TITLE: The Cobalt Mask
GENRE: YA Dystopian
"Don't." I grabbed my ten-year-old trainee's wrist and saved his hand from the spinning blades. "The turbine will eat your hand in seconds. Pluck your fingers right from their sockets."
The youngster snatched his hand away in alarm.
"Always turn it off first." I waded through the shallow water and flipped the breaker. The steady thrumming of the blades ground to a stop, and the rush of the river buried us.
I kicked a metal bucket across the concrete floor. It stopped beside the trainee, and he filled it with debris from the clogged turbine. Once the idle blades were clean, I sent him up the tight access tunnel to the dam. I trusted no one to seal the lower hatch.
Seven years earlier, my own ten-year-old gaze fixed on the ungainly wrestling match between corpse and would-be rescuers as they extracted my own trainer from this very tunnel.
"They'll send him downstream," a fellow trainee said offhand.
"Downstream?" I asked.
"You know, downstream. He's no good to anyone now."
"Right." I pretended to know. No one I knew had ever gone downstream.
Workers heaved the corpse over the dam. The roiling waters swallowed it, but the bloated husk resurfaced and drifted away as its vacant eyes watched the sky. My mind replayed its final living moments as a jumbled loop of outstretched fingers and panicked eyes engulfed by dark waters that surged and gnashed at my heels. I'd come this close to being its companion, a discarded thing adrift downstream.
Really liked this scene, the sense of danger, the morbid, and monotonous. Oh, just someone else dead but as the reader you're jolted by death. I do question the mentioning of what happened 7 yrs earlier because, unfortunately, it gets a tad confusing whether what follows after that mentioning is in the past or the present.
ReplyDeleteGreat description of the danger, but I don't really know or like the MC. Maybe start with what is challenging the MC?
ReplyDeleteKeep tweaking...
I like the unique setting this opens with! I'd definitely read on. The only minor quibble I have is with a 17YO using the word "youngster"--I imagine someone grandfather-aged using that word, not a teen. But the rest really puts me in the scene. Good job.
ReplyDeleteInteresting set-up, but I wonder why the trainer is being referred to as an 'it'? Did the mc not care for the trainer?
ReplyDelete'its final living moments' makes me think the mc is callous and not just careful - which I think is what you were going for.
I was intrigued by the setting. It was different, and not something you come across very often. But the opening doesn't give any indication of what the story will be about. He saves a kid's hand from the turbine and remembers losing his trainer.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'd like to know is where is he, who is he, and what's his problem in the dystopian world you 've created. Perhaps work that into your opening.
There's some interesting stuff here. I was a bit confused as to what they were actually doing (probably I just read it too fast). But the setting intrigues me enough to keep going.
ReplyDeleteGood, but watch your tenses - you really need to say my own ten-year-old gaze HAD fixed ... - and why would the corpse be bloated until the trainer had been in the water for days (would it have taken that long to extricate him?)?
ReplyDeleteI think you started with a good bit of action, showed the mc to be sympathetic, and upped the tension with the introduction of the body. Although the main points are good, a number of things stuck out to me.
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(add or comments)
The youngster snatched his hand away [in alarm]. (Unnecessary.)
The steady thrumming of the blades ground to a stop, and the rush of the river buried us.
(Thrumming is a sound and cannot grind to a stop. The blades can grind to a stop.)
(The lack of 'had' in the flashback confused me. I didn't know for how many paragraphs the flashback went on. I actually thought the corpse was discovered in the present.)
"They'll send him downstream," a fellow trainee said [offhand]. (offhandedly or in an offhand manner.)
The roiling waters swallowed it, but the bloated husk resurfaced and drifted away as its vacant eyes watched the sky. My mind replayed its (its refers to the sky--why doesn't the mc know if the body was male or female? It would be better to use 'his' or 'her' in place of its.) final living moments as a jumbled loop of outstretched fingers and panicked eyes engulfed by dark waters that surged and gnashed at my heels. I'd come this close to being its companion, a discarded thing adrift downstream. (I really like the final line!)
This part confused me, "The steady thrumming of the blades ground to a stop, and the rush of the river buried us.
ReplyDeleteI kicked a metal bucket across the concrete floor."
First you say the river buried them, but then you jump to him kicking a bucket across a concrete floor. Doesn't add up.
I'm honestly lost. Sorry :(
From your first word, I was pulled in... into the story, not the turbine! Both the care of the trainer-narrator and the danger of the scene hooked me right away. And tossing in the "No one knew I had ever gone downstream" made it sound like forbidden territory. I only question walking through water to shut off a breaker (zap!). Yes, I'd read on.
ReplyDeleteWhat I liked: The unusual opening, the straightforward way the narrator presents gruesome details from a casual perspective.
ReplyDeleteWhat needed work: It took me two reads completely understand the setting and what the characters were actually doing.
Also, the quick jump between the present to the flashback felt jolting so early in the manuscript.
Would I keep reading based on these sample pages? I’m interested in what’s going on, so yes.
Thank you too all who took time to read and give feed back. You've each given me something to think about, and your attention is greatly appreciated!
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