Cynus

Sorry.

The cliffhanger ending is a bit unfair, I'll admit, but since the story wasn't meant to be posted in segments (as it was written for traditional publication), you normally wouldn't have to wait to find out if in fact he did bleed out here or not. All I can say is that I aimed for realism in part 1, and once you've read a few more chapters, I hope you'll have determined I succeeded more than failed, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Ethan using that knife... getting into Ethan's head here fucked me up for a few hours, but I felt it was necessary to deliver the right punch to the scene. Hope it wasn't too much.

What a way indeed... Sometimes things happen in perfect moments, but perfect is not always positive. You can have perfect anger, perfect longing, and certainly perfect heartbreak.

Ethan... my sweet boy. He was the hardest one to write in this story. I understand that tightness, believe me. I'm glad you're enjoying it! I'll choose to take that as a compliment.

We'll get a description of how power works in this universe within the next four chapters (I believe it's three chapters away, but could be four). Then you'll be able to ascertain how much power these young bloods have. As for Ethan, well...

PLEASE QUOTE OR LIKE THIS COMMENT SO I KNOW YOU ARE COMMENTING. This is my new strategy to get notifications on chapter comments, since I can't seem to get them any other way. If someone has figured out another secret, please let me know.

It was maddening to write, but I had to give them this moment. It's crucial to what comes in the future. Putting them through this pain, however, was not exactly my favorite thing in the world.

Caleb and Liz sped down the streets as quickly as they could in the rain, but by the time they'd managed to leave the house and be clearheaded enough to drive, Ethan already had at least five minutes on them, and they had no idea where he was headed. The first place they looked was Ethan's house, arriving just in time to see Ethan's mother standing on the front porch, shielding her head from the downpour and looking more upset than ever. Caleb opened the car door before the vehicle came t

The stage does indeed appear set for tragedy, who is not the greatest dinner guest, but he does often tell great stories. Hopefully this will be one. Thanks for reading and commenting!

I appreciate the compliment, and Ethan definitely needs your support. I look forward to your further comments!

Thanks! It'll be here on Tuesday. Just a few. Liz is certainly one of the most important characters in this story. There are four main members of the cast, with a half-dozen or so minor characters. The important ones to pay attention to are Caleb, Ethan, Liz, and one other who shall arrive around the end of part 1 and beginning of part 2.

This is advised. This story was... well, it was an emotional task to write. I was exhausted when I finished it, but that could also be because I wrote all 70,000 words over 8 days...

May you be able to endure it to the end. Hope you'll stay and find out! Thanks for reading!

Thanks! Hopefully you'll all feel that way when I make you cry later...

Unfortunately, it will get worse before it gets better. Yes, but even the greatest magicians in the world have yet to master it.

It will take a little while before we delve into the myth, but once we hit part 2, the mythology keeps going on to the end. Part 1 is mainly about setting the stage, parts 2-4 are the real meat of the story. I'm excited to hear your thoughts! Glad to have you along!

And you will shortly. I'm glad this grabbed your attention!

The next few hours passed in relative boredom, though Caleb's thoughts kept him occupied. The soothing sound of the falling rain served as a meditative cadence as he thought over his conversation with Ethan. Ethan wanted to talk about something serious, and he'd be coming over to talk about it, whatever 'it' was. Caleb could relate and was starting to realize he had little reason not to do the same, to make his secret known. He lay back on his bed, repeatedly tossing a baseball up in the

Death is better left undisturbed, but some people don't know any better. After the death of his best friend, Ethan, Caleb Neild ventures into The Underworld to seek Ethan's soul and bring him back to the world of the living. He requests the help of the mythical Orpheus, bard turned psychopomp, to find The One Who Rules Beneath and must cross the dreaded six rivers of the afterlife.

1-1 A Small Pebble High school was over. Despite everything bad which had ever happened to Caleb Nield inside those walls, what he wanted most was to live through it all again. He wasn't ready to say goodbye, not to the school nor the town, and most of all to Ethan. Caleb's parents often spoke of their high school days with nostalgic romanticism, and he'd expected to feel that way eventually but not just two days after graduation. Nevertheless, Caleb had an instant longing for those days,

A friend of mine is heading to Saint Jean Pieds de Port next summer, so he'll be in your neck of the woods. I'll be doing the same thing at some point in my life.

I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. I left for a couple of years to live in South Korea, and loved it there. I would totally move back, but my number one place to go would be Kyrgyzstan. I realize that's a bit out of the box, but have you met me? Central Asia is one of the most culturally significant places in the world. You have the Persian Empire, the Mongolian Conquest... Man, the stuff that happened there! Add to it the nomads with awesome food, horse-riding and eagle-taming, and a climate with all four seasons each as beautiful as the next... Best. Place. Ever.

That is a bit open-ended, isn't it? You went a different way with it than I did. What you saw was the light = white/black = dark comparison, while I assumed he/she/they meant the level of detail in the story. Maybe there was so little description it felt they were always in a white room with no color to spice things up? But that's part of the problem, isn't it? When feedback is colloquial like this, we interpret the feedback in our own way. You and I receiving this comment would react to it differently, and we would choose to alter our style (or not) based upon that interpretation. However, we could also ask the commentator to clarify.

The worst thing I ever received was an email from a guy who said "he couldn't support pedophilia"... He hadn't read the story, but simply because my characters were thirteen and fourteen and they were on a website hosting LGBT fiction, he decided I must be writing graphic sex scenes involving these characters. This was in one of my many stories without any sex in it at all (I think I mention once that they had sex off camera, but that's it). This didn't happen at GA. The worst I've received here was that someone found the story "too predictable", and he was 100% correct. I personally love the way the community here reacts to stories. The only thing I wish they did differently was offer MORE commentary. Usually the comments are just encouragement, and I wish I received more constructive criticism, or even comments where they told me what I did right. To me, the difference between constructive criticism and non-constructive criticism is whether it pertains to the method of writing itself or not. If someone comments to tell me they hate one of my characters because of their own personal bias, that's not constructive. If they tell me that they felt the character development was too weak to invest the reader in that development, I find THAT constructive.

Haven't you always wanted to write in second person? You have, haven't you? You can do anything you want to, and you do on a regular basis. You write in first person sometimes, and you write in third person others, but you're always on point either way. In the end, the world serves you, and you can command it. You are the best commander your words have ever had to lead them, and you do so with style. This message brought to you by SPOVAF (the Second-Person Point of View Awareness Fund)