by Kodabomb » Fri Jul 26, 2013 12:13 am
Hey again! Koda here! <3
I wanted your thoughts on the Prologue of my new book. I've written books before but I want this to be... A BOOK. I'm middle school aged and I want to be a novelist when I'm older.
Can you offer me advice on EVERY SINGLE area for improvement? Like, as much as you can think of. I need to make it more sad.
So... Enjoy..?
Edit: At the end it does sound similar to the Lion King, but trust me; it wasn't actually supposed to. Her backstory had already been set up and I didn't realize the similarities until I proof-read...
Prologue – Fear, Pain, Heartbreak, and Complicated Aspects.
“I love you, Kalamu.” Said her soft voice, dancing in the night.
“I love you too, mother.” I whispered. Her huge paw wrapped my tiny body closer toward her.
I was safe.
I was content.
I knew that nothing could hurt me, when I was with her. I knew that the world would be a good place when I was with her. I knew that one day, when I was a lioness, I would be as amazing as her.
And I knew that the bond between us would never break until death.
I pressed my muzzle into her furry chest.
“I love you.”
* * *
I had never known fear.
I had never known pain.
I was simple, with a simple mind and a simple life.
I had never known heartbreak.
I had never known the complicated aspects of life.
But complicated aspects, heartbreak, pain and fear were things to be experienced. And if the world was also simple, if the world knew that its residents were happy without those things, then it wouldn’t bring them upon us.
Would the world be so harsh, so cruel, and so merciless as to bring them upon one so young in just a single turn? Did the world not know that some did not need those things? Would it not let the ones with simple minds live a simple life freely? Was it so hard for it to let them live with love and peace, with the ones they loved?
In one single turn. I was so young. I was unprotected and powerless. I didn’t even need to experience fear, pain, heartbreak and a complicated life, just because of a tiny accident. That tiny accident would come to affect me deeply.
* * *
In my desperate search, I staggered over the cold, dark sand under the light of the waning moon. I was shivering and hungry and alone, and I wanted to find her.
In my simple life, I needed only love and peace. I knew that the love and peace came from only a single soul. That night she had gone missing. I didn’t know that the night on the savannah without her, was deadly enough to enshroud me in danger with every tiny step I took.
I squinted into the dark, looking for familiar, moving shapes that I could pick out. Once I found her, I could rest again till morning.
Soon I found the waterhole. It was overlooked by a white-lined tree, that cast ghostly shadows over the water and sand and grass.
And the lumpy, withered shape, lying beneath the shrubs.
I approached it very cautiously. If it moved, I knew to run. I could do that.
If it moved, I could run.
I crept round the shape, my blue eyes shining with curiosity. A carcass? Could I eat it? Mother brought carcasses home. She told me they were dead, and that even if they look like the animals on the savannah, they weren’t coming back. Sleeping forever.
I sucked in a breath through my nostrils. The scent was not alive. Yes, it was a carcass. But the dead smell was coated in something else. Something I recognised.
It was warm, sweet, familiar… Was mother nearby?
I got a closer look at the body.
Wait.
The face of it was too familiar. So much so, that I choked upon seeing it.
The glazed over eyes that stared sightlessly up at the sky were blue. The blue eyes that I knew all too well to know, that they wouldn’t not be looking at me when I was in reach.
“Mother?” I whispered in silence.
I sucked in another breath. No, no, no! How was this happening? Why did she smell so much like a dead body? What was wrong with her?
I didn’t understand! Only antelope and hares and zebras were supposed to smell like this! Only they were supposed have sightless eyes! How was it possible that she could be just like it to? She couldn’t leave!
Asleep forever.
I choked out a cry of despair, brand new emotions coming down on me. I leapt at her, knowing that as I pulled her ears and clawed her shoulder, she was not going to wake.
And if she was asleep, I would sleep too.
I lay on my tummy and wriggled closer, shoving my head under her paw. I slumped on the ground, feeling my heart beat against my ribs.
And I felt pain. I felt heartbreak. I knew that her own heart was not going to be beating in harmony with mine any longer.
* * *
The sun shone down on me from the early light of morning. It was becoming very hot now. I twitched my nose.
And then realised where I was.
I was still tucked under mother’s paw. She was still sleeping. Her eyes were open and her heart wasn’t beating. I gasped and jumped out, and her limp paw fell to the sandy ground. I stepped back. She was just lying there. She wouldn’t get up.
I tried to make a noise that sounded like a roar, but it didn’t. It sounded like a broken snarl, and my heart beat furiously inside me. What was I going to do? I was alone. I had no one else to protect me. I was exposed, my tiny body with my bare back glaring out everywhere for everyone to see.
And that’s when I felt fear.
A strangled screech chorused above my head and I looked up. A shadow over the golden sun was cast, wings spread and bare, ugly head looking down on me with hungry eyes.
I stood dead-still. He swooped down near me and alighted heavily on the other side of mother.
He folded his wings and peered at me. I bared my miniscule teeth. Filthy vulture. Filthy bird. Eating others’ food just because it was too lazy to hunt.
“Get away from her!” I snarled, my ferocity not showing at all as I heard myself. The vulture examined me, considering my facial expression as I tried and failed to stare him down.
“She’s gone, cub.” Sneered the bird, not moving. He spread his wings again and fluttered over mother’s body to face me. “She’s can’t protect you any more.”
“Don’t touch her!” I wailed as he turned around. With a great taloned foot, he shoved her body. She rolled over limply. I just gagged, watching him touch her and look at her like she was a hunk of meat. “Stop!”
“She’s not coming back!” screeched the horrid thing, turning and shoving his beak in my face. I jumped back, swishing my hairy, tufted tail through the air in anger. But I was just a cub. What could I do to stop this monster taking my mother even further away from me? “Look.”
Eyeing him, I crept around to look at my mother. My chest heaved up and down. This sudden pain and this sudden heartbreak was coming back again.
The vulture handled her paws fiercely, throwing them out of the way of her chest. I gasped at the sight, hyperventilating but not able to breathe. No. No. No. No. How could this happen?
Through her chest, a great, bloody hole was shown. Wide and deep, it went straight through her, revealing the blood and gore.
I couldn’t bare it. Digging my claws into the dirt, I literally couldn’t bare it.
I looked back at her face. Her usually warm, smiling face, but with glazed eyes, a shocked expression frozen in place. And the hole through her body that cut through her insides and took her precious life away from me.
Suddenly the sun disappeared again, and I looked up in terror as three more vultures landed near me and the other. I stepped back a bit, but not having the guts to move too far from Mother.
“An elephant’s tusk. Straight through.” Sighed the first vulture.
“Pity. It would be such a waste...” said another.
“Is the little one for dessert?” asked a third.
“Doesn’t look like a fast runner.” Spat the fourth.
“No! Please! Don’t touch her!” I screamed as one of them placed his foot on Mother’s thigh and dug his talons into her skin and flesh.
“We’re hungry.” Snarled the vulture, suddenly ripping his foot back. A chunk of her skin was torn off, and I screamed again, now begging.
“Please, please!” I sobbed. “Where am I going to go? She has to protect me,”
“She’s DEAD, you stupid cat!” screeched the first vulture, flaring his wings at me and swooping in close to my face. I shrieked and leapt out of the way as his fellows laughed.
“Please...” I sniffed, collapsed in defeat before the hideous creature.
“Your mother is dead. You have no family, no friends, no fellows. Now, you’re only way of life is for you to run.” Hissed the bird, his curved beak right next to my ear. I was stiff.
“Run..?” I whispered. He nodded. I stood.
“Run, cat, run.” He said in such a quiet voice I could barely hear him. But now, I knew that he was right. Unfortunately. No, unfortunately wasn’t the right word. Horribly. Dreadfully. So much horror and dread in this circumstance that I could barely even move.
But in shock, I picked up my tiny paws and jumped a few bounds away, toward the flat grassland. The vulture nodded as I looked at him.
With a cough of hatred and pain, I ran a little further. My pace picked up. I began to run. I began to gallop. I raced away from the waterhole, away from the death, away from the demon birds.
And as I ran, full of emotions, I listened to the screeches of the vultures and the tearing of skin and flesh and bones. I was never going to see her again. That horrible image of her punctured, shocked, dismantled body was the last thing I’d know of her.
And now, I felt fear. I now knew of complicated aspects.
And all because of a single elephant trunk that got too close to her chest, and stopped my mother’s heart beating.
pud / demigirl / pan
♡
