AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Also, thank you for reassuring me about the grammar. That was one of the things that I was unsure about, as I am horrible about catching my own errors.

Well I didn't spot any glaring mistakes. None at all really (although I wasn't really looking)
The best way I've found to check myself on that is to re-read it a day or so after I've finished it. That way I can look over it with fresh eyes.

Poots, I finally got around to looking over your story. I liked it; I'd be interested to see where it goes from there. Just a few things I noticed otherwise.

Born an only child with not the most attentive parents, Kallan was treated to the fortune passed down in the Ramseyer family, the one everyone else was envious of.
-The first part is sort of awkward. Possibly also split into separate sentences

and was known as a fine contribution to the league he did meets in.
-He himself was a contribution? I'm not gonna say the word choice there is wrong, but it looks sort of funny to me.

There came a point where his sports and arts almost was like an addiction
-Really awkward. Maybe change Where to When and the last part to "his interest in sports and arts became almost like an addiction" or something like that

He marked himself on his achievements
-What? Do you mean he rated himself? Or he thought they distinguished himself from others?

side like a conductor constructing a masterpiece of music
-Drop the “of music”

He had to watch as his own relationship crumble
-ed

making the boy lower quietly back into his seat especially birds of the sort
-What sort?

But Kallan seemed so wrapped up in his own work
-Drop the so

okay airigh reminded me that i wanted to post the short story i did for english class so yeah here



it started out as bare bones and then the teacher reminded me that we had to use imagery (which i actually have to force myself to use sometimes) so then i went back and added stuff in
all it's missing is the part where i added in two vocabulary words because it was on the rubric :U

SO I'M REWRITING LIS. OFFICIALLY.

I'm going to have you guys look at this first part, which would be the equivalent of the first post of our RP. Point out any odd things or whatever and generally critic it.



"Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I'll see you on Tuesday.
Yeah I know-
No, not really.
Taking a walk, duh. What do you think I'm doing?
Pfffft, no! What makes you think-
Alright.
Alright, alright.
Okay. Okay. I'll see you later!"

Emma pushed a button, hanging up from the slim cell phone, which seemed to have been proving itself an annoyance more than anything else today. So many text messages, too many phone calls, not to mention the filesends...
For the last year, she had been getting not only her own stresses, but those of her late mother's. And, as it was, a lot of other kids had the same problem. After that day, just a few years ago...

It had been a cool, breezy September day, much like this one. People bustled the streets freely, pouring in and out of their little havens, under the skycrapers which threatened to block out the sun. Little did they know, their world was about to be changed- not forever, since nothing on their little planet lasted. But at least significantly.
A bomb landed, spreading poison across like a wave. Almost immediately, another. And another. Until so many had breathed the poison...

She shuddered. Her mother had been hospitalized ever since the incident, unable to work. Her father was completely out of the picture in any case, having abandoned them before she was even born. She had thought she would have to take care of herself until an antidote was created, but the doctors had been too late. The toxin had done too much damage to her body already- she had died before they could even start treating. Now she had been taking care of herself, the government too preoccupied to deal with her situation, to deal with the girl so close to adulthood already. They had let her, and many others, fend for themselves. She had had to take over her late mother's art gallery. Of course, a business like that would have sunk like a rock in these times, and a lot of the time it seemed like it was going to. Yet, it kept itself somehow afloat, apparently from her sheer frustration.

Emma's brown eyes scanned the windows of the little boutiques, occasionally stopping to admire a cute little dress or some necklace. She knew she shouldn't be out shopping on her somewhat limited budget, but it was just so relaxing. And she had gotten better about it. She would only buy something if she truly wanted it, if it complimented her dark skin and made her eyes sparkle.
And then she saw it, flying in the sky, ready to crash.

At first she thought it was a meteorite, or perhaps another bomb, until someone near her yelled, "It's a little girl!"
She could barely make it out (Was that a dress? The color was too close to that of the sky...), but she could blonde hair flowing in an upward curl and vaguely make out limbs.
As she was distracted, someone grabbed her by the arm and ran- She let out a scream, which uselessly faded into the noise of the crowd.
Emma turned her head sharply-
...to see that her 'kidnapper' was not some big, scary old man but some teenage boy, maybe 16. That would probably be easier to deal with, she hoped.
She halted, pulling her arm away from the boy.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"What, you really want to miss the little kid falling from the sky?" Brown hair surrounded his face, at no particular length or style. He had obviously left it unbrushed.
"What if it's not a kid? What if it's a bomb or something?"
"Uh, they don't make kid-shaped bombs. Anyway, if you don't want to see it, you can stay here and wonder about it for the rest of your life, just like everyone else." Aqua eyes showed a bit of scorn, mixed with disappointment.
Emma's mouth opened, just to close again shortly after. It opened again, closing shortly after. Open, close. Open-
He was gone.
She groaned, looking back up at the sky.
He was right. That was a little girl, not another terrorist attack like she had thought...
She ran, legs going as fast as they could. As soon as that little girl landed, she would need serious medical attention, and quickly.

It seemed to be or it was?



I'd change "getting" to something else. Dealing With, maybe?



The cool breeziness of the September day was never previously established. Also "like this one" is slipping into the present tense.



She shuddered. Her mother had been hospitalized ever since the incident, unable to work.

"in any case" seems awkward. I'd change it or take it out



Mixing past and present tense

the government too preoccupied to deal with her situation, to deal with the girl so close to adulthood already. They had let her, and many others, fend for themselves. She had had to take over her late mother's art gallery.

Mixing tenses



Maybe switch around "somehow" and "afloat". Also I'm not sure if I'm getting what you're saying with it keeping itself afloat from her frustration. Her frustration keeps it afloat? It keeps itself afloat in spite of it?






wat

Lastly, there's a looot of unnecessary commas and a few misspellings. I'd suggest plugging the whole thing into Microsoft Word and letting spellcheck do its magic. Don't ignore the grammar errors it brings up either.

had to write another one:

The door closed behind me.
I heard a click as someone locked it. I wasn’t sure where I was or how I got there, but I was there now. “You may remove your blindfolds.” A voice boomed above me, probably from a loudspeaker. Carefully, as if I was in a dream, I untied the cloth wrapped around my eyes. There were five other people in this sparsely furnished room. What in the world? I thought blankly. I’d woken up shortly before they’d led me inside. These people looked just as confused as they milled about.
“Welcome to my wonderful mansion! I am your host, Zero. You’re wondering what you are doing here, I am sure. Well, you are all staying here for a week. You will be living most comfortably. Please introduce yourselves.”
The first to say his name was a teenaged boy. He blew a bubble and said his name was Chris. The next was a woman in her forties whose name was Katherine. Next was my turn. “Um, my name…?” I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. All eyes were on me. “I’m… I’m Rose.” An elderly man who seemed awfully spry for his age said he was Jonathan, a young girl of about 10 or 11 said her name was Liz, and finally a businessman in all black called himself Theodore.
“Very nice,” Zero spoke again. “Now I’ll be delighted to inform you that one of you is a murderer. Have fun!” He signed off with a blip. We stared in silence around the room.
It was hard to sleep that night. We each got our own rooms, with a smiling maid to go with it. I locked the doors and windows, then put up a barrier. That should work, I told myself. But I was too agitated to do anything but lie in the bed and stare at the ceiling. Once I thought I heard the door open as far as it could go. The killer has a key, I thought fuzzily. I listened to their soft footsteps as they retreated.
The clock ticked slowly. There was a scream from down the hall. I sat up, fear etched into my body, preventing me from moving. I shook, staring the door down. Sobs of pain and fear grew closer, and my doorknob jiggled. They were right outside my door. They were pleading with me to let them in. I still could not move. They cried out again, then went silent. A cold chill settled over the room. I heard what I could only assume was the body being dragged away.
In the morning, they told us who the first victim had been. As I expected, it had been Chris. His nonchalant nature and apathetic stance must have been seen as a challenge. But that’s not what I was worried about. No, there was something else on my mind.
The voice had I had heard outside my door had been a female.
It confirmed two things for me. One, the killer was a woman. Two, she had been out to knock off two of us last night. I had narrowly avoided my own demise. By opening that door I would have signed my own death warrant. I cast a suspicious glance at Katherine, who was not looking back. Instead she was nervously running a hand through her hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. For the first time I really got a good look at everyone. Jonathan, despite being in his mid-to-late seventies, looked the least worried. I saw him mumbling what had to be a hasty prayer under his breath, for he looked imploringly up at the ceiling. Theodore stared straight ahead as if not seeing anything at all. I noticed a bit late that he bore a sharp resemblance to the late Chris. There were tears gathering in his eyes, and the world was silent as they spilled over. A pit opened in the bottom of my heart and it swallowed me whole. I looked away, to my left. The girl Liz was trembling. I remembered that she had the room next to mine. Without another word, we were dismissed from the gathering hall. As I passed by her, I murmured that it would be okay. She blinked at me gratefully.
Food was served in the banquet hall. It was then that we saw Zero in person for the first time, though he wore a mask over his face. He was tall and lean, with gray streaks in his jet-black hair. He announced that there was to be a masquerade and everyone would find costumes in their room. Mine was a light brown and cream ball gown, with cloth like soft down from a baby bird. The design reminded me of the plumage of a hawk, and my suspicions were confirmed when I pulled out the mask. It had a fierce hooked beak and beautiful feathers covering most of it. Zero must have done some research. He knew I was an apprentice falconer.
I pursed my lips, thinking as I struggled to put it on. I decided to give Katherine a wide berth, as she was most likely the killer. Nobody else knew what I knew, but I planned to announce it during the masquerade.
Everyone else had wonderful costumes. There was a silky-gray cat, a wily weasel, a brown-eared dog, and even a tiny little fox. However, I could tell who everyone was. There was no point behind this masquerade. It was frustrating to think Zero was just messing with us. While hanging around the table chatting idly with Theodore, I noticed the small fox slip away. I excused myself and followed her, only to see her rip her mask off and sit on the ground, sobbing softly all the while.
She saw me. “I can’t do this anymore!” She cried out, beating the floor uselessly with her fists. “It’s… it’s terrible!”
I walked over to her and sat down. “It’ll be okay,” I said consolingly. “I know who the murderer is.” She looked up, her eyes wide.
“Who?” Liz asked.
“It’s Katherine.” Instead of calming her, this statement had the opposite effect. Her sobs grew more violent and impulsively I reached out and hugged her.
“You’re wrong, you’re wrong! It’s not Katherine!” I stiffened suddenly. I had heard this voice before. But when I tried to pull away, something cold entered my back. There was a red-hot flash of agony. “It can’t be Katherine because…” I knew what her answer was, even as I faded out of consciousness. “It’s me.”
Chris says I should have suspected when I saw her costume. We’ve been hanging out recently and he’s not that bad. The game is still going on down on Earth. Katherine joined us a night ago, and I apologized for suspecting her.

IS A STORY ABOUT SANDVICH

Kerak’s face was red with rage. Her temper had snapped hours ago.

“How can you even be saying this seriously,” She growled.

“I do not trust this thing you’ve brought to us,” her opponent said.

“It’s MEAT,” she said, indicating the sandwich in her hand. “Meat between slices of bread. What’s not to understand?”

“Why would you waste bread wrapping it around meat?”

“The bread is so you can carry the meat,” she groaned. “Without getting the meat all over your hands.”

“But then you get crumbs on your hand!”

“Crumbs come out easier!”

Kerak slapped herself in the face with her sandwich-free hand. It was supposed to have been so easy.

They haven’t invented the sandwich, Kerak, go tell them about it, it’ll be simple. God, she was stupid. Of course these people would be obstinate about a hunk of meat.

She dragged her hand down her red face and braced herself for more argument over a lunchtime meal. She focused on the very large paycheck waiting for her back home.

All for teaching them how to use a sandwich.

“Look, it’s perfectly safe,” She continued. “Would anyone like to try it?”

“But that one’s all crushed!”

Kerak looked at her hand. She had, indeed, crushed the sandwich out of rage. She closed her eyes and let the anger come back.

“Then go make your own,” she groaned under her breath.

“I’ll not tolerate anything of the sort,” Her primary opponent, a wizard, said. Wizards were generally opposed to any kind of progress at all. It would make the people less reliant on them.

“Listen you pompous firefarter,” Kerak said quietly to the wizard. “This is a hunk of meat and two slices of bread. It is not a weapon. It is a meal.”

She punctuated the sentence by taking a bite of her crushed sandwich. It tasted a bit like her glove, but it wasn’t a bad sandwich.

The wizard glared at her. Several gaudy eyes, with irises of precious stone, glared at Kerak from his outfit. Wizards were unrealistically ostentatious.

“Fine,” The wizard relented. “Someone make her demon meal. I will taste it myself.”

People ran off to the butcher’s and the bakers. They returned minutes later with enough bread and meat to make dozens of sandwiches. All the better, since they’d become very popular incredibly fast.

Two slices of bread were very carefully carved out of a loaf, and a hunk of meat was unceremoniously torn from a piece of cooked beef. What resulted was only barely recognizable as a sandwich.

The wizard eyed it suspiciously. Kerak took another casual bite of her own sandwich. It was starting to taste a lot more like glove.

The wizard picked up the pseudo-sandwich, and posed bravely, as if the meal was a fierce demon. The crowd shrank back. The wizard moved his jaw, readying himself for the incoming onslaught of grain and flesh.

He took a bite.

He chewed the bite.

There was a moment of intense silence. Kerak filled it with a thought.

“It’s a god daisies sandwich.”

The wizard swallowed, and lowered the pseudo-sandwich from his face. His expression was completely blank.

“It is…”

The crowd leaned in. Kerak took another bite of her sandwich, and this time she had to check if she had accidentally bitten her own glove.

“Acceptable.”

The crowd breathed a sigh of relief. This was probably the most exciting event in years for them.

Several of the bolder ones went up to the Butcher and the Baker and started ordering their own sandwiches. The wizard finished his own, reinforcing their confidence. Soon the meat and bread that had been brought along was gone, and the entire crowd was feasting on poorly made, but delicious sandwiches. The Butcher and the Baker were already discussing business deals.

Kerak nodded, satisfied. The Butcher’s Guild and the Baker’s Guild had been feuding for months, twisting prices and committing sabotage to put the other out of business. Once the sandwich started to spread, the feud would end.

Complimentary goods. Soon the Farmer’s Guild would learn that vegetables could go on sandwiches as well, and they would be brought into the fold. Prices would be negotiated, deals would be made, and a compromise would be reached between three groups. Once they began to cooperate, other Guilds would follow suit, or fall apart. The feudal system of Guilds would be broken, whether they knew it or not.

Kerak finished her sandwich. It tasted like democracy.

Two thumbs up.

The sandwich was invented in a casino, actually. The guy was a gambling addict and wanted to be able to play while eating.

No.

I am in the early stages of planning a story based around tree puns

Is his awesome y/n

So much Y

It was four in the morning, again. Well, Stu couldn’t be entirely certain. He couldn’t even remember when he’d last owned a working watch. He could tell, though. Four in the morning had a certain je ne sais quoi to it, like getting your face keyed, or watching a house burn down. Everybody and everything else was dead to the world. There was no noise, no movement, no life – just you. Nobody else.

Stu didn’t get much sleep these days. Not that there had ever been days where he’d gotten much, but it was more apparent now. It was uncharacteristically optimistic of him, he knew, but he felt like getting sleep was giving up. If he went to sleep, then his day had been another pointless, dreary pebble in the mountain that made up his life. If he stayed awake, then, well, maybe something would happen. It wouldn’t; he knew that, too, but that little grey area of hope was more or less the only thing he had left to live in.

It had always been like this. Every now and again, in that transitionary time between times, he caught himself thinking things had been better, but they were nothing more than fanciful delusions. There wasn’t a single time he could remember when he hadn’t felt like a ghost. The only thing that had been different was that back then, he hadn’t been alone. Stu hadn’t been pop flyin' then, either, but they were unhappy together. It was like comparing dying alone to dying in the arms of the guy that shot you; but a burden shared is a burden halved. When your eyes are going white, does it really matter who they’re looking at?

Stu flicked the stove top on, the click echoing through the empty, cramped apartment like a bottle rolling along the gutter in the dead of the night. He grabbed a black, battered old pot and poured some instant pudding mix into it. It wasn’t the first time he’d made pudding at four in the morning, and if things kept going the way they had been lately, it wouldn’t be the last.

Years ago, he used to have a job in a kitchen. It wasn’t the greatest, but it wasn’t the worst, either. Most of the time he was on the night shift, and he didn’t get home ‘till late. The holiday season one year had been a particularly busy one, and they’d needed him every single day for at least two months. At the time, she was taking a course at university. Stu couldn’t remember what she was studying; it was just another detail that was fading further out of sight. With their schedules, they didn’t end up seeing each other at all for quite some time.

On the last shift he had to do before the restaurant closed down for a few weeks, he came back to their apartment at about four in the morning. She was waiting up with some bad instant pudding and a smile. They walked down to the park and just sat around until some of the breakfast places in town opened up. It had been the first, and the last, time in years and years that he’d felt like things were okay.

The pudding was bubbling. Stu sighed, like a corpse puffing out its last breath of stale air. He looked up at the window, and in the reflection he saw her standing behind him, leaning against the door frame. Her eyes looked as empty as they always had, even when the rest of her was smiling. She wasn’t there, he knew full well, but he still saw her quite often. He closed his eyes – all that did was make her seem clearer in his mind.

His hands were shaking violently as he fought open a drawer. He pulled out a cracked, grimy bowl and poured the pudding in, spilling half of it. Dropping the pot on the floor, he started to lurch shakily forward when he heard her. “Stu? What are you doing?” Her voice was... Stu couldn’t say what her voice was like. He couldn’t remember anymore. He knew it was her, but it didn’t sound like anything. It was just noise coming from a long way away.

Stu tried to keep moving. He could hear her following him every step of the way. He slowly urged his arm to the door and fumbled with the handle. The streets were pitch black, except for the dim, weak light pouring out of the doorway. Stu collapsed onto the stairs, still shaking violently. She kneeled down next to him and whispered into his ear “are you okay, Stu?”

He closed his eyes again and focused all of his mental energy. Very slowly and very carefully, he lowered a spoon into the pudding, and began laboriously moving it up to his mouth. An eternity passed as he moved it closer and closer, but he stopped abruptly. He felt a warm, safe arm around his shoulders that he knew wasn’t there. He stopped shaking and sat eerily still for the longest time.

The sun was starting to come out, and Stu saw the light hit the park in the town. His eye twitched, he dropped the spoon and the bowl, buried his face in his arms and wept and wept and wept.

Spoony, I'd burn you down and then go to the rape for you.

I love you.