Rei, Taken
Babysitting his old teacher’s daughter, Francine, and his younger sister, Rei, was not what Lancer wanted to do on a weekend night. He wanted to go out with people his own age; have fun and adventures. Jamison said it was amazing having a party on the small island in the middle of the lake. Ashley told him about this one time her older brother used sphereshifting to transport them all to a lavish market in the center of Garde. He wanted to do that.
But he couldn’t. First off, to get to that island, he needed to know basic water sphereshifting or else he needed to swim; and that, he knew by experience, was too difficult. Also, while Ashley’s brother could do most of the transportation sphereshifting, each person going needed to know a minor amount about it, and he knew nothing.
Or, more accurately, he knew how sphereshifting should go―he knew it so well it hurt―but he couldn’t manage it. Maybe he didn’t know it that well, and his tests scores agreed with this, but he knew it. You did this or that, then this and that happened, and poof. Sometimes he got the poof, but it was more of an explosive, accidental kind.
So now, when everyone else was out having fun, enjoying their youth, Lancer was babysitting two twelve year old girls. If that wasn’t bad enough, he couldn’t even help them with their homework. Rei understood it all, assisted Francine, and then corrected the weak answers he put on his own papers.
“I’ll make some tea,” Rei said brightly. “Does anyone want some?”
“Oo~ooh.” Francine’s face lit up. “Mom has fancy sugared biscuits, too.”
“Where are they? I’ll bring them with the tea?”
The girl’s collaborated. The tea would include cookies, all brought in on a platter. Rei left to get to work.
As soon as Rei left, Francine sidled up to Lancer, twirling her hair around her pencil. “Rei says such nice things about you, Lancer.”
Lancer stared blankly at the younger girl. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“I heard Jaylee talking the other day and she said you were a good kisser. Well, she said she thought you’d be a good kisser. A boy in my class wanted me to kiss him, but he’s gross.” Francine stumbled through this speech, trying to attract his attention. “If you want to kiss me, I won’t tell anyone.”
Lancer jerked his head up from his homework. He’d missed half of what she said. “What? Uh, no thanks.”
“You’re only four years older than me. It’s not so bad. My dad is six years older than my mom and I’ve seen them kissing.”
Lancer scooted away from Francine. She scooted closer to him.
“You know, you’re so good at homework,” she said.
He wasn’t good at homework. He’d gotten every answer but one wrong, and that one was lucky because he’d meant to put something else. Rei corrected them all for him. “Thanks.”
A crash sounded from the kitchen, and water seeped through the crack beneath the door. Rei screamed, her voice soon muffled by an unknown source. Lancer jumped up, bounded into the kitchen, and rushed to his sister’s aid.
She was gone. The burner on the stove flamed idly, the teapot formerly above it laying on its side on the ground. Shattered cups and crushed cookies covered the floor. The window above the sink was opened wide, dirt smeared on the sill. A wrinkled note sat on the counter top.
“I have her,” it read. “Tell no one. Or else.”
Signed; the Archaic.
Posted on 01/05/2012, in Fantasy, Fiction, Story, Writing and tagged dialogue, fantasy, fiction, Francine, genre fiction, Lancer, Rei, The Archaic, Writing. Bookmark the permalink. 13 Comments.
I think I’m supposed to be more concerned with the kidnapping, but wow. That was a perfect encapsulation of tweenage flirting. So awkward.
I can’t believe her mom and dad kiss, though. Gross.
While I understand that everything in the world has already been done, and it’s very difficult to be original, I can’t help but be a little picky about the execution of the kidnapping and the execution of this whole scene in general. I enjoy stories where I connect with the character, where the author is able to communicate the character’s thoughts and subconscious emotions underneath all the physical descriptions.
Though the story is meant to be fast-paced and based more on the action, I believe that every story benefits when the reader is able to relate to the characters’ feelings. There’s a lot of action going on in this scene, yet the characters’ responses seem bland in comparison.
For example, when there was a loud crash in the kitchen, what did Lancer feel? If I heard a loud crash, and a scream, my heart would squeeze tightly in my chest due to the anxiety, and the fear that something horrible had happened to my sister would prompt me to call out her name to see if she’ll respond.
I think this story is on-par with many pop novels targeted at teenagers, but it doesn’t go that “above and beyond” to make it really gripping.
I like the previous comment, about needing some feelings from the characters for relational purposes.
Something else that kind of bothers me – I know you have the supplemental readings below the story, but one of the character bios seemed to actually start the story by having Rei agree to Lancer babysitting. That kind of irks me slightly. Off to a good start, though.
I quite liked it. It wasn’t thriving with detail which is something I personally enjoy but yet it flowed very nicely. One of my few problems with it though is the name “Lancer,” it just seems like a cliche fantasy name. The situation Lancer is in with Francine makes me relate to him more, but that’s where it stops however. I think it’d improve your story very much if you went a tad more in-depth with your characters and their emotions. Well done, probably better writing than I could manager.
Having read this story ( or chapter ) and the next one, there’s only one thing I can say. I think we need to know more about each character. Yes I know there are supplemental readings, but I think all I need to say is…
Does anyone actually read all of the appendixes in the Lord of the Rings Series?
You would probably enjoy the eBook version a bit more then. In that, I have it set up where the pertinent character backgrounds are fit in between story sections where it makes sense to add them.
Also, I’m not sure if I should take the mention of LotR as a compliment or not. =P I get what you’re saying there, Tolkien has tons of supplemental reading for LotR, but if my writing was comparable to his I’d be happy. I don’t think that’s what you were going for, though.
I know what you mean, though. For me, personally, I don’t like when an author tries to add in stuff that I’m not really interested in. I feel like I still need to read it, even if it ends up not being that interesting or pertinent. And sometimes there’s characters that aren’t that high up there, but I’d like to know more about them and the author doesn’t put mention of them anywhere. So for this, I thought I’d set it up as a kind of “best of both worlds” thing. You don’t -need- to read the supplemental stuff if you don’t want to, and the story should still make sense, but if you’re interested in it then it’s there for the reading.
This looks like a professional story. It was pretty descriptive in which I could see it in my mind, happening. It has a plot it’s going along, as far as I can tell, and you’re keeping the reader’s attention. I like that. You don’t wander off while writing either, like relating to random things that have the SLIGHTEST relativity to what you’re saying. Lastly, the cliffhanger than you left us off is a good way to end a chapter. Keep up the good work!
Thanks! Yeah, I try to keep everything in perspective. If I write something in, I usually make sure there’s a reason for it, or else I get rid of it when I do the editing.
its nice to read a well written original work, i’m glad that it took me a while to stumble onto this because now there’s plenty to read and catch up on.
Gripping, id say. Its very well written, and its an interesting idea. The only thing i didnt fully understand was the concept of sphereshifting. I suggest you elaborate on that more and more, and clear that up. Aside from that, awesome story.
Thanks! There is some extra information about Sphereshifting in the “Useful Information” tab on the sidebar, but you make a good point that I could add more info into other places, too.
I liked it very much. I liked how he wasn’t paying attention until he heard something about a “kiss”. I will continue to read the next story.
After reading this portion of the story, I immediately imagined something like a world similar to Harry Potter because of the “sphere shifting” act which seemed magical. I imagine that sphere shifting involves using one’s energy to manipulate the form, texture, and properties of a specific thing. I think it’s as little similar to “Magic Knight Rayearth”, where the three main characters have the ability to control Fire, Wind, and Water.
Whenever I read a story, I usually envision it at the same time in my imagination so it was pretty much like watching a show. I imagined Rei to have long, dark hair, while the guy had a humble down to earth typical teenage hairstyle.
This part, although a good start as the pilot of the series, still seems like it could have been extended a little more. It’s like the first 15 minutes of a 30 minute show. It was able to keep the reader’s interest and indeed make the reader want to find out about the story some more, except that the cliffhanger came in too soon. It would have been better if after finding the note, the characters would’ve scrambled and tried to figure out what to do. It would have been a chance to set the pace to let readers know what to expect during tense situations, especially since it’s just the introductory part.
Overall it’s good, but it would have been better if the idea of sphere shifting had been expounded upon more and if the story was given the chance to explore its action packed moments near the end.