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Novel Treatments / Relatively Superhuman: Prologue
Of course, my worldview had been violently altered many times before. After each instance I prayed, wished, even dared to believe it was the last time, but I always felt deep down that I was wasting my optimism.
Turned out I was right.
That morning, after I accidentally killed the love of my life, I didn’t pray, wish, or believe anything―not in defiance of any higher power, it was just that in those few seconds after it happened I was busy becoming a different person. Who wouldn’t be?
This is what happens when you learn that the unscheduled changes in your past, were mere stun grenade explosions. You realise that they can’t compare to the annihilation caused by the H-bomb now dropped in your path.
I had asked Ellie to marry me.
She collapsed and died.
I had no idea why.
The gallery where it happened was the upper floor of a barn until I converted it for her a few months earlier. That building, and the farmhouse we lived in next door, merely dotted southern France’s wintered landscape. Inside and out, it was just the two of us, locked in by three kilometres of snow-covered farmland in every direction. Funny how the most blissful situation flips into hell on earth when one of you leaves.
The sound of Ellie’s impact on the wooden floor bounced off the gallery’s white walls, weakening a step further to silence each time, like her heart’s final beats. And they were final, those beats; I knew that more than I knew anything.
She ended face up with that red silk dress draped around her like carefully poured blood. Long hair even blacker than the ebony floor. Arms sprawled out as if presenting a final desperate question: Why, Lukas? Why would you do this to me?
The sequel to the Big Bang took place inside me. Only the hyper-sped birth of new galaxies around my innards could produce such agony.
Why Lukas?
I didn’t have an answer. How could I, when I wasn’t expecting this either, when I didn’t even know how I’d done it?
Though shaking like mad I couldn’t move voluntarily, not even to crouch beside her. To do so would mean to believe, understand and accept it was happening. So I was moving, yet I wasn’t; her eyes were that way too, still sparkling like emeralds though fixed on one spot. In fact, the two of us seemed set in hardened resin, like the sculptures that sat in amber-filled Perspex cases around us, flooded in a world that wasn’t so clear or so flexible anymore. I’d joined their club.
I hauled one coherent thought from the chaos: Do something!
Until that day I’d never seen any reason to extend the phone line from the farmhouse, where my mobile phone presently lay on the oak dining table. I wondered if I should run and grab it.
But what will they tell me anyway?
“Monsieur, vous devez la réanimer...”
Of course…resuscitation.
I fell out of my suspension, planted my hands on her chest, and pumped, counting in cycles of thirty.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five...
My memories of killing for the French Foreign Legion had been blurred for years. Not altogether gone of course, just hazed over. The memory of this murder though, wouldn’t fade. Not a bit.
Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen...
After all, how could I forget the contrast of my black hands pumping her pale chest?
Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-Six...
Or the fear of potentially cracking her fragile ribcage under my muscular weight?
Thirty. One. Two. Three...
Or the sickening sensation of loss already rising in me like lava, while she grew cooler by the second?
Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve...
“Come back, Ellie! Come on!”
Something else I’d never forget, whether I revived her or not, was the vile sensation she experienced at the moment she died―because I felt it too.
When she breezed into the gallery ten minutes earlier, her lily-scented perfume washed over me, but that was only a fraction of what I sensed from her. By closing in on me, she brought herself within range of what I call my radius, but what experts call clairsentience―a type of physical empathy.
It spread over her like a ripple in a pond then reported back to me like sonar, reproducing her physical sensations in my body. So when I uttered those words that were like a knife to her heart, they were also like a knife to my heart. Then she collapsed, and my radius told me in no uncertain terms that the love of my life was dying. I felt it like I’d drunk caustic acid, which dissolved my throat as it slid down it, spreading hungrily through my chest and to my stomach, rapidly devouring the feast of vulnerable tissue like something starved.
Then, nothing.
…twenty-nine, thirty. One, two, three…
I kept at the compressions with a tempered franticness, although what little hope I held at the start had dwindled away to almost nothing. Arms stiff over her, conduits for the baritone beats in my chest to somehow transfer to hers.
That universe still expanded inside me, spawning new stars here and there, black holes looking for places to hunker down and feast on my spirit. I felt it painfully performing these galactic tasks inside me.
The closest I’d ever come to this emotion was a year earlier, when Ellie waited for me there at the farm while I was trapped in Moscow, positive I’d never escape or see her again. The FSB, Russia’s secret service, dispatched my photo to every port via e-mail, fax and courier accompanied by bright red lettering:
Разыскивается! Особо Опасный Преступник!
Wanted. Extremely dangerous criminal―apparently.
Chasing while being chased, I finally managed to break through the FSB’s iron curtain to join Ellie in France.
That was when I gave her the red silk dress as a present. The moment she unwrapped it remained clear in my mind. She held it up against her front and glowed like a child.
“Lukas, Baby! It’s so beautiful! I love it!” She spun around, holding it to her chest, the hugest grin spanning her face until her black hair swung over it. She then changed gear, staring at me, still happy, but subdued. She landed a hot kiss on my lips, and said: “Can I save it for a special occasion?”
Now, I didn’t appreciate the irony of her request, with her lying in red in front of me on what should arguably be the most special occasion of our lives.
…sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…
At the tail end of that recollection, a flash of realisation struck me: in Moscow, I was involved with people who were expert at killing―by speech.
I filed it away for now.
Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…
An article I'd stumbled on at some point said that mouth-to-mouth was no longer in vogue in the medical world, just compressions, but I still selfishly craved one last warm kiss. I felt annoyed with myself when I realised what that desire actually meant―it meant I was accepting that she was indeed gone for good. Perhaps because I could tell that the chest compressions weren’t doing a damned thing―I didn’t need clairsentience to figure that one out.
Kneeling beside her still, I felt like my lungs had vanished. I searched desperately for a miracle in the black rafters, in the whitewashed bricks and the huge sash windows. There had to be one. That was what we were about after all: unusual abilities.
Evidence of hers sat on those white plinths silently judging me. Sixteen sculptures in total. Eight of them in a line stretching away on either side of us, evenly spaced along the narrow high-ceilinged room. Those on the right were reasonably traditional, of wildlife from the local countryside rendered in a unique impressionistic style. London’s National Portrait Gallery liked that style so much that they granted her an exhibition of her human works eighteen months earlier.
The remaining sculptures on the left weren’t of anything she discovered on our farm though. She’d seen those ones in her head first―then the original versions on CNN or in Le Monde, the national newspaper.
Disasters of all kinds visited her mindscape in the space between wakefulness and dreams, weeks, months, sometimes years in advance of their actual occurrences. She rendered those incidents in the more enduring materials of steel, iron or bronze, not clay like the others. Airplanes, crashed into numerous edifices, both accidentally and intentionally. Blue-tinted resin, representing the sea, swamping tectonic plates and land masses made of metal. Sealed blocks of hardened resin cleverly capturing explosions halfway through. She had even done one of the blast that nearly killed me in Cambodia, years before we met.
There was an odd sculpture that stood out, one of the first of hers I’d seen over a year ago in London. A small bronze, simple, of a couple sitting on a floor facing and holding each other tenderly.
I loved all of her works normally, but right then they filled me with bile. Why couldn't clairvoyants ever foresee their own deaths? I hated clichés. How was it fair that after nearly twenty years of searching she finally finds me, then for this to happen a year later? I hated tragedies too. And what was the point in my being trained to protect and to kill, and to instinctively know which of the two was required at any given moment, only for me to do this to the person that's closest to me? I added irony to the shit-list.
I crouched and raised her lukewarm upper body from the ground, squeezing her to me. That universe shifted again, interfering with the rhythm of my breathing, setting off tears that washed my face in hot brine.
“How could I have killed you...just by asking you to marry me?”
Not by a bullet to the head, or a blade jabbed into the neck at a deep downward angle, or by sharply twisting the head too far. No. Just by speaking to her.
It was all rhetoric anyway. I knew exactly who was responsible for it; I just didn’t know how. The signature―death by speech―was inimitable. They’d be my next stop, and with their last breaths they’d explain how they’d infected me with their repulsive ability, without me being aware of it for a whole year. Most of all, they would explain why.
I kissed the forehead of my eternally mesmerising―fiancée. Yes. Fiancée. The coolness of her skin on my lips shocked me, as if I shouldn’t have expected it. It emptied me even more, multiplying my tears and triggering the birth of a guttural yell. I threw my head back to release the scream―but was silenced by what I noticed above us.
It was the bronze again, of the two figures sitting embracing each other. This time I didn’t miss it.
We had never sat on the floor like that.
Not once.
It could only mean one thing―there was a way to bring her back.
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D_W_Pederson reviewed Version 1 -
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You have an exciting, descriptive writing style. This is a good start. It was a bit difficult to read because of formatting problems (not your fault) of the Urbis site. Just a couple minor things: still some spelling errors (realize, kilometers, realization, clairvoyance, mesmerizing). Be sure to check these before submitting. After reading this I feel more is needed. I’m not sure where you are going with it but keep working on the whole story. I would like to see if the rest is so compelling.
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lifeiwm_deathiwc reviewed Version 1 -
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i like it, i really dont know or cant think of any advice to give you on making it better
Rhonda9080 reviewed Version 1 -
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Having read a portion of this book and synopsis, I found this prologue very apropos to foreshadow the plot and charactization. As I got into further chapters, I found myself anxious to continue reading (not just from Thriller/Action adventure angle) but also because I knew with the romantic angle somehow shoes were going to drop in a bad way for Ellie and Lukas. Oh my God, when? Why? I had big,underlying question as I read…
VERY well done hook for a novel, which is what the prologue should do.
This closing line is indeed great foreshadowing for the rest of Part I, and keeps one ready to dive into Part II.
You write this just as it should be, raising questions for me, the reader, that I want so badly for the writer to answer for me.
It also gives us a good glimpse into the main character, Lukas, and we like him. We want things to turn out right for him (and Ellie—the love of his life) in the end.
I also like that you did this all without floridness and melodrama that this type of scene can also prompt.
Good work! The writing, in my humble opinion, has clarity and is flawless.
Spriglief reviewed Version 1 -
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It it were not for the title, I would have been wondering how she was killed. I still don’t know how, but the title lets me know that I don’t need to know. I was quickly hooked, reading rapidly. The way you did the count for the resuscitation, that was a nice touch to show his mental state. The only line I did not like was the last. It is not needed. ”Not once” is so final and yet the reader knows destiny brings her back to life. You throw that away with the last line. End the chapter with “not once.”
Deadsage reviewed Version 1 -
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Good intro, not heart-warming, but solid. Sentence structure gets a little comma heavy in places, and some analogies are allowed to run rampant, but overall I still dig it.
“it was just that in those few seconds after it happened” -this is clumsy with two unnecessary “it”s and the impression that this change took place in seconds. Why not – “I was [just] busy…”
I’m not crazy about the “you” instead of “I”, but it does work and it is only a matter of taste.
“stun [grenades]” – explosions is implied.
“Funny how … flips into hell on earth when one of you leaves.” – why not just let us experience this flip by our reaction to tragedy? We’ll know Lukas is in pain just by the events.
“like mad” -omit this.
“In fact, the two of us” -omit “In fact,”
“under my muscular weight” – I’d go with “Under my desperate compressions.” it adds assonance and avoids Lukas sounding braggy about his muscles.
“like sonar” – or more accurately – “like an echo”
“I felt it like … like something starved.” -this double-simile coupled with the awkward “I’d drunk” verbage caused stumbling. Maybe start with the burning sensation and end with the drinking acid simile?
“had dwindled away to almost nothing.” – “had dwindled” alone would cover it.
Hoffmane21 reviewed Version 1 -
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Sorry to start with your opening line, but I feel it would be stronger without the “Of Course.”
My worldview had been violently altered many times…
Funny how the most blissful situation flips into hell on earth when one of you leaves. -I’d try something like: It’s funny, how this blissful situation turned to feeling like hell after she passed.
Or: This blissful place turned into a scene from hell….
Though shaking like mad I couldn’t move -though shaking like mad[,] Comma
the hugest grin spanning -hugest sounds funky… A large grin, a huge grin…the biggest grin…
I like the ending line, it leaves it open. Does he figure it out? I can’t wait to know!
mrosec300 reviewed Version 1 -
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The only typo I could find—”She then changed gear, staring at me, still happy, but subdued. She landed a hot kiss on my lips, and said: “Can I save it for a special occasion?” ” should be ‘she then changed gears’ I think. Or at least I have never seen it the way you have it.
Other than that I thought this was amazing. I am hooked on your story and intrigued by the whole idea. You instantly grabbed my attention with your intro, how could I not read on when he had killed her by asking her to marry him?I love that you added in some mystery, not too much for a first chapter, but enough to make me think about your story after I am finished reading it, and possibly for the rest of the day.
Your ideas are interesting and different. You have the pair of clairvoyants who are in love, death by speech, the FSB, the meaning of her sculptures, and whether or not she can be brought back to life. Not to mention you brought all of these ideas together in a very cohesive manner.
Your writing is very smooth, and your voice is quirky. I love the way you have your main character think, and I like how you highlight his personality while he is counting for the CPR compressions. I think the amount of backstory you give is a good amount, enough for me to understand what is going on while not so much that you drag down the pace of the story.
I liked this a lot, if you couldn’t tell, and I would be interested to find out what happens next!
TerJa reviewed Version 1 -
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It is hard to tell if something is publishable based only on its prologue. Maybe you should hold off asking that until more is posted.
You have a good grasp of the language and a good vocabulary. Thanks, that makes for more intenting reading.
Minor and quite picky thing. When I learned CPR it seems to me we didn’t pump thirty times before resetting,it was more like twelve, followed by blowing into the mouth while holding the nose shut. I know the blowing is no longer common, but has the count changed?
I need more information before I can say this will attract agents. Standing by itself I’d say no. Prove you can produce on a schedule, that is one of the main things an agent looks for.
Finally, again, by itself it lacks emotion. This is a crisis in the man’s life and too often it reads like he is just acting a part. I know it’s hard to do, but add feelings. (Both the love and the hate) Write on.
nubadunk reviewed Version 1 -
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What can I say I want more. I figured it had to be something of a super human story by the title, but i had no idea the dead woman could see the future which is ironic because she couldn’t she her own death. Also I’m intrigued to figure out why his words killed her maybe his voice is so strong. She have a long lost lover on the side? That’s what I got towards the end. Great so far I want more.
flamebringer15 reviewed Version 1 -
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Wow, the emotion coming from this is great. The style is awesome and the plot is thrilling. It grabs the reader from the first sentence and won’t let go. I hope that you keep it up and finish on this piece. It is great and I want to know what happens with Lukas and Ellie. It is a great plot and story line. Keep it up!
Flamebringer15
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