The Chosen: Prologue

Prologue

The first time it happened, Ella hadn't understood what she was experiencing and it had frightened her beyond measure.  That was several years ago and to Ella it seemed like a lifetime ago.  Later she would come to understand that what she had experienced that night was both a gift and something to be deeply feared;  something incredibly dangerous yet vital to her very survival.

Ella sat on a cushioned window bench, wrapped in her favorite blanket.  The two Victorian-style windows that were situated above the bench were open letting in a cool evening breeze.  The soft wind carried the scents and sounds of spring into her bedroom - blooming hyacinths in the flower beds below, crickets in the lawn, and spring peepers in the pond at the edge of the property.   

The white sheer curtains slowly undulated and rippled in response to the breeze.  The book in her hand was her reality at that moment, everything else had faded to the background.  She tucked some strands of her long dark hair behind her ear.  She lost herself in the novel as her bedside lamp softly illuminated the bedroom casting playful shadows against the walls. 

She was turning the page, when she stopped abruptly and slowly lifted her head. 

Something wasn’t right.  

It took a few moments to register, but then she realized that her curtains had suddenly become perfectly still, and the crickets and peepers had gone silent.  The air felt heavy and menacing.  A wave of irrational fear rose within her chest.  She looked out of the second story window and peered down at the backyard below.  The grass looked silvery in the moonlight.  Nothing appeared out of place or wrong in any way, yet she felt as though something deeply was. 

 

She forced herself to chase the illogical fear away, feeling a bit foolish. She put a bookmark between the pages of her book and set it down on the cushioned seat, letting the blanket fall off of her shoulders as she stood.  It was time for her to get some sleep, tomorrow was going to be an eventful day. 

She laid down in her bed, and pulled her down comforter up around her shoulders.  She reached over and switched her lamp off, and the room was overtaken by moonlight and shadows.  

Ella knew she would be lucky if sleep came to her at all that night.  There was just too much going on in her head, and she couldn’t shut it off. Tomorrow’s schedule began to play out in her mind - school, the dreaded Physics exam, graduation rehearsal, then work at The Front Porch down by the harbor.  But it was her plans for after work that her mind kept returning to.  Brad was meeting her when she got off work, and they were going to get dinner together at The Front Porch.  It would be their first real date. 

     

As excited as Ella was about her date with Brad, she still had reservations. She was a little worried about her younger brother Ryan.  Her father worked nights, and she was usually home from work by the time her father had to leave for his shift.  Tomorrow night would be the first time that she wouldn't be home before her father left for work, and Ryan would be home alone for several hours until she returned from her date. It would be his first time home alone.   

 

Ella realized that she probably shouldn't be concerned; after all Ryan was eleven years old now. But she had spent so much time over the past five years caring for her younger brother following their mother’s death, that it was hard for her to let go.   

 

Their father had been so destroyed by their mother’s death, that he had become emotionally absent and somewhat neglectful for a period of time.  During this time, Ella had taken it upon herself to make sure that Ryan’s physical and emotional needs were met.  She had been the one who made sure he brushed his teeth, took his baths, and had clean clothes to wear.  Every morning she had packed his lunch, and every night she had tucked him in with a bedtime story.   

 

At twelve years old, Ella had become a surrogate mother to Ryan, and it had become an integral part of her life.  After her father got better and took over some of these tasks again, it was hard for Ella to give up these self-prescribed responsibilities.  Even now,  four years later, she was still having a hard time with it.         

      

Ella closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift.  Her head began to fill with images of herself and Brad on the pier, walking together as the sun slowly slipped into the golden water. She was enjoying the scene and was beginning to feel the heaviness of sleep, when suddenly it all changed drastically.  

There was a sort of flash behind her eyelids as the scene changed dramatically.  It was as if she were watching TV and someone had taken control of the remote and just changed the channel.  Brad was gone, the pier was gone, and she was not by the harbor anymore.  Not even close.  

Wherever she was, it was very dark and damp, and there was an awful smell that she couldn't quite place; a smell that she was pretty sure she didn’t want to place.  

She didn't like the new channel, not one bit.

She reached out into the darkness only to be swallowed up by its completeness.  Her hand disappeared into nothingness.  Then there was a sound that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.  It was off in the distance, but was gradually getting closer.  Panic set in.  She did not know, or like, where her mind had taken her. 

 

She willed her eyes to open, but they would not cooperate.  

 

I am dreaming.

The sound grew louder and more terrifying, and she knew that she must be having a nightmare.

The sound was guttural, and like nothing she had ever heard before.  It sounded like the growl of an animal.  Only it did not sound like the growl of any animal Ella thought existed. There was an odd quality to the growl; something that suggested intelligence.  And it was slowly growing in intensity.

  

The foul odor grew stronger. It was the smell of things that crawl and squirm in the dirt and the dark, and something else that smelled like death. Fear gripped her with an intensity she had never known. 

 

Open eyes!  Open!  She commanded them to obey.  But they did not.

Suddenly, she was filled with a chilling realization. 

Her eyes were open.  

She was not dreaming, and it was not a nightmare.  It was worse. The thing in the dark was not in her imagination, and it wasn’t in her room.  She was actually there; wherever "there" was.  

She was no longer in her room.  Somehow she was somewhere else, in the dark with the nameless thing. Or at least her mind was? She didn’t know how that was possible, or understand how she knew this, but she did.  She knew it without a doubt.

The thing’s presence in the darkness was palpable, and it instinctively felt primordial.  Her eyes strained to see in the darkness, but it was impenetrable.  

 

I need to move, and quickly.  It is coming for me. 

She knew this without being able to see a thing. 

She took a tentative step forward in the darkness, unsure of what her foot would connect with.  Her foot met more of the hard surface she was standing on.  She continued to take furtive steps in the opposite direction from the where the strange growls were emanating.  She held her hands out in front of her as she moved forward, and waved them back and forth. They connected with nothing. 

 

Then she froze, suddenly realizing that it was closer now.  She couldn’t see it, or hear it.  She could feel it.

 

It was there in the blackness, and it was coming for her.

 

She knew there was nothing that she could do, because she realized that she somehow knew what it was.  She knew there would be no escape.  It was as if a primitive part of her recognized it for what it was.

It was evil, and merciless.  And It was ancient;  older than time itself.    

 

A malevolent voice suddenly cut through the darkness, and it put a sliver of ice in the small of her back.  The voice was deep and gravelly and it sounded almost awkward, as if it was struggling to form words for the very first time.   At first she couldn’t tell what the voice was saying.  But then one word could be heard clearly, and it made her heart stop in her chest.

It was her name.

A hair raising scream pealed out through the darkness, and it sounded as if it would be the last one to ever be heard from its maker.  At first Ella thought the scream was coming from the surrounding darkness.

Then she realized that the scream was her own.   

Suddenly her eyelids fluttered open, and she was staring up at her bedroom ceiling fan.  It's blades were a blur as it spun above her. She was sweating profusely and her heart was racing.  She sat up quickly and looked frantically around her room, sure that her eyes would fall upon the nameless thing that had spoken her name.  But nothing was there in her bedroom with her, besides her stuffed animals stacked neatly in the corner. They stared back at her blankly with glass eyes.

It had not been a dream.  That much she had known, even then. 

What she didn’t know was what it had been, or that it wouldn’t the last time it would happen.  

Author's Note

This is the Prologue for an unfinished novel. It is a work in progress and I would love some constructive criticism! I would like to hone my writing skills by learning from other's feedback, so please leave comments! I will be adding Chapters as they are written, so stay tuned....

Reviews

[matrixmark]

You opened up really well, it was like an opening speech from a film which I can't quite put my finger on. You gave some great, vivid descriptions and I was impressed as to what I was reading. You penned a good sense of 'whats coming next,' when you talked about the stillness of the curtains. - That was really well written and skillfully crafted.

Very well penned -when you talked about her being swallowed by darkness, I can imagine that this took a bit of time to work out how to write - I was impressed. Great sense of fear when you talked about the creature being in the room-again well penned. It takes a lot of work to get 'fear' across to the read (I should know) and you did it effortlessly.

It was evil, and merciless. And It was ancient; older than time itself. - Beautiful line, stunning.

Solid structure, great paragraph length, sentence length was perfect.
You left it just as a piece is mean't to be left - wanting the reader to turn the page.

You have talent. I am impressed.

Mark.

[Brian C. Alexander]

Noice! Just from this, the rest of your work looks to be promising! Great use of lines and a stellar opening!

[Norbanus]

Could you stand another pompous big mouth spouting off about showing and not telling?
Usually, I find repetition, wordiness and overuse of adverbs as the place to start, when giving my own work one of its many 'final' edits. After reading both this prologue and the first chapter in order, 'telling' seems to be a place with opportunities for improvement.

The opening paragraph uses three excess adverbs, 'deeply', 'incredibly', and 'very'. Though intended to amplify the tension, the reader will often conjure the fear more strongly without them.
The word 'ago' is repeated in the second sentence.
Perhaps the first use of 'it' would better prepare the reader if it was a noun. Is there a name for Ella's nightmare or vision?
Since the prologue describes Ella's episode so clearly, perhaps the detail of the event in the first chapter could be modified to let the readers imagination provide the stress.

Chapter 1 is much more meaningful with the prologue in place.

[Norbanus]

To put this prologue into perspective, I'd have to read it in proper order, so after I read it, I'll go back and read the first chapter again. Then return to the prologue for a review.

All the best,

Norbanus

[Rosie Brooklin]

I absolutely love the premise of this story! It takes true talent to write in a way that allows readers to become emotionally attached to a character within the first chapter, and you've done this very well. I am interested in seeing what the rest of this story holds.

I only have two critiques: (1) Beware of repetition. I always go back to introductory sentences to make sure I haven't used the same starting words too often. Your first two introductory phrases are very similar, so you might want to think of a different way to phrase that. (2) The only other issue I see is small grammatical errors, mostly involving commas and semicolons. It's nothing that a little proofreading can't fix!

Over-all, I really enjoyed this. I thought your imagery was fantastic, and you set the tone very well. Also, your ending was perfect; you built a bridge to the next chapter superbly. Very nicely done!

[D.M. Knight]

I think I see what you are talking about. You are talking about the first sentence in both paragraph one and two, aren't you?

I have struggled with how to begin the second paragraph so that the reader knows that the following is a description of "That Night"...

I agree with your comment and I appreciate it. I am going to try to find another way to begin the second paragraph.

Thank you so much for your feedback!

[D.M. Knight]

I decided that it probably isn't necessary to mention that I am describing "The night it first happened" in the second paragraph because I think the ending makes it clear that the scene is from the past and from that night. So I just took that part out.

Again, thank you so much for your review! I appreciate the feedback, as it helps me see things that I miss, which helps me improve as a writer.

Thank you!

[Rosie Brooklin]

You're very welcome! I'm glad I could help.