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Phantom

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PostPosted: Tue May 19, 2009 10:28 am


I am writing a story called Hyrbids. I was wondering if you could give me constructive criticism, and maybe suggestions and stuff.
BEWARE! There's quite a lot! Read until you get bored razz

Chapter One - The Changing

Manuel Goodshaw laughed with delight, his white lab coat flaring as he spun. He almost cried out, or laughed hysterically because of the sheer joy that he, Manuel Goodshaw, was well on the way to improve the human race. DNA in a syringe! He just needed a tester for it…
His PA rushed to his side as he snapped his large fingers imperiously. He ordered her to fetch Lionel, bring them two cups of neat whisky and his daily dose of poison. You see, Manuel was so frightened of being poisoned so that someone else could take the credit for his work, took a small dose of poison each day so that he would grow immune. Today was Thursday, so it was Hemlock day. But then Lionel strutted in, fedora low over his eyes, playing cowboy as usual, his Colt 45’s at his hips.
“What do you want, Manuel? I do hope you’re finally going to give me the money you owe me. It’s hard to catch endangered animals and kill them without someone noticing. It costs a lot of money to hide a trail well, as you know all to well,” Lionel sneered. Manuel moaned inwardly. Lionel was a pain in the a**, but he was a damn good hunter. It was best not to irritate him. Poisoning wasn’t the only way to go.
“Actually, Lionel, I need something different today.”
“I wondered why you had you near see-through top on,” Lionel smirked.
“This isn’t the time for sarky comments!” Manuel snapped, grinding his teeth in anger, “you’ve collected several animal parts for me, but this is much more important. Get caught and I will make sure you die slowly and painfully!”
“Are you threatening me, old man? Don’t get too excited, you might just get a heart attack on top of your leukaemia.”
Manuel self-consciously put his hand to his bald head, his pale skin tightening as he calmed himself down. “I need a child, Lionel. A young one to start with, doesn’t matter what sex, whether it’s pretty or ugly. Get one off the streets, trick them or something. Then bring me more, one at a time. Get them from different parts of town. Use a different car…”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, old man. But children? We’ve been working together long enough for you to tell me why, right? You’ve been working on this mystery project for 17 years now, needing plants or animals, men a short while ago, and now children?” Lionel interrupted sharply, anger bringing his tawny eyebrows to meet above his black eyes.
“I need children, the men didn’t work. By children I mean teenagers, all under 18. They mustn’t have finished puberty yet, I think that’s important. Don’t question me or my morals, just do the job, and I’ll pay you in full when you bring me the first child.”
At this moment Charlotte, his PA, knocked timidly on the door, peeking her head around the doorframe, glasses perched daintily on her nose. Manuel nodded and she trotted over, her paper white hands shaking, green eyes cast down. In her hands she held two glasses of neat whisky, her thumb outstretched, as she tried to hold a bottle of pills and a glass of whisky in one hand. Manuel inclined his head silently in thanks as he took a glass of whisky and his bottle of pills. Charlotte then handed the other glass to Lionel, the whisky clearly sloshing in her shaking hand. His honey hands touched hers, one prising the glass of whisky, the other gently lying on her lower arm, trying to calm her. Yet she squeaked in shock and hurried off.
Lionel laughed softly, then downed his whisky, grimacing as it burned like liquid fire down his throat. Manuel raised his wisp of an eyebrow, impressed. He gulped two pills down hastily then sipped at his whisky, waiting for an answer from Lionel, who was now (from the whisky) as cocky as he was when he walked in. Lionel swept off his fedora, then bowed elaborately, hat in hand, saying mockingly, “Your wish is my command, Manuel” Lionel then strutted out, whistling a tune under his breath, hand not straying an inch from his gun.


Ridan sat in the wide doorway; huddled in her sleeping bag so thin in places it was almost see-through. There were two empty sleeping bags on either side of her, but of course they didn’t sleep in the doorway at night. They slept in the alley. Remus and Cassy, her siblings, had gone out near the woods in the centre of the city to beg, knowing that people often took morning strolls in the park to clear their minds. They’d be back in a few days, because they had taken their blankets with them. She flicked her black hair, carefully beaded and braided by her sister, out of her face, so she could use the full effect of her startlingly green eyes imploringly to ask for their change. She was only six, small for her age, with big green eyes that peeked out from her caramel face. Her Mother used to say that they were beautiful. On the streets, those big green eyes no longer sparkled with the light that had shone when her Mother was alive. Now they were sad, and they only sparkled with tears now. Yet they drew peoples’ eyes to the once beautiful face, scarily thin and pitiful. They were a money magnet too, because pity meant coins dropping into her soft cupped hands, then stored away in the hidden pocket of her sleeping bag, where it was thickest.
She was terribly hungry, but daren’t leave her post because it was nearly lunch time, which was when people moved around, and people meant money. Maybe later she’d walk among the market stalls, sticky fingers slipping titbits into her deep pockets. Then she’d go to the water fountain, eat a few crumbs, look hungry, get a little more food, eat it, have a drink then find her way back to her sleeping bag, which she would hide with the others in a niche in the alleyway.
She was distracted from her daydreaming by a man walking up to her, a bottle of water in one hand, and a sandwich in the other. He offered them to her, saying "These were my lunch, but it looks like you need them more." smiling kindly, he backed off while she ate them hungrily, too starving to think about the possible dangers. Soon she felt sleepy, and snuggled down in her sleeping bag. The last thing she felt was someone picking her up...


Manuel only just stopped himself from shaking with excitement as he slipped the needle into her dark skin.
“At 1600, the subject, aged six, female, of Indian origin, was injected with the core DNA of a snowy owl,” he said clearly into a tape recorder. He then set a watch on her, and stuck a little poster with the words “SNOWY OWL” in clear print beneath the cage door. The cage was stainless steel, with a network of bars set in a chequered pattern, so that no animal could escape. The door was locked with a special code that only he knew – there was a tiny feeding flap at the bottom of the door, bolted so it could only be opened from the outside, to slip small amounts of food under. A tranquillizer gun lay near the observer’s feet. As he watched, the little girl arched her back and screamed shrilly in pain. He winced, checked his watch, and wrote it down on his clipboard. He noted down everything, from the way her neck thrashed as her body rejected the change. His clipboard ended up like this, after several hours –

1654 – Subject began to change. Arched back and screamed.
1658 – Subject lost all head hair.
1734 – Subject’s bone structure altered, and the subject became smaller, with larger eye structure.
1738 – Subject’s skin paled tremendously, it is now snow white.
1741 – Subject’s hair began to grow, now white with black and grey blotches, like the markings on a snowy owl’s wings.
1756 – Subject’s nails grew longer, from 2mm to 10mm.
1800 – Subject fell into a deep sleep.
0302 – Subject awoke, with eyes that are now amber in colour. The Subject has now completed the change into a Hybrid.


Ridan awoke in a strange place, with an odd smell. Terrified and cold, she looked around. There were other cages, all empty apart from one. A grown man, with horrible scars and bulging muscles. He was rattling the cages and yelling in a thick accent that Ridan couldn’t place or understand. A tall man with thinning grey hair rushed in, grabbed the tranquilizer gun in the corner, took careful aim, and shot. The man swayed on his feet, then crumpled to the ground. Ridan started screaming, until the man took aim at her. Then she shut her mouth and curled up in the corner, rocking softly and sobbing. With her eyes closed, she couldn’t see the new colour of her arms…
Eventually Ridan cried herself to sleep.


Manuel threw the money, held together with an elastic band, at Lionel. Always showing off, Lionel dived towards the money, grabbed it, and then tucked into a roll, landing a metre away from Manuel. He stood up swiftly, patted Manuel on the back and left, calling over his shoulder, “There’s another one for you in my van. Name’s Kitsune. She looks Asian, which explains the name. Kitsune means Fox in Japanese or something, I think. She’s 16. I’ll have your number one lackey, Chris Davidson, bring her in. I’m off to find some others. Might try Leeds next, then London. Lot’s of homeless people in London. Might be hard to find a kid though…”
Manuel saw Chris drag in a young girl, definitely Asian, into the cage to the right of Ridan’s. The girl was unconscious, her brown hair covering most of her face. Chris put her down gently, then left without a second glance. No one noticed his face was purple with rage. Manuel sauntered over, and looked while a worker hurried up to him, and asked, “Mr Manuel, sir, I was wondering what DNA to put in this girl…” he then cringed, as if expecting a blow. Manuel smiled down and him like a benevolent father (he was a tall man), cocked his head on one side, and thought. Eventually he announced, “Give her a Darwin’s Fox. Her name’s Kitsune and I like the joke.” The worker tittered nervously, and then hurried off. A few minutes later he came back, syringe in hand. He made to enter the cage, but Manuel gave him a blow to the head that knocked him flat, and neatly snatched the syringe before it smashed on the floor. He strode in, and Chris hurried over, his look of rage now perfectly erased. He handed Manuel a pair of gloves, and they snapped them on efficiently. Manuel readied the syringe, then drove it into her arm. He had concentrated the DNA, which made the process much faster. To fast for him to write down, she morphed. In a few minutes she was a hybrid. She now had dark grey-violet long hair, and extremely long eyelashes. Her ears were long and pointed, tipped with reddish fur. Most spectacular of all, she had a tail. Long and bushy, reaching to her calves, it was dark grey, ending in a black tip.


That's all I have so far biggrin Thank you so much!
PostPosted: Thu Jun 17, 2010 10:59 am


I like what you've got going on here. It's a viable sci-fi story with (so far) what look to be both likebale and detestable characters as well as one or two who could be both.

My reccomendation would be to use graphs instead or paragraphs. Graphs are smaller, bite-sized text that make the page look more appealing to the reader.

For example:

Quote:
Manuel only just stopped himself from shaking with excitement as he slipped the needle into her dark skin.
“At 1600, the subject, aged six, female, of Indian origin, was injected with the core DNA of a snowy owl,” he said clearly into a tape recorder. He then set a watch on her, and stuck a little poster with the words “SNOWY OWL” in clear print beneath the cage door. The cage was stainless steel, with a network of bars set in a chequered pattern, so that no animal could escape. The door was locked with a special code that only he knew – there was a tiny feeding flap at the bottom of the door, bolted so it could only be opened from the outside, to slip small amounts of food under. A tranquillizer gun lay near the observer’s feet. As he watched, the little girl arched her back and screamed shrilly in pain. He winced, checked his watch, and wrote it down on his clipboard. He noted down everything, from the way her neck thrashed as her body rejected the change. His clipboard ended up like this, after several hours –


Could be written as:

Quote:
Manuel only just stopped himself from shaking with excitement as he slipped the needle into her dark skin.

“At 1600, the subject, aged six, female, of Indian origin, was injected with the core DNA of a snowy owl,” he said clearly into a tape recorder.

He then set a watch on her, and stuck a little poster with the words “SNOWY OWL” in clear print beneath the cage door.

The cage was stainless steel, with a network of bars set in a chequered pattern, so that no animal could escape. The door was locked with a special code that only he knew – there was a tiny feeding flap at the bottom of the door, bolted so it could only be opened from the outside, to slip small amounts of food under.

A tranquillizer gun lay near the observer’s feet. As he watched, the little girl arched her back and screamed shrilly in pain. He winced, checked his watch, and wrote it down on his clipboard. He noted down everything, from the way her neck thrashed as her body rejected the change. (add more of this sentence. Everything from the way *blankity blank* to the way *blankity blank*. Your sentence structure means this sentence must include more than one item. By using the word from, you must make it a list.)

His clipboard ended up like this, after several hours (get rid of the passive verb ended up like. Try: "After several hours of *let's say...torturous observation* his clipboard read: )


I like what you've written here, and I really see some poetantial. If you're ever in the neighborhood for an editor, drop me a line, and I hope this helped.

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