critque please???

[Crimson Stormfire]

Hey guys want some feedback here.... i have dreamed of writing a full novel for some time now....well i have the first three chapters complete and thought i would post chapter 1 or at least a part of it and ask " what do you think?" i will also give the overall story arc as i see it now...{note it is an unfinished arc, as it flows like a stream, swelling to raging river then drying up to a trickle,} at the end of the chapter so here goes be warned it could be a long read,


CHAPTER 1
"THE GUN AND THE SHADOW"

The broken glass glinted in the soft moonbeams light upon the floor.

Dave sat at the edge of their bed, his tear stained face in his hands. His bare feet bleeding over the carpet, from walking across the shards of glass.

Her picture lay on the bed next to him smiling that wonderfully angelic smile he fell in love with all those years ago. She smiling her angels smile while his heart was

shattering and his very soul dimming there on that bed. He had never felt this level of pain before. Some say it feel like like your very existence has been ripped from

you and all that is left is a vacuous void of nothing desperately trying to fill itself back up, with anything. Drugs, alcohol,anger,lust whatever it was its appetite

can not be slaked until for the one true love it had found once can be quenched . For dave it had indulged in his anger. Their house was in shambles . When she stormed

out and took that powerful presence of Home with her, the beast of emptiness awoke and satiated its hunger on their house. The plasma tv they had saved for three

years now lay screen down and smoking in the den, their couch was shredded although he couldnt remember how, the refrigerator was missing its door and now cooling

the entire kitchen, among many other broken things was daves soul. Dave tried to remember how they had gotten to this point tonight, a week before their tenth

anniversary.

They'd had a wonderful evening at the movies seeing the newest romantic comedy, after she had begged him over an hour to take her. Of course he had bought the

tickets early that afternoon and was going to take her anyway, he enjoyed playfully teasing her. She knew he was teasing and played along joyfully adopting the sad puppy

face that can make any woman look instantly like a five year old little girl whose best friend just left for that great divide.

Dave agreed on one condition. That if he had to sit through one more sappy romantic tear jerker slash comedy, that she could at least have dinner at the new upscale

authentic Chinese restaurant.

she agreed with "Well, at least you arent dragging me off to that crappy buffet your always on about."

After the movie he mocked her critique of his tastes by saying "At least there was one explosion at that crappy chinese buffet"

They laughed and ribbed each other the whole way home with sentences beginning with "At least it wasnt" or "at least it is"

Then before dave even knew it, the one thing that would turn her forever against him slid from his tongue like a sly assassin from the shadows,

"At least your not a mongoloid retard like your mom"

Her laughter was cut off suddenly as if some tiny monster had reached up from her stomach and choked the life out of it, leaving its cold limp body in her throat.

He could see the tears beginning to well up in her eyes as her nostrils began to flare rapidly. her lower lip had started to quiver, and her ears were turning red.

Her jaw worked up and down as if trying to speak but her words seemed stuck behind the bloated and dead body of her laughter, the night was officially over

She turned away from him in her seat and hugged herself tightly as she began to shake. Dave knew she was trying not to break down right there in the car.

They stopped at the traffic light and she looked at him and daves heart began to break. The first cracks had formed. He looked into her eyes and saw pain, not just

any pain..no. This was the pain of someone ripping out your very heart and crushing it before your eyes. The brief moment in time at the traffic light felt like eons of

torture as dave stared into the once vibrant eyes of his wife and saw something was missing. Beyond the pain and the hurt, something that was there before now wasnt.

As the light changed from red to green and thunder rumbled in the distance he had tiime to think about what it was missing in his wifes eyes and what to do next, a

small simple apology wont do when you have hurt someone you love this badly.


"PART II"

She sat at the traffic light, a block from their house, her head against the steering wheel sobbing. Heavy rain began to pelt the roof of her car as Thunder pealed across

the sky bellowing out its chorus. The light changed from red to green and back to red again, she cared not. she looked up just as the light changed from green to red

again. Thats when she saw it. a whispy smoke like shadow darted across the street half a block up from where she was sitting, causing a small dry sound to escape her

throat . 'It cant be, not now.' she thought. Her mind instantly was back in the hospital 12 years prior.

2 years before she met david her mother and her were attacked, a mugging gone bad you say. Beaten and tortured they both lived. She was in physical therapy and

speech therapy to learn to use her vocabulary again when she learned her mother never would be the bright and vibrant woman who raised her. Her mother was condemned to physically and mentally forever be the functional equivalent of a three year old.

"So you see mrs. yourke you have two options " the doctor began " You could opt for proffesional care at shadow pines or you could..." the sound of the doctors voice

diminished, not that she stopped talking but rather her ears stopped hearing. there was no sound, and thats when she first saw the shadow. It rose from behind the

doctor a swirling mass of oily black smoke filling the room and creeping its way into the air vents and cracks in the ceiling tiles.

Her eyes widened and a small strangled sound escaped her throat

"Are you ok mrs yourke?" the doctor asked

"fine," she replied in a voice that sounded a million miles away "just a memory of that awful night..and please call me ann"

as ann continued to watch the coalescing form of smoke in the door a voice like a lover kiss invaded her mind

" you will be given a choice...not long form now... choose to help...stand and fight....or suffer and die."

As suddenly as it had formed it was gone. There was a constant buzz in her head as she filled out form after form for days so she could care for her mother at home,

with a live-in nurse.

A year and half later she found herself touring the Shadow Pines care facility. The strain in her career and her mental health were too much. She decided that a

permanent care facility was the best.
On her tour of the grounds she was oddly comforted by the tall Oak in the courtyard. standing their nobly defiant and solitary amongst the pines. the grounds were

clean, the facility was well maintained, and orderly. The patients looked happy and well cared for. She was looking at the oak tree when she saw tendrils of blue smoke

rising from behind it, she passed this off as someone smoking behind the tree. As the smoke filtered into the blazing orange trees lit by the redfire of a setting october

sun it turned suddenly black growing thicker and engulfing the tree. that reedy voice filled her head again just like in the hospital eighteen months ago.

"You will be given the choice...stand be true...fight....or suffer and ...die..for all time suffer"

"Miss yourke? are you ok?" the attendant asked

"Yeah it just doesnt seem fair....my mother cared and fought for me for eighteen years now after only a year and a half i cant keep going, i have to give up."

"what happened to you and your mother wasnt fair. this isnt giving up mrs yourke. look if your mother was faced with the same decision about you I am sure

she would choose this option as well for in the end its all about whats the best possible option for the one who cant decide for themselves. Stand, or suffer this decision
isnt hard."

stunned ann asked in a shaky voice"what did you just say to me? "

"I said you must stand for what you believe is the best care possible for your mother"

She was jolted from the memory as a car horn blared behind her,

"HEY LADY MOVE YOUR ASS THE LIGHTS SWITCHED THREE TIMES ALREADY!!"

In her mind a voice seductive like the night whispered "stand" and had she looked in the mirror she wouldve seen white smoke creeping into her azure blue eyes.

She slammed the car in reserve and parked her tires on the mans low scooped firebird hood. Slamming the gears into drive and jamming on the gas she

smoked her tires off the hood hitting the pavement with a bark. She sped up the block making an impossible u-turn midway through the next intersection, and speeding

past the firebird whose owner was still behind the wheel gaping. Later if asked he would say it was ghostly figure of a woman driver and a dark shadow in the seat

beside her.


Part III

Dave heard the sounds up the block and thought about going to the window to see the commotion, but decided to finish his own business.

he slowly slid the barettas clip home and clicked the safety off. He took one last look at his picture in his hand and slid the barrel into his mouth. He gently closed his

teeth on the barrel.the taste of gun oil and steel assaulted his senses like a long lost lovers kiss. Before could squeeze the trigger he heard tires scream into the driveway

and a car door slam, the front door open and slam close. Ann ran up the stairs to the bedroom, vaulting over the broken hand rail and overturned chairs. She burst into

the bedroom to see dave holding her phot in his left hand and her barretta in his right pointed at her.

His eyes looked from her picture to her as she stood frozen. "gone " she thought. dave was gone in his eyes was an empty dead look most commonly found in those who

have given up on living. The smoke swirled from behind dave quickly and this time time a figure stepped out the smoke. In a scene ann found in many many movies

before tonight where there were once two now there three. the new figure stood his there back to the scene

"I am sorry ann" dave said. Her vision cleared. she saw everything. The rain pelting the window each drop as bright as a newly forged diamond. the bloody footprints

leading to the bed. The shells scattered on the floor amongst the sparkling glass. Daves well manicured nails. All of this in a stark clarity that made her

that she had been looking at the world through dirty barroom windows her whole life. The the room was filled with the thunderous boom of the hand-gun.

Ann closed her eyes, and waited. what felt like an eternity passed, she slowly opened her eyes . Everything was the same yet nothing was in motion. not even the rain.

She saw the barrel of the gun liked in fire, muzzle flash, and she saw that exactly between her and the gun a shell was floating in the air suspended.

"its like someone hit the pause button." she thought

"Someone did hit the pause button as you say" came the reedy reply

Ann became cutely aware that the figure had moved from behind dave and now sat on their bed, staring at her.

He had long White hair that cascade over his shoulders like water from a fall, of this a single black streak about three inches wide ran down the left hand, the entire

length which appeared to stop near his waist. his clothes were a mix of what ann wouldve read about in legends of knights and dragons and some modern day wear,

He wore a simple leather tunic tucked into a belt that looked 8 inches wide with a huge buckle that bore an immense skull, the buckles apex appeared to be at his

sternum and looked to protect his midsection. his pants looked to be faded blue jeans tucked into studded native american moccasin boots, upon his hip he wore two

large swords in quarter scabbards so that that their black blades reflected the low light. but what struck ann the most was his face or what he wore as his face. the

white and black hair flowed around a shining blue skull, metallic in appearance, the eyes were set askew in the slant of an evil painting, and glowing a soft purple, "he's

a demon" she thought

He suddenly stood, startling a small cry from ann. He crossed the room in two strides and standing there in front of her he towered over her by at least two feet.

He cocked his head to the side as if listening to something then glowered down at her through those purple lit eyes and said.

"I am no demon, although some of your kind have labeled me as such, i assure i am not. his voice not only echoed in the room but in her mind as well.

"what.."

"is going on ?" the figure finished her question "i will tell you but i must speak quickly for you see i cant kepp this little scen stopped for much longer and since you have

wasted enough time staring at me lets get down to brass tacks shall we? I am here to make you a deal. the deal is stand and fight, or suffer and die. what do you

choose?"

"I dont understand." she said as she suddenly realized the shadowy figure had been with her since that night in the abandoned alleyway. sitting there on the dumpster

watching her and mother get beaten to near death, in the hospital as she recovered, at the nursing home where her mother passed away last year, in her car in herself.

"Its simple really, stand and be true, fight and live, or suffer and die, your life for his, choose i can assure you one of you wont live through this. my time has grown

short as has my patience with you, CHOOSE!" the voice boomed She flinched at the sound and thats when he was gone, a second later her shoulder exploded in searing

agony and she was spun to the floor.

staring at the ceiling she saw daves pale face enter her view as he planted his foot in her stomach to keep her still. a tear fell from his eye and landed on her cheek. the

gun went off five more times igniting her chest in fire and pain. As her vision dimmed she saw the demon-man behind dave slowly take his hand and turn the gun

towards daves temple. Dave did not struggle and in the growing darkness of her dimming vision another flash and then silence.

In her falling darkness ann thought "am i dead?"

the demons voice rang through her darkness. "no your not dead, i told you decide or suffer, your not dead but your close. wake now and see."



i have decided to stop here as that is the first 19 pages of thsi story and as some of you who are fans of Stephen Kings the DARK TOWER the number 19 holds all the power. the synopsis is this....ann is given a cryptic choice,,, stand and be true,,,stand and fight... or suffer and die, this choice is revelaed by the demon...who is reveled to have the name death adder...after some more suffering and encounters with the deathadder and another a female who shall at this point remain a mystery to all but me she sides with the female and makes her choice to stand and fight for herself preservation, at which point she awakens on a distant world, broken and naked, being attended to by the last living healer{dressed as a druid no less} who informs her she is the exact image of their fallen goddess, who died in an epic battle eons ago to save their universe from the ultimate destruction and rebirth as a realm of torture and unending pain. from this point ann sets out on an epic and sweeping journey tind not only the demon and seek answers but who she really is. encountering talking mountains, wizards, hordes of demons and vile creatures and learning of magic and the old gods, and finding out she may be the only one who can save all of existence.....


so please if youve made it this far tell me if ive got something good or if its just a load of hogswallop, or garbage...
thank you all

[Crimson Stormfire]

any-one with feedback on this?? should i continue it? or what? i know its a long read so far...
thank you to all those who have read read this...no negative feedback yet so i guess thats means its ok?
and yep i am begging. {no shame}