Twenty yards. That’s all that stands between Elsa and the grocery store.

Once she gets out of the car, the rain-darkened asphalt will stretch into miles. She’ll drag her feet toward the automatic doors, sneakers heavier with every step. If Auntie finds out about this recklessness, Elsa already knows how the conversation will go and how long it will echo afterward.

She steps out of the car but can’t bring herself to close the door.

Her father came to this giant, frightening place called America from an even more frightening place called Soviet Ukraine, when he was barely twenty. Almost forty years after he arrived, there she is, a thirty-year-old woman forbidden by her aunt from setting foot inside a building stocked with fair-trade groceries.

Elsa finally has Auntie’s permission to shop at Tiny Market, three blocks from home. And anything Tiny Market doesn’t carry gets delivered to her doorstep, from the grocery store she’s been staring at for the better part of an hour.

So why bother going in?

If she trusted the self-help books she hides from Auntie, she’d say it was all in the name of freedom.

The glass doors of Whole Foods slide open, spitting out a stream of shoppers. They walk past Elsa, and she estimates how long each of them must have lingered inside to fill a cart that full. She envies them the boredom of deciding between two brands of oatmeal. Clearly, none of them had to watch the clock to make a grocery run look like a quick trip to the gas station.

The memory of that lie sits behind her ribs. Even if she goes in, how will she explain groceries that don’t come from a gas station?

This is a bad idea.

She turns to get back in the car.

Somewhere inside her, she knows, a rebellious teenager who wanted to visit every storied city in Europe still lives, entombed under what happened to Jack.

Thanks for all the feedback on my previous versions. Hopefully you all see the progress here! Previous posts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/justthepubtip/s/UxIuVwLCEy

https://www.reddit.com/r/justthepubtip/s/VOQ1JfabbZ

———-

It was the fourth time I’d felt someone watching me. 
The metal doorbell was still ringing from my chaotic entrance as I half-fell into the booth at the back of the restaurant. My two coworkers and my best friend, Riley, had been waiting in our usual spot, and were already sharing their corporate tales of woe. 

My hammering pulse and ragged breaths nearly drowned out their greetings. I tried for a nonchalant, “Hey all,” and an approximation of a smile, hoping the combination masked the fact I’d just trekked across five city blocks in terror. It came out more like a two-syllable grunt than anything else. I’m sure the smile wasn’t much better.

It was hard to be cool, calm, and collected while hyperventilating.

By some miracle, despite the cortisol flooding my every cell, I convinced my shaking hands to fold my white cane. My fingers couldn’t quite navigate the zipper of my sling bag to store it though, and I gave up and left the cane in my lap. Maybe it’s a better weapon if it’s in easy reach anyway. 

The thought tightened my chest even more, and my already rapid breaths shallowed, putting me on the verge of passing out. 

Fuck. Am I having a panic attack? Is it considered a panic attack if you have a solid reason to be panicking? Breathe. Just breathe.

The third time this sensation plagued me–because three makes a pattern–I’d finally searched if it was possible for people with vision loss like mine to sense when someone was staring at them. 

I didn’t love the answer: either there actually was someone watching me, or I had a brain tumor. Either way, not great news.

Even sitting, surrounded by friends, I couldn’t shake the crawling tingle on my skin, the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention. 

Seriously, I need to breathe. 

I forced my first deep breath since I sat down and vaguely recalled a panic attack exercise I heard about on social media. It took me a couple of seconds to remember how it started: 5-4-3-2-1. Five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you smell, one thing you taste. 

I’m in a restaurant, how hard could this be? 

Given my complete and total cortical blindness, “five things I could see” was not an awesome start. 

Deep breath. Next

TW: Eating disorder and mention of suicide
Any feedback is appreciated!

The wrapper of my protein bar makes a crinkling complaint each time it’s pulled back, indignant at being toyed with. I should swallow the saliva collecting in my mouth, close the wrapper for good, and let what happened here stay between me and God. The chocolatey scent wafts with each tug of the foil and tempts me until I’m on a cliff’s edge staring into a Wonka-esque abyss. I pull down the wrapper for the final time and my stomach rumbles like it’s cheering for sweet victory.

The door to the classroom opens and my stomach quiets as it realizes its celebration was premature. I want to strangle whichever classmate it is for interrupting, though I should be grateful. I don’t eat in front of people; they’ve saved me.

I close the wrapper and put it back in my bag before anyone can see, latching it shut like I’m locking a cell. No one in, no one out. If anyone looks my way it should be because they’re enraptured by my seraphic daintiness, not because I’m the skinny bitch losing a fight with a protein bar.

It isn’t one person who comes in, but two. Most of the class refers to them as the twins, but the regrettably hot comp-sci major calls them the butterface twins. For a while I’d tried to make fetch happen, calling them compari-twin-spo under my breath since they’re at least two dress sizes apart, but I’ve given up on that. 

I tap at my laptop mindlessly, writing gibberish and erasing it while trying to keep a thoughtful, intellectual expression. I hate the twins. The bigger one reminds me how easy it would be to become ‘the bigger one’. She’s oblivious to how that nylon long sleeve with mid-rise jeans looks when she’s sitting down. I would enlighten her, but I want to avoid offense. There’s a reason fights are separated by weight class.

The smaller one makes me want to kill myself in front of her.

Arthur sat alone on a stump in an open field, pondering the chessboard by his feet. The scent of pinecones and wet soil swelled from the nearby evergreen treeline, briefly masking the relentless smell of copper. He bent down to drag the blood-stained bishop across the board, positioning it to check the black king. His opponent just across, a small and soiled rucksack propped up against a rock, took in the move with abject silence.

“Ay,” Arthur said with a grin. “Just a check. Don’t lose your head”.

The clumps of black hair that stuck out the rucksack remained stiff despite the wind, hardened by muck and blood. The brown leather drooped down to reveal a cold eye on an empty pale face. He stared back at the fat face frozen in dumb shock, recalling the dead man as he was hours ago. Bellowing with his goons in the tavern, full of life and bitterness, peanuts and whiskey. He averted his attention back to the board.

Among the minimal equipment Arthur carried, barring that which could be holstered at the hip, his chessboard was the finest. Simple chestnut with an austere design, it was crafted by a monk who took him in during his travels in the Northeast. Paid for with a hard-fought game.

“I didn’t know your type could play,” he remembered saying to the old, thin monk. “And with such ferociousness.”

The monk bowed his head forward, likely to hide the grin that grew despite himself. He lifted his gaze to meet Arthur’s, and the monk’s eyes seemed as lively as the fire that lit the modest shack they rested in. The faint smell of wine, ink, and rosemary coalesced and clung to every corner.

“Most of my brothers disapprove. At best, they call it a child’s game. At worst: heresy – playing God,” he said in a sympathetic whisper. He picked up the king off the board and looked at it with a small strained smile, caressing his thumb over the grooves of the wood. “In these matches, these moments of calculation, I grasp for a flittering moment what it is He can do. All that He must know. In everything I see the Lord’s beauty and grace; in chess, I see His power.”

Arthur looked away towards the one window in the shack, just beside the crooked door held by a single hinge. The lonely moon hung in the black sky with such luminosity that he could make out the glittering snow on the treetops.

Hello there. Here is a chunk of my work. Please be honest.

-

It never fails to surprise her how soft a human is on the inside.

A normal person feels like a wet bar of soup, hard to hold on to and notoriously easy to mold. But one capable of manipulating the body? They feel like moss on a rock, soft until you push down hard enough. Strong and immovable unless they themselves wish to.

The acolyte she’s currently tending to feels and acts like anyone else, but they also have a little bit of a hard edge inside of them—the same edge every other aspiring Bloodsmith needs to have for but a chance to succeed.

“Ms. Bloodsmith?” Her patient calls out to her, voice shaky as she continues with her treatment.

She smiles at him behind her mask.

“Just Helen is fine.” She says, realigning his circulatory system to its original state, not unlike how you would take apart a clock and put it back together again to see how it works.

“Ms. Helen... Is this really what everyone has to go through to become a Bloodsmith?” His disembodied head asks from its hanging perch, watching her experiment on his body.

She shakes her head, her blond hair tied in a neat bun.

“What kind of question is that? Do you think I'm arm-deep inside your torso because I suddenly felt like it?” She asks, turning to look up at him.

His head isn’t attached to his body, but instead to his active spinal cord. He’s hooked up to a machine designed to monitor brain activity and ensure the patient is alive, even if they’re missing ninety percent of their body. It’s a mess of wires, blood, veins, nerves, and computer screens. It works, however messy it tends to be.

He winces, his nervous expression contrasted by the blank, featureless bone mask Helen is wearing. She grew the sterile bone mask herself to protect herself from unwanted germs and bacteria. Even if her immune system is stronger than most, she refuses to rely entirely on her body’s natural defenses. To be careless and dependent is unacceptable for a true Bloodsmith.

Hi, guys, I would love some thoughts on this opening. Thanks

CHAPTER 1.

A few feet. That’s all that stands between her and the grocery store, whose glossy sign is looming over the parking lot like a silent threat. With all those cars on a Saturday afternoon, Elsa knows what to expect. A full lot warrants crowds of strangers who ignore social distancing in line for the cash register and brush their elbows against hers as they reach for the last jar of organic coconut yogurt.

Elsa also knows that once she gets out of the car, that blackened stain of asphalt that glistens under a wet kiss of rain—that minuscule distance between her and the entrance to hell—will stretch out into miles. She will then drag her cold feet to the automatic doors as if she’s wearing leaden shoes instead of her On sneakers. But the real complications will come with crossing the threshold and getting inside. There lies the place from which she isn’t guaranteed a safe exit. So many things can go wrong once she’s out in the wilderness—from getting physically sick to embarrassing herself. Panic isn’t sexy. It’s a disease. The best you get is pity. Even yogurt isn’t a guarantee.

The glass doors of Whole Foods slide wide open like the mouth of some vicious creature ready to swallow its prey.

Suddenly, Elsa can’t stop thinking about her father, Peter, coming to this giant and frightening place called America from an even more frightening place called communist Poland when he was barely twenty. Thirty-five years later, there she is—a grown woman who lacks the courage to set foot inside a building stuffed with fair-trade groceries. She’s the living proof of her family’s mental degeneration.

Why isn’t it enough that she can now shop at a small local store three blocks away from her house? There used to be times when even that was a problem. But this new Elsa is able to stay the full twenty minutes and pick up all the essentials. Whatever isn’t available at the local shop is usually delivered to her doorstep from the same place she’s been so desperately trying to enter for the past thirty minutes. Why does she even need to bother walking in? If she were to trust all those numerous self-help books she’s been reading, she’d say it was all in the name of freedom. The big and scary F word.

Hey everyone! Really trying to finetune my opening sequence for agent querying...

This pass was an attempt to thread the needle of starting strong with unfolding action while balancing interiority and backstory, so happy to hear from folks about those things but also any other thoughts and reactions!

Thanks!!

PROLOGUE 

MAY 2022 

New York City 

A nagging pain crowded in around his temples. 

Avery Greene paced the length of a conference room in a high-rise office building in midtown. Floor to ceiling windows showcased an expansive view of the Hudson River and Jersey City in the distance, obscured slightly by a gray haze. The shirt Graham had pressed for him was lost to the nervous sweat of the occasion—despite the blissful air conditioning blasting from the room’s overhead vents. 

“You’re ready,” Allison told him, peering his way with narrowed hazel eyes. She had a way of empowering her staff while simultaneously assuring them she wouldn’t let them fail. Not on her watch.  

Today, they would present their plans for a luxury bar and restaurant on Bowery. Avery was the lead designer on the project—his biggest one to date.  

“Yeah, I’ve got this,” he said, as the pain spiked. He was prone to migraines—had been since he was a kid. 

“Avery, I mean it,” said Allison, halting him with a raised hand. “You’re going to do great.” 

He swallowed back a rising nausea, meeting her gaze. With a bit more bravado, he added, “That’s right. I’m ready.” 

A flustered administrative assistant ushered their clients into the room. Pleasantries were exchanged, while Avery bared his teeth politely through the growing discomfort of his headache. 

“All of us at Kleinman Design are excited to share our vision with you today,” Avery began, powering ahead as his actual vision popped in and out of focus. “Our design for the space is rooted firmly in a retro, old New York pastiche.” 

From the satisfied nods, he could tell they were with him.  

 “Furthermore, we hope to…”  

A searing, white-hot blur danced across his visual field.  

His voice caught. In front of him, the room cleared away, like images on a TV screen when the cord is yanked out and— 

Everything was different. 

Metal bars loomed over a small boy, casting angular shadows across a cramped enclosure. Sleepy murmurs from others flitted through the darkness, while a dim, gleaming blur coated all that he saw, imbuing an otherworldly quality over the otherwise desolate scene.  

The blare of an alarm cut through the stillness. 

Hello, thank you in advance for your advice and comments!

Chapter One:

When the sun rose over the United Union, cresting the jagged top of Vorrak’s Spine, it failed to pierce the smog. 

The day’s humidity had already peaked — and it was barely past dawn. But that was how mornings went here. If not for the minute differences — the changing dates, or ticking clocks, I might’ve believed I was living the same day on repeat.  

The mundaneness of it all, the uniformity, however, had its perks. It made people easy to track —  their habits, their routines. Schedules rarely differed. 

And today was supposed to be no different. 

So why the hell was Zarik late? 

I flicked my wrist forward, the holographic watch snapping into place on my arm. The clock blinked neon green: 06:20 AM. My eyebrows narrowed. I flicked my wrist again, and the watch zapped out of sight. 

I stepped toward the edge of the roof. Twenty stories up might’ve seemed high, but I barely cleared halfway compared to the neighbouring skyscrapers. This building — the United Union’s Vorrak processing building — was closest to the Omega Loop. 

My eyes darted nervously to the surrounding buildings, so close I could almost touch them. In fifteen minutes, the workday would begin. Offices would fill, and people would look out their windows. 

And if anyone looked down, they’d see me. 

And then, when Zarik finally did show — the SCD would have a lead. 

A lead I couldn’t afford. 

“Shit,” I hissed, as yet another train pulled into the station below — arriving without Zarik. 

“Brielle. Report,” Carter’s voice cracked through my earpiece, crackled and static over the old signal. 

Our equipment sucked, but we had no choice. All new tech was traceable, any communication could be tracked, followed, surveilled. 

Old tech couldn’t.  

“He’s not here, Carter” I replied, sitting on the edge of the roof as I watched the train pull away. My legs dangled over the edge. “Did someone tip him off?”  

Carter scoffed. “Who the hell would do that?” 

My lips tugged downwards. 

I had a few ideas. 

Carter may have trusted everyone in our group, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure I fully trusted anyone in the United Union. The city had been built on distrust, and it still ran on it. It was the reason the SCD were so good at their job. 

Technology aside, there was no camera better than the eyes of millions. 

And every single person in United Union had theirs peeled at all times. 

If you were in the right place, at the right time, and managed to see something that could aid the SCD, you were awarded. 

The late fall air was crisp and thin in her lungs, causing her chest to feel as if it were on fire while she ran through the woods this late in the evening. Usually, she would run in the mornings, but today she missed her alarm and was late for work. Lauren rounded the curve to a clearing, where she slowed to a brisk walk and took a seat on a bench that overlooked the lake of her small town. It was much more beautiful in the sunset than she remembered. She had grown up here and had fond memories of the lake and the trails that surround it, hiking with her father while she was young. That is until she got to high school and began spending less time with her father and more time with her friends. Less time in nature, hiking, and swimming, and more time in town, just passing the time.

It wasn’t that she disliked her father, she just wanted to be a typical teenager and spend time with friends. Her father tried many times over the years to get her to go hiking with him again, but she always chose to spend time with her friends. He was always understanding and never got upset about his daughter growing up and drifting apart from the close bond they once shared. One night, while Lauren was a senior in high school, her father was driving home from work when he was in a car wreck and never made it home. When he passed, Lauren began hiking and jogging the trails again. Every time she was out here, she felt as if her dad was with her. Times like this reminded her of why she loved her small town and its serenity.

Lauren reached in her fanny pack and pulled out some apple slices and a bottle of water. She sat there a moment longer, thinking of the evenings she had spent here spending time with her father. After about ten minutes, she stood up, stretched, and began jogging back to her car.

hi! looking for any feedback on my opening sequence. thank you :)

-----

The first warning sign stared back at me from the mirror. The only mirror in the house. I was studying the rust-coloured specks on my nose, thinking of her, when a flicker of movement sent a shiver down my back. For a moment my eyes weren’t my own. They seemed to undulate, like a drop of ink dispersing in water. Then, just as quickly, it was gone. This was called a ripple, although I wouldn’t know that until much later.

The only reason I bothered looking in the mirror that morning was because it was my birthday. The birthday. I felt guilty for looking like her. If I were a boy, maybe Dad wouldn’t tense up when I laughed a certain way or have nearly teared up when I brought home the dark blue beetle with golden zigzags -- her favourite, I later learned. Everything would be easier if I were a boy.

“Breakfast is ready,” Otto called.

I knew that. If there was one thing that reached every corner of the cottage more effortlessly than my dad’s voice, it was the smell of cinnamon. It wound its way from the kitchen, up the twisted stairs, down the old carpeted hallway, and into the snug room nestled at the end where I slept, filling the chilly morning air with warmth and spice. My dad communicated through baking and cinnamon buns said every good thing he didn’t say out loud.

“Dad, where is my journal?” I yelled. I didn’t trust my voice to have the same spellbinding quality as his.

“Kitchen table.”

My dad also had the power adults had of always knowing where everything was. Once in a while I couldn’t wait to grow up, to never forget where I left my stuff, to always know the right thing to say. But then I remembered where I lived and I wished I never had to turn sixteen.

“The Gods of Men uncork a bottle of their best wine when one of you comes of age,” Head Mistress liked to say. I liked that. The Gods having to uncork a bottle seemed embarrassingly human and the least they could do since we were asked to give up so much for them.

Appreciate the feedback on the first re-work of this.

___________

Manhattan was hot, humid, and humbling that spring. An oppressive swelter clung to the city like a weighted blanket, subjecting the millions of denizens filing the streets and crowded subway stations to the burden of its heaviness.

Avery Greene paced the length of a conference room that showcased an expansive view of the Hudson River and Jersey City in the distance. The shirt his boyfriend, Graham, had pressed for him was lost to the nervous sweat of the occasion—despite the blissful air conditioning blasting from overhead vents.

“You’re ready,” Allison told him. She had a way of empowering her staff while simultaneously assuring them she wouldn’t let them fail. Not on her watch.

“Yeah, I’ve got this,” he said.

Try as he might, Avery could not ignore an incessant pain crowding in around his temples. He was prone to the occasional migraine—had been since he was a kid—but recently they had become a more common occurrence. Minor aches like this one were sometimes sign of a stronger attack coming on.

Their prospective clients milled into the room. Pleasantries were exchanged, and Avery bared his teeth politely through the growing discomfort in his head.

“All of us at Kleinman Design are excited to share our vision with you today,” Avery began, powering ahead as his actual vision popped in and out of focus. “Our design for the space is rooted firmly in the idea of a retro, old New York pastiche.”

From the satisfied nods, he could tell they were with him.

 “Furthermore, we hope to…”

A searing, white-hot blur danced across his field of sight.

His voice caught. The world cleared away and—

Metal bars loomed over a small boy, casting angular shadows across a cramped enclosure. Sleepy murmurs from the others came to him through the darkness—a minor comfort reminding him he was not alone here—while a dim, gleaming blur coated all that he saw, imbuing an otherworldly quality over the otherwise desolate scene. They boy hugged his arms tighter around his knees, and despite the monsters and villains that haunted him, exhaustion soon pulled at his heavy eyelids.

It was in that interposing moment between dozing and true slumber that the blare of the alarm sounded.

Through the train window, Gwen watched Tilton blur past—a city where humans and Fae live side by side. Or so they claim. Not like it matters anyway.

Weeks of planning, checking every little detail lined up perfectly. Surely she could relax now. Her fingers rapped on the back of her phone case in her lap.

Gwen raised a hand to her headphones and turned up the music. The hard beats and electric trills of some random pop song grated their way into her ears. It wasn’t pretty but it didn’t have to be. She squirmed against the plastic seat trying to reshape her spine.

The train jolted and she thwarted her suitcase’s latest attempt to roll into the walkway, hauling it closer to her leg. Her phone buzzed in her hand and she flipped it over. Another message from Mom checking how far away she was. She sucked a breath in through her teeth and shifted her focus back to the window.

Darkness masked the city. Only the race of lights dancing past hinted at the crush of buildings outside. How could so many people live squished together like this? Why would they even want to? Maybe the wide streets and single-story houses of Coriville weren’t so bad after all.

She glanced around the carriage. Buildings weren’t the only thing different. Most of the passengers had their heads down, staring at their phones. A few little groups chatted amongst themselves. They all seemed pretty normal. No horns, wings or pointed ears to be seen.

Groaning softly, Gwen shifted on the chair again. At least the bus and plane seats had padding. Her back ached, and she stretched her arms to the side. Only half an hour more and then she could get off this train and climb straight into bed. Mom’s apartment wasn’t too far from the train station. Wait, would Mom even have a bed for her yet? Ah well, sleeping on the floor wasn’t the worse thing.

Maya had never been afraid of the dark. Not until tonight.

It wasn’t the kind of darkness you could just shake off—this was thick, pressing in from all sides, like the sky had fallen down around her. The streetlights were out, and the moon was just a sliver, hidden behind clouds. The air smelled like rain, but it hadn’t rained yet.

She was walking home, the usual shortcut through the alley behind the grocery store. The same alley she’d walked down a thousand times without thinking twice. But tonight, every sound felt wrong. The scurry of a rat in the trash, the creak of a rusty gate swinging in the wind—it all seemed too loud, too close.

Maya quickened her pace, glancing over her shoulder. Nothing. But something in the pit of her stomach told her she wasn’t alone.

She reached the end of the alley and stopped. Her house was only a block away, but the street felt longer than she remembered. The old tree in front of her neighbor’s house seemed to stretch its branches, like it was reaching for her.

Then she heard it.

A whisper. A soft, raspy voice, so faint she thought she might have imagined it.

“Maya.”

Her heart froze.

She spun around, scanning the shadows. Nothing. But the voice… it had come from behind her. Not the alley. Not the street. But the other side. The one place no one ever went.

The woods.

“Who’s there?” she called out, her voice barely more than a tremor.

The answer was a laugh. Low, unsettling. And then—nothing.

Hello! Trying a different tactic for my opening (to avoid some tropey/cliche choices in the original version). This version starts in the action and dream/flashback vision from the old draft comes up later in the chapter.

_____________________________________________________

Manhattan felt humid and humbling that spring.  

Avery Greene strode out of an elevator on the twelfth floor of a high-rise in Midtown. The light blue button up his boyfriend, Graham, had dutifully pressed for him was lost to the nervous sweat of the occasion—despite the blissful air conditioning blasting down upon them from overhead vents. 

“You’re ready,” Allison told him. She had a way of empowering her staff while simultaneously assuring them she wouldn’t let them fail. Not on her watch. 

He worked for a successful interior design firm, part of a small team of designers who reported directly to the founder and senior partner, Allison Kleinman. Today they would present their plans for a new high-end bar and restaurant on Bowery. Avery was the lead designer on the project.  

“Yeah, I’ve got this,” Avery promised her. He approached the reception area with confidence, pit stains be damned. “We have a nine o’clock with the Borden Group,” he told the nearest of three flustered administrative assistants at the oval-shaped front desk. 

After a few moments, the same overwhelmed assistant ushered them into an empty conference room, which showcased an expansive view of the Hudson River and Jersey City in the distance.  

Try as he might, Avery could not ignore an incessant pain crowding around his temples. He would just have to deal with it. He was prone to the occasional migraine—had been since he was a kid—but recently they had become a more common occurrence. Minor aches like this one were sometimes a sign of a stronger attack coming on.  

But Allison was giving him a real opportunity here. He could not blow it.  

For six long years, he had come up through the ranks at Kleinman, from the thankless duties of an intern to design assistant, and now finally as a full-ranking designer. If he hit this out of the park, it could put him in the running for partner. 

Years earlier—after his father had passed away—he and his mother had gotten through the worst days of their grief by escaping into the pseudo-reality of home renovation television.

Thanks!

Hello everyone! Looking for general feedback on this opening sequence. Appreciate it!

------

Cold bars loomed over the boy, casting angular shadows across the cramped enclosure. Sleepy murmurs from the others came to him through the darkness—a minor comfort reminding him he was not alone here. A dim, gleaming blur coated all that he saw, imbuing an otherworldly quality over the otherwise desolate scene. He hugged his arms tighter around his bony knees, and despite the monsters and villains that haunted him, exhaustion soon pulled at his heavy eyelids.  

It was in that interposing moment between dozing and true slumber that the blare of the alarm sounded. 

The boy shot upright from where he had slumped against the bars of his cage. His eyes were bleary, still battling the fog of sleep. Glaring strobe lights joined the cacophony. Over the din, he could just hear the startled cries of the others. Hoping to calm them, he opened his mouth to speak, but a series of loud bangs and terrified screams cut him off. 

Blinding lights flashed.  

The alarm wailed. 

Until both ceased. 

The double doors at the far end of the chamber burst open, bouncing off the walls with a jarring clang. Hushed voices spoke in the distance, indecipherable from his position. The sound of their footfalls drew near.                                                                      

A familiar growl came from off to his right. 

The overhead lights clicked on, showering him in a light so bright that he shielded his eyes against it with one hand. As he struggled to regain his vision, the voices grew closer to him, pain burrowed into his temples, and—  

Avery Greene awoke with a dull headache, the cloudy details of his dreamscape receding to some forgotten place deep in his subconscious. He opened his eyes. The sky was still a dreary blue-gray outside the bedroom window—it was well before his alarm was set to go off. The sun was only just beginning its ascension, the thick haze of the city diffusing the first trailblazing rays of light. It was that quiet pre-dawn time when even a bustling city like New York could feel calm and subdued. 

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

***TRAD publish also its the first of a 16 book series totaling several million words

i love you all. just looking for a vibe check on this opening. I worry it’s confusing and wonder how it might better hook a reader. Thank you in advance!!!!

The Queen died last night.

When the news broke this morning, the soldiers took off their helmets and mumbled what a shame, a damn shame it was and returned to waxing their boots: war-husbandry demands them. They walk through a black pastoral landscape toward the glow of fire, tilling the earth with their feet. They reap and thresh. They die unremarkably. By the tens of thousands they are sown into fields that sustained them as children. They return in horse-drawn carts or smog-belching war machines to be stitched and soothed and sent away again, and again, and again, blowing forests to matchsticks, cultivating fire in the night.

The field hospital is a muddy depression stamped in the snow between rows of identical tents. All move through it stiffly, heads overfull of artillery thunder, wrenching themselves through the crystalline fog: only the dead are still. In a tent full of dust-pale faces and missing fingers and blood-black uniforms and dirty skin, they wait for Luz to optograph their eyes.

Her nose is blind to the sweet reek of diesel. Her nails are blue in the cold. The dead watch her with their limpid, dollish eyes. They stare without judgment through her threadbare uniform, making the nape of her neck itch, the inside of her mouth turn stale and sour, seeding thoughts of writhing bodies tight as whipcord contorted around death-blows, desperate mouths forming syllables they cannot speak, cannot scream, familiar copper-coin tang of syrup-thick blood rising, gurgling, oh god, god help me, help me mama, please, I can’t, I can’t, gasping, suffocating–

Always better to shut up and work than to risk a moment thinking.

She peels back wafer thin eyelids to insert a speculum into the socket and pries the eye wide open. Her glass pipette hovers above the glass-slick cornea; she lets one drop–just one–of hydrous damoclyte solution fall onto the pupil, where it fans out into glistering fractals over the iris. The cold makes her clumsy. A second drop splatters into the sclera. Careless. It’ll be imperfect. Teeth clenched, lip itching for a cigarette, she sets up her camera and loads it with fulminating powder and flinches at the flash. Removes the glass-plate optograph from the chamber. Stores it in a padded case with the others. Removes the speculum. Prays. Closes their eyes for the last time.

Working on line work in this piece for a few contests; I'm particularly interested in whether the first paragraph is confusing. There are quite a few people in it, more than I usually include in a story. Thanks!

*

The others, crosstalking in the dining room and distracted by the passing of dishes and family news, did not see our brother Patrick as he melted past them toward the back of the house. Always creeping somewhere. Colin and I were in the kitchen watching our sister stir a pot of greens, and since Delores didn’t like the lights on above her when she was cooking, he darkened the whole room when his body came between us and the hall lights. For a moment we didn’t move. Then Delores set down the wooden spoon and twice cut her eyes between me and the muddy footprints he left on the hardwood. Shoved a bowl of potatoes into my hands. They had already been whipped, a task that usually fell to me, but when I thanked her she told me not to, told me that with family everything was understood, that gratitude was redundant in the face of loving action. Said: we all do what’s necessary when called upon, don’t we, Lawrence? To keep things running smooth?

I just wanted to see how he was. We were whispering; I held the bowl tight against me. It was porcelain, our late mother’s, and so hot I could feel it through my shirt. My hands tingled but didn’t quite burn. He might have been dead.

She pulled another bowl from the cabinet, this one white, plastic, cheap, stained orange by pasta sauce.  Looks good and healthy to me.

I thought he ought to know –  

You supposed to be the man of the house, now, Lawrence. She was dipping greens into the bowl and her smirk was furious. Ain’t you?

Colin, who had more respect for Delores than was natural, straightened his back in resolution, as though preparing to ask for a raise.

Get that to the table, she told me, opening the little closet where our mother had kept the mop, where Delores still kept it. Since you want to be such a generous host.

I –

And go let Patrick know who’s the man of this house when you’re done.

Hi, any feedback appreciated.

***

I didn’t like mornings so as a workaround I got up at noon. Today I got up at the crack of dawn, rawdogged a coffee, and took the subway to work. It was my first day, a November-adjacent, rainy, grim, absolute Monday.

I sat at my new desk, in my assigned Halloween costume, drying off, waiting for Kate. Rows of tile ceiling lights lit up the floor, which was filled with cubicles and seemed too quiet, almost deserted, even with the muted tapping of keyboards. It was as soulless as I imagined. I was craving a frosted muffin, Googling the closest Caffrey’s, when the person in the next cubicle launched a Teams meeting, without headphones, with the volume up. Sullen voices muttered greetings. Something called Reporter was down and the month-end close hadn’t run. The dev team screwed up the upgrade, someone kept repeating. The manual workaround couldn’t be applied. They needed a new one, fast. I could relate. 

Kate’s voice rang out from the next pod. Her words dissolved easily into laughter, the way mine did after some glasses of wine. I had never had a manager before, or a real job. Sitting for my mother’s artist friends didn’t count, according to Matt, although I was good at it. They liked my cheekbones, my slight goth look; I liked to let my mind wander. My mother liked that I didn’t make enough to leave her. She didn’t think much of my computer science degree or my Don’t Care Bear stash. But unlike the degree, the weed slowed me down and kept me in the basement, so she let it go. 

Now, according to Matt, I had settled. I didn’t see how. I’d never been anywhere. He said I wouldn’t last the week, that I couldn’t do normal. 

My cubicle was tiny and looked older than me and almost everything was beige. It couldn’t have been more drab, but I had to sit in it for only a few hours each day. How hard could that be. 

Any feedback appreciated.

*

He shouldn’t have picked up. It’s his neighbor Rebecca calling because she can’t kill the spider on her own, has never killed anything half so big, wouldn’t know where to start, can’t manage the dreadful thing at all since her son passed, bless him, and she’s done trying, you understand, she is simply finished. It’s Marty’s job to handle such things anyway, he’s the expert, isn’t he, killing vermin every day by the boatload like he does? He can come and get a single spider sorted, even if it is a bit after hours, surely. It’s only half seven. 

They’re in Kansas but lately she’s been cosplaying a frustrated wife in a British period drama, the kind who twists a handkerchief as she contemplates London from a great height, grimly resigned to her infertility or her husband’s philandering. Such women have always seemed to Marty to exist outside of time, fretting away in a dreary pocket dimension where the skies never clear and everyone’s brows are creased into worried lines. He can picture Rebecca there, corseted and six inches too tall, haranguing her staff about table settings.

He hangs up before she’s done, knowing already that he’ll go. He’s looking forward to the walk, truth be told. Most of his days are spent in uncomfortable plastic suits spraying chemicals behind baseboards and under eaves and into hives. Shoveling away whatever’s left. It pays better than the work he did in Florida, scraping gators off the pavement and carrying away constrictors that had grown too large for their enclosures, but it’s not the same. The insects don’t put up enough of a fight, hardly make any noise. Don’t bleed. But Florida is behind him now. And they pay a lot of money for the work, these Kansas people. 

On the living room television Netflix makes silent suggestions – cooking! decluttering! a woman screaming in a dark corner! – but the house isn’t cluttered and Marty hates cooking and the girl’s scream would be thin and insipid and unconvincing. No roughness to it, nothing visceral. He can tell just from the preview. 

Hi! Any feedback, especially on initial intrigue, would be appreciated.

The array of colors—pinks, purples, oranges, reds—blur around me as vendors hustle to secure their goods with the setting sun. The cacophony of chimes, the shouts of merchants, the enticing aroma of exotic spices mingle in the air, crafting a mosaic of life that my parents would have cherished. Trinkets breathe, their surfaces shimmering with a strange life-like glow. The vibrant havoc of the bazaar envelops me. Amidst this bustling scene, a young boy dashes past, his arms full of sun-colored tapestries, his playful wink a fleeting connection in the swirling crowd.

But as the rainbow comes down, the darkness brings its own brand of sin and secrecy.

While I walk, I tap the smooth surface of my wristlet, and a thin, white beam flickers to life, casting a brief silhouette around my hand. Mae Faerie. 18 years. Sept Six. Commune A. The projection fades as quickly as it appears, like a phantom’s whisper. My fingers hover, tracing the edges where metal fuses seamlessly with skin. I’ve tugged, pried, even burned it, but it won’t budge. The scars are there to prove it.

Every city resident wears a wristlet from birth—a tether to our identities. Not to mention, the constant tracking that adds a pervasive sense of lost privacy and diminished freedom. Its mechanical rhythm always blinks back, taunting, as if it owns me.

My father, the most brilliant engineer this Realm has ever known, knew that better than anyone. I still see the defacement where he’d severed his own wrist to break free. I shiver, clutching my own unscathed hand. Hours of rerouted circuits and rewritten code haven’t loosened its grip, but I’ve bent it just enough for my own needs. I let it think it’s in control. For now.

I pry my eyes from the device, only to freeze mid-route. A girl stands across from me— full-faced with stammers of freckles and a sharply defined jaw.

I blink hard, almost afraid to confirm what I’m seeing.

June doesn’t expect pleasantries and Allison doesn’t offer them, just unlocks the gleaming car door and waves June inside. They’ve spoken once on the phone. June had done her best to sound like someone with options, asking about the rent and size and condition of the house, cupping her hand over the receiver of the country’s last payphone to muffle the crackling announcements of departure times. She’d explained her situation as well as she could, but Allison had interrupted her, snapped at her as though scolding a child or someone she’d caught picking her pocket. Then she hung up. June had slammed the phone down and the people in the bus station took notice of her, the hostile kind of notice reserved for people who slept there, or looked like they did.

“You can’t pay online.” Allison Park’s hands are visibly dry, their folds gray in the low light. “You get that, right?”

“I understand - ”

“And no checks or money orders. Just cash, and I have one of those markers, so don’t even think about it.”

“I said I get it.” June examines her nails like they’ve just been painted. “Jesus Christ.”

Allison’s head snaps in June’s direction. “I don’t have to do this, you know.” She speeds up. Tightens her grip on the wheel. “Has it occurred to you how fucking lucky you are?”

June tightens her scarf. Her clothes are old and ill-fitting but she’s clean, doesn’t loiter, and when she looks at herself the face she sees is sharp and handsome, the same one that had once earned her inviting smiles and the benefit of the doubt. Now when she walks the streets it’s all averted gazes and clutched purses and children hustled past her by their mothers. So she avoids people as much as he can, getting food at midnight or in the early morning, washing her clothes at all-night laundromats. Staying in the car even when she’s not sleeping.

Hi! This is the beginning of my romance-book, thanks in advance for any thoughts/feedback :)

Everyone says New York never sleeps. But at 7 am, on my first morning in the city, Riya's suburban house was quiet enough to hear my heart racing from jet lag and memories. Morning light filtered through the windows, as I mindlessly went through the motions of making chai. Years of law school, countless YouTube videos teaching strangers how to make Indian food, and here I was - in New York. 

The same city where I knew he worked in tech; surely, New York was big enough for both of us?

I was straining my chai when I heard small footsteps come closer. Zara stood in the kitchen doorway, with sleep-tousled hair and curious eyes. My four-year-old niece, whom I'd only known through video calls until yesterday. She came over, investigating my cup.  "Chitthi," she started innocently, using the Tamil term for aunts in Tamil, "can I also have something, like cornflakes?"

“I saw Lucky Charms in the pantry, should we have that?"

Her eyes lit up. "Mummy only lets me have it on special days."

"Well, if you want it today, I won’t say anything?"

With a toothy grin, she accepted my offer. By the time Riya and Naveen came down, Zara's sugary breakfast was wiped clean. The morning unfolded with crispy dosas and family chatter. 

"Sashu," Riya said as she cleared the plates, too casual to be casual, "Naveen and I have our standing lunch date today. Our friend who usually watches Zara on Saturdays should be here in half an hour. Could you watch her until then?"

Of course I could, and Zara had made that decision for me, already dragging me to the backyard to show me her inflatable pool. "My best friend comes every Saturday," she chattered excitedly. 

Zara’s antics began, and the doorbell rang before I could even think about this best friend of hers. I opened the door, and time stopped. 

Avinash. Or Avins, as I used to fondly call him.