My short story

Hey Guest, I hope you like my story!

Negative Twelve

By Emzink

I strolled through the streets of my home, Canan. My school friends Launa, Shaw and I chatted lightly in the exquisite language that to me was so precious. We could see the Rebels protesting on the other side of the street. Their marches were common now. We didn’t understand what they were opposing. We were too young to know. My dad pulled me into the house. He warned me once again that the Government would hurt me. He said bad things happen to you if you are near the Rebels. I didn’t understand what they could do.

In a swirl of events, I now saw my family and I, along with our neighbors sitting in a large building. We’d been there a long time. In what seemed like a second, big, scary people started talking. I spoke a little of their language. They wanted all they youth to join them in the other room. He said that we were here because of the Rebels causing problems, but that we must continue our studies. My good friend Jayne’s parents refused to let her go, but to no avail. I heard my mother cry out, “Zhermia!” I tryed to say goodbye, but could not. We all went into this room and before we knew anything, we were sent on a large bus.

Nervously I talked with my best friend Tayos, her brother Murkos, his friend Wald, and my other friend, Melle. We didn’t know what was happening. We were being taken away.



I sat up from my bed, horrified by the dream that I kept having. The dream that replayed reality. Tons of children were here, having no idea what had happened, only that we were orphans and that the nice people here were trying to save us from the Rebels. All lies. I was only 10 when they took us away. I was much older now, near 15. No one kept track at camp.

I sat on the edge of my bed for a second, composing myself from the shock of the all-too realistic dream. I shivered in the pale blue night clothes that I was wearing. It was obviously a hand-me-down and was now so thin and worn. I crept out of the cabin dorm, not caring about the rules. I had to meet up with Hannah, my old friend from home. The cabin floor creaked, forcing me to freeze in my tracks. The floor stopped creaking, thank God. I tiptoed out of the door safely. There I met with Hannah, her strong, sharp features obvious even in the dark.

We walked to the main lodge and saw that a group of newbies had arrived. I remembered the welcome speech. One of the main guards or a doctor or teacher leaves their normal duties to welcome the group. This time it was Ms. Larson, our teacher.

She said, “Welcome to Camp Purify, located at the brink of the greatest city ever: Mael. I am so sorry that you came here. You poor orphans! Your parents died in an horrible accident caused by the mean Rebels and you are all acting so brave.” It was clear that she was dumbing it down for the children. These folks always thought that we were inferior.

Hannah laughed and said sarcastically. “An earthquake, sure. More like,” She paused and stood up straight and made her voice really high pitched to mock Ms. Larson. “We stole you away from your homes and are going to give you lies to satisfy your curiosity. Here are new names and we hope you will forget your dreadful past living in a place where you were allowed to dream and be yourself!” She groaned and said in her normal tone of voice, “If you’d like to listen to this longer, be my guest, but meet me at the edge of the woods. I happened to get a meeting of kids there to explain what we know. See you soon, don’t take long.” Then Hannah was gone.

I looked back at the lodge, knowing what came next was the worst. Sure enough, then came Ms. Larson saying, “We would like to give you a new life here at Camp, and if you are good and follow our rules, you will be rewarded.”

A little girl with a yellow coat that was many sizes too large and short brown pigtails asked, “What do you mean a new life?”

Ms. Larson gave her a fake smile. “Let me make this simple.” She pointed to herself. “Ms. Larson.” She pointed to the first child in line, a girl with loose blonde curls. “Maggie.”

She girl shook her head. “Kelano Devon” She corrected proudly. I briefly smiled. Her name, Kelano, was in my old language meaning “Priceless.” She was probably priceless to her parents. She was lost to them forever.

Ms. Larson snapped her fingers and pointed at her. “Maggie.” She insisted. Not waiting for Kelano to disagree again, she went on to the next child, a boy with a faded green hat and soft, childish facial features. “Richard”

A protest formed on his lips in the shape of his name: Gentan, but he swallowed and let his eyes fall downwards. Ms. Larson smiled and nodded. She went down the line, giving new names to the children.

As she finished she said, “ I hope we will follow the rules here at camp. We will use a point system. You start with zero and work your way to 12. Be warned though, doing bad things will result in points being taken away. You don’t want that to happen, I assure you.”



A deep voice from behind me snapped me back into reality.“It’s far too late for you to be outside Anne. You have work tomorrow.” The voice suddenly boomed. Then someone else grabbed my arm.

“Let me go!” I protested. My cries fell on deaf ears.

“What in the heck are you doing up so late, Hmm?” A scratchy voice pressed. I cringed. I knew I was outnumbered, and Hannah was long gone.

“ And to think you are at level 10, so very close. We thought you were valuable and mature. It makes me so disappointed to see you act this way. I am going to have to move you down to level 5.” The deep voice chided as they led me to my cabin.

I let mock tears flow down my cheeks. Ever since Hannah and I found out what one would do after reaching 12 points, it wasn’t a life goal for me anymore. Then again, reaching -12 was worse.

The people found my cabin, and we went inside. They demanded that I lie down. I complied sleepily. Though I wanted to resist, I was too tired.



The next morning Hannah came up to me. We were on ditch duty digging deep ditches for whatever reason they wanted. No one bothered to ask. “Why weren’t you there last night? You were expected to help me talk to others” Hannah whispered, “We were supposed to tell them what we know.”

“I got caught.” I mumbled defensively.

“So?” Hannah demanded, “You need to stand up, Zhermia!”

“Please Hannah, if the guards should hear us…”

“Using our real names? Honestly Zhermia. My name is Tayos, which means spirited. You are Zhermia which means-”

“Beautiful freedom” I finished quietly. I loved my name and it connected me to my family, and losing it was worse than anything else the guards could do.

“When we were little we called each other Zermi and Tay-Tay.” Hannah added in a soft whisper.

I snapped out of my pitiful trance and said sharply, “But to the guards we are Hannah and Anne. You must be careful of what you say and do. Literally one or two more slip-ups and you have -12 points. You know what they do then.” Hannah stayed silent in refusal and denial. “They decide you are no longer able to be reformed to their society and take you away. They perform medical experiments,” I stressed, hoping to get through to her.

“What does it matter?” Hannah asked solemnly. “I received news that my older brother, Murkos-”

“Isaac,” I corrected.

“Murkos,” She insisted, “Reached 12 points. He was sent to his family, to serve them until death. He made no mistakes, but this little 13-year-old punk kid smacks him! Murkos defended himself by hitting back, but the kid told on him.

“What happened to Murkos- err, Isaac?” I asked worriedly.

“He was tortured in front of a group of rebellious kids here at camp before being put to death.” She paused in reverent sorrow. “I was in that group of kids.”

I let a genuine tear slowly fall and I choked a sniffle. There had been much sorrow with us, but losing Murko-Err, Isaac in this way was very hard. It was surely unbearable for Hannah.

As if reading my mind, Hannah roughly threw down her shovel.

“No breaks Hannah!” Warned the nearest guard as he hit the back of her head with his club. He seemed hesitant to hit her, but would hit her harder if he had to.

“My name is not Hannah.” She spoke resentfully through clenched teeth.

“Hannah, no!” I warned anxiously.

Hannah grimly smiled in rebellion. “My name is Tayos,” She continued while pointing at children we knew from back home or she’d talked to on the way here. “This is Quincell: Boy of great pride, this is Narie: bringer of peace, this is Jamen: brave hearted, this is,” She paused and looked at me. Her eyes met mine. She knew she was going to die soon, and practically seemed to accept it. “This is Zhermia: Beautiful Freedom.”

With that the guard hit her with a spare shovel and Hannah fell to the ground, the muddy dirt staining the side of her dark blue shirt where she was lying. She whispered softly to me in a language I’d almost forgotten, the language of our homeland. She said, “Zhermia, bring freedom to these children. Defy these horrible people and find a way home.” She looked up dreamily and rolled to her back. “Home!” She whispered and the guard delivered another blow. My mind shrieked and my breathing became shaky and shallow. He picked up her unconscious body and sneered when he faced me.

“Get back to work.”




The End

I'm writing this part before I read it- okay, so I'm going to record thoughts and comments as I go. BEGINNING TO READ NOW!

STARTING OFF- Ooh, I like the title.

FIRST PARAGRAPH- I like the rhythm of the first paragraph, although I would suggest having a few longer sentences towards the end. It worked for a while, but then they began to feel a tiny bit choppy, although well-written and well-paced. Maybe combine a few of them? Conjunctions are good for improving sentence structure. Something like 'Their marches were common now, but that didn't mean we understand what they were opposing.' It's good so far, though. Oh, and I'm confused about the last bit. Maybe have a new paragraph from thought to action or something to indicate she was walking, thinking, then being pulled inside? Where did her friends go? This'll probably be answered as I go along, huh? Okay, going on...

SECOND PARAGRAPH- I'm switching to just notes. Nice language/vocabulary. A bit confusing for me, but I do this a lot in my writing as well: it makes sense to the author, because the author knows what's happening around the character, and the reader isn't necessarily supposed to understand. I'm hoping later there will be a 'my family and I live in a world where blahblahlblah' or something. ^^ Oh- big, scary. This makes the character seem younger. If she's younger, that's great, it gives her a voice. If not, different words would be better to match with previous words like 'exquisite.' You could also put the adjectives out of order. (ex: In what seemed like a second, people, big and scary, started talking. -OR- In what seemed like a second, people started talking. Big people. Scary people. -OR- You could just leave it. it's fine.) Oh, but it seems a little dramatic ('in what seemed like a second') for people to just be talking. I'm intruiged by the plot, though, although still confused. Ooh, this is cool. It feels very 'real.' Not like I'm in the story, per say, but it feels like something a real person would say, and is reminiscent of oppressed or underdeveloped foreign countries. I'm reminded of this film I watched for some class or something (it's bugging me that I can't remember, now ) where this kid had to pretend he was Jewish so the Jewish refugee helpers would save him or something and then he went to this camp where they checked their family to see if they really were Jewish. Not because the Jewish people were in control, but because they just happened to have a team of helped coming to to help at that particular time. This was probably in Hebrew School, then. Nevermind, sorry.

3rd- Good. Short and sweet. An absent comma after the first word, but nothing to worry about. You could even take of the 'ly' and change it from an adverb to an adjective, making it describe her and not the way she is watching, but either way is fine. Just presenting options. Oh, one other thing- continuity and contradictions. If they don't know what's happening, how to they know they're being taken away? Oh, or have a synonym for 'taken away' Maybe add something to explain that, like "We didn't know what was happening. All we knew was that we were being stolen from out families, our old lives, even ourselves." Okay, sorry, I like making things dramatic.

4th- Wow, I make lots of comments. Don't feel pressured to read them all. Okay, um, reading. HA! I get it! Okay, the other stuff about the confusion is fine now, it makes more sense if it's a dream. I'd change the word 'having' to 'with' where it says the children have no idea. Hm, tense. Tense is a bit of a problem. It's confusing to me whether the protagonist is in the past tense or not at some point, especially when she (He? I've lost track, sorry. My fault, not yours.) speaks about the past that is even further back. There is no 'now,' but the character speaks as if they are in a 'now.'
OH! I know what it is! It's just that it says 'I was much older now.' That's all. It makes a little sense, I guess, but if you can fine another way to say it, that's be great. Sorry. The tense is fine other than that.

5th- Pick a different word than sat, either here or at the start of the 4th paragraph. Just a little note. Ooh, that's a good line, though, other than that, but add a dash in all-too-realistic where I just added it. Ooh, pretty descriptions. Hm, I'd replace 'so' with something like 'very' or 'quite' or 'fairly' or 'rather' in order to make it sound neater, or add something after worn or before that phrase. (eg. ...and was now so thin and worn that... um.... my skin shone through the runs in the fabric like bitter moonlight through fearsome clouds.) Okay, don't write what I wrote, it's weird. I like element-related adjectives. Good next line, hmm... why does she need to meet up with Hannah? That's not a note, that's me being curious. Hm... maybe something other than 'forcing me to freeze.' It just seems a little repetitive, what with two verbs in a row. I like the alliteration, but you should consider taking out forcing. It's not a big deal, though. Hm. it seems like the creaky floor was let go of a little too easily. Something about the character's reaction other than freezing, like their heart stopping or their breath quickening or something if they're shocked/scared. Oh, and you should probably put a transition before 'the floor stopped...' like 'then, the floor stopped' or, like you used earlier to symbolize time speeding up, 'it felt like I'd waited hours when the floor finally stopped...' or something. Ooh, nice last line.

6th- Okay, this is story is too long for me to analyze every paragraph. You probably get the general idea by now. It's just little things. I'm just going to review after I read from now on:

-Wait, wait, wait, earthquake? What earthquake? Oh well. Moving on...

-Ooh, I'm liking this idea. The naming scene is kind of awesome. Oh, yeah, I guess I lied about commenting afterwards. Well, I'm just not doing paragraph by paragraph with a paragraph in response, you know?

-Ooh, drama! I'm at the part where the voice grabs her. Ha! I knew it was a girl! Sorry about before, I didn't want it to turn out to be a boy after saying it was a girl. I'm sure the gender was clear when I read it, but then I spent a while on the comments and forgot.

-Oh, I get the Negative Twelve thing now! Ha!

-Hehe, alliteration. Love it!

-This name-related scene sounds a little too much like you are trying to describe their history and names, and not like a conversation someone would have. It's not a big problem, but it's noticeable.

-Awww! Poor Isaac-Murkos!

-You're missing a few commas throughout this. Just a note.

-Yay, the climax of the story! Very dramatic and well-placed. I'm happy so see the explanation came along.

-Omigosh, I love the ending so much I might just steal it! Just kidding, I won't steal it. It's an amazing ending, though. AANNNNND an amazing story, albeit some little issues with commas and word choices and sentence structure, and reminds me of when we watched 'Hotel Rwanda' in Global Studies. (That's a big compliment.) Very relate-able. Funny, spell-check thinks relate-able needs a dash. I did not know that. Never-mind. Spell-check likes dashes/hyphens/whatever.

So, all in all:

THINGS YOU NEED TO IMPROVE IN:
Comma placement.
Sentence structure.
Clarity.

THINGS THAT ROCKED:
Descriptive words.
Pretty much the entire end-ish part of the story.
THE ENDING!!!!!!!!!
Idea.
Emotion.
Voice.

Great job! With a little editing, this story could honestly be amazing! Are you writing this for school, if you don't mind me asking?

Yeah, I did. I'm thinking of expanding it though.
Thank you for your comments!