TITLE: Hole, Inc.
GENRE: Thriller
Young man finds himself entrapped in a secretive organization, knowing just enough to be a danger to them. He confronts one of the leaders.
And just like that I no longer felt cold, or wet, or curious. A quick, suffocating fury stoppered my ears, clamped my jaw shut with such force that a hot zigzag of pain shot straight up my face. I spun and was on him with all my weight, four years of high-school wrestling nowhere near forgotten, knocking him off his feet, onto his back, his head cracking against the doorframe.
Whether my hands were still numb and wet, or my anger skewed my aim, he managed to twist away, though not until I gave him a few heavy pummels to the kidneys and one to his ear.
He rolled to the side and shut the door, and as I bolted to my feet, ready to lunge again, he landed a solid punch to my temple. I crashed obediently to my knees, and only anger kept me from lying down on the rug and letting the black rush claim me. But I waited it out, waited for the booming in my ears to quieten, the darkness before my eyes to brighten, for reason to coalesce again. And he waited with me, as indifferent as a stone carving.
“I want to go home,” I said, fighting down nausea.
“Out of the question,” he said.
“I don’t even know what you are, I don’t know what you do. Let me go now before I find out more.”
“Out of the question.”
@!?* if I was going to continue this on my knees. I reached toward the wall and pressed my palm against it. Using that as support, I rose to my full height, swallowed down more bile.
Miss Snark's First Victim
Lots of great action here, I'm wincing from reading about these punches!
ReplyDeleteI think this section below could use some reworking, mainly word choices. Removing obediently still gets the point across without hampering the action. While quieten is a word, it tripped me up; for an action scene I think it would slow down a reader, especially considering brighten is used right after.
"I crashed obediently to my knees, and only anger kept me from lying down on the rug and letting the black rush claim me. But I waited it out, waited for the booming in my ears to quieten, the darkness before my eyes to brighten, for reason to coalesce again. And he waited with me, as indifferent as a stone carving."
I like that last line about the stone carving, which gives a little reflection from the action without going overboard.
Well written action.
ReplyDeleteA couple things gave me pause.
The last sentence of the first paragraph is a little long, with lots of commas. It makes perfect sense, i just noticed reading it.
The other was when the other guy rolled and shut the door. I thought he'd left and shut the door behind him. So I had the wrong image in my head for the next sentence. Didn't leave me confused for long, but did stop the action for a second in my head.
But I could certainly feel the tension and picture the action.
great fight scene! just change quieten to quiet! i will be borrowing ideas from this! (i need more organs and reactions)
ReplyDeleteespecially liked "the black rush" and "crashed obediently"
I thought this was a good descriptive fight scene. A lot of action words: zigzag, lunge, spun etc added to visualizing the motion in the fight.
ReplyDelete"... clamped my jaw shut with such force that a hot zigzag of pain shot straight up my face." That is another good use of description, the old show don't tell. I could feel that.
Hard from these snippets sometimes to tell where a character is. I'm sure reading the whole scene I would know why he was wet. That is the only thing that I didn't get, was why/how he was wet. School pool, sweat? But like I said, reading the whole scene would most likely tell me.
Nicely done. A good action scene and good wrestling techniques are described. The pain and the reasoning of the MC comes out beautifully.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I like the piece. You are able to establish the tension, fear, and fight in the protagonist.
ReplyDeleteI found the first three paragraphs a little wordy, but I seem to be the only person, so maybe its just me. There are a lot of long sentences broken up with commas which I found distracting for an action scene.
Also, I was a little confused about the MC's first sentence, "I want to go home." He seems like a fighter, he fights off a grown man, fights off passing out, the pain, etc. So, his first words seem a little weak and inconsistent with the action.
Overall though, good job.