C.Gholy

Feel free to give any feedback, tips or whatever you feel like.

Prologue

The land of the dead, was identical to the land of the living, apart from its obvious differences. Earth was filled with clouds and blue skies. The importance of time and words affected the value and privileges such as friendship, work, family and identity.

However in death-land, time had paused, the souls remained how they were when they died. The day and night was replaced by a dark grey atmosphere. The corpses, spirits, vampires and all the deceased spent their time here with eternal marks. All that remained from their lifetime was the memories, which gained the ability to reflect on their life.

Along with many of these homeless souls was a man. The man believed love was power and to his extreme measures, he sliced his skin. He wanted to make sure that he had a powerful death. He had never regretted the suicide and felt after all the heartache through his life as a widowed man, it was worth every last drop of blood. That man was known as Crick.

Crick Gimsparnist followed his wife into the noisy atmosphere inside his local bar. His crisp blonde hair covered in bleach stood out to his dirty raggy clothes. His pale skin dangled around the dark bones on his skin. He was shaking his way to the bar. Crick smirked at the plump landlord, revealing his rotting teeth. “Evening Donald,” Crick croaked in a high pitched croaky voice resembling a strangled frog.

“All right there, Crick?” Donald waved his hand as he patted Crick's bleached locks. “What can I get you for this evening?”

“I shall have a pint of organ splash, please.”

“Coming right up, Crickie!” Donald's thumbs faced the ceiling as he pulled the barrel.

“Can you believe it?” Crick dragged Anna's rags to his side, “I haven't had beer in three hundred years. I always liked mine chilled and freshly brewed. It was the taste of life.”

“I miss the good old days brewing the stuff. Here you go, that will be two coins.”

“Thank you.” Crick passed two bronze coins over to Donald. He could always rely on Donald to reduce the prices, just for him. Every time he held his pint of organ splash, it reminded him of the beer he always loved before he died. The beer always cheered him up after his wife's death. Anna wasn't just a wife; she was Crick's life.

He never did recall how Anna died. He wanted to ask her for quite sometime. He just wished that Anna was more active in conversation. Crick fondled his spouse, his chin rested against her face. Anna Gimsparnist, his precious wife, was better known as Armless Anna, because her arms were sliced off before her death. Crick held his pint in his hands as he stood with a posture to show his pride. His cup was held high above his face and he tangled his spare fingers in Anna's long drained curls, almost like Anna had died in water. “You seem to have had such a wet death I must say.”

“Crick,” Anna sighed, “did you even know how I died?”

“Well,” Crick replied, “I know you arms were sliced off before your afterlife.”

“For your information,” Anna muttered to Crick, “my death bed was in the rocky bed of the canal! You can say your death was a peaceful one, but mine was painful. Sometimes, I wonder do you have any feelings for me?”

“Annie dearest.” Crick petted her shoulder, speaking in compassion. “You know I ended my life to be reunited with you sweetie.”

“I see,” Anna sighed again watching Crick as he drank. She despised his drinking habits with a passion. One thing that Anna had learned in the afterlife was that her husband was never going to leave her alone. “I thought death would separate you from me.”

Crick almost spat his drink out. His hands collapsed onto the bar shaking his head. “Death do us part!” he roared with disgust. “I don't believe in that nonsense. Love lasts forever, even in death.” He moved closer to her ear, “That very day I married you, I was determined to make it last for all time.” Anna gulped as she felt his breath along with his words oozing into her brain. “We're stuck with each other and don't it feel good?”

“Yes,” Anna gulped. Her body was trapped by aggressive fingers. Crick brought his lips onto hers and pressed them against each other. “You sit down,” she requested pulling Crick off her as gently as possible. “I'll be right back.” Anna stormed off to the door trying to hide her embarrassment.

“Where are going?” Crick asked leaping to his feet.

“Just going out for a walk,” Anna said without even facing him. “You go and have your pint.”

Anna nudged the door open with a weak shoulder. Her legs felt as light as a feather. She wiped her eyes with a feeling of defeat. Crick would never be able to understand her emotions. He made that clear from tone of his voice. Even though she was dead, her soul was crying out for the freedom she never received. This was what a life was like without time and air. The emptiness in her heart was overwhelming. She just wished that Crick could just back off. Why should their relationship matter anymore? Nothing about Crick seemed genuine to her at all.

Crick's pure obsession with Anna created embarrassment. She didn't want to be known as the Beer-loving-Crick's wife. She wanted to be known as just Anna or even Armless-Anna was acceptable.

Strolling down the dark alleyway reminded her of her of the darkness that was in her sleeping heart. She wasn't going into a particular location, she just had to go far from her husband. Her steps became faster by the seconds to where the strolling changed into running.

Loud sounds captured her attention. Seizing her feet, she stood outside a wide door. The loud atmosphere could be heard from outside and it was the sort of thing Anna would love to see. She stepped into the building with no expectations of what would be inside.

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SparkyLT

You've posted this before, haven't you? I think I've critiqued it in the past.

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C.Gholy

Yeah, I posted it in the non finished state.http://www.writingforums.com/critiqu...d-opening.html

So this is like the finished version of the prologue with some fix ups.

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SparkyLT

Ah; at a glace I couldn't tell it was any different. My bad.

You still have some problems with your writing. I can't really pin it down, though. You don't use a lot of punctuation, I notice, and the dialouge seems fake somehow.

Here you use 'in a X tone' twice. You can change this to make it better. I have a bad habit of using 'so-and-so said happily' or 'said gloomily' or something like that - what you're doing is similar. We can both benefit from using 'so-and-so enthused' or 'muttered'. Words like that, people keep telling me, make for stronger writing.

On the bright side, you don't have an spelling problems, and I think you dialouge punctuation is good. You've got good ideas, and interesting characters, they're just not coming across right.

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C.Gholy

Thanks for your views Sparky, nice seeing someone around my age here.

That's good to here my Spelling is fine. Glad the idea sounds nice.

About the In a x tone, I use it a lot.

Would this sound better?

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SparkyLT

Yeah, that's much better. Using unnecessary words tend to pull the reader out of the story, because it sounds awkward. The rewrite flows much better, even from just a small change.

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Newnonel

It seemed a little strange to me, there was not much effort in showing the differences in the afterworld and now. The characters seemed a little fake, when I read this, I knew I was reading something. Your job as a writer is to pull your readers in, not show them. Sorry if I'm not much help on improving your work. Overall the idea is still quite fresh though, I have to give you credit for that.
-Newnonel

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C.Gholy

I'm glad the idea sounds fresh. Thanks for that Newnonel, it's okay I think I got a vague idea where I can improve on.

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Dreamworx95

Hmm, this statement doesn't really make sense to me. I think you should rephrase it to make the message clearer.

Again, you might want to rephrase this.

Ditto this one. Try something like: "Crick smiled at the plump landlord, revealing his rotting teeth."

So this was really interesting. I don't know if you've ever seen the Corpse Bride but that was sort of what this reminded me of. "Organ splash" made my stomach turn though. So good job with the imagery.

I feel really bad for Anna. Crick seems like one of those self-absorbed, "I can get anything I want" type of guys. I'm not sure if that's what you intended, but that's my perception at first glance.

I understood it pretty well, although there were a lot of grammatical errors I didn't point out. I figured you'd want opinions on the main idea, not editing tips.

Ciao baby,

Dreamworx95,

XOXO

C.Gholy

Thanks for the comment. And yeah, I've seen Corpse Bride quite a few times, this where I got some of the inspiration from. I'll edit what sounded strange on there.

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Thanks to Murder Designs for the Banner!
Grave's stage
I am on hiatus but don't fret, I will return to this lovely forum soon.