# Cardinal - Prologue



## jambleshiroshima (Sep 1, 2015)

Here's something I've been working on for a bit. I'd really like some feedback, (be as harsh as you need to be). If you want to see more I can PM you a link to the Google Document!

Also, I know the title says it's the prologue - and it is - but it's actually just a snippet of the seven pages I've written so far. 

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Forty kilometers inside the ice cave Eisriesenwelt, a child's body opened its eyes for the first time in seventy years. In the shape of a ten-year old, the Antichrist woke with a yawn and stretched their arms towards the heavens. They stood, refreshed as though their time asleep had only been an hour and not the latter part of a century - and then some. The many beings inside of the child’s body thought of the possible reasons as to why they were woken, but it would all be speculation for the next little while. Clearly, the upstairs and downstairs neighbors were having another little chat - the intense light of God’s chariot could be seen through the surrounding hundred feet of ice, and the heat from the Devil’s portal into the human world could be felt from hundreds of miles away - and the Antichrist was required to meet with them to keep the “checks-and-balances of power” that was so explicitly asked for in one of God’s pet constitutions. The child’s very brain began to heat up with the amount of beings conversing by thought within it. A couple of the seventeen inhabitants of the shell were forced to speak aloud so as to take command of the conversation.

The child’s mouth barely moved and yet a piercing voice consumed the air, rupturing the eardrums of the same body.

“So who will speak with them?”

An eternity of silence ensued within a second, broken by the cacophony of seventeen different voices inside the child. The Antichrist never did reach a decision.

After the intense conversation, the seventeen tried to take control of the child’s motions, but any bystander would have believed that the thing in front of them was undergoing a terrible seizure as those inside attempted to drive the skin-vehicle. Despite the special maintenance that had been done onto the vessel it still ended up being quite worse for wear, as the times for God’s summons were surprisingly unpredictable, compared to how many different signs he gave the _humans_ for his “Second Coming”. Nonetheless, it took a mere three human seconds for the pilots to regain a basic feel for the simple controls. They paced along the ten-foot-wide room anxiously, making sure all the kinks were worked out. Their face became bruised from the multiple times that it landed flat upon the ice, and the wrists were fractured over and over again as they began attempting to catch themselves. After a small while, they were able to walk - but without being fully awakened, there was not much more they could do. All the more that could be done on their part was wait.

The seventeen tried to take control of the child’s motions, but any bystander would have believed that the child-looking thing in front of them had been having a terrible seizure as those inside attempted to drive the skin-vehicle for the first time in a substantial number of decades. Despite the special maintenance in charms that had been done onto the vessel it still ended up being quite worse for wear, as the times for God’s summons were surprisingly unpredictable considering how many different signs he gave the _humans_ for his “Second Coming”. Nonetheless, it took a mere three human seconds for the pilots to regain a basic feel for the simple controls. They paced along the ten-foot-wide room anxiously, making sure all the kinks were worked out. Their face became bruised from the multiple times that it landed flat upon the ice, and the wrists were fractured over and over again as they began attempting to catch themselves. After a small while, they were able to walk - but without being fully awakened, there was not much more they could do. All the more that could be done on their part was wait.

The last time any of the three powerful entities had all been in the same area together was during the end of World War II, when God and Lucifer had decided that the time for the final battle was not quite nigh. Granted, that decision to end their practice Chess battle was reached by fighting between the two anyway, so most of the Antichrist believed the situation was quite hypocritical. Even still, Lucifer managed to keep the battle going long past its time with some of the radical groups that branched off from Nazi ideologies. With small bursts of pushed ethnic cleansing here and there, (and many more caused solely by humans themselves), hundreds of thousands more were able to be killed before the end of his brutal last stand. For the most part he kept it under wraps, keeping it as seemingly natural as possible. God, however, eventually noticed a strange pattern of last thoughts focusing on the yellowish tint in the assailants’ eyes. Upon coming across this information, He struck the remaining pawns down in a swift motion. The Antichrist had absolutely nothing to do with it besides being present as a witness - not that it mattered in the slightest anyway, seeing as how there’s no higher law to defer to - so really all they were there for was to assert Blind Melon’s point that three is indeed the magic number. Neither God nor the Devil held any love for the Antichrist, but principle required them to exist, forming their own little trinity of higher beings, a balance of powers with the Antichrist being a set of seventeen council members to examine every decision made. Although the creation and collection of beings was originally Lucifer’s plan to take over the world, their heightened self-consciousness - a slight oversight on Satan’s part - made them aware of how just as easily they could take over the throne for themselves, rather than give it up. Yet the weird natural order for things, the one that dictates how things come in threes, forbids God and the Devil both from eradicating the Antichrist from the race to the throne. The unholy third party was morphed into a sustained threat - and a party it surely is.

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And that's about all I feel like sharing at the moment just because of how many words there are. Please let me know if you like it! Thanks a bunch!


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## LeeC (Sep 2, 2015)

It's too late tonight to try to critique this, but to increase your chances of someone critiquing this I'd suggest doing a little format editing ;-)

For paragraphs either indent the first line of each, or leave a blank line between. In doing so you might notice you've duplicated one of the paragraphs. ["The seventeen tried to take control ..."]

Also, there seems to be a typo with "r managed to keep the battle going ..." 

Beyond that I got lost in the flow, probably because my mind's already shut down for the night and the type is so small.  

I'll try to get back.


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## jambleshiroshima (Sep 2, 2015)

Sorry, how do you mean by formal editing? Sorry, I'm a tad new to this site haha. Sorry about the font, I did change that a bit ago, and thanks for notifying me of the typo!


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## LeeC (Sep 2, 2015)

I said "format editing," not "formal editing." By that I meant editing the piece for readability, such as breaks between paragraphs.


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## jambleshiroshima (Sep 2, 2015)

Ah whoops, my bad. Sorry, I'm really tired. I'll work on that straight away!


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## canary (Sep 10, 2015)

Wow!  That starts with a bang, doesn't it?  Love it, great start.  Intimate details help keep it grounded (e.g. smashing the face on the ice), might consider adding more of that.

My question is: are you going to introduce a human point of view?  While this passage pulls me in, I don't know that I'd make it through seven pages of this, just because it's such an unusual perspective.  Short passages through the eyes of the drivers of the skin-vehicle (nice) like this could be very powerful, however.

I did get lost in the last paragraph.  I'd need more plot/character before absorbing that much backstory.  Might be better to drip-feed this throughout the first couple of chapters.


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## Bard_Daniel (Jan 3, 2016)

This is an interesting start, but it's way too much of an info-dump for my tastes. You have an intriguing concept, but beyond that you have no point of view to base it from and therefore it's more of a history than a story. I would suggest, as canary, to introduce more plot/character before delving into such backstory.

Just my two cents, cheers!


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## uchiwa (Feb 28, 2016)

I agree with canary and danielstj on the beginning. I think you've got a strong introduction, especially in your opening sentence, and the clarity and fluidity of your words is fantastic. That's not something I see everyday these days across the numerous writing websites that I'm a part of. I personally would encourage writing from an "unusual perspective", as canary put it, largely because it's not something that a whole lot of writers do, and I feel like it's more interesting to read a story from such an odd perspective or multiple perspectives because you can walk away from that story with numerous unique takes on the plot, on what happened, instead of witnessing only the protagonist's and the deuteragonist's perspectives, or whatever. 

However, I would strongly recommend, for future reference, that you try to balance the character's history out with the current situation. What I mean by that is, in this case, explain their back story in small chunks here and there while explaining their situation. Try to avoid "dumping" all this information on your readers all at once, so as to not confuse them. I would suggest dispersing it evenly between paragraphs, and when appropriate, to do this. 

All in all, your spelling and grammar looks good, your theme is clear and your introduction captured my attention. Your descriptions are magnificent and, overall, your piece is fascinating (in my opinion, at least). But, the spew of history could use some work. Other than that, this isn't at all a bad piece. Keep writing.


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## Seancy (Feb 29, 2016)

I really like the idea of this opening, its jarring in a way that would surprise you if you stumbled upon it.  Which seems to be the 'perspective' that you are going for, though I did find myself a bit confused if I was privy to everyone's (anti/god/Lucifer) thoughts or just the council of 17.  As a reader I am very invested in the story you are about to tell but find I'm not sure who I should be invested in when it comes to the character, who's cause am I sympathetic to?  Should I care about the child's body (also is the body being divinely healed after such treatment or is he getting up using broken wrists?) does the indifference of the Antichrist to the warring of deity's matter?  I don't ask these questions critically but more as a reader.  I really like this and would love to see more, the matter of this kinda "war" has always been a fascination of mine, what happens when two divine figures disagree and does that lessen their divinity? 

also super nitpicky but....Why "three *human* seconds" I think I know where you are going with this but isn't a second a constant?  you could expand on the triviality of a "second" in the eyes of a diety or call it a "moment" or something more contextual maybe "the time it takes for the child's chest to rise and fall three times"


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## JonesyWriter (Mar 27, 2016)

I did some edits for you below with bold and red - I like the start of the story. I believe you should incorporate the last paragraph earlier, as it gives us understanding I felt I was lacking until I read it.  Great intro - I'm interested to see what you do with it!




jambleshiroshima said:


> Here's something I've been working on for a bit. I'd really like some feedback, (be as harsh as you need to be). If you want to see more I can PM you a link to the Google Document!
> 
> Also, I know the title says it's the prologue - and it is - but it's actually just a snippet of the seven pages I've written so far.
> 
> ...


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