City of IF

[Cremuex Levier]

The room was awash in a light orange glow that crept through the thin curtains of the college dorm. The glow was from the security lights outside, kept on by the campus security that did a patrol sweep every two hours to check for liquor or people that weren’t meant to be on campus.

Jenny lay on her back, staring at the ceiling with her baggy eyes, watching the deformed shadows of trees and branches dance across the walls and the roof. She rolled over onto her side, looking about her room for something to do. She just couldn’t sleep no matter what she tried- meditation, warm milk, lavender incense, relaxation exercises, nothing seemed to be working for her. She couldn’t read the title of any of the books that lined her shelf. Her laptop, albeit closed, still emitted a white light that indicated its power, that flickered on and off, showing that it was still charging but on stand-by. Her alarm radio read 03:44 in its block numbers. Jenny let out a heavy sigh in her head and started doing some calculations off her fingers.

So, I last woke up at six o’clock on Tuesday and it’s Friday today... so twenty four minus six is eighteen. Wednesday and Thursday are forty eight, plus eighteen, which is... ahh... sixty six? Yeah, sixty six I think... Plus the three hours and forty four minutes for today is sixty nine hours and forty fo- forty five minutes that I’ve been awake for. She corrected herself as the minute flicked over. I’ve been awake for sixty nine hours and I STILL can’t sleep?! she thought to herself, annoyed at the neighbours around her dorm who had loud gatherings most of the time and then snored all through the night. Jenny was a shut in and she hated them. She wouldn’t be this antisocial if she could get a decent night’s sleep. She’d be darned thankful for it. Jenny scowled in the direction of the snoring. They didn’t care about anyone but themselves.

She was agitated and for the nth time of the night she got out of bed and paced the length of her tiny dorm room. Why wouldn’t they just let her sleep? Why wouldn’t her head let her sleep? Jenny went to bang her head on the painted brick wall of the room, but somehow, she missed. Her body caught itself, although groggily from the lack of sleep, and took a step forward. Normally there wouldn’t be enough room. Confused, Jenny stretched a hand outward towards the wall, surely she could touch it from here? And yet, she didn’t, she couldn't. Jenny kept her hand raised and took another step forward, but the wall seemed the same distance away. A voice in her head rang This isn’t right. She took another step forward but still couldn’t reach it, and another step and another. Soon she was all out walking towards it, then jogging, then sprinting. Still she couldn’t rest against the wall.

Jenny was puffing and she had to take a rest, bracing her arms against her thighs with her back arched, trying to breathe as much as she could. She took a step back as she stood up, getting ready for a second attempt- but the blanket and the mattress of the bed touched the back of her leg as she moved. She spun her head around to see what it was. Somehow, she hadn’t moved from where she had got out of bed. Only one thought raced through her mind. That’s not right. She put her index and middle finger up to her carotid artery in her neck, checking her own pulse. No- I definitely was running, that wasn’t a dream.

Her eyes scanned around the room again, looking for a sign to what was going on. A loud snore choked from the room next door and she leered at them, momentarily distracted by her own frustration. Jenny looked over to her laptop, picked it up and brought it over to her bed. She opened the lid and keyed in her password. The room shone with the bright white backlighting from the computer screen. She checked the icon at the bottom right of her screen. Full bars for wireless internet, maybe that would take her mind of things and tire her for sleep. She opened up a browser and went on a site that she frequents- memebase must have something new by now, right? She tried to encourage herself. The browser was unbearably slow. A little blue loading icon propped in the middle of the page alerted her to this fact and the page behind it was a stark blank white. She sat there and waited for another fifteen minutes before slamming the laptop screen down. There’s no way in hell I’m going to play another damn round of solitaire or mah jong.

Jenny pushed the computer off her lap and onto her bed. Storming over to the window she pushed her curtains aside. There was no patrol going by. The orange security lights allowed her to see all the way over to the mess hall. A thin layer of ice had settled itself over the grass and the trees surrounding her window but there didn’t seem to be any ice anywhere else.

Closing the blinds she looked for something else to do. There had to be SOMETHING. Maybe someone else was awake. She could read her text books. She could explore the campus- if she could figure out where the security guards were to avoid them. She could text someone. She could see if the internet worked else where.

Jenny decided on the last one and picked up her laptop and its cable and went to her door. She grabbed her key off the hook and put it in her pocket. She wasn’t really paying attention, she was in the habit of locking her door and backing out of it. Her foot felt like it had trodden in something disgusting and sticky. ARGH- Gross. Bloody drunks- She thought to herself before she had even looked down at what she was standing in. What she was standing in was greenish black ooze. It wasn’t just a patch on the carpet either, it was what the entire floor was made of. She lifted her foot and it seemed to cling to it like stringy melted cheese on a pizza.

“Oh this is disgusting.” She said aloud as she looked at it all over the floor. Then her eyes caught the walls. The walls themself seem to be a dark pinkish purple with protrusions that reminded her of veins and tendons in their general shape. Her eye followed one of the lines and it lead her to seeing a large mouth. It smiled at her with a crooked grin, showing its pointed teeth as it laughed. Then a chorus of laughter came as other mouths like it joined in. Some sounded masculine with lots of bass, other sounded childish, others had more high pitch- It took a moment to settle in and Jenny turned around to grab at her door- but it had disappeared into the monstrous wall. Where her door had been was now a mouth, wide open and ready to swallow her. Out of fright she took a step back, her foot sinking into the black ooze floor.
“What the hell is this?”

---

This is my first story here so I hope this is alright. I seem to have lost some of the formatting from the transfer from word to this site. I do apologise if it's a bit bland, I'm not much a fan of every story having to be about saving a princess and defeating a dark lord.

So everybody, what would you like Jenny to try and do?

Feel free to be a critic as well, this is my first try so all suggestions are considered constructively and won't be taken to heart.

[Midnight]

Hello and Welcome!

This is quite an interesting story. I'm curious to see where it goes. As for the dp... umm... let the ooze take her. :D Maybe it will take her somewhere interesting. But then again, it may just take her to her death. Haha. But yes, let it eat her. XP

[Cremuex Levier]

Thank you for the welcome Midnight -little curtsy- It's nice to meet you.

That's one vote for being consumed by ooze.

[Cyberworm]

Well written, with straightforward and yet descriptive lines. :D I didn't see any major lapses, in fact, this is very good quality for a first story posted here.

As for what to do... I'd assume that lack of sleep is getting to me and that hallucinations are catching up to me. I don't know if she would, seeing as she reacts as if it was normal...ish. :) I'd set fire to the place. If there is any source of fire. She could run to the window if it's still there. In general, I'm all up for forcing the hallucination/reality away, be it by hands, feet, fire or a fire extinguisher. (Though I'd assume those are placed in the hallway, not in the rooms. Oh dear. :) )

I'd also assume the ooze is non-conductive, so electrifying it wouldn't work. The mouth is a different matter. Maybe she should throw in a glass, or something sharp into the mouth instead? So many options, and no way out. Oh my. ;)

You can really let your imagination loose here, McGuyver would have his hands full in this one.

[Cremuex Levier]

I've decided to do some art for the different chapters but it won't have any analogue, so it's not quite a comic.

Insomniac Panel 1
Insomniac Panel 2
---

Thank you for the kind words Cyberworm. Hmm, I hoped she didn't come off as calm and rational, at least not at the ooze and walls made of chompy mouths part.

I don't think she can find anything to set the place on fire with, unless of course it's just her imagination and she can will it to be so, ;D

There isn't really glass either but she can always beat the chompy mouths or the walls with her laptop. Though I will point out that where her door normally is is a mouth and that might suggest that the other mouths used to be doors as well. ;)

I don't actually watch McGuyver but I understand the expression. She might be able to pull something out of thin air though if she concludes it's just her mind.

I have a few key points in mind but I really haven't thought much about how they're going to come to pass, which is what I'm hoping you guess could suggest to me with your voting. ;)

Thanks for the help guys.

[Cyberworm]

No problem at all, I think I'm going to enjoy this story quite a bit. ;)

So, she may not be totally rational. I might've missed the implications of that, so let's take another route. I doubt she'd just jump into a wallmouth with pointy teeth, correct? The laptop could be valuable to her seeing how it's her well-used source of killing boredom (ah the endless solitaire nights, I miss you so XD ).

Nothing to set on fire in the room? What kind of room is that? :P

How about she threw the clock in the mouth to check if it's safe first? That'd seem reasonable. At least she'll know what to expect.

[Cremuex Levier]

She isn't in her room any more, she left it to go find internets and kind of lock herself out- She still have her key, just not her... well, door. Basically it's just her, her keys, her laptop, oozie floor, weird purple meat mouth walls and her super power of common sense (now days though common sense truly is a super power).

So yeah, one vote for oozie floor consuming her and I haven't actually figured out just what your suggestion is with this additional information.

Though, she could crack off her laptop's casing, try and pull out the fan and see if it'll run again? I doubt it'd catch fire though.

I'm just chaotic enough to let you have your fire and then find out it's done nothing but give her another problem to deal with... well, it'd be cosy and warm so there's an up side.

(I've finished a second picture and it's 4:40am here so I might head to be before I loose the plot too. Not that I won't check in here later when I'm awake again.)

[Cyberworm]

Right, so she's out. Well, scratch the fire. :)

Oh, right, I usually burst out with a couple of suggestions because it is up to the writer to collect the noteworthy ones and put it up in a poll so the readers would decide more evenly. If there's only one or two options with notable counts, then it's okay to skip the polling and put up another chapter.

So basically, in a lack of the aforementioned super-power ( ;) ), my vote-say goes to letting herself be trapped in the ooze. Masochistical, but could be interesting nonetheless.

[PopeAlessandrosXVIII]

A fine first chappy Cremu-chan! The monster mouthes are truly intreguing.


I noticed a few spelling mistakes, but all were small and still readable. Some of the sentances seem to try a lil too hard to pack a lot of information into them leaving me a bit lost at times. Other then that, rockin'!


I love the mouthes, I love the wall running, that gave me giggles. I can connect well with her insomnia so I feel a kind of kinship with her. The descriptiveness gives me a fairly good idea of what the place looks like, but a little more on her would be nice.


As for the DP. . . .*Evil grins* I would have to say. . . .BITE THE LIPS! Make'em bleeeeed. Heheheheheh. *Rolls* On a second thought, gain, mouth. . . .Talk to it. "Hi, how are you, I'm good. Hey, could you give me my door back, I forgot something in my room." *Giggles* Oki, those are my thoughts.


Keep up the good work Cremu-chan! Can't wait to see more!

[Cremuex Levier]

Two votes for ooze sinking and one vote for talking to the mouths. Why not both? It might be possible to please everyone in this situation. She could talk to the mouth while sinking?

[PopeAlessandrosXVIII]

You need to set up a poll for the actuall voting, and if you want to set up one of the option as doing both, you can do that. Many people don't coment but do vote so a vocal vote is less then accurate as to what all your readers actually want.

[Andolyn]

hello, Cremuex, and welcome to If. *bows*

i really loved this! it's instantly catching with the description of her surroundings and how she was feeling, then everything went crazy. XD

i'm going to say let's throw ourselves into the mouths...avoiding the teeth of course ;) and see where that takes us. obviously, nothing here makes sense, and there doesnt appear to be any other way out, so yeah...jump in the mouth. haha!

again! welcome to If!!

[Cremuex Levier]

A poll will be up on the 7th since that's exactly a week since it came out.

As for now, I'll just be sitting pretty and waiting for more suggestions.

Thank you for the warm welcome Andolyn dear. I'm looking forward to meeting the whole community... eventually. I'm a bit shy at the moment but none the less excited and enthusiastic.

As for the spelling, it's correct in Australia, we just tend to use vowels a bit more then other countries. Like in America you would spell it 'thru' in Australia it's spelt 'through'. To be quite honest, we just like to cheat at scrabble so our words are slightly ridiculous. ;)

[HalfEmptyHero]

Cremuex Levier wrote: The room was awash in a light orange glow that crept through the thin curtains of the college dorm. The glow was from the security lights outside, kept on by the campus security that did a patrol sweep every two hours to check for liquor or people that weren’t meant to be on campus. This is known as a comma splice.

She rolled over onto her side, looking about her room for something to do. She just couldn’t sleep no matter what she tried- meditation, warm milk, lavender incense, relaxation exercises, nothing seemed to be working for her. Another comma splice, albeit easy to fix. Replace the last comma with a em dash and you are golden.

She couldn’t need the title of any of the books that lined her shelf. Her laptop, albeit closed, still emitted a white light that indicated its power, that flickered on and off, showing that it was still charging but on stand-by. Too many thats, I would recommend changing this line.

I marked a few of the more common errors. I saw more, but I forgot what they were so they must not have been huge. Nice first start! Talking to a mouth does seem like a good idea.

On an unrelated note, most Americans also spell it as 'through.' I have never seen it spelled as 'thru,' but according to WordReference it is "chiefly US informal spelling of through" so I guess that means some of us do use it.

[HalfEmptyHero]

HalfEmptyHero wrote:
On an unrelated note, most Americans also spell it as 'through.' I have never seen it spelled as 'thru,' but according to WordReference it is "chiefly US informal spelling of through" so I guess that means some of us do use it.

Well I'll be ****ed, it's spelled like that on my credit cards. But this is a very informal way of writing it; it's used mostly as a space saver or for short-hand notes. Never in actual writing.

[Cremuex Levier]

Poll is now up (albeit at the bottom of the page rather then the top like I'm used to).

All of the options are up aside from the 'burn ALL the things' option.
The poll will conclude on the 14th with (hopefully) a chapter up on the 15th.

[Tikanni Corazon]

Hey Cre!

Sorry it took me so long to get to this (life's been throwing things at me like there's no tomorrow), but at least I didn't miss the poll, even if I have the DP suggestion phase.

Okay, I'll get a couple of small niggles out of the way first, and keep in mind that the first of these isn't necessarily a mistake, I'm merely pointing out something that, if changed, would help the flow of the writing better, and also that the only reason I really notice such things is because I'm guilty of it so often myself, so it's become something that I look out for through pure habit. ;)...

Quote: The glow was from the security lights outside, kept on by the campus security that did a patrol sweep every two hours to check for liquor or people that weren’t meant to be on campus.

This first 'security' doesn't need to be here, as you state later on in the same sentence that they're kept on by the campus security. The double usage can jar the flow of the writing, and taking it out wouldn't change the meaning of the sentence at all.

Quote: She was agitated and for the nth time of the night she got out of bed and paced the length of her tiny dorm room.

Guessing that this should be ninth or tenth?


One last thing I will just say. Try to space out your paragraphs a little more, so that it doesn't form such a wall of text. It doesn't really matter so much with chapters of this length, but it would good practice for if/when you write a longer chapter, as it can look a little daunting to a reader to have this great load of text all bunched together. I always go for two lines distance between each paragraph, and, if there is dialogue, a new line for each new piece, with a lines distance between. Example (and forgive the crappiness of it, please, it was done very spur of the moment *giggles*)...

Hattie the Donkey was stood in the field, munching some tasty blackberries from the surrounding hedgerow . While she was eating, her friend Mimi the squirrel climbed down the trunk of a nearby oak tree, and landed with a small thump beside her.

"Hello Mimi!" exclaimed Hattie with a smile. "How're you today?"

"I'm quite alright, thanks," replied Mimi. "How about you?"

"I'm super!" Hattie answered, enthusiastically. "I found these delicious blackberries, and I'm very much enjoying them."


The two friends nattered on for a little while, until Hattie noticed that Mimi kept glancing longingly at the blackberries.

"Where are my manners?!" she said. "Mimi, would you like to share my blackberries?"

"Yes please!" replied Mimi happily, and the two friends enjoyed their little chat, whilst eating their fill of the juicy fruit.

*looks back over it and groans*...Anyway, you get the picture, regardless of the example. ;)


Right, that aside...

Quote: Jenny lay on her back, staring at the ceiling with her baggy eyes, watching the deformed shadows of trees and branches dance across the walls and the roof.

I love this sentence! It really creates a vivid picture in the mind. Very well done! :)


This is a really interesting start, and well written too. And oh how I feel for Jenny in that beginning part. I've not quite made it to 69 hours without being able to sleep, but I did get to 54 once, so still, I found myself sympathising for the charrie. ;)

The whole idea around the story is an intriguing one. As it is, one can't work out if it's these things are really happening, or if she's asleep and dreaming, or if the lack of sleep is causing her to have severe delusions. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where this goes. And don't worry, it's not at all bland, and very different from anything else that I've read on IF before now. Good job!


It took me a little while to decide how to vote...I decide upon the first option in the end, as I don't think Jenny has quite reached the point of lacking in fear at the sight of a wall covered in sharp-toothed mouths. So I'm saying she'd possibly panic, and get consumed by the ooze as a result...that's probably what would happen to me anyway. :P


Anyway, great start to your first SG, Cre, and I look forward to reading more. Keep up the good work! :)

[Cyberworm]

Seems like RL got to you good this time, Tika. Your usually keen eye seems to have missed some of the misspelled characters and forms.

For one reason or another, your uber-hacking PHPBB handcoding got amiss with the [color-red] in the first quote.

The "n" in the "nth" is a variable meaning uncountable potention of the subject (meaning even the narrator in this case lost count of it, since it was too numerous to count).

What caught my eye in the end was "Jenny lay on her back", which more like stabbed me. I think there should be some morphing of the verb done here.

In conclusion, your points are all more than good, Tika. I'm happy to see you are back! :D Drop in MSN or even in the Inn if you're feeling up for a chat. :)

[Tikanni Corazon]

Ooops! Thanks Cy! :)

In that case, I withdraw the 'nth' part. I have to say, I'd not seen it used that way before myself, so easy mistake to make, I guess. ;)


I don't actually see the problem with the 'Jenny lay on her back' part myself, though I could be wrong. Will need someone else to confirm that one.


And thanks Cy, it's good to be back, though RL is very likely to catch hold of me on ocassion from now on, as I'm in the process of starting up my own small business, which I'm hoping will be a success. But I'll be on both msn and the Inn when I can. :D

[HalfEmptyHero]

Lay is transitive—it requires an object. You lay something on something (Could you please lay the rug on the floor). Lie, however, is intransitive—you would say I lie down on my back, staring at the stars. Of course that is just for the present tense. The past tense of lie is lay, so it can get confusing.

[Cyberworm]

Oh, thank you HEH! It must be that I'm unused to seeing it used as such, I'm glad I learned something new. :)

[Cremuex Levier]

Just a warning, This chapter contains one cuss word.


---Chapter 2---

Jenny tried to pull her sunken foot from the bubbly oozing floor. As she pulled at her pyjama legs the ooze shifted around under her feet. She could feel it squirming about like worms in mud between her toes and wiggling under the sole of her foot. The ooze dragged her down lower and lower. She hadn’t realised it yet but the floor had risen up to her ankles while she was struggling.

Jenny was panicked, as anyone would be in such a situation. She only then realised that both of her feet were deep in the swamp like ooze. She switched her attention to the other leg and tried to shift her weight back and forth. The more she did this the further and further she sank.

“Oh god, it’s like quick sand!” she said to herself in hysterical manner. Calm down, calm down, don’t hyperventilate, we need to think through this, we need a plan. Now, what do we do when we’re sinking in quicksand? We go out the way we came, where there’s solid land.

Jenny looked back to where her door used to be and the pointed toothed mouth now was. Some of the mouths had stopped laughing at her, others continued to chuckle and giggle. The mouth that was her door though, pulled at a corner of itself as though if there was the rest of a face to be had it would have winked.
She cursed in her mind and through that idea away. There’s no way she was going to crawl towards her probable death on the chance the rest of the floor was still there, which by appearances wasn’t. She looked around at the floor to try and see if there was any area’s the looked thicker or thinner, darker or lighter, like a sand dune under a river. Unfortunately for her she couldn’t see any difference in the floor at all. The ooze made bubbles as she sank lower and lower, in the short time that had elapsed the ooze was up to the middle of her calf muscles. She turned her attention to the ceiling, maybe she could find something on the ceiling that she could grab a hold of to hoist herself up. In all honesty, she was incredibly bad at physical exercise, much less climbing a rope with only her upper body strength to depend on, but it was better than the certain death of suffocation that would await her if she didn’t.

A cynical look of ‘oh great’ came over her face when she realised that the roof was much like the rest of the walls- a dark pinkish purple mass of veins and tendons that surrounded mouths in a myriad of expressions of joy and pleasure. They seemed to quite like the sense of dread and helplessness that she had, however they were sensing it.

Jenny’s hands were sweaty holding onto her laptop and cables, looking down at them she got an idea. She kept the cord plugged into the laptop and wrapped the other end of the cord around her hand. She felt like she was trying to lasso some far away creature as she tossed her important laptop into the ooze, she waited for it to sink for a moment so she could pull herself closer to it but amazingly it did not sink a millimetre. Jenny furrowed her brow as she looked at it, maybe she had found a bit of the floor that wasn’t a sinking pit of festering ooze after all. She tried to use the cable to pull herself to the laptop but her weight was much more then the laptops and she ended up pulling it closer towards her. A bubble popped and splatter the laptop with green black. She grimaced at the horrors her poor laptop was going through as she pulled it towards her. She was now up to her knee’s in the so called floor.

She delicately tried to bring the laptop closer to her for perhaps another try- maybe if she could get one of the mouths to swallow it but not chew off the cable she could get close enough to the wall to grab on but still avoid the mouths from swallowing her up. With a gentle tug- the laptop recharger cable fell out of her laptop port. For a moment she stood there, silently staring at what had happened, her end of the cable held loosely in her hands. She pursed her lips. Her nose flared silently in anger and frustration before she flicked the cable at the laptop like a whip.

“Oh you useless stupid piece of crap!” she yelled at it ranting and raving, throwing punches into the air towards it. She actually managed to move a good twenty centimetres towards it doing this before she lost her flare of anger and calmed down. She huffed and looked at the mouths all around her had were enjoying her little display. They seemed to laugh at her but none of them made any sound.

Jenny threw the cable at one of them, the one that used to be the door to her room- and the mouth caught it and chewed on it. It seemed to get tangled around and wrapped in its teeth. Surprised at this sudden bout of success she never the less worked quickly to pull herself through the sludge. It worked for a few steps- until the mouth let go and the cable was no longer taut. Without the pull on the other end of the cable she landed face first in the muck.

She tried to lift her head but she simply couldn’t. The more she struggled the harder it pulled her down. She didn’t have the option to stop struggling though. She couldn’t breathe. Some of the gunk had gotten into her eyes. It stung and it burnt and even though all she could see was pitch black somehow it was blinding. She hadn’t noticed it before but now being enveloped so tightly she didn’t have a choice but to notice the smell of burning hair and flesh. It smelt strangely akin to a pork roast by an open fire (and not in a conventional oven). The pressure crushed her body, like she was under the ocean, thousands of feet down. The pressure on her chest made it harder and harder to breath, coupled with the suffocating muck her body forced itself to take a breath in even though she wished she wouldn’t.

Despite the way it smelt, it didn’t have a taste- in fact, it was kind of like drinking water. It didn’t have any density though so it was also like breathing air in that sense. Jenny tried to open her eyes. It stung but she could see colours and basic shapes again. Everything was blurry and it felt like she’d been crying. Her throat was dry and parched and she still felt strangely breathless. Every time she took a gulp of air her vision went blotching like she was crying.

Jenny looked around the room she was now standing in. It looked like an old library. A thin layer of dust had gathered itself over everything. Spiders webs were hung about the roof and the corners like dirty lace. There was no source of light like a window or a hanging light yet still she could see everything as though it was the middle of the day with all the blinds and curtains open. The different books that layered the shelves were varied. Some looked like a collection of scrolls and parchment. Others looked like dairies and journals. Some were hard cover leather bound books. There was a set of envelops kept together in a bundle wrapped tightly in a golden thread.

Nobody else was in the room with her and the book shelves lined the walls save one. The wall without any shelves against it had a large brass metal door that stood in the hinges that reached the height and width of the entire room. The door was engraved with etchings of gargoyles and other ghastly manner of mythical creatures.

On the roof was a stained glass window with vibrant colours in reds, blues, purples, greens, yellows, oranges and the whole spectral prism- designed into a magnificent scene of knights on horseback, lance in hand, surrounded by a holy choir in the middle of a blooming field. It was back lit and all the detail poured through yet not of ray of light entered through it into the room.

---

The poll will now be taken down and people can suggest what to do from here. Suggestion phase ends in 7 days, on Friday the 24th.

[Lilith]

You're in a library obviously, pick up a book since your laptop and the ooze has mysteriously disappeared. In dreams and hallucinations the only thing you can do is move, :P.

A good start to a story Cre! And another welcome to IF! Just a bit of a warning about posting up chapters too quickly, you might get burnt out. Keep your eyes open for that in the future.

[kc9cra]

Try the cdoor. In simulated occurrances, either dreams/hillusinations or something like the images presented by the ghost of Christmas Past, a door is meant to be traveled through.

[Cremuex Levier]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I don't think I'll get burnt out though, a fortnight to get my act together is kind of a long time for me, I'm used to doing this sort of thing on a daily to every second day basis though.

I'm trying to stay active on the site so hopefully others will get interested and active again, though I'm hoping that this doesn't get chapters too quickly and then people who haven't read it be discouraged, though I'd rather keep interested readers then having a lot of readers who aren't interested.

Thanks for the suggestions though, a poll will be opened on the 24th.

[Cyberworm]

Oooooh, a good chapter there! Kudos!

Let's see... Dreams are not as consistent as reality, so I suggest testing. If you can read things consistently, if the doors are consistent about the destination beyond them, if you can still taste things, if you feel pain, etc. then I have some bad news. So, try to read, break, pinch yourself, and try to wake up. If that gets no results, curse and start destroying. That always works. :D

[Tikanni Corazon]

Hey Cre! I managed to get here this time before the poll went up.

This is shaping up to be quite the story, you've got yourself here. It's very different from anything I've read personally on IF before, and I'm really enjoying it. Along with the supernatural style storyline, you create some great imagery with your writing, and that's always a plus for a reader. Very well done! :D

Quote: A cynical look of ‘oh great’ came over her face when she realised that the roof was much like the rest of the walls- a dark pinkish purple mass of veins and tendons that surrounded mouths in a myriad of expressions of joy and pleasure. They seemed to quite like the sense of dread and helplessness that she had, however they were sensing it.

Quote: “Oh you useless stupid piece of crap!” she yelled at it ranting and raving, throwing punches into the air towards it. She actually managed to move a good twenty centimetres towards it doing this before she lost her flare of anger and calmed down. She huffed and looked at the mouths all around her had were enjoying her little display. They seemed to laugh at her but none of them made any sound.

Quote: On the roof was a stained glass window with vibrant colours in reds, blues, purples, greens, yellows, oranges and the whole spectral prism- designed into a magnificent scene of knights on horseback, lance in hand, surrounded by a holy choir in the middle of a blooming field. It was back lit and all the detail poured through yet not of ray of light entered through it into the room.

I really like these paragraphs! They conjour such clear and, in the case of the first, a sinister picture in ones mind, giving one a real sense of what our girl is seeing, and how she might be feeling.

Quote: Spiders webs were hung about the roof and the corners like dirty lace.

Also love the basic, but very effective descriptions used here.


I found a few things during my read...

Quote: She cursed in her mind and through that idea away.

This should be 'threw' when used in this context.

Quote: There’s no way she was going to crawl towards her probable death on the chance the rest of the floor was still there, which by appearances wasn’t.

I'm not 100%, but I think 'there's' is used exclusively as a contraction for 'there is' or 'there has', neither of which are right in this instance. So this will need to be changed to 'There was'.

Quote: She looked around at the floor to try and see if there was any area’s the looked thicker or thinner, darker or lighter, like a sand dune under a river.

'The', marked in red, needs to be changed to 'that' or 'which'. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that the 'was', marked in green, would sound better changed to a 'were'. And, due to the word 'floor' being used a short distance both before and after, I think the writing would flow better if the part marked in blue was removed completely. But the latter is merely my opinion, and not necessity, so don't feel that you have to change it. :)

Both of the following are for the same thing...

Quote: The ooze made bubbles as she sank lower and lower, in the short time that had elapsed the ooze was up to the middle of her calf muscles.

Quote: She kept the cord plugged into the laptop and wrapped the other end of the cord around her hand.

In the first, the double usage of 'ooze' in this sentence is slightly jarring, though, again not incorrect, and based upon my opinion. Maybe the second 'ooze' could be changed to another word which conjours the same picture, such as gunk or something?

With a little re-arrangement, the second 'cord' can go...

She kept the one end of the cord plugged into the laptop and wrapped the other around her hand.

It just makes it flow better, is all.

Quote: She huffed and looked at the mouths all around her had were enjoying her little display.

The 'had' doesn't make sense, though I'm thinking this was just overlooked.

Quote: There was a set of envelops kept together in a bundle wrapped tightly in a golden thread.

Envelopes


For the dp...I'm thinking the door looks a little too sinister to just go barrelling straight through, so I'm going to say she takes a look at some of the books, focusing mainly on those that might be journals, and see what any former visitors/residents have to say about the place. As it is, we're still not sure if it's real or a dream/delusion, but I'm going to say do that anyway. We still might get some clues. ;)


A really fab second chappie, Cre, and I look forward to reading more! Keep up the good work! :)

[Vikas Muralidharan]

Hmm.. Finally caught up here. I think Tika's said most of what I wanted to say, exceptng this :

Quote: She looked around at the floor to try and see if there was any area’s the looked thicker or thinner, darker or lighter, like a sand dune under a river.

Im not sure whether an apostrophe comes there. I dont think it's supposed to.

Anyway, nice writing overall. DP? Move. Go do something. Explore this new 'world' we're in. We need to understand where we are first.

[Midnight]

Nice chappy Crex, I like how she at least attempted to get out of the ooze. HAHA

So ideas, ideas. Umm, I suppose she should look around and see what she can find. Maybe try to do some investigating, I don't think those books would have any information on what just happened, but you never know.