Hoshino was experiencing a physical crisis in a chamber buried deep under Stellaris, Nick was cautiously peeling one of Nichols’ eyelids, steeling himself for what he expected to find.
He gazed at his friend’s revealed semi-glazed eyes, the eyes of a totally normal unconscious human being. He blinked in surprise at not finding what he thought he saw earlier. Exhaling in relief, he turned away as he leaned against Nichols’ clinic bed and thought about things. He saw again in his mind’s eye the streak of silver hair billowing behind the second angel as she fell from the sky.
What the fuck is going on here? Angels descending to Earth? I’m not religious or anything, but is this some kind of a weird rapture? Is Earth about to go to Hell?
Shaking his head in denial, Oye fished his phone from his pocket and watched again his recorded footage. What should I do with this? Put it up on WeTube? Headbook? Or should I hide what’s happening? Or… maybe this isn’t an isolated thing?
After having realized that this might not be a local crisis… and certainly it would not be if this was some kind of a ‘rapture’ or an ‘apocalypse,’ Oye switched apps to his browser. He searched for recent news worldwide about angels descending and monster attacks. Surprisingly, he found nothing whatsoever. There wasn’t a single article yet in existence covering what happened just now at his school, Astoria Academy.
Nick frowned. Should he raise an alarm since no one else seemed to be aware of what was going on? People could seriously get hurt if he sat on what he knew too long without taking some kind of an action. Should he go to the news, himself? He wasn’t so sure that that would be a good idea.
Maybe whatever this was would just go away. If that happened and he started telling people all about it, it’d just strand him, in terms of his reputation. He’d most likely be labeled ‘that’ crazy guy that ranted about angels descending from the skies at his school. He’d be the same as any crazy doomsayer that proclaimed the end of the world was nigh. The tabloid bloggers and other writers online would eat what he had to say like candy and put it all over the internet, but that would quickly be dismissed as fake news by anyone with common sense. His chances of becoming a professional athlete would probably go to Hell before the world if he talked.
Muttering as he ran a sweaty hand through his hair, Oye switched to his address book, calling Ken. Everything else considered, he was worried for his friend’s wellbeing and even worried that Jared managed to get himself in trouble in his absence. If only he could hear Ken’s voice, it would help to lessen the sensation of pressure that he felt building up in his guts. Maybe Ken would have some insight about what to do. Normally cool-headed, Nick was hesitating.
The phone rang several times before clicking over to a recorded message. Instead of getting Kenneth’s voicemail, he heard something unexpected.
“Our apologies, you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”
Blinking, Kenneth woke, finding himself lying on a patch of thick grass. The fragrance of vegetation and flowers filled his nostrils. Sitting up, he groaned softly.
“Take it easy Aurora,” Perkons said. “Lie down. We’re in the middle of conducting some tests on your body.”
“Hmmmm?” Ken blinked, rubbing at his eyes. He had a hard time getting them to properly work. While he was capable of smelling and his sense of scent was stronger than typical, his eyes were filmy and his head filled with cobwebs.
“Lay back,” Perkons instructed him in a more firm tone. Wincing, Ken nodded and let himself fall back into the pillowy grass, still rubbing at his eyes.
“What’s going on?” Ken asked. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”
“Nothing.” Perkons frowned. “The problem here is that your eyes are like a newborn’s… in a manner of speaking. Or worse. They’ll focus soon enough. After reverting from your Lodestaran form, you became fully human again, but your transformation rebuilt your eyes among other things, in a manner of speaking.”
“M… my eyes?” Ken asked, confused, “Why am I blind?”
“It’s temporary, Aurora.” Perkons said. “I hope that I don’t need to remind you that you were completely remade by the light itself.”
“... Are…” Ken mumbled, trying to understand what that even meant. “... You’re telling me that light itself is some enormous, all-encompassing conscious entity or something like that?” Ken struggled to wrap his brain around the whole strange concept. Light was everywhere, but it was ephemeral and had no solid form unless you considered… he frowned and puzzled over what light itself really was supposed to be.
“No.” Perkons said seriously. “Nothing like that. At least we don’t believe that light itself has any sort of consciousness of its own… The Felicitas are the chosen of the light. We are the Archontes of Light, which means that we’re the keepers of our whole universe.”
“... and you were chosen by some unconscious force you believe so much in?” Ken laughed dryly. “... Okay then… tell me what Lodestars even are?”
“-- Hmm … Simply put, Aurora, the Lodestaran are our knights and servants,” Perkons said simply with immense dignity. “You are soldiers, as I have already explained.”
“Servants?!” Ken laughed. “If you’re so powerful, why don’t you take care of these monsters yourself? You claim to be gods, right?”
“...” Perkons didn’t say anything, so Ken continued to blink his eyes and as he did, the seemingly impenetrable darkness that clouded his eyes slowly started to change in hue, or rather luminosity.
“Aurora, you’ve been recreated to fight on our behalf like all Lodestaran. You fight for us, since our forms aren’t built for combat like yours.”
“Couldn’t you rebuild yourselves with light the same way?” Ken asked, smirking. He thought about giant muscle bound colorful critters smashing the monsters. The very thought made him chuckle.
“... We could, but that wouldn’t serve any point when Lodestaran are eminently equipped for the job like you. We serve and direct matters as gods must, nudging things, aiding our children when necessary. Have you any other questions?”
“... Erm… The light changed more than my eyes, I guess?” Ken muttered and rubbed at his eyes again.
“Don’t rub them like that. You’re just slowing the process.”
“... Fine.” Ken grumbled. “But tell me… what else exactly… has changed?”
“Hmm… Well, that’s something you should see for yourself.”
With an annoyed sigh, Ken closed his mouth and waited patiently for his eyesight to return so he could see himself since Perkons wasn’t willing to tell him. He didn’t feel too different from before or how he usually did.
This bugged me enough to comment on it, but "meanwhile" at the start of the chapter is misused.
Basically, "(event A described), meanwhile, (event B described)" or "while (event A described), (event B described)" are the grammatically correct forms.
That happens. I've evolved as writer over time. Mouikkai Musume was #1. Then came the first drafts of Radiant Lodestar Aurora, #2. I sat on it for many years and then worked on Mouikkai Musume Mohitotsu #3, (the two finished books both around 100k apiece, because I wanted to set that goal to challenge myself to improve as a writer). After that, I worked on No Face, No Life #4. It bombed on Scribblehub, or rather it didn't generate any comments and that got me down, not to mention having a smallish readership base. NF,NL is exclusively available to read on Royal Road atm. After that, I moved on with #5 Kamifan, a silly serialized series that I didn't finish. It was a serious hit with readers. I only stopped working on that because my life was upended and I got really depressed and couldn't put my mind back in Aimi's pov. It was just too silly and cute for how I felt. After that, I turned to my oldest manuscripts that I worked on with my late fiancee, Suchan. Deciding that it deserved to be read by others, it became #6. When I ran out of manuscripts to rewrite (at a crazy and probably obsessed pace) I began plotting the next arc, Elodie Elegy. I still have everything I planned filed away, so I can pick it up again when I'm ready to write it. After a few years of having been jerked around by a potential publisher, I got depressed and slummed around until I worked up the will to write again and created #7 Euphonia - Reqiem to a Cursed World. To this day you can only read that book on Russian pirate sites. XD I will probably reupload on Scribblehub some day or something. I wanna finish that one too, since I had the whole thing planned out like the current RLA is. And that brings us to #8 Radiant Lodestar Aurora. I feel that this story is successful enough to stick with so far. Though people don't much comment on it like Superluminal, the ratings are sweet.
Anyhow the point of this big old post was just to point out that I've always worked towards improving myself as a writer with each project I focus on. Each one brings me a little closer to my dream.
@Assurbanipal_II *huggles* Thanks Assuchan for sharing your opinion! I still removed meanwhile to satisfy a reader though.
@Assurbanipal_II ok, let me try to explain my objection a bit better, the way the sentence was written was "meanwhile, *thing that just happened*, *other thing that is happening now*, this to me reads as though the first event is intended to be the thing that is being focused on as a new event happening in conjunction with a prior one, leaving the second event as a third thing just sort of hanging out in an odd place. Basically, meanwhile is used to indicate a second event occurring at the same time as another, already described event.
The sentence works if you change where you place meanwhile (*thing that just happened*, meanwhile, *thing that is happening now*), or replace meanwhile with while (while *thing that just happened*, *thing that is happening now*), but it doesn't as it was.
If that's still not clear, I found this online:
"As an adverb, meanwhile is often used at the beginning of a sentence to connect the statement that follows with something that was just mentioned."
In this particular case, the "something that was just mentioned" is the exact same thing as the "statement that follows". I hope that clears up what I found wrong with it.
@Doomedtundra
That is quite clear, but your objections remain a stylistic one.
What you see here is a case of so called "emphasis", a rhetorical method used to strengthen the evocative power of a word or phrase.
As you have rightly noticed, the inversion,
- another rhetorical figure which describes the inversion of the usual grammatical order
examples:
Shocked, I was.
Tomorrow will come the decision
How amazing this is.
- places the emphasis on the first clause, on the first action, the physical crisis. It might be grammatically unusual, but is nevertheless grammatically correct and stylistically perfectly acceptable in the area of literature.
Now the issue is here that too often too many rely on our feelings and personal experience instead of an actual formal literary education.
@Assurbanipal_II I'm sorry, but that is incorrect. I think you're confusing something here, what you're talking about is how the words in question might be used in dialogue, but this was not dialogue, this was a descriptive paragraph. The use is different, more formal than most dialogue, among other things.
I may not have any fancy degree in the English language, but what I do have is almost 3 decades worth of reading. Hell, I had a reading comprehension far beyond my age by the time I entered primary school, so I'm hardly unversed in the English language, and I have never once seen, in any professionally edited work of literature, an arrangement of words quite like what you suggest to be merely a "stylistic choice".
Don't let that fancy education you claim blind yourself to the knowledge and wisdom of those without, and don't you dare discount personal experience as worthless. To do so is to paint your own personal experience, that of your vaunted "actual literary education", with the same brush, remember that. What level of education are we talking here, by the way? I'm curious.
@Doomedtundra
Meanwhile, you speak about grammar. I do not do.
Meanwhile, you say incorrect. I do not do.
Meanwhile, you doubt its use. I do not do.
What I not do, you meanwhile do. I meanwhile do, what you not do.
I do, meanwhile, what you do not. What I do not, you, meanwhile, do.
Granted, I use meanwhile here in part concessively rather than temporally together with a parataxis instead of a hypotaxis, but I think my point is clear.
@Assurbanipal_II you may note, all of that is dialogue. You are, in every example provided, communicating, writing dialogue. Not one of these examples is a description of two seperate events occurring at the same time. And yet, you somehow seem to believe this disproves my point? There is no counter here beyond you saying you disagree in perhaps the most pretentious way you could.
And if the way in which you wrote your reply was also intended to somehow be an answer to my question, then I don't know what to say, aside from that it would have to be the most conceited, banal answer I've seen in a long time. I sincerely hope that was not an intention of yours.
@Doomedtundra
The difference between a concessive adverbial conjunction and a temporal adverbial conjunction is marginal at best. Especially, when its concessive use derives directly from the nature of its temporal use. But that aside, this was it. We have nothing to say to each other any more.
@Assurbanipal_II on that last point at least, we can agree.
@Doomedtundra
Of course we would, because for more it clearly doesn't suffice.