Chapter one: Cancer the Shade

It has been my experience that of all the monsters in this world, Man is far more dangerous than any Balon. My name is Cancer. i am a monster hunter; a Shade.

chapter one: Cancer the Shade

 

A monster is not born, it is made.

Forged from hate, suckled by the endless abyss of death and agony such a  being, vicious and savage, was once human. Darkened hollows of their past selves, such creatures desire nothing but to regain their lost innocents. A pit has formed within them, a bottomless puncture that pains them to the brink of madness. They hunger for that innocents. They crave it and hunt for it without mercy, without consequence. The price for their satisfaction are the lives of innocents, a cost i cannot abide. It is that hunger for their blood that drives them. it is the pursuit of such evils that drive me.  My name is Cancer. I am a Shade.

The police will enter just as you have left, Finding only a  neat pile of ashes under a pair of expensive glasses. They will look for days, months, but they will never find him, they could not do the things you can do, see the things that you can .  

The strange whispering echoes in the back of my mind. A voice low and deep; it haunts me, drives me, and guides me. It begins at random, choosing these things that pose as humans, the voice guides my movements, tells me of things that are not found in the world of normal men. In a haze it focuses my attention, causes me to notice things only a monster would. The slightest detail magnified, the slightest sound a cacophony.  As the police cars rush to the scene i watch from afar, i can smell the fear in the air. As they rush through the doors and sprint towards the elevators i can hear their hearts beating , i can smell the sweat underneath their clothes, i can feel their hostility, and their fear, as if i was along side them.  

The sun rose over the blanket of smog that floated in with the dawn, my head down, my gaze on nothing particular, I took comfort in that the worst was over. i looked over the side of the building i stood upon, noticing  the cars and people far below, flowing from street to street like blood through veins. I cautioned myself as i stepped towards the edge. I had done what was needed to be done. If i had not stopped the Balon there would have been another body, and then another.There was a time when such a conquest would have filled me with an overwhelming sense of purpose. Now as the first flickers of sunlight ascend over the flickering waves of smog I am unable to shake the melancholy that has consumed me. One foot over the edge. I began to fall.

Oblivious to any other people around me i land in the alleyway below. I crashed into the concrete, its cold ungiving surface smashing into me, breaking my legs and shattering my left arm.

Nothing. i feel nothing.

No pain, no fear. In a fog i found myself rising to my feet, the smog encircling my broken appendages and snapping them into place. I felt no shock or discomfort, only the warmth of the mist as it healed me, only the protection of the gift as it guiding me. I took a moment to reflect on what had transpired; i stood now unscaved at the end of a dead end alleyway. Here the mornings rays would not reach me, the world that existed between these two large buildings were cold and wet. littered with filth and isolated. I placed my hand on the surface of the cool brick wall that rested at the end of this particular alleyway, the structure shimmered for a moment then returned to normal. i walked through the wall and into the cemetery  beyond it.

On the other side of the wall a graveyard; my sanctuary, waited for me. I had found solace on its grounds, a sense of solace that was absolute. A storm approached; I could smell it in the air. I wondered how long I had lived like this; hunting creatures like Balon was the only thing that stopped the nightmares, the livid dreams of pain and agony I did not remember, faces that i could not place.

 I reached into my coat pocket and extracted the silver pocket watch, one of the few possessions that I owned. As I examined the young child in the interior of the watch's silver clasp I once more pondered her origins. Was she of some relative of mine, a daughter, or one I had lost long ago? After a while the hunt is all that matters, after a while the voice is all that was needed.

 … a woman... a  curse and a storm… trying to remember any more seemed impossible, unless I slept.

 The few remaining beams of sunlight caught the silver clasp of the watch before it was consumed by  foreshadowing dark clouds. A broken watch remained fixed on 11:45 and on the interior of the clasp a worn picture of a small baby girl, here crystal blue eyes and mahogany hair haunted me.   As I walked slowly toward a nearby crypt, lightly touching the tombstone beside me I was  reminded of how the truth was so heavily hidden from me. I gazed around the graveyard once more and then back at the pocket watch and decided that not knowing was on longer acceptable. The storm is here, best find cover.

 As the thunderclaps began, their earth shattering sound echoed over the now silent cemetery. i found a crimson colored chair abandoned at the bottom of an aged crypt covered in vines. i found myself questioning things that had moments ago not mattered at all. i wondered where i had come from, why was i here? had  i always been a monster hunter, a Shade, or had i been normal once, human and weak; As if a question was answered, it began unfolding in front of me.

I started at the beginning, before I became what I was now, when things were simpler. as the raindrops fell I could hear her voice once more call out my name, more than a voice. I see now that she was the whole of my humanity; the essence of my happiness. 

Reviews

[Jake Donald Stephens]

First of all, I love the way you present your work. Centering and coloring certain passages is an unconventional, but effective, way of attention-grabbing. And there is a fascinating character being introduced here, along with many questions that the reader (that's me) is already anxious to find the answers to.
The only real problem, I think, is that the writing shifts back and forth between present tense and past tense. Example: "I reach into my coat pocket and extracted the silver pocket watch".....either change "reach" to "reached", or change "extracted" to "extract". See what I mean?
Once those tenses are fixed, I think you've really got a winner. Can't wait to read the rest of this intense, original story!

[Yaseen J Malik]

Thank you im glad u like it. I will make the appropriate changes I and repost as soon as possible

[Roo]

This is good and flows pretty well, punctuation and grammar issues aside. You are very clever at providing a hook at the end of the chapter one and the prologue to inspire me to read the next chapter.
Now I think you have a tense issue, though it is a problem I struggle with so I might be wrong. For example;
'The sun rose over the blanket of smog that floated in with the dawn, my head down, my gaze on nothing particular, I took comfort in that the worst was over. i look over the side of the building i stood upon..'
'The sun rose' suggests past tense. 'I look over' suggests present tense. So it should be 'I looked over..'
Now it might be just a grammatical error but the 'tense' issue occurs a couple of times. Again it slows down the reading, chokes the flow so to speak.
'I caution myself towards the edge.' don't get it. And you don't need it what ever it is meant to say. Delete it.
First we had smog, now we have mist. Mist in a city? I'd stick with smog myself.
But it is interesting and I like the shade character.
Roo

[Yaseen J Malik]

thanks roo. the tense issue is a big one for me. when i write sometimes i picture it happening right in front of me, so i write it as present tense. the feedback was awesome! cant wait to return the favor!

[Kianna]

Dear Yaseen J Malik,

Hello, how are you doing today? Since you were so kind as to review my novel, I thought I would take a look at some of your writing. The title The Blood Traveler sounded quite mysterious.

Some critiques:

In this line, "What separates a man from the darkness within?" the word "darkness" just seems so vague. I felt like I would have liked some definition of what that meant. Either that or replace the word "darkness" with the word "monster" or "beast." In the following lines, you describe the line between a monster and a human being. You compare those two, so the word, "darkness within" just looks so out of place to me.

Also what does the word baud mean because according to the dictionary, it is a word used mostly in electronics.

This sentence, "Is it religion; is it appearance or hygiene, some tangible moral code? " is awkward grammatically speaking. Revise it to say this, "Is it religion, appearance, hygiene, or some tangible moral code?" I have to question though isn't religion and some tangible moral code a little alike. Eh, maybe not.

Here, "Time and again man has proven to be far more dangerous than any other creature I have seen." The transition "time and again" seems awkward. Why not just say "overtime?"

These sentences, "naked and baud; a monster needs no forethought to be what it is, it hunts for the hunger, it eats for survival," are run on sentences. Replace the semi colon with a comma. Replace the first comma with a period. Capitalize the I in "it." Replace the second comma with either a semi colon or a period. Also capitalize the n in "naked."

I feel like that small section could have been put into a preface, although I understand that prefaces and prologues are quite overdone. I just feel you have two different ideas here. You have an introduction and an introduction to the story itself. It's just something to think about.

This sentence, "a voice, low and deep; it haunts me, drives me, and guides me," is grammatically wrong. You have to make the first phrase a sentence in order to be able to use a semi colon because a semi colon separates two independent clauses. Also capitalize the a as it is the first word in the sentence.

Here, "It begins at random, choosing these things that pose as humans, the voice guides my movements, tells me things, secret things, things that were not found in the world of normal men." the phrase after "random" and before "the," I felt was unnecessary and confused me.

This sentence, " In a haze it focuses my attention, causes me to notice things only a monster would." The following sentences don't explain what he notices. I was interested to know how his vision as a monster differed from a human being. To be honest, as a human being, I can see smog and a sun rising above the smog.

Here, "Oblivious to any other people around me, I took a moment to reflect on what transpired;i placed my hand on the surface of the cool brick wall, the structure shimmered for a moment then returned to normal." Cancer was in a dead end alley was he not? "Oblivious to any other people around me" is pretty unnecessary as I don't think there are too many people that linger in a dead end alley unless there are homeless people there. If so, describing the setting a little more elaborately would help and add depth to this scene.

This sentence can be revised, "On the other side of the wall a graveyard waited for me; my sanctuary." Ether it can say, "On the other side of the wall my graveyard sanctuary waited for me." It can be revised another way, but I'll leave that up to you, but the way you have it now is grammatically awkward.

This sentence, "A storm approached, I could smell it in the air" is a run on sentence. Replace the comma with a semicolon.

This sentence, "After a while the hunt is all that matters, after a while the voice is all that was needed … a woman, a curse and a storm… trying to remember any more seemed impossible, unless I slept." Place a semi colon where that comma is.

Also check for more capitalization errors as I did not feel like pointing them all out.

Okay now onto what I liked about the chapter.

I do enjoy the overall picture. I like the overall tone, which is dark and mysterious. If properly tweaked and expanded, I will say it would be an awesome piece of work. You introduce the main character at the point he starts to remember his whole life when the conventional method is he goes through the coarse of the story trying to discover who he is. Instead, it is here in his sanctuary, he uncovers the mystery from the very beginning. I am actually interested in seeing how Cancer became who he is and what will happen after he realizes all of it. I like the mentioning of the little girl, which makes me think this character is older than a teenager, which is definitely good.

I say good job.

Sincerely JazzSoulKeke,

God bless

[Yaseen J Malik]

thank you soo much for the insight, i will make the appropriate changes and post the newest version Asap

[Justine]

I have a short-ish attention span so I rarely review stories, but this hooked me in and kept my interest from the start. Powerful opening and I like the vivid descriptive language used to set the scenes perfectly. You unfold your character really well, piece at a time, leaving enough mystery and intrigue for later. I was reminded of Tolstoy's style in Anna Karenina where he allows a peek into the mind of the character and their thinking patterns. I will be back to read more. A great start to a novel Justine.

[Darius Morgan]

This...this is just...powerful..that's all I can say.

[Hatter57]

Yaseen,

I got your read request and have started going back over The Blood Traveller. If you've made revisions to this chapter, they're not leaping out at me. It seems pretty much as it was on my first reading, so I won't recap comments I first made at the end of Chapter 3, which was, at the time, the entirety of what you had posted.

In the second paragraph, you use the phrase "naked and baud" to describe the monsters. I'm not sure what baud is supposed to mean in this context, or what other word is really intended. Also, towards the end of this chapter, you need to correct the phrase to "not knowing was NO longer acceptable".

I find the reference to the crimson chair "abandoned at the bottom of a crypt" implausible now that I know this is a modern setting. We do not bury people with funerary goods like chairs. It would make more sense if Cancer were to reference dragging the chair that he found abandoned elsewhere to this crypt. Just a thought.

[Amanda J Hopwood]

Loved it...sorry has taken me a bit to get it. My time between writing and kids is few and far between and when I do have time it is rushed. I am definitely on to read more. I am intrigued!!