[WWYP - XIV] A tale of two men

[Deleted member]

A tale of two men​

The cell was damp, smelled of urine and there only was one light. Currently the only person in it was an old man with a scruffy beard.
He was lying down on one of the 2 small beds with his eyes closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. There was a knock on the door followed
by a shout from a guard. “Opening cell door!” The eyehole was opened and the guard yelled again. “Stay where you are!” The old
man raised a thumb in acknowledgement but did not bother getting up from his bed.

The door opened and another prisoner was pushed in. His shackles were undone and the cell door was closed again.
The new prisoner was a younger man, though his face looked much older. He sat down on the other bed and looked around the cell.
“Ew, what is that smell?”
“Urine probably.” Muttered the old man. “Oh okay.” The younger man fell silent for a few moments.

“So what are you here for?” Asked the young man. “Piracy, theft and some other things. I’ve been doing it for years now and don’t
even know how they caught me. Last couple days have been somewhat of a blur. So what about you?”
“Attempted murder. Should have been murder though.”
“What stopped ya?”
“They did.” Pointing his thumb to the door.
“Like at your home or something?”
“No, pretty much on top of the guy.”
“Sounds serious, is there a story behind that?”
“Actually there is. It started when I was a mere child of four and I lived with my widowed mother in the slums near the harbor.
We didn’t have much but we got by. Then one day she bumped into a man, some gambling good-for-nothing lowlife. He too did not
have much, but he had a charming smile and a set of beautiful blue eyes, eyes so perfect they could drown oceans. My mother
could not resist those eyes, and took him in our small home, let him eat our food, and let him sleep with her in my father’s bed,
who had died just months before.

Soon it became clear he was robbing us of our every penny just to gamble, and by the time there was no money left for us
to eat he vanished, leaving nothing behind but his gambling losses and a foul stench. It did not take long before they took from
us our home, but when they did come, my mother lost it. She was put in a mental clinic. We had no money so they didn’t actually
treat her, they just locked her up in a room. They let me sleep in the staff quarters. Eventually she died. I was with her on that
day setting next to her bed when she spoke her last words: Burn him, burn that man and his damned eyes. Burn it all.

I cried of course. Cried for months until a local blacksmith picked me up and let me in as his cleaning boy. I wasn’t happy
but it filled my stomach. Every day I worked hard but every day I thought about the revenge I would inflict upon the man that
killed my mother. One day I overheard my boss talk to some traders and they told him about a dangerous pirate with beautiful
blue eyes. It had to be him, only he had such perfect blue eyes.

So I set out to hitchhike after the trail of gossip and rumors, hoping I would find that man. Eventually I found the bar he
went to, the bar he and his crew went to, to lavish themselves on beer in celebration of the ruination of yet another person’s life.
I got my hands on a small boat by then, and when he left the bar I followed him, chased him across the galaxy. For three months
he was nothing more than a speck on the horizon, a black dot I hard with all my being.

Then that one night I closed in on the pirate captain, and in the vast emptiness of the ocean I could hear the words of my
mother sing: Burn him, burn that man and his damned eyes. Burn it all. I boarded the ship, worked myself a way to the captain’s
cabin. His awoken crew at my heel to try and stop me but I didn’t care. I was only there for my revenge. I knocked the door in ready
to deliver my vengeance upon him. But I was too slow. Some of the crewmembers caught up to me and pinned me down. But they
were not the only ones, as royal navy soldiers poured into the room. Their ship had been tailing me since I left the damn bar, but I
never gave them much thought but now they ruined my plans, in the horrible smelling captain’s cabin with nothing left but an angry
stare.”

By now the old man sat upright on his bed. He knew that story already, it was his story. He looked up to the younger man in terror
now, as he knew what was coming. The younger man pulled a knife from his pocket, and asked one last question: “Seriously though,
what is that smell?”
Before the old man could answer he got jumped on, and he could only answer with screams.
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890 words

 

[Lore]

Mind spacing it out? It would be a lot easier to read.

Anyway, I kinda liked it. It just needs a bit more of an introduction, I think.

 

[DerpDaBerp]

1.
I agree with Werekill, you have a good number of words available still to ease us into the premise.

The beginning is kind of just like, "BAM, who what where when why."

2.
The tension between these two people is kind of hindered by us knowing the blue-eyed man was the kid's target from the very beginning. Perhaps reveal that toward the end and find a different reason for the kid to tell his story.

3.
Space is cool, but your story is in space for no reason. That is to say, no important detail in the story demands it be science fiction. It doesn't have to be a classical pirate setting either, of course. But if you're going to make it futuristic, you ought to empower the details in your story with the coolness a science fiction setting is begging you to emphasize.


Hope that helps

 

[Slim_X]

Nice! Make more!

 

[GoldShadow]

Agree with what Derp said regarding the space setting. It especially rang true for me during the opening paragraph:

“Ah, you are awake, do you know where we are?” yelled the younger of the two men across the room. The other man grunted and shook his head. “Well in that case let me explain. We are on a Type-B prison ship, and probably on our way to capital planet to be tried in court for piracy. Does that ring any bells?”

This dialogue in particular seems a bit artificial, like it was put in expressly for the reader (instead of sounding like a natural thing the character would say), and it bothered me because the point of this little dialogue is to introduce us to the space/scifi/future setting, even though the story doesn't take advantage of the space/scifi/future setting.

The tension between these two people is kind of hindered by us knowing the blue-eyed man was the kid's target from the very beginning. Perhaps reveal that toward the end and find a different reason for the kid to tell his story.

Agree wholeheartedly with this, too. It takes away from the suspense knowing exactly what the story is leading up to.

That said, I think you actually did a good job with the story within a story, and even if the concept of that story is nothing new (man ruins child's family, child grows up and seeks out man to exact revenge) your execution of it was good enough that I kept reading, and would've kept reading even if your entry were longer.

Just that the suspense, tension, and predictability could use some work.

 

[Deleted member]

thanks for the input, updated the opening and ending