Page critique 5/30/24

[Nathan Bransford]

Below is the page up for critique on the blog on Thursday. Feel free to chime in with comments, create your own redline (please note the "font colour" button above the posting box, which looks like a drop of ink), and otherwise offer feedback. When offering your feedback, please please remember to be polite and constructive. In order to leave a comment you will need to register an account in the Forums, which should be self-explanatory.

I'll be back later with my own post on the blog and we'll literally be able to compare notes.

If you'd like to enter a page for a future Page Critique, please do so here.

Certain Dark Things

7th Century BC

When the past finally caught up with him, the speed with which it happened was measured in a scant space of seconds. He’d spent the years of his son’s young life fearing this moment, keeping them on the move in the hopes of outrunning divine retribution, only to be forced in the end to watch his son’s life unwind in a meager handful of heartbeats.

When his brothers came for Dumuzid, Eliel knew it the instant before he saw them, felt the shimmer of their presence touch his consciousness, sensed the static charge vibrating across his skin. And he knew why they had come.

He dropped his nets and was in motion before his thoughts could fully coalesce. Climbing from the water, Eliel ran for his son, who stood farther up on the beach. Muzi stood surrounded and unaware of the danger he was in, guileless and smiling in welcome at the strangers that looked so like his father. Eliel sprinted toward them, his feet barely touching the sand. His only thought a frantic prayer.

Oh no, please no, no…

One of them stood behind Muzi as another two took his arms, and Eliel saw his son’s expression change, the smile fading, eyes scrunching in confusion. Eliel saw his brother’s pull Muzi’s chin up and hold it with one hand, pressing the tip of a knife to his neck with the other. His expression smugly satisfied in the knowledge that Eliel could not stop him in time and that Eliel knew it, too.

Eliel screamed Muzi’s name as the knife snicked across the boy’s throat, his arms reaching out only a hands-breadth too short to stop it, a fraction of one interminable, hopeless second too late. At once, they released him and Dumuzid clutched at his neck as the incision began to yawn, his eyes and mouth wide, blood spraying across Eliel’s face and chest, blinding him.