Critique and advice are welcome. ~1.2k words.

Chapter 1 - Freedom

“Hey! What are you doing here?”, yelled one of the guards at the woman approaching the villa, home to his boss, who ran the local crime ring. “Stop right there!”, exclaimed the other guard before grabbing his radio to inform his superior of what was going on. However, before his hand even reached it, and before he could perceive that the women suddenly stood right before him, he was already dead. The second guard tried to scream, but Flame killed him long before any noise escaped his throat.

She felt a little sorry for the two guards, they had roughly been in the age where they would have had children, maybe seven or eight years old. She hoped they didn’t, but nothing would stop her on this mission. She had a hard time feeling sorry for people working for a human trafficking group, even when they didn’t really have a choice. This to some extent had been the reason she was selected for this job, she only cared about her people’s code of honour, and that made her prioritise stopping the crimes these people where committing over the harm she did to their families and friends. It was a bit cruel, but many things in this world where. The way many people treated her kind was far more cruel than this.

And so she continued her work, dispatching the remaining guards outside, and made her way inside. “Heh, you still think you can kill me?” she jokingly asked the squad of guards that was blocking the hallway. The guards shivered in fear at the view of Flame, a person standing at well over two meters tall, with the ears of a wolf, fuzzy long grey hair that became white towards the tips, carrying a long sword stained with fresh blood, and wearing a uniform splattered with blood stains, some new, some old. She was a truly fearful presence, striking her enemies with fear just as much as she did with her blade. “Open fire!”, yelled the oldest of the guards, a man that feared little in this world, but now he knew that these were his last moments. The few bullets that were fired failed to harm, simply unable to penetrate her skin, if they hit her to begin with. In the very same second she slashed her sword through the group of enemies, killing them all. As their corpses fell to the ground, they revealed a girl, maybe 19, that had been standing behind them for a just a few seconds. She had many similarities with Flame, she too had the ears of a wolf and she too had a wolfs tail, she too had long fuzzy hair, though hers was black. Her eyes too where a bit odd, the colour different from the colours humans had.

“Kill her!”, commanded a man standing at the end of the corridor, and the girl attempted what she had been ordered to do. As she started to run towards Flame, she took up her sword, readying to strike. Flame took up her sword, this time in a defensive position. Her sword was a beautifully crafted blade, reflecting and scattering the light shining on through a window above it. The girls sword was far less impressive, it was a rusty, half broken dagger. She knew her sword would probably shatter when it hit Flames sword, but she took her chance.

She didn’t really know why she did it, she had never wanted to work for these people. They had picked her up on the streets of the nearby city, where her parents had abandoned her. They didn’t want to raise a child that wasn’t quite human by their standards. A common fate for those like her, Flame herself suffered a similar fate in her youth. Serving these people was an insult to her honour, an insult to her self and to all of her people. She hated herself for this, but she didn’t think she could stop either. If she didn’t kill her, the other guards would kill the woman, and than probably her as well. She knew it was the right and honourable thing to do, yet she was to afraid to do it. She was scared of the future, and her past, the woman in front of her, the man behind her and her own wrongdoing. Yet she raced to wards the woman, aiming her sword as well as she could, and a mere second later she struck her opponents sword. Her weapon shattered into a cloud of metal fragments, one hitting her face, leaving a deep wound over her left eye, almost taking her eyesight. She fell on her back, hitting her head on the ground causing her fall unconscious for a couple of seconds. “You better lay there until i come back to get you.” said Flame, visibly not impressed by the girls decision. She then walked around the girl, and then dealt with the remaining guards and their boss. A task that took her just as little time as getting to this point in the first place, and only a few minutes later she returned.

“Get up and follow me.”, said Flame, the young girl only answered in silence. She had broken the code of honour, she had let other people use her power for bad, she had not taken her chances to flee, she had even attacked someone who was freeing her. She didn’t have honour or pride, she didn’t really have a name, as her parents never bothered to give her one, and those that enslaved her where content in using slurs to refer to her. And without her honour. She knew that what she did was not irredeemable, and that she could clear her self, that she could regain her honour, friends and find a mentor to teach her. But she didn’t think she ever would. It was possible, but would anyone let her? Could she do even do it? She didn’t know, the only thing she could do was follow the woman who had freed her. After a while of walking she started talking: “Whats your name?” “Flame.” “That’s a really nice name.” “What’s yours?” The young girl paused for a minute: “I don’t have one.”

The wound above her eye was still bleeding. “We’ll need to do something about that…”, said Flame with a rather concerned tone in her voice. “Helena should be with the extraction team, she’ll fix you up a little.” She was sincerely worried about the young girls health, being blind on one eye really wasn’t a problem she needed on top of all the ones she already had.

They soon after reached the extraction point, Helena and the rest of the team already waiting for them. “Who’s that girl?”, asked Helena. “I met her in the villa, she’s one of my kind, so i will take her with me.” “What’s her name than?”, Flame didn’t answer for a second, and then replied: “Doesn’t have one. Can you fix her eye?” “Of course!” Helena grabbed her first aid kit, got up and started to do her work: “This might hurt a little… You eye should be fine, but that will leave a scar.”

  • Chay@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    In the first paragraph I suggest not giving so many details right away. You could introduce Flame’s name later, such as when someone calls her, or through a badge on her chest, something like that.

    Same with the boss that runs the local crime ring, it’s just way too soon to mention that in my opinion. You should leave the reader to do some guessing.

    • SILLY BEAN@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      The mention of the boss is kinda unnecessary anyways as he is completely irrelevant. As for Flames name, i think it doesn’t really matter when her name is introduced. It makes the text a bit easier to read, so i choose to give the name early.

      Edit: changed my mind. decided to not mention flames name until they introduce each other, thanks for the suggestion

      • Chay@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        From what I know it’s good immersion practice and to keep the reader engaged. If you want to discuss more you can DM me here or on Matrix.