I WAS 12 WHEN I WROTE THIS.

Chapter 1: St. Bartholomew’s

“… In the name of the Pandora, and Vinsan, and Thomas the mysterious*. Amen.” Said the priest. Everyone repeated amen. The priest began to walk to the back of the church, his steps as careful as he could and as majestic as a bird. The thrill of him walking past you was enough to make him faint. He held his staff up high, as if to try and reach out to the gods.

The church was full, but that was to be expected. After all, every one knows that the gods exist. Every last one of them. We just don’t have books and ‘relics’, the gods left behind a thread that records the future and portals to their own realms. Voidragon even left behind 10 special spherical items which keeps Asancra with the elements.

With that, I decided to get up. I grabbed my staff and went to the back. I was about to leave, but the priest grabbed me. “Excuse me CS; I would like a word with you. Once everyone is gone, meet me by the altar.” I never argue with the high priest, so I nodded firmly. As I walked to one side, a child walked up to me.
“You have a cool job.” He said. He was of a young age, roughly 8 years. But he may or may not have been younger or older; I’m not very good with ages.
“Thank you.” I replied. From the second he walked up to me, I knew he was going to find a way to insult me. Vinsan knows a child who takes my job seriously.
“In fact,” the child said. I already sighed in my mind. “I have a demon in my house. She’s evil and needs to be banished to the realm of melons.” Yep, just what I was expecting.
“Let me guess, your sister?” I replied. The child nodded.
“Now go do your thing!” I bent down on one knee.

“Let me tell you one thing, lad. My job is not to be taken with a pinch of salt. I’ll let you off with a warning this time. But insult my work again, or any other member of your family does it, and your family will be denied any help be it an otherworldly creature comes. Your screams may be heard and your house may be a mere ant in the way of the creature, but not a single soul will be willing to help.**” With that the child began to cry a little and ran back to his mum. His mother glared at me. I glared back.
“Nothing but trouble you lot are. You’d be better off dead.” I put my hood back up.
“Yeah, well we don’t go down without a fight.” And with that I turned away and walked up to the altar. The lady spoke with the priest. From what I could see, I doubted the priest wanted to give me a hug and a handshake.

“CS,” The priest addressed me casually so at least he wasn’t going to be harsh. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ban you from this church.” I felt like punching him, but I had more than enough self-control not to.
“Gosh father. May you please explain why?” I thought that was the appropriate way to talk. In all honesty what I wanted to tell him would involve a lot of swearing.
“Well, for one you didn’t take your hood off until the start of the service. You also failed to remember to dress appropriately and leave your staff and bag somewhere else. And I don’t think you need to know what the last thing is.” I knew he was talking about the child.
“Well, I have my reasons. My hood is important. It doesn’t really make that much difference where I am, just what is going on. Secondly, this is my fighting gear. A demon or the like won’t stop just because a service is going on. And that rascal was insulting my work. I let him off with a warning. That’s all.” The priest sighed.

“Well, I am completely fair with your reasons, but I have to be firm. You see, your presence is unwanted. If they had the option, these people would never return to church. But the nearest church is about 10 miles away, so they need to come here. And everyone needs to worship the gods.” I looked at the priest once more.
“Okay, father. But if it is fine with you, I will still use the altars in my spare time, keep in touch with you, and still let you have use to us.” The priest nodded. I went over and knelt at the large altar, and then at one of the smaller ones (Dedicated to Pandora.)
As I went outside, I looked to my right. I know when people are there. It was Chila, a local girl. She wears an orange silk robe. Her hair is long and black, as if night is hanging from her head. We’re good friends.
“How’s it hanging?” She asked.
“Fine, fine. Got banned from another church.” I replied. She sighed.
“No point in joinin’ a new one.” It was obvious she was a bit upset.

“Nevertheless, where are you off to now?” She asked.
“My house.” I replied. She gave a strange look at me, sort of a taunt but still friendly.
“THAT dump? CS, I don’t even know why you call that a house. It’s merely abandoned and you’re just staying there.” She laughed. I replied
“Well, it’s part of the job. We can’t really call anywhere home, because by the time we even raise a small fraction of the cost we get called off to another place. So I just make do with what I’ve got.” She gave me another look, this one more casual.
“You might as well come over to my place. I doubt anything will happen by the end of the day. I’m sure you could have a meal without an interruption. I mean, come on. Your last job was a month or so ago, and now things have calmed down. Besides, what would you prefer: Beans on toast for the twelfth night in a row or a nice piece of chicken with a roast? I don’t think you need to answer that one. Follow me.” Chila isn’t one to argue, so I followed her.

Besides, she was right. There was no work recently. In all honesty, there wasn’t really much point in being a silencer any more.

~~~

*The Gods of the world this is set in.
** Cs hates kids.

Silencers are basically guys that do away with ghosts, demons, ecetera ecetera.

Any comments?

Why would you even post half-assed work? I posted half-finished work, but that doesn't mean its half-assed. D: I didn't read it, I just thought that it was pretty pointless to admit that you think its unfinished and that you didn't try.

even if i half-assed something, i'd remember to make a new paragraph for each line of dialogue said by a different character.

and we can't give you worthwhile critique if your work is lazily done.

Ironically, the fact that you just sorta whipped this out doesn't bother me. Half the time, I'm too lazy to actually proofread my stuff until later. XD

Anyway, they're right. You need to make a new paragraph every time a different/new character says or does something. It doesn't matter how short the line is. That's the rule.

You also need to keep your tense consistant. In your narative, you switch from present to past (often times in the same sentence). Work on that! Otherwise, I can't really say much cause I skimmed.

For when people are saying something, or you're just stating it, like when you said, "Everyone repeated amen." "Amen" should've been in quotations. "Magestic as a bird," that's a new one. I don't know if I'd call them that...Maybe that's a preference thing though.

If this is the first chapter, then it's fine that people don't know everything about the world. You don't need to put asterics after text and then have a side note. That only happens in literature books for phrases or words that aren't commonly known or often used. So, as a standard, don't. A person should be able to figure some things out on their own. I mean, it's pretty obvious that Pandora, Vinsan, and Thomas (the mysterious) are gods. By the way, there shouldn't be the first "and" in that sentence. After CS's comment on his job you don't need to explain what Silencers are. This last bit I'm not sure on (my english teacher could never explain anything), so it may be a preference thing also. I think you should capitalize "Silencer" since it is a specific occupation. Don't take my word on it though, because I may be wrong. <_<;;

Poplers and Valentine: I think I might of phrased that wrong... eheh...

What I meant was that this was something I made a few years ago. I was going through my notebooks and I remembered I wrote this when I was 12, and wondered what you would think.

Crimson: Hooray! Constructive criticism! That is the only kind I actually pay attention to. Quite a few good points there. I'll rephrase the oncoming chapters as I type them.

Once I've typed them up, I'll post the next chapter or two.

0_0'

Anyway, that was posted in original context. I've made it so this piece is proper.

I WAS 12 WHEN I WROTE THIS. DON'T FLAME IF YOU THINK IT'S STUPID.

...That Said...

Chapter 2: The Restless Night

Considering what my current establishment was like, Chila’s house was beauty incarnate. Chila nodded and smiled as my mouth was wide open looking at the highly furnished walls, floors and rooms.

“I knew you would do that,” Chila laughed. I closed my mouth and looked at her.

“Well, first of all, have you got anything more… suitable to wear? I mean, come on now, brown hood, brown cape, brown shirt, brown trousers, brown shoes. You look like a walking tree without any leaves.” I thought she understood. I guess not.

“This is what I wear ALL the time. Demons won’t…” I was interrupted by her.
“Yeah yeah, you’ve said that a million times. But I DO know my stuff. You see, the walls, floors and ceilings are made from Mahogany...” That surprised me. Normally that knowledge is held only by Silencers, but I was guessing I told her it some time ago. “…And as you should know Mahogany is a wood which is disliked by most otherworldly creatures. Why, I have no idea…” I had no idea too. No-one knows why Creatures dislike Mahogany. But mind you, we should just be happy it works. “…and just in case Mahogany fails most of the house’s foundations and furnishings have been sprinkled with both dust from a Vampire and fined Werewolf teeth…” another thing I forgot that I told her. Vampires and Werewolves scare away most things. Just the scent of one would make a Creature flee. “…So this house is safe. Now, back to the question, anything more suitable to wear?” I smiled.
“Well, you know your stuff. I suppose I do have my ‘casual’ clothes for any undercover cases. Burgundy Linen Shirt, Light Brown Linen Trousers and Gold Trimmed Shoes.” I showed them to her.
“They’ll do. Go up and get changed. Dinner will be ready in a half hour.”

She showed me to my room, and I started to change when she left. I looked into the mirror, to get the buttons on my top just right. But strangely, something caught my eye and refused to leave. As I looked into the mirror, I could see –something- sticking out from under my bed. I knelt down, and felt around. The space was big enough for my hand to go through, but not me. Eventually, I felt something hard. Was it the leg of the bed? No, it was a bit further on than that. I pulled on it, and once I got it out from underneath I found it was a book. It was of a strange design, the front cover that of a pentacle. As I skimmed through the pages, it appeared to be that of a grimoire; a book of magic. Merely reading a paragraph made horrible voices go through my head.
“Please… Help…” “It never should have happened… Set me free…” I knew to shut the book. Merely reading any more words could cause enough trouble to mentally destroy a person. I sneaked the book into my bag. It would be best there is no such book in Chila’s household. With that done, I headed downstairs for dinner.

“I presume you found your room adequate,” said Chila.
“Yes, rather…” I didn’t want to mention the book, or at least yet anyway.
“I must say, CS, you really should dress yourself like that more often. You’d have the girls all over you.” She said, laughing a little bit. The butler walked up.
“Dinner, is served.” He said, without opening his eyes. Chila had to have enough money for life.

Me and Chila sat and ate the roast. Chila didn’t engage in any conversation, and I found the food too good to care. It was the best meal I’d had in ages. After the meal, Chila talked about where she got it from. She said that the wines were grown in the finest vineyards of Asancra, the chicken was cooked, exported and bred to perfection and the spuds… well, they were just normal spuds. But in all honesty, anyone who wasn’t me would have thought of Chila as a bit of a snob.

After the table had been cleared and the dishes washed, I went with Chila to talk a bit more about defence from demons.
“Well, first of all, demons are normally bred in either fire or darkness. They may be bred in other ways, but I haven’t heard of any. Most of the time, you should just throw bucket after bucket after bucket of water at them. Their fire is their most dangerous weapon, and the water saps it and makes it impossible to do so. It is as easy for a demon to make fire when wet as a newborn baby to recite the Greek alphabet backwards. The next thing to take note of is the darkness it is bred under. You see, fire isn’t its only power. Now for a baby demon it is, but I highly doubt a baby demon would try and overthrow a place. If the darkness is sapped, the demon will scream and explode in a black mist.” Chila pondered for a second.
“But CS, if I encounter a demon at night, won’t I be doomed?” She asked. I quickly went upstairs, and grabbed a trinket from my bag. But then it happened again.

“It’s not fair. It’s not fair.” The voices ceased to stop. I went back down, to avoid the voices. I stretched out my hand, and gave the trinket to Chila. It was an illuminating necklace.
“This necklace can either make you the ultimate good or the ultimate evil,” I said. “The gold rim is made from a nicely painted stardust. Stardust is incredibly rare, but can stop absolutely ANYTHING from sensing you. The gem hanging from the centre is triple-glazing glass mixed with fined marble; that combination would be enough to make a cage for the sun. And in a way, that’s what’s in there. When you want it to, it will shine bright. When you don’t, it won’t. This can save you many times. But whatever you do, NEVER let it fall into the hands of evil.” With that, I yawned. The butler decided to show me up to my room. “Well, G’night Chila.” I said, before ascending the stairs.

I have no idea why I decided to sleep in my room.

All night, the voices kept returning over and over. At first, they were mild, capable sayings.
“Ain’t fair that is.”
“Watch last nights footy?”
“Oh yeah still can’t believe that guy had his head chopped off.”

Then they started to get annoying.
“I’m so pretty, so very pretty.”
“Going to wash my hair.”
“But you don’t have any hair.”
“Exactly, so it will take a long time to wash it. Dividing zero results in infinity, so it will take an infinite time to wash it.”
“Shut up.”
“No you shut up.”
“Lala.”
“Please be quiet.”
“I know a song that’ll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a song that’ll get on your nerves, but I forgot the lyrics.”

And that’s when it finally made me jump.

“CS!”

Okay, comments?

Dude, didn't flame. I actually liked it. Not sure now... JK I'll read Ch2 later.
BTW I wrote something when I was ten and found it the other day OMG bad is not even enough. I'm still looking for the bond book I tried to wrote when I was like 11-12 or something. Can't find it. Of well...