āI let them kill you, you deserved death, I felt relief when I heard you take your last breathā
A young man wakes up in a house he does not recognize, and hears a voice recite that ominous rhyme. He can't remember who he is, but now he knows he needs to escape...
Join him in a world at war filled with people who can perform all sorts of miracles, some that cause damage that can never be repaired...
Prepare yourself for epic battles, mind-bending powers, and a simple question, what exactly happened to the young man?
Part 1 of an upcoming trilogy
*This is the second edition of the novel. This new edition was professionally proofread to correct the grammar and spelling errors that were present in the first edition. Please enjoy the new and improved version of the novel!*
āI let them kill you, you deserved death, I felt relief when I heard you take your last breathā
A young man wakes up in a house he does not recognize, and hears a voice recite that ominous rhyme. He can't remember who he is, but now he knows he needs to escape...
Join him in a world at war filled with people who can perform all sorts of miracles, some that cause damage that can never be repaired...
Prepare yourself for epic battles, mind-bending powers, and a simple question, what exactly happened to the young man?
Part 1 of an upcoming trilogy
*This is the second edition of the novel. This new edition was professionally proofread to correct the grammar and spelling errors that were present in the first edition. Please enjoy the new and improved version of the novel!*
I canāt remember where I was before, all I see around me is darkness. Maybe Iāve just gone blind. But I canāt feel anything around me either, I canāt even feel the air when I try and breathe.Ā
āI let them kill you, you deserved death, I felt relief when I heard you take your last breathā
All of a sudden, I could see again. I think Iām at my house. Well, it looks like a house and Iām here, so it must be my house. I can breathe again. I guess I just blacked out, had a weird dream before I woke up again.
Wait, did I just hear someone say they killed me?!
āDay by day my hatred for you grew, I wonder if at the very end you hated me too.ā
I whipped my head around trying to find the voice, maybe heās the person who knocked me unconscious. He sounded like he was right behind me, but no one is there. Thereās no door in sight, but I can see a hallway, thatās my best bet. I get up and sprint as hard as I can.
ā¦ā¦..
Suddenly Iām back in the darkness. Did he knock me unconscious again when I started running? Must be. But why do I keep having this weird dream?
āOh what joy, getting to murder you again. Next time try to fight back, time for another spin.ā
I can see again, breathe again. I need to get out now. I sprint towards the hallway, this time I make it. I just need to keep going and hope it leads to a room, anything I can hide inā¦
Iāve been running for what feels like a full minute and Iām somehow still in this hallway, how big is this house?! There arenāt even any doors along the sides, and I canāt see any exit further up, where does this hallway even lead?!
āYou can run anywhere, hide in any room, but Iāll still find and kill you soon.ā
Hearing those words caused my heart to go cold, the panic froze me for a second. I look around but canāt see him. Heās not behind me in the hallway or ahead of me, maybe heās behind one of the walls, but his voice sounds so close to me.
In an instant Iām back in the darkness. He must have knocked me out somehow. I donāt know how he did it, and I donāt understand why I keep having this dream before I wake up, or why he keeps saying heās going to kill me, but never does. Maybe heās playing with me first beforeā¦ deciding to do it for real.
Iām so afraid it hurts; my heart canāt take all this much longer. I can breathe again, I must be waking up. āPlease, let me go, Iām sorry for whatever I did, please!ā. Just being brave enough to speak out felt like it took all my energy, I didnāt even have it in me to try and run this time.
āI donāt understand why you keep coming back, but maybe if I kill you enough times, we can take care of that.ā
Kill me, he said it again. Maybe he thinks that when Iām going unconscious, Iām actually dying. If heās that insane there might not be any use in trying to talk to him, but I need to do something before he really kills me.
āPlease, whatever I did Iām sorry. I donāt want to die, you donāt have to kill me, Iāll do whatever you want! Please!ā
I heard nothing but silence for a few moments, the calmest Iāve felt since waking up in this house, my house? Still not sure. The furniture is all finely polished wood, and the lamps lining the walls look expensive. Is this all my stuff? Maybe this isnāt my house, but why canāt I remember. Maybe he drugged me, or Iām just concussed from all the times he attacked me.
āThe group who killed you first obviously made a blunder, they said that youād be gone forever. Yet here you are seemingly unable to stay dead, no matter, Iāll finish the job in their stead.ā
Iām dead. I canāt run anywhere; I canāt stop him from attacking me. Iām really going to die.
āI can pay you some money, my familyā¦ I think my family can pay a lot too.ā
My familyā¦ why canāt I remember anything about my family?
āYour family? ---The same family that murdered you so dearly? Hmm, it sounds like you canāt remember very clearly.ā
My family murdered me?! What is this psycho saying, Iām still alive. Why the hell would my family murder me? And why is everything heās saying a rhyme? Heās definitely insane. I need to get out now.
āPerhaps all your deaths have affected your memory, it wouldnāt surprise me since Iāve been killing you daily.ā
ā¦
Daily?! How long have I been in this house, been being attacked? Maybe I just donāt remember the other days like I canāt remember other stuffā¦ oh God!
āTell me the truth, you must go to hell every time you die, did you really think someone like you would ascend into the sky?ā
Thereās no way Iām actually in hell, this guy must be some sort of crazy zealot. Maybe heās punishing me because he thinks I deserve it, and this is his way of putting me in hell. But what did I do to him?! And why canāt I see him?! It always sounds like heās right over my shoulder, but whenever I turn around, heās never there. I might be drugged, I canāt trust my own senses, maybe Iām just delirious. At this point anything is better than him attacking me over and over, Iāll just answer his questions and hope he keeps talking.
āI see blackness, and I canāt breathe either. Nothing but blackness, canāt feel or see anything.ā
Another moment of silence.
āInteresting, I thought hell would be worse, that doesnāt sound like enough punishment for a man whose very presence felt like a curse.ā
Iām back in the darkness, but something is different this time. I can breathe a little bit. Only in short breaths never enough to relax, but before I felt suffocated. And the darkness isnāt as dark anymore. I think I can almost see someth---
Iām back. Back in the living room. Back to hearing the voice. Back to getting knocked outā¦ thereās no way heās really killing me. That wouldnāt make sense.
āHmm, maybe stabbing in the heart isnāt enough, since every time you wake up your wound has closed up.ā
Stabbing me in the chest! I look down, my shirt has a small rip in it right where my heā¦ I tear away at my shirt to see if Iām bleeding, but I donāt see anything, not a single scratch. I look around the living room, I see a giant mirror. I rush towards it. I start checking myself all over, but I donāt see any injuries. I donāt see any bruises on my head, and I canāt feel any lumps either. How has he been knocking me out this entire time?
Thereās no way what heās telling me is the truth. No one can survive being stabbed there, and how could I not even have a mark on me. Plus, I canāt even see him, how could he get that close to me without me being able to see him. But why do I keep having that dream when he knocks me out. Why does he think Iām being killed?!
āHmm healing yourself from fatal wounds represents an elite level, I wonder if in hell you made a deal with the devil. Before you died you could only change your limbs into sharp metal, and thatās something many republic soldiers could do, it was nothing special.ā
Change my limbs into metal?! What the hellā¦heās making it sound like thereās a bunch of people outside who can just go and change their limbs into metal?! What the hell is going on? I need to get out of here now!
I get up and run for the hallway, I prepare myself to get knocked outā¦ or die again.
Suddenly, Iām in the dark again. I wonder how long this torture will go on, before either he kills me for realā¦ or, no, I canāt believe Iām actually starting to believe I might be really dying and coming back. Iāve been attacked too many times; itās starting to affect my thinking.
āWell technically youāre both right, he is stabbing you through the heart, but Iām stopping you from dying right at the last moment.ā
My heart froze, it feels like every muscle in my body is tense. What the hell was that sound, how am I hearing something, in the darkness. Is this my subconscious? I take a second, and then I realize that Iām breathing, Iām breathing in the darkness, and easily too. I can even see something now, something not as dark as its surrounding, it looks like the silhouette of a woman, I think. Is she the one who just spoke to me?
āCalm down, this time he didnāt actually stab you, Iām talking to you as you're running down the hallway. But every second in here is like one one thousandth of a second in that world.ā
My jaw dropped. What the hell is going on? Am I starting to talk to myself?
āI can help you escape, escape from thatā¦ man, as you say. The same way Iāve been helping keep you aliveā
Is this the lady healing me? No, thatās insane. Sheās a result of my injuries. Iām just getting delirious, but it feels so real. It feels like sheās right there, behind a veil of black. It feels like a real person. Iā¦ I canāt help it; I canāt stop myself from saying something.
āPlease help me, Iāll do anything. I need to get out of here, I donāt know whatās going on.ā
āI said calm down, listen, the man... it... it used its powers to bind your sight, so thatās why itās invisible to you. When you hear its voice, it really is behind you, you just canāt see it. It also hid the doors in the hallway from you, but its power has limits, and thatās the most it can do.ā
What? Binding my eyesight? What the hell is she saying? I must be delirious, this is proof. But every part of my body, even my brain is telling me to keep talking to her. Wait, I got an idea.
āOkay so Iāll just attack him the next time I hear him?!ā
āNo, it is more resilient than a human. It would take a daysā worth of punches and kicks to put it down. You need to transmute your hand, quickly before it notices, and stab it when it is behind you whispering.ā
āTransmuteā¦ what do you mean? And who is he? Why is he trying to kill me? Iāve never done anything to him, Iāve never even seen him before.ā
āUgh, donāt worry so much. I will help you do it. I know you canāt remember much, part of the cost of fixi--- Restoring you was that it damaged some of what you are, or rather what you were. And it, not a he, an it, is just a creation of your fatherās. A spirit, designed to make sure you were really dead. Now remember transmute, stab quick and fatal, okay?ā
Did she say damaged me, what does she--- Wait. What?! My father made that thing!
āMY DAD! You're lyingā¦ what the hell are you? Iām just hallucinating, youāre just a symptom of my concussions.ā
āHah I figured it would be better to lie to you, but I just really wanted to see your reaction. Yes, your dad really made that thing, and not just him, your brother and sister also helped him kill you; the first time I mean. When your father made that thing, a little bit of the rage, hatred, and insanity he was feeling seeped into it. Thatās why it keeps reciting deranged poetry about murder I assume. Now back to the real world, remember, just try to transmute your hand when you hear it whispering, Iāll help you do it. Then attack fast.ā
All of a sudden, I was back in the real world. But I was still running, right in the same spot I was before I spoke toā¦ myself or whatever that woman was. My dad would never try to kill me, my family wouldnāt either. My dadā¦ I donāt remember him, but thereās no way my real father would try to hurt me. The hallucination was just speaking nonsense. But even the rhyming man talked about me turning my hand into steel, maybe that part is true, maybe thatās how I can ge---
"Hmm, just now I felt a strange energy from you, tell me, what did you do? Did you try and transmute your hand? Hah! At your level even making a quarter inch dagger would be grand."
Heās here! I have to do everything I can now. Even if Iām just going crazy, I need to do something now. Thinkā¦ focusā¦ What did the lady say to do?
"Maybe if I cut off your head, youāll finally stay dead."
Now! I have to transmute now! I turned around, ready to either stab my attacker with my magical metal hand or punch him in the face if that was all really a hallucination. I canāt see anyone, but I think I can feel him. I feel his focus on me, his presence right in front of me. I raise my hand and form a fist, preparing to punch as hard as I can. I need to survive; I donāt want to die. Thereās no way this thing was created by my father, thereās no way my brother and sister tried to kill me.
For a split second I go back into the darkness, and I hear the woman say, āGood, watch this.ā I think I saw a smile through all the black separating her and me.
My raised fist turns black, but instead of turning into metal, small black lines start to appear all around me, they surrounded me, from my skin to about a foot away in every direction. Each black line a few inches away from the one next to it, and each line itself a few inches in length. The lines were just hanging in the air randomly, no clear pattern to their placement, some of them were even touching me.
All of a sudden, Iām back in the darkness.
Ā āWell, we really overdid it there, you died again. Well almost, I saved you at the last second once again.ā
I have no clue what happened, the last thing I saw were small black lines in the air near me. Did my attacker die? Did he get injured? Did I make it outside before dying? She was right. He--- it was right too. About everything. That must meanā¦ I really was dying. What is going on. Was she right about my famā¦ No, thereās no way.
āWhat happened, did I get out?ā
āWell, remember when I said I damaged you? Clearly a part of that damage is that you canāt really finish your transmutations anymore, youāre a little bit broken now. To get around that I am lending you some of the darkness, you might not be able to transmute the way you used to, but it's better than nothing.ā
āSo, then what happened, why did Iā¦ die again?ā
āWell, Iāve never done anything like that either, I think we overdid it a bit. Each one of those black lines you transmuted your hand into, created a cut. So, we kind of cut everything within a foot of you, including your own body. You lost a lot of blood, wasnāt pretty trust me.ā
āAnd the man who attacked me?ā
āNot man, it, a creation of your fathersā, remember? It was heavily injured, we didnāt control our transmutation enough to cut any fatal areas, but it had at least 10 or 12 deep cuts all across its body. You couldnāt see it because it was invisible to you, and you were already dead, but he was leaking a lot of energy through his cuts. He fled the house, probably trying to find your father for treatment, Iām sure.ā
āWe?ā
āWe. I canāt do transmutation for you; I can only help you complete it by fixing what is now broken in you.ā
āSo, Iām finally free?!ā
āI guess I shouldnāt expect a thank you, as long as you hold up your end of the bargain.ā
ā¦ Bargain?
āBargain? I didnāt agree to anything?!ā
āNo, but your mother did.ā
If you are looking for a book with a terribly unreliable narrator, check out Out Of The Dark by Syed Naqvi. In this short book, we are introduced to a character who wakes up in a dark house, with no memory of who he is or why he is there. A mysterious voice speaks to him in rhyming couplets, giving a bit of a background to the mystery. From there he must work to find out who he is and why he finds himself in this strange house. Most importantly, he needs to find a way to escape.
I was drawn into this world where people have advanced magical abilities called miracles. Some people can change an object's weight, some can change their arms to swords, and some can use their breath as a weapon. It was interesting to see what powers people had and how they would use them. I also wanted to know who the main character really was and how he was going to get himself to safety, away from people who were wanting to kill him.
However, one major thing I noticed in the story was how it could do with another round of solid editing. There were a decent handful of spelling or grammar errors that could do with a bit of tweaking to fix. Some were as simple as needing to add a bit of punctuation to help readability and some were just the wrong word used in the wrong place such as "my first" instead of "my fist" and "he's" in place of "his".Ā
Overall, I enjoyed the novel. However, I wished that we learned more about the main character. Since we don't know anything more than he does - which is nothing - there is no way for us to know who to trust or what is coming next. This certainly leads to a good way to put in a cliffhanger, but it also means it's harder to really connect with the character and care about what happens next. That combined with the spelling and grammar errors brought this book to a more average rating than the exceptional one I was hoping for when I started.