Just Love - Writers Forum

ily aiden · 03-07-2008, 05:05 AM

I'm sorry i posted this in the wrong place.

This is my story i wrote last week. I hope you like it. Comments and suggestions would be appreciated but it cant be any longer than what it is.

When Ash woke up in the darkness she knew at once she wasn’t in her own bed. She wasn’t even in her own room, or her own house. Even though everything around her was black and she could see nothing at all, she knew absolutely she wasn’t where she had been when she closed her eyes to go to sleep that night.

She sat up in the strange bed, pulling the unfamiliar quilt around her. How cold it was! As though there was a wind blowing in from a vast icy lake outside, through a huge wide-open window.

‘This is mad’ Thought Ash.

Her blood was trembling beneath her skin and her fingers and her toes were shaking. Of course she was afraid. She had such a sensation of expectation, of something about to take place, as though she was sitting in a dark theatre just before the curtain swings upwards towards the roof.
And there was someone in the room with her. She was sure. She could feel it.

‘Hallo?’ she said, terrified, silly, not knowing what else to say. ‘Hallo?’

‘Well hallo,’ replied a voice at a distance, soft but quite clear.

And although she could not have explained how or why, Ash was certain that the voice belonged to a large, fat, purring, grey cat.

‘Who are you? Show yourself!’ Ash’s lower lip trembled as she dared to speak. She was frozen with terror as she sat in her bed, feeling the presence get closer. She felt warm breath on her face. She felt fear spread throughout her body. ‘I must not show fear’ she said in her mind.

‘I smell your fear. Don't try to hide it.’ The voice spoke again, and she felt something brush up against her face. She shivered, pulling the quilt around her tighter, still not knowing what was going on.

‘You’re only a cat, cats can't talk! Besides, what can a cat do to me?’ Ash’s voice quivered, she bit her lip, trying to hold back tears. She felt pain searing through her legs. Sharp claws dug into her knees. She bit her lip harder. It started to bleed and she could taste the blood on her tongue.

‘Foolish! Don't under-estimate me. I’m only a cat but that doesn’t mean I'm like the others.’ Ash felt the claws release her knees and blood trickle down her legs.

The room filled with light. Ash looked around; she couldn’t see anyone. She looked at the wooden bed end, and sitting there was a grey cat, its sharp blue eyes staring at her. The cat jumped down and walked over to her.

‘The name’s Rogue. Your Ash, am I right?’ Ash looked shocked that it knew her name. She nodded silently.

‘Well Ash, I need your help. You understand that I'm no normal cat; I can do everything a human can do. It hasn’t always been this way,’ He stared out of the window into the distance. ‘A witch did this to me. I stole her ancient spell book that had been handed down generations.’ He looked over at a desk sitting in the corner ‘It’s in the drawer.’

Ash sat there silently, resisting the urge to scream in pain. ‘Listen,’ Rogue said looking at her blood-smeared legs ‘I’m sorry about that, please, forgive me.’ Rogue closed his eyes and opened them again. The pain in her legs and the blood disappeared.

‘Magic, that's why I stole it. I yearned to be able to do it. When the witch found out what I had done, she laid a curse on me. This curse made me a human on the inside. Because of it I can't act like a cat anymore.’ Rogue jumped onto the windowsill, staring into the distance.

Ash finally got the courage to speak. ‘Is that why you live alone? What about all the other cats?’ She flinched when Rogue gave her a sharp stare.

‘All the other cats hated me! They banished me from the group; I can't return and be with the others until the curse is lifted. For that I need help, and there is only one person who can do that.’ He looked Ash in the eyes.

‘Is that why I'm here? To help you?’ Ash asked.

‘Yes, I brought you here by magic, because it is you that has to help me.’ Ash felt funny but she couldn’t quite explain why.

‘Are you sure I'm the one that has to help you?’

‘Yes, it has to be you, because,’ he paused and looked away ‘you cared for me.’

‘10 years ago, when you were four, there was a storm. My home was destroyed and my family died. I was alone. A kitten no older then 10 weeks old and I was alone. I crawled up to the step of a house. A woman who lived there took me in. She had a four-year-old daughter who cared for me. Then her mother died and she was sent to live with her grandmother. I was abandoned.’ Ash’s eyes widened.

‘I live with my grandmother because my mother died when I was 3 years old. It’s me because I was the one who cared for you.’ She held out her arms so Rogue would climb onto her lap. She stroked him. ‘Don’t worry Rogue, I’ll help.’ She held him to her, using his body heat to keep warm. She smiled. ‘I’ve never known what its like to love an animal before.’ She said to him. ‘But now I do.’

Suddenly Rogue rose into the air. Yellow light surrounded him and he rotated in the air slowly. The yellow light disappeared and Rogue floated back down.

‘What was that?’ Ash asked. Rogue stared at her, meowing. Ash smiled.

‘So it wasn’t a spell after all, just love.’ She looked down at him and held him close. ‘Just love.’

Irish_dude · 03-07-2008, 06:11 AM

Hi Ily,

Nice story post, well done on getting something out there to the masses!

I like some of the imagery you used, and the story flowed relatively well. I'm guessing your still early in your writing development as the story is quite "standard". What I mean by that is there is one scene, two characters and a storyline that has been rehashed many times previously.

Firstly, you need to look at developing your characters further. I know you said you didn't want to write anything longer, but an important thing to realise is readers need to be drawn in, you need to make them want to read on even if their very eyes are on fire

Talk about the house the room is in, the other people living there, the world the house is in. If you are going for a fairy-tale approach, how about it is in a magical universe where people get reincaranted as animals depending on their service in a past life (what a crazy concept eh?

). Link the cat's story a little less obviously to the main character, and perhaps throw in a couple of incidental characters to allow the characters to show themselves a bit more. This will allow moi, the reader, to invest my emotions in the stories and et voila: before you know it I'll be hooked!

Keep it up!

ily aiden · 03-07-2008, 06:20 AM

honestly, i would normally do that, except it cant be any longer than what it is because its for a competition that cant be any longer than 1000 words. Thats the thing i hate about comps, you have limits '-.-

joifulartist84 · 03-08-2008, 08:16 PM

ily aiden
If this can't be expanded at all, maybe you should choose a simpler topic. Your writing is decent with some tweaks, but for this particular story to be really good, it needs much more explaination to it. Maybe if you could give us a short synopsis of the rules that you have to follow, we could help you more.

Joi

PrisonerOfPrey · 03-09-2008, 10:49 AM

I bet you could change little things of this story to make it better and still the same amount of words. I would suggest not giving Ash such a good sense of what is in the room with her. If you take out all the "somehow I knew it was a cat" it will seem less immature. Add some surprise and wonderment when she deducts its a cat, and dont let her be ok with it so quickly. You could take out the spellbook part because its unnecessary and makes the reader expect something more. Therefore at the end I felt a little cheated. If you dont want to write another story i'd change this one you've got now.. Good luck, as joifulartist84said, it's not a bad story, it just needs some sprucing up.