Short Story Assignment

[JENOVA's SOLDIER]

The following is a section from a longer story I am writing. This part has no real ties to the rest of the story, a sort of side story. Therefore I took it as it's own short story and I am handing it in to my Writer's Craft teacher.

If it's hard to follow tell me how I can make it easier.

This is also my attempt at experimenting in 2nd person, which is a lot harder to use and if I can't get it to connect to people it fails completely. So read it if you like. It's about 2000 words long and I've spent a few days on it. Warning: I've only edited it once. Also... Gore and stuff...

This is the first chapter of a story entitled : To Dream's a Chance to Die( or Fly...)

The first Chapter is titled:

Dream Self: Become the Feathery Asshole

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You circle high above, waiting for something to appear. You don’t know what it is yet. But you will know when it shows up. Whenever that is.

The others around you circle the sky much like you do.

You let out a questioning caw, and another caws back.

No questions are answered, but a chorus of confused caws breaks out in the large group.

The cacophony reaches ear splitting levels as he arrives.

This was what you were all waiting for.

You hadn’t noticed him lying on the floor before now… but now you all notice him as he stirs and sits up. You and a few others take up your perch on top of a red stone statue. Others continue to fly over his head. He doesn’t seem to understand the voice of your kind. He’s getting very annoyed very quickly with all of you squawking at him.

You don’t understand. None of you are saying anything wrong. You think you all are being very helpful.

“Dave.”

“Watch out, Dave.”

“Don’t go that way, Dave.”

“Dave.”

You see him gritting his teeth and see it as a sign of his frustration. He looks confused. He hasn’t even moved yet.

“Shut up!” He yells.

Everyone falls silent. You all just silently sit there and watch him as he looks around. He takes out a sword and looks it over a couple times.

“Gotta get out of here… right.” He says to himself, nodding. With that he set off down a fork in the road that you all knew would lead to his death.

You start up cawing and the others join you.

“You can’t go down that way!”

“Dave!”

“Dave!”

“You’ll die, Dave!”

“Dave!”

“Shut up!” He yells again, more loudly this time. He swings his sword and glares up at you. You stare at him and you hold each other’s gaze for a moment before he turns and continues down the path to his doom.

You follow him flapping your wings and moving to a better vantage point. You don’t want to take your eyes off of him for a moment. There’s a crash as you turn a corner and a crunching sound. Dave was hit by something and he fell to the ground.

You land on a broken pillar and watch him. But he isn’t moving. You hop down the length of the pillar and look down at his body. You caw loudly at it. ‘What an awkward place to fall asleep…’ you think. Another joins you and caws.

“He’s dead!”

Others echo the cry and you take a moment to come to the same conclusion. The pillar you were perched on had crushed his midsection flat and blood was pouring from every opening it could find. You join the caws and take to the sky again.

There is a flash of light and when you can see again Dave is standing back where he had started. He yells, telling you all to shut up again. It was as though he hadn’t just died. This confuses all of you and you all get louder.

You swoop down past Dave’s head and he swings his sword at you. You barely avoid it and he swears at you as you fly off.

Turning around you follow him again. There is a crack and something falls but you watch as Dave jumps to the side as though he knew it would happen. He runs forward and smirks to himself. You fly over his head; another crow flies next to you.

“Don’t go this way!”

“Dave!”

He seems to be ignoring you all now. You wish he wouldn’t ignore you. You wish he would listen. You all know where the traps were and he does not.

Dave steps on a rock acting as a switch which shoots small arrows out of the wall towards him. He notices before they hit him and manages to protect his upper body perfectly and avoid death.

You all caw for this victory as Dave pulls an arrow out of his thigh and examines another spot where an arrow had grazed his calf.

“He’s dead!” Someone caws. This is responded to with angry caws from the others who could see that Dave was definitely not dead. You look Dave over, cocking your head to the side as you land on a statue. He’s definitely not dead yet.

Dave approaches a bridge and you watch as his leg gives out for a moment and he stumbles. He groans slightly and looks at the bleeding wound. You see that his lips are turning blue and sweat is forming all over his face. ‘Oh…’

“Poison!”

“Poison!”

“Poison, Dave!”

He glares up at you and the other crows but doesn’t say a word. You don’t think he can.

He starts forward across the bridge.

“Dead end!” someone caws, and a choir starts up again. You join them because you know it’s true.

The bridge cracks under Dave’s weight but he pulls himself along. His leg is clearly starting to fail on him and he can barely put weight on it. He just sort of drags it along with the rest of his body, a useless limb. He’d be better off if he just cut it off but you can’t tell him that. He won’t listen.

You see him mouth a curse as the stone of the support beams beneath the bridge start to give way. He attempts to pull himself along faster.

You have to circle around to keep up with his slow pace and as you turn the beam collapses and the entire midsection of the bridge collapses away into the nothingness below. Dave goes down with it. He does not try to save himself; he simply accepts his fate and falls.

You dive down into the darkness with a few others to try and see his body, to see that he actually was dead. You catch a glimpse of a red shoe and a broken sword but nothing else.

There is a bright flashing light and you are now flying down towards Dave back where he had started once again.

You almost crash into him, pulling yourself back at the last minute, your talons brushing his hair. He swats at you but you’re already taking off and joining the din, confused by the sudden change.

He yells at you all this time, decorating his words with a flourish of curses. You fly up to your perch high above, where you had first sit and waited for him to move.

He walks forward again and everyone falls silent, keeping their eyes on him as he pauses at the first fork in the road.

Everyone cheers as he goes the right way for the first time. It was his first right move.

You and the others take flight to follow him urging him forward hoping that he would continue down the path to victory and avoid all of the other traps that waited for him within this labyrinth.

He takes out his sword and pauses. His brows furrow down underneath his shades as he examines the broken end of the long katana. You knew it was broken from the fall, but he seemed very perplexed by the fact that it was broken at all.

He curses loudly to himself but did nothing else about it.

You could tell, without seeing his eyes, that he was examining everything. He was already breathing hard; he almost seemed nervous or scared. You didn’t think that was possible… not from Dave.

Everyone is shouting encouragements at him but he is still ignoring all of you. He really can’t understand a thing you are saying.

You find yourself really wanting him to get through this without dying. You find yourself really liking Dave… he’s mean a lot to you… but you got the chance to see all of his flaws right now. This makes it a little more difficult to deal with the fact that there was no way he was going to get out of here. Alive or dead. You know that… and you want to tell him… but what can you do.

You’re just a crow. And Dave hates you.

You follow him, but he doesn’t want you there.

You give him advice, but he doesn’t understand.

You start to really enjoy him as a person but he sees you as a feathery asshole and wants nothing to do with you.

You land on a ledge of the wall and look down at Dave as he meets his first obstacle on this path. A wall stands in front of him and you just watch as he hits it in multiple places. He stops for a moment before smacking his shoulder into it.

You know where the button to move the wall is but you don’t know how to tell him since you currently can’t reach it yourself, but you spied the small rock that needed to be turned to open up the small compartment where the switch was.

Others were cawing out the answer but you stay silent just watching him with beady black eyes.

He does manage to smack a switch which drops the floor though. He gasps as the solid surface disappears. He falls but only for a moment before his body is submerged in warm water. You knew what was down there and so did everyone else. Dave just seems to think it is the way to go.

Dave didn’t know that the entrance he used was the only way both in and out.

No one would hear him scream and yell as the large animals that lurked below the water tore him limb from limb. You watched one of the animals swim by, towards Dave. Its body was large and muscular, swaying as it propelled itself forward. Its skin was dark grey, body shaped like a missile with large fins on either side and on the top of its body. You can’t see from where you are but you can tell by the incredibly intimidating aura that it lets out that it is hungry and it has rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth perfect for tearing through a thirteen year old boy.

The only thing that proves that Dave is dead this time around is the blood you see, dying the water a vibrant red. It’s almost upsetting to you this time around, knowing that he is dead. You linger there for a while longer and watch as gore floats past the one opening in the floor.

You leap down to the floor, landing without a sound and put your beak very close to the water. You click your beak and tilt your head, trying to get a better look under the water.

Something moves below the surface and you take flight quickly.

Looking back you see that it was the shades Dave had been wearing, floating away from whatever remained of their master.

You take to the sky again and join the caws that start to chorus through the room. Shrill shrieks of: ‘He’s dead!’

You caw louder than the rest.

Then you are back at the beginning and you see Dave rise up once again. A lot of you are silent this time, you are getting used to the weirdness of going back to the start like this.

You wonder if you are the only one who feels close to Dave now, or if you are alone in feeling like he is important and that you should care about him.

He stands and wastes no time in heading down the right path. This time around he seems very cautious of the floor and he treads carefully. He takes his time, examining everything around him. This was not something he had done yet and it was strange seeing him being observant and moving slowly like this. You wish you could know what he was thinking right now.

He finds the right switch this time, twisting a small rock which popped off and showed a red button. He pushes it and the wall moves out of the way and he continues on.

You start up cawing with the others. You all believe that this time around he will be able to make it out of here alive, despite knowing otherwise.

It seems that this time around Dave can sense that you are urging him forward a small smile forms at the corner of his lips and he looks up at you before laughing and rushing forward, broken sword in hand.

He manages to protect himself from the next couple booby traps and heads down a correct path when he comes to a fork in the road.

You are getting excited; he was nearly in the final stretch.

You were not expecting what was waiting for him around one of the corners. Some of the others seemed as though they were aware of it… but it shocks you and it shocks Dave as well.

A black clad humanoid with skin reminiscent of a shell like armor waited for Dave. There was a sneer on his face and a knife in his hand.

The blade plunges into Dave’s heart in one quick movement. In another Dave is on the floor, blood running from the wound and drenching the stone around him. The person who had stabbed him was gone. You didn’t see where he had gone to; you didn’t once take your eyes off of Dave as he slowly bled to death on the floor in front of you.

Some caw ‘He’s dead!’ but you do not join them. You have just realized something.

Why didn’t you realize it before…? That you and Dave are one in the same.

Though you do not share a body you share a mind. You have started to respect yourself more and your plight… no matter how fruitless it is.

There is a flash of light and you are back at the beginning. You do not see Dave this time around but you notice that it is very bright.

You look up towards the sky and notice the source of light. It is a star, slowly drifting towards you. It is blindingly bright but you cannot take your eyes off of it. You spread your wings and take to the sky.

Only deafening silence accompanies you as fly towards the light. The sunglasses that covered your eyes would not protect your retinas for much longer.

Sure enough, everything goes black before you feel nothing at all.

[You are who?]

You know whats funny i was just talking to someone about how crows have a bad name becuase they are asociated with bad things happening and what if they are just trying to help you, lol, I read half i'll read more latter but i think it's really good it interests you in what's happening so that you keep reading and so far you haven't fallen out of person

[Wolves-Rule1]

I don't think he will fall our of person lol. This is Cayden we are talking about.

What grade did you get on this Cay? It was for school right?

[JENOVA's SOLDIER]

I got an 80 on this. I'm doing this same assignment again this year... But I'm going to do a zombie story...

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