Book One Chapter Two: Saja

A new girl has moved to Nick's school. There is something that is not quite right about her... It is surely Nick's imagination... Right?

Chapter Two Saja: It was the new girl, Saja. That surprised me, I wasn't quite sure what I had been expecting, but it certainly wasn't this.

"Oh, hey." I said to Saja.

I tried to read her features to try to get a clue on why she would want to talk to me, but she still wore her sunglasses, and I couldn't see her eyes. Her sunglasses were reflective, so I saw myself in them.

"You're Nick, right?" She asked, her voice was soft. I nodded.

"Yeah, that's me, why?" I asked.

Saja touched her first finger on each hand together, slightly fiddling with them, she was nervous. "Well, I was just wondering, did you want to go out sometime? Have dinner, maybe?" She asked.

An explosion of nervousness, fear and confusion soared through my stomach. Why would Saja want to go to dinner with me? She only just met me, and didn’t even know me!

“Um, I… Why?” l babbled in confusion.

“Well, I know that it seems insane, seeing as I just met you and all, but you are the only one who will talk to me at this new school, and it won’t be a… Date. It will just be two acquaintances meeting to talk to each other and get to know each other.” Saja said.

I thought about this. I did feel a little sorry for Saja because no one else would talk to her. What harm could come from this?

“Um, sure. What time? Where do you want to meet?”

"Great, how about Friday night? I know the owner of this great place downtown, so he won't charge us. The place is called 'Kao's Cuisine.' It's on Western Front Avenue. Do you know it?" Saja asked me.

 

Oh, I knew it, alright, it was one of the fanciest restaurants in town. What would I wear to a place like that? I suppose I could squeeze into my graduation suit...

"Yeah, sounds great!" I said enthusiastically, I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

"Yeah, that sounds cool." I agreed.

Saja smiled.

"Alright, cool. How does ten o'clock sound?" She asked.

"Ten o'clock sounds great, I'll see you then." I said with a smile.

"Great, see you then." Saja said with a smile of her own.

She waved goodbye and turned to walk back down the hall. Today was Wednesday, so I had two days to get ready. I grabbed my bag and started off towards the exit of the school.

 

The combined feelings of nervousness and excitement mixed in my gut. I had only ever been on one date before, back in eighth grade, so I was kind of nervous. I decided to head home now, before it got too dark. Nothing strange happened this time. I arrived at the intersection that my house was on soon enough. When I was home, I stepped through the door, closed and locked it. I once again grabbed a knife off of the counter and checked around, again, no one was around. Once I confirmed that I was alone, I got changed into flannel pants and a t-shirt and went to sleep on my bed. I had a dreamless slumber, which was good, but something woke me up: Thudding. There was a light thudding noise coming from downstairs, wait, it wasn't thudding, that noise was footsteps! Again! They were very light but still audible.

Author's Note

Please tell me what you think, I always welcome criticism, if you like the story so far, please let me know :)

Reviews

[Arrinae]

Aside from the spacing between paragraphs, I don't really have many critques for this chapter. The story flowed nicely. Jail scenes and fight scenes were both Nerve-wracking and exciting. I was completely surprised at Luna's betrayel. The emotions were well expressed. I am quite enthralled with this story so far. The only thing that's bugging me in the lack of emotion besides surprise from the king and queen when they learned of Luna's betrayel. I feel like they would have at least tried to persuade her to come to her senses.

[Ryan Henderson]

Hm, alright. Thank you for reviewing! I will add the more spacing in the books between paragraphs, and I will go more in depth in the characters' emotions. Thank you again for reviewing!

[Barbara Tennyson]

"Oh, hey." I said to Saja. --the problem here is the period within the quotation marks should be a comma. If you like grammatical jargon, the dialogue, 'Oh, hey', and the main clause, 'I said', make one sentence: "Oh, hey," I said.....

"You're Nick, right?" She asked... --the problem here is that since what was said and who said it are one sentence, the who said it part should begin with a capital letter ONLY if the first word is a proper noun (Dick said) or the pronoun 'I' (as in the first example). Here, it's --"You're Nick, right?" she asked... . Get a copy of _Eats Shoots and Leaves_ by Lynne Truss.
And the spacing problem is still very present.

[KeithKVH]

I do notice one part that's changed, I think. It was awhile since I read it the first time, but I don't remember her saying it wouldn't actually be a date. I thought it worked alright before but this is also good, and while I can't remember what the dialogue was like before, it's more realistic than suddenly getting asked out unless he was easy to trick. Which he shouldn't really be as a MC usually.

[Ryan Henderson]

Yeah, I made the dialogue more realistic. I felt that Saja asking Nick on a date the first day they met was a bit extreme, so I made that part a little more realistic. There are little changes like that here and there, but the changes don't REALLY start until about chapter seven.

[KeithKVH]

Very nice! The jail scenes were very interesting, and the twist of another time or world was something I really was not expecting at all. I do slightly wonder how he got the idea to ask the date, it might be better if he gets a confusing answer to spur him into it. I notice this one seems shorter than before, and looking in the other reviews I worry I might have spoiled myself because I don't remember anything about Luna's betrayal.

On another note, your writing really got even better with this one. I have very little I can point out as far as spelling or other corrections, and that made it flow really well.

[Ryan Henderson]

Thank you for the review! I will be posting Chapter Two of Alcingeria momentarily and I will review some of your writing soon after!

[John Mcnab]

Oh my goodness! This chapter was even better than the first! I love the jail scenes, aswell as the fight scenes! The flow to this story is impeccable, the detail is deep, but not overwhelming, and I love how you put Nick's thoughts into this story so far, it really gives me a very good image of who Nick is as a person! Keep of the writing, 10/10 would read again!

[luvs2write]

Since you said that you were working on another version with more of Nick's views and thoughts, I'm not going to go into that on this chapter. I feel like you already know where you want to improve, which is great. There were some things in this chapter that really confused me. I'm not sure if they were typos, or if you just didn't catch it...The story is in first person, but in a couple of paragraphs it was in third person. I wasn't really sure where you were trying to go with that. There were some grammar mistakes, but I can't stand grammar police, so I won't point them all out unless you want me to. Overall a nice chapter, good flow. I didn't see Luna's betrayal coming, but it would have been really cool to see Nick's reaction to Luna's betrayal emotionally after the fight is over. You are a great writer with new and interesting ideas, keep it up!

[Ryan Henderson]

Thank you, the reason it was in third person was because I was writing from Saja's point of view, but I understand why it may have been confusing :)

[luvs2write]

Okay, thanks for explaining. Just a suggestion though, I'd keep the same voice throughout the entire book unless you're starting a new chapter so that in the chapter heading you could give your reader a heads up that the point of view changed.Keep writing!

[Ryan Henderson]

Alright, will do, thank you for reviewing!