The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - SwiftShadow - Aug. 17, 2011
Hi everyone! So, I came up with this idea for a story in May and I've been slowly developing it, since most of my time went towards Lost in Darkness, but I started writing this out. I really need feedback from people so I can know what to improve within the next few chapters. Just tell me what you like, don't like, what should be changed, but please don't just say "IT SUCKS!" or "It's great!" I really need some constructive criticism, and I would be happy to go back and rewrite or change anything to make it better.
The Arsonists
Chapter 1:
I woke up at 9:30 that morning, about half an hour later than I normally would. My once wonderful room was now just an embodiment of a sixteen year old's sadness. The walls were just a dull shade of white, and everything was torn off of them. I had overslept, my dad would be leaving for work soon. Mom would have woken me up.
The doorbell rang one time before I heard the wooden door creak open. I just laid there in my bed, overwhelmed by my depression. A gasp of pain soon came from the living room, followed by the slamming of a wooden front door. I could hear someone rummaging through the cabinets, and then a piece of metal landing on the table. What would have usually made me curious or nervous did nothing to my frozen mind now. I looked out of the window to see rain and a man in a black suit, walking towards a silver Corvette. He shook the rain out of his wavy black hair before getting into his car and driving away.
It approached 9:40 shortly afterwards, my dad would leave for work soon. I could hear his footsteps on the creaky wooden stairs as he walked up to my room. His brown eyes peered into the room as he opened the door, and I was faking that I was asleep. I didn't want to talk to anyone now. He didn't fall for my act and walked into the room. He sat down on the edge of my bed and spoke.
"I'm going to work Kyle," he said in a calm voice to me. I was a statue, not moving at all. "I'll be back later." He began to walk out of the room and my green eyes slowly opened. They jumped to a red stain on the left side of his white suit. He was covering it up with his tan hand, but it still stood out. His head turned around and his somewhat spiky black hair floated upwards. He smiled as he saw that I was now awake.
"Happy Birthday," he told me as he closed the door and walked away. I could hear his car start up and drive away about two minutes later. My mind had blocked out his last statement; there was no happiness left for me, and a stupid thing like that wouldn't bring any of it back. I used to love birthdays, but they just seemed meaningless now. Maybe I would have thought of it differently if mom had said that to me.
I finally got out of bed at about 1:00 PM, but I still didn't do much. The only thing that I was thinking about was food, so I went downstairs to get something to eat. The first thing that I noticed when I got there was blood. There was blood on the carpet, blood on the cabinets, and a bloodstained knife on the table next to an open first aid kit. I tried to ignore it, and it worked, but that was until I saw the dreadful letter from a few days ago on the table.
I had memorized everything that the letter had said, which wasn't anything special when I considered the capabilities of my memory. My mind replayed everything from that day. Dad and I getting the letter, us reading it, and out reactions to it were all imprinted in my mind. Mom was on a business trip and her car malfunctioned, causing her to crash and ultimately die. Almost everything about me had changed since then, even though it was a short amount of time. I hadn't smiled since I had read the letter.
I spent the rest of the day locked in my room sleeping, something which I had never done before. My dad got home at around 9:00, and despite my sleeping all day, I was still tired. The birthday celebration didn't last long at all, only consisting of dinner and a small cake that he had gotten from the supermarket. His present for me was great though, but I had no idea on how I was going to spend the 150 dollars.
I went up to my room shortly afterwards, but couldn't sleep at all. My depressed state must have been fading away because my curious nature was coming back. Dad hadn't been his self lately, always mumbling to himself going out of the house randomly. Then there was the knife on the table that morning, and the was he was acting during dinner. When he first got into the house, he was stumbling over his legs and could hardly keep his head up straight. But maybe I was just over thinking this. Maybe he just missed Mom. Maybe he just accidentally cut himself. Maybe he was just drunk. I brushed the thoughts out of my mind and my depression, and tiredness, slowly creeped back in.
I woke up at around 2:00 AM, it was still dark out. I had always been a heavy sleeper though, never waking up during in the middle of the night, unless it was an emergency. I closed my eyes and buried my head back in my blue pillow, try to fight away the heat. My body wouldn't fall back to sleep, and my mind kept drifting off, being swallowed up by an odd crackling sound from bellow. I knew that something was weird, something was out of place, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. I had realized it just before it was too late. Fire.
Chapter 2:
Throughout life you learn a lot of things about safety and what to do in an emergency. My mind wandered into what we had learned in school and our two monthly fire drills. The teachers told us to leave the building calmly and quietly. Now I realized how stupid those lessons actually were. In the middle of a life or death situation you act on your instincts, and fortunately, mine were good.
I rushed over to my desk at the side of my room and grabbed my wallet, money being an important thing based on the fact that we would probably lose everything in this fire. I shoved it in my pocket before going to my door and pressing my body against it. If it was hot, I knew that I would die, but if not, I had a slim chance of life. Luckily, it was the latter. As soon as the door opened, my nose filled with the scents of smoke and burning wood, both of which filed into my lungs and chocked the air out of me. I pulled my the collar of my shirt up in order to block m nose and mouth and decided to get lower on the ground.
The fire was crawling up the steps from the living room while I crawled through the hallway to my dad's room. He wasn't there though, he had already left, and I wasn't sure if this was good or bad for me. If he had made it out of the house, why didn't he come get me beforehand?
I willed my body back out of the room and moved a bit faster to make up for the lost time. Fire spreads quickly, it had now covered half of the hallway. My shirt wasn't offering me the best protection, as the smoke still drilled its way into my lungs and burned my eyes. I began to get dizzy, and almost toppled down the stairs into the fiery hell that used to be my living room. After barely catching my balance, I continued to crawl into the living room, and into the fire. My body was burning and I could see my skin peeling off inch by inch as heat and smoke burned my eyes and lungs.
Finally, my bloody arms managed to drag myself to the door, but I stopped after hearing voices. I slowly peered my head around the house and saw my dad standing across from six people in black suits. I looked around and noticed that there wasn't much fire outside, it had been started in the house. Then my eyes jumped back to the people and my dad.Â
"We already have the case," he said angrily and walked towards my dad. The two of them could have been brothers. They both had the same wavy black hair, but their eyes, not the color but the way that they looked at each other, greatly set them apart. In his left hand was a small silver briefcase. I didn't see anything important about it, but I knew that it was what he was talking about. "Just give us the code and we'll let you live."
"I'd rather die than give it to you," my dad started. It looked like he could hardly even stand up, and his body was slightly shaking and swaying. Maybe it was just the smoke that was playing tricks on me.
"You'll reach the same fate if you open that case."
"Just give us the code!" the other man screamed back at him. He lifted his right arm up and I could see he was holding something, something black, but it faded away into the night and I couldn't make it out. "Either you give it, or you die."
"Take your best shot," he said back, but it was a statement of victory, not defeat. He reached into his right pocket and pulled something out of it, but before he could do anything with it, the bullet drove into his head and he fell backwards. I wanted to rush over to him, to help him, to get out of this burning house, but I couldn't yet. Not until they had left.
"So what are we supposed to do now?" a blonde woman asked the man who had shot my dad. He turned over to her and she asked something else. "If he's dead, where are we supposed to get the code?"
"I've got my ways," he replied and motioned the group to walk away with him. They walked towards the woods, and I guessed that must have parked somewhere else if they were going that way. As soon as they made it to the entrance of the woods, I ran over to my dad. I couldn't recognize his face, it was all covered in blood, and a bullet hole was right in the center of his head. I looked down at him and saw a silver pistol in his hand, and acting on instincts once again, I grabbed it from his dead body and ran after them. Death had already taken my mother, and I wasn't going to let it have my dad without a fight.
I ran as quietly as I could, trying not to alert them that I was behind them. They were walking, so it was easy for me to catch up with them. As soon as I got within a range that I thought I could hit one of them, I raised up the gun and shot it. I had never used a real gun before, only those games at arcades, and I had spent a fair amount of time with Call Of Duty, so pulling the trigger of it was a feeling that was foreign. The black suits turned around as soon as they hear the gunshot, and the bullet flew right into the man all the way on the left sides chest. I looked at his face as his now dead body fell down to the ground and recognized him immediately. He was the man with the silver Corvette from the morning before. I pulled the trigger again, launching a bullet at the man in the man in the middle's head. Instead of it flying at him, he lifted his hand up and before it even touched him, the bullet bounced away.
"Chen, take care of the boy," the man in the middle of the group, the same man that killed my dad, said. The group turned away and continued to walk except for an Asian man on the right. I recognized him too, Chen Wong, the CEO of Wong Electronics, one of the biggest electronic companies in the world. He walked towards me and pulled a gun out of his right pocket and aimed it at me. I shot a bullet at him, aiming right for his heart, but I missed it and skimmed his left side. Before I had anytime to react, he fired a bullet at me.
My heart almost stopped as the bullet skimmed past my curly brown hair, into my white skin, through my left shoulder, and out of the other side. My vision went hazy, maybe because of the pain or maybe because of the smoke from earlier. I fell down to the ground, dropped my gun, and grasped my left shoulder with my right hand, which was almost immediately drowned with blood. My eyes jumped back up to Chen who was slightly laughing as he out his gun away and reached into his left pocket. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
He lit a cigarette and put it in his mouth before lowering the lighter to the ground and setting the grass, leaves, and some plants on fire. I could see his smile before he dropped the lighter and turned around to walk back to his group. My right hand left my shoulder and ripped part of my shirt off, which I used to try and make a dam for the river of blood. The flames around me engulfed the woods and spread quickly, while I just laid there, hoping it wasn't the end.
By the blood loss or the smoke, I knew that this wasn't going to end well at all. I tried to close my eyes and see if that would wake me up from this terrible nightmare, but nothing happened. Slowly, my vision began to turn black and my chest burned from the smoke filled air. I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth, like I had done in the house, but it did almost nothing, once again. I curled myself up, trying to keep from the flames but it was no use.
My vision was now completely gone and I was coughing like crazy. The left arm that I once had was now replaced with only pain and blood. I thought back to my mom and dad. At least I would be able to be with them once again. My eyes closed themselves, which wasn't a big change because I couldn't see anything in the first place, but I knew I would be better this way. Maybe death wasn't so bad, maybe things would be better. Those were the last things I could remember before my body stopped moving and just laid there on the burning forest floor.
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - TITAN - Aug. 17, 2011
I'm already obsessed with this! The idea of a completely depressed teen most likely being thrust into some sort of new life is really good! Although I notice a couple of grammar and spelling mistakes, I'll definitely be reading this!
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - SwiftShadow - Aug. 17, 2011
Thanks Titan Writer! I'm in the middle of proofreading and fixing mistakes so I would have an updated and edited version of this tomorrow, along with the next chapter. It's good to see that someone likes this story so far, and I haven't really even gotten into the plot yet.
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - Amber Rosario - Aug. 17, 2011
this is a great idea, but I hope you don't abandon lost in darkness to work on this
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - MakaCHOP! - Aug. 17, 2011
Great story! I agree with Titan Writer! I got hooked...and I hate stories! (I mean I don't hate reading just some don't pull me in)
Off topic:I dunno why but the begining sounded like that Friday song by Rebecca Black..
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - Minho - Aug. 17, 2011
Its a great story but the reason why i voted go back to writing lost in darkness is cause i really need to read the next chapter that comes out NOW!!!
i like how its telling you plainly whats happening yet it feels mysterious...
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - SwiftShadow - Aug. 17, 2011
Thanks for the feedback guys! I'm still going to work on Lost in Darkness, but I really wanted to get this idea out to and see what people thought of it. For some reason, even though I thought about Lost in Darkness more, this is easier for me to write. I guess that, and the fact that the chapters are shorter, is why I was able to finish Chapter 2 so quickly. I also edited the first chapter and made some changes like Titan Writer suggested. I hope you guys like it!
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - Amber Rosario - Aug. 17, 2011
nooooo he's dead already!? but this does let me do my prediction. he comes back to life with some sort of super power, right?
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - SwiftShadow - Aug. 17, 2011
You'll have to wait until later today or sometime tomorrow to see. I'm going to try and do a chapter a day for this story, since it is really easy for me to write this story and it isn't that much of a long and complex storyline like Lost in Darkness is.
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - Septentrione - Aug. 20, 2011
So this is your new idea...
I Love it! Pretty original if you ask me, and I got a hardtime finding mistakes in the story.
P.S. Kyle is my real name! And the name of my character in my new story.
You should check out my new story!
RE: The Arsonists (Non Beyblade Story) - SwiftShadow - Aug. 20, 2011
Oh, I forgot to update this! I've been doing a lot of work on summer assignments, I just started them and procrastinated way too much, and it has been sucking up all of my time. I've also been spending a lot of time on the design a beyblade face contest.
I figured out my schedule that I will use for updating this story. Until the end of August, I will try to post a chqptr everyday except for the weekends. If I miss a day, I'll either post it the next day along with the next chapter or just post it alone the next day and do the one that I was planning on doing for the day after that, so it would end with the chapter that was supposed to be on Friday be on Saturday. I'll be trying to follow this schedule as much as I can, unless I post something that says I will do it differently.
Thanks to everyone that has posted and given me feedback on this story! It really helps me to improve on my writing and I really appreciate it! In a few days, I will design a userbar and set up the same Become A Fan thing that I did for Lost in Darkness on this story. When I do set this up, please become a fan and show your support for this.
Now, about chapters 3 and 4. Due to the Summer Assignments and the face contest, I haven't been able to finish them. Chapter 3 is halfway done and I will post it later today. Chapter 4 will be up tomorrow, as long as the Reality Altering Hades Upheaval doesn't interfere with it. Afterwards, I will continue with this schedule as planned.
@XwailingX: Thanks for the feedback! It's cool that there is a name match with the character of my story and your name. I usually pick names based on symbolism, but I just thought that this name really fit he character. As for your story, I'll have to read it later today. I'm supposed to be asleep right now but a game of RISK that I played took a long time and now I'm laying in my bed on my iPad with my parents thinking I'm asleep. I'll read it as soon as I wake up, since I'm really tired, and my concentration really drops when I'm tired.
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