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Copywright — Divinity Soul-Chapter One
Published: 2010-09-26 22:18:15 +0000 UTC; Views: 811; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 20
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Description Divinity Soul

James "Copywright" Joseph


Chapter 1

The dark-skinned, young boy looked sullenly ahead of him in the distance, wishing he could change what was about to happen. Running a hand through his spiky black hair, he turned to look at the young woman who had the same dark colored skin tone he had.
She gave him a gentle, yet sad smile. "I'm sorry it's gotta be like this, Zach. We'll keep in touch, right?" she said.
Zach looked down at the floor. "It's not fair! Just because they believe in something different than you do, Neariah..." he said. "I wish I could come with you."
Neariah touched Zach's shoulder gently and said, "May the Highest One protect you, brother. I have a feeling he has great things in store for you."
Neariah climbed into the cab, her eyes shining with the tears she was trying hard to suppress. Zach's tears were already flowing, but he sniffed and wiped his tears in a desperate attempt to look brave. Looking at him, Neariah wiped at the tears now leaking from her own eyes, and closed the cab door. As the driver slowly drove off, she waved to Zach, hoping he would be okay. Zach watched the cab until it was completely out of sight before sighing and going back inside to prepare for church later on that day.
"Zach, did you iron your clothes?" his mom asked.
"Yeah, Mom. I'm about to go get dressed."
His mother slowly walked over to him before whispering softly, "Zach... how did it go?"
"Fine, Mom. Now please excuse me while I get dressed," Zach replied before walking off to his room and closing the door firmly shut behind him.
Alone, Zach fell down on his bed and thought about how his life would be from now on. Neariah had always been his best friend and companion. Imagining now being without her was hard to bear. Her seemingly crazy beliefs had also made sense to him.
The "Big Deceiving" theory made sense but he never got the chance to get more details. As Zach put on his shirt and buttoned it, he smiled while thinking about the 14 years of memories with his sister. Tears flowing anew, he buckled his belt after pulling on his pants, as a memory of making snow angels and a snowball fight he and his sister once had filled his mind. Zach's heart ached as he remembered the question his sister had asked him that day. Her words replayed in his mind, 'Do you think it can always be fun like this, Zach? Forever?'
Pushing the memory away and hastily wiping the tears from his eyes again, he headed for the door. As Zach opened the door, the image of a triangle flashed into his mind. A voice accompanied this image with an ominous warning, "Don't go down this road, Zach. Stay true to what you know. For your own good..."
Strange shapes flashed through his mind, before slowly returning to the scene of the sunny morning outside. A little dazed and slightly shocked, he frantically fled to his mom's car and waited in the backseat for the rest of his family. As he waited, he couldn't help thinking he might be going insane. Who was that voice? What were those shapes he had seen? He had no idea whatsoever. Clearing his mind of the thoughts he decided he'd go pray for an answer to his questions when they reach the church.
As soon as his brother Nero, his mother and father all piled into the car, they sped off to the church. Zach kept quiet the whole ride, he knew his family wouldn't believe him if he mentioned anything about earlier.
When they arrived, Zach quickly climbed out and briskly walked into the church, quickly getting seats from him and his family. Zach looked around at the congregation, but didn't truly find anything out of order. Everyone seemed to merely be waiting for the ceremony to start.
Once the ceremony opened with the usual songs of praise, Zach glared at the priest. He couldn't help thinking that the priests were to blame for Neariah having to leave. Things went on slowly; a man read from an awkward book, the priest finally got into what he mainly wanted to preach about, and people stared in front of them without a word.
Zach tried not to yawn while sitting through the mass, yet he couldn't help feeling intensely sleepy. He was saved from falling asleep when everyone had to get up for the communion. Zach got up while feeling a little stiff and got into the line along with his family to receive the bread and wine.
As Zach took from the bread and wine, he noticed the priest giving him a hostile look. Ignoring what just happened as best as he could, Zach returned to his seat. His emotions were still so confused and troubled about Neariah's departure, that he didn't think any further of why the priest had reacted so hostile.
After the ceremony was finally over, Zach told his parents he needed to quickly go to the bathroom first. While walking down the hall and past the priest chamber, he heard a priest chanting foreign words. Curious, he stopped to listen more intently. Zach remembered noticing every time that he was a church the door to this particular room would be closed and locked. As far as he could remember this was the only time ever that it wasn't locked and the door not fully closed. Before he could help himself, his curiosity brought him to sneak close to the door and peer inside.
"Oh Father of Understanding and Bearer of the Eye that sees all, I am your messenger and your servant. I have done this week's brainwashing of the people's minds to please your cause. Please accept my service," the priest said while holding his hands in a prayer form.
But what caught Zach's wide-eyed attention even more than this priest praying such bizarre things, were the objects in the room. Against the furthest wall was a large poster of the Triangle he saw from his vision, strewn throughout the room were bent and broken crosses. The thing that caught his attention the most though, was a strange box placed on a pedestal.
Zach may not know what this all meant, or what was inside that box. But his inner senses told him that now was a perfect time to run for the hills. As Zach turned around he bumped straight into another priest.
"Your eyes and your ears have cost you your life, young one," the priest growled. Bewildered, Zach hardly registered the priest's words. Before he could reply anything, the priest's fist connected with him and he fell to the floor.
Dazed and disoriented from the blow, Zach tried awkwardly getting up to no avail as another fist connected with his face. The blow stung and Zach felt a hot liquid run down his face. 'Blood,' he thought while cringing. Lifting his eyes carefully up to the priest, he had only enough time to see the priest bring his fist down again, before he almost blacked out.
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Comments: 34

Ryugexu [2010-09-29 07:48:30 +0000 UTC]

Overall

Vision

Originality

Technique

Impact


Fascinating, I must say. I am not familiar with religious institutions but I find your mention of brainwashing an interesting and funny turn for a character who I assume went to church for a while. I am curious though, I don't think you went into enough detail with regards to his sister leaving. Was his sister being sent to the funny farm?

"Imagining now being without her was hard to bear." - I think the grammer is a bit strange. I would have used "Imagining being without her from now on was hard to bear." But I don't think that 'bear' is how you spell it. I could be wrong but I think BEAR lives in the woods, and to bare is a action.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to Ryugexu [2010-09-29 12:03:41 +0000 UTC]

Actually, you might want to open a dictionary. It is BEAR(endure).
[link]

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Ryugexu In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-30 02:43:43 +0000 UTC]

Yeah I wrote the critique at like 2am

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Copywright In reply to Ryugexu [2010-09-29 11:21:43 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the critique! I was trying to leave a little mystery in that department, and the 'bare' partt was just an accident, xD.

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DusktheDemon [2010-10-01 01:46:32 +0000 UTC]

Hi! I can't give critique in the critique box because I'm not a *-bearing user.
But I hope to try to make a decent critique anyway.

Your story has a neat direction. I feel like I'm sucked into the Twilight Zone with how creepy that church scene is~! I'd also like to know a bit more about what happened to Zach's sister. Maybe a flashback to whatever happened to make her need to go away? For example, instead of Zach saying that it wasn't fair to her because she had different beliefs, maybe it would be good to say Zach remembered that day and a bit about the drama that may have happened then.

For example of what I am trying to say, here's an excerpt from my story, Abduction and Salvation, with the flashback underlined.
"I'm trying to help you." he said, his pale hand removed his jacket and softly set it around her shoulders. "What that ...monster... did to your father was horrible. I'm glad I found you before the storm set in."

She had almost believed that event was a nightmare. She pulled the jacket closely to herself, recalling her father, past his prime, fighting the other demon. They were screaming at each-other, her father saying "she's all I have left! You'll never take her!" and the demon saying "but we need her, and we will do whatever it takes!"

"Over my dead body." was the last thing he said before that enormous noise, rival to the gates of hell opening upon the lands..... He was laughed at and assured that it was the plan.

This demon was... different.

"Let's get out of the cold." he said, carefully reaching to touch her arms to pull her up to her feet.

Otherwise your writing is very vivid and interesting. I couldn't stop reading it until I finished the whole deviation!

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Copywright In reply to DusktheDemon [2010-10-01 01:53:41 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the kind words! But, as for Neariah's past, that's to be shown in the next chapter.

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DusktheDemon In reply to Copywright [2010-10-01 02:06:10 +0000 UTC]

Oooh awesome.

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TheWriterMirage [2010-09-28 18:57:08 +0000 UTC]

hmmm. well it's an interesting story for sure, has lots of potential as well.

anyway, a few issues still pop up . I read this one, and read the old before editing (read it the same day i left a thank you on your page )

first of all, spacing. It's actually very preferred that you leave spaces between paragraphs and between conversation lines and paragraphs. It makes a story much easier to read, and even more organized. like :

"good morning."


"good morning."


*paragraph goes here*


Details, i read the replies, and as i understood the characters are detailed in the next chapter, but here, there's a lack of details. you can fix this problem by adding small details about the surroundings, and stuff like this. it'll give the story a much better flow.

The main problem here is the structure, it's ranging between weak and strong. like this sentence :

Neariah touched Zach's shoulder gently and said, "May the Highest One protect you, brother. I have a feeling he has great things in store for you." it gives an odd feeling to the flow, but it can be fixed. (and that's just my personal view of how to fix it here) ---> Neariah touched Zach's shoulder, rubbing it gently. "May the Highest One protect you, brother. I have a feeling he has great things in store for you." She whispered in his ear, printing a kiss on his cheek before climbing into the waiting cap.

Also, names, you've repeated the name Zach way too much. You can replace it with 'He' you know, the readers won't get confused if you do.

anyway, this is a real good story, it has a good potential. (reminded me with the Legend of Zelda for some reason.) needs some work here and there, but it's real good. Keep it up


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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-09-28 21:24:20 +0000 UTC]

It's absolutely impossible for me to add in all the little details about the characters and so on, as the writer only gave me the barest basic things to work with, I can't go about completely rewriting it as I wish.
I understand it reads easier like that on a screen, but most novels are not written in that format. And I was asked to do this as such, seeing as he wants this as a novel.

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TheWriterMirage In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-28 23:54:47 +0000 UTC]

I'm sorry, i critique as i see as i have no idea what copy asked you to write.
As for spaces, well i can't remember reading a novel that didn't contain them really. It makes things easier to read.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-09-29 00:39:01 +0000 UTC]

Please have a look at books by known authors such as Trudi Canavan, David Eddings, J.K. Rowling, Donita K. Paul, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many, many, many more. You can buy basically any novel and it is written in such a format. There tends to only be a full line open when a scene changes to other characters busy with something else somewhere in a different place but in the same chapter.

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TheWriterMirage In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-29 10:46:19 +0000 UTC]

i did, and last time I checked J.K Rowling books were spaced.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-09-29 11:15:44 +0000 UTC]

I have the whole collection of her books on my desk next to me, they are not "Spaced" there are no lines open underneath a paragraph. HARDLY ANY BOOKS ARE WRITTEN LIKE THAT. All the books have an indent(small open space) at the start of a new paragraph though, but dA doesn't let him paste it like that, but the file's are like that.

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TheWriterMirage In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-29 11:59:32 +0000 UTC]

i really have no idea why you're arguing about spacing. I like stories spaced. you don't want to space them fine by me. Most importantly now is that you need to strengthen the structure of the story other than argue whither to space it or not.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-09-29 12:09:49 +0000 UTC]

I was arguing about professional format, which you said was not so in published novels, whereby I gave proof to show my point.
And I don't need to worry about any structure at all, because I am no longer helping with this story. It's impossibly hard to be expected of to write a story like your own because you don't know all the things the writer plans and wants because he doesn't give you all the info people expect you to have.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-29 11:18:39 +0000 UTC]

And if you still don't believe me, I'll take you a damn photo from one of the books.

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reginadiedraghi In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-10-04 09:06:37 +0000 UTC]

wow
i still can't believe you're still arguing about this

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SeraphAlexa In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-29 11:30:16 +0000 UTC]

[link] Here, have a link from google as an example from one of the pages.

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TheWriterMirage In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-10-06 21:00:43 +0000 UTC]

jesus christ,
seriously,stop arguing about it, i don't really care to have a proof

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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-10-06 21:09:09 +0000 UTC]

If you failed to notice, I haven't said anything else at all, you blasphemous cow and you deem to be a professional critic, hah. This topic is closed so go play somewhere else.

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TheWriterMirage In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-10-06 21:15:16 +0000 UTC]

hey look at the bright side, at least my writing has a decent structure, unlike yours. It seems like a three year old wrote your pieces.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-10-06 21:21:11 +0000 UTC]

Oh really honey? When I'm the one who had writer's courses and won a trophy for best in the year, as well as my current work being accepted for publishing? Yea right. I'm not in the mood for you, some kid just fresh out of high school. You're hardly behaving like a critic now, and more like a baby brat.

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TheWriterMirage In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-10-06 21:24:58 +0000 UTC]

2 DLD's on this site
junior writer award in my own country, and a recognized writer on dA and yeah, I am 18 I'm out of highschool.
so seriously, let it go, I don't mean to insult, but I also don't like getting called names.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-10-06 21:29:12 +0000 UTC]

I wouldn't call you names if you weren't going about being blasphemous and your tone of things was insultive as well, or trying to lash at me with words. All humans' natural instinct is defense.
Like I said, I already let this go and it's of no interest to me anymore.

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TheWriterMirage In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-10-06 21:34:41 +0000 UTC]

'kill now greet later.' (Legion)
i certainly didn't mean insult in the first reply and I don't normally insult other writers unless i'm pulled to the verge.
(and I know, this sounds somehow sarcastic, but it's not)

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SeraphAlexa In reply to TheWriterMirage [2010-10-06 21:40:43 +0000 UTC]

Hmmm.. yeah, I've come across that event more times than I can count. Odd, how it works, is it not?
In any case, it wasn't my intention to try and kill you over your preffered reading layout either, it's just that I assumed you thought it was the general format for novels, in which a lot of people prefer to have their work typed in the format it would be published in.
But yes, I'd do well to apologize, it doesn't do well to let my current stress and emotions rule over my actions. And that wasn't sarcasm either. I tend not to have fights over the internet or in general everyday life, instead I'm the one normally fixing the fights.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-29 00:40:34 +0000 UTC]

But I believe what seems odd to you here, is that dA doesn't allow the indents that I and all authors use for every new paragraph.

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SeraphAlexa In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-29 00:42:41 +0000 UTC]

He just copies and pastes from the files, in which they are typed in the basic novel format which includes these indents, but they do not show up like that on dA. Maybe that would clear up the misunderstanding.

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nicebonsai [2010-09-28 02:15:22 +0000 UTC]

okay I have read the small beginning excerpt, but before I go further I need to know if you have like a diagram or a related item describing each character because without that I cannot do my job! also I need the setting and situation. I'm not a normal reader, i'm not supposed to be discovering the story for the first time. think of me as an evaluator and advisor/consultant

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nicebonsai In reply to nicebonsai [2010-09-28 02:35:36 +0000 UTC]

Okay so there is this kid, Zach, but what is he like? so far he doesn't seem so resolved or show any fortitude, but that makes sense because he is only fourteen. I like that but I think you should steer clear of a coming to age story such as harry potter and every other book! maybe have the scene were he is cry and his sister leaves, and then like ten years later he wakes up from a dream of his sister departure. then slowly he receives bits and pieces from his sister, who needs his help right? and then for a while he doesn't know what the hell is going on. then a group called the inquisitors come in and chase him down or something because I really really dislike cliche coming of age stories

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SeraphAlexa In reply to nicebonsai [2010-09-28 11:33:38 +0000 UTC]

As you go along and read the other chapters, you begin to learn more about the character bit by bit. It's always up to the author of how he'd like to have his story portrayed.

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nicebonsai In reply to SeraphAlexa [2010-09-28 12:12:27 +0000 UTC]

yeah but for someone who is helping with the story, it helps to be able know what the characters are like

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SeraphAlexa In reply to nicebonsai [2010-09-28 12:30:18 +0000 UTC]

Well, if you are helping and you want, I'll email you through the email he sent me with little tidbits of info from the characters. Which is about all I have to work from.

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nicebonsai In reply to nicebonsai [2010-09-28 02:37:45 +0000 UTC]

but of course if you want the childhood part then maybe have flash backs during his adult life.

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