try not to overload on it. Which, it is acceptable, but some readers are turned off by it. I used hate reading something with long winded characters, and I mean long winded, nothing like you have here. I read a book where a character could fill a couple of pages just talking lol.

[Dutch Jr.]

Good job, but I feel like the dialogue was sort of drawn out and included a bit of unnecessary details. Pretty good overall, but I would suggest giving it another read through, and taking out a bit of the dialgue and replacing it with narration.