Post apocalyptica…What a shithole. Everyone had their theories about how the world was gonna end. Zombies this, meteors that. Well no-one had the sense to combine them all, cause if they did, they’d have a much clearer picture about what they’d be dealing with.

It all started so innocently, with genetic testing. If that’s the innocent start, you know that what lies to come is pretty bad. Anyways, the scientist pigs of the former U.S. of A. were trying to unlock the secrets of genesplicing, a method of mixing animal genes with human ones. They did the obvious stuff first, like dogs and birds, trying every combination available. It wasn’t until some super genius, a psycho named Phillipe Irving, created a so called “Philosophers Stone” to solve the bonding problems the scientists had been having.

See, even though a person may share like 90% or something of their DNA with say, a rat, that other 10 or so percent can cause some pretty big changes. The first human ever spliced lasted a week before he came apart at the seams, literally. Like, the enzymes in his body broke down the lining of his skin and he melted. That was a human-chimp mixture, the closest damn thing we’ve got to a genetic ancestor. Anyways, after Irving introduced his miracle cure to the problem, genesplicing was just the start.

Werewolves? No problem. Bird-men? Cake. There wasn’t a creepy gene splice scientists couldn’t do. Soon, it wasn’t enough for them to just make hybrids. They wanted war machines, like any self-respecting anonymous science branch of a corrupt government would. Within a week, they were pumping out soldiers that could jump ten stories, take small arms fire and be none the worse for wear, and flip cars like they were made of cardboard. But was that enough? No. They needed more. More craziness, more bells and whistles! Enter…me. I was the first of my kind, but also the last. My name is Karma. Fitting.

So, a bit about me. My skin is harder than any known substance known, and the texture of a nice granite. My eyes can pick out a fly at seven hundred yards with the sun in my face. My nose is like a bloodhound’s. I’ve got ears that can hear a heartbeat through a steel wall. I can feel the magnetic field of the earth and use it to navigate more accurately than any bird in the sky. Those are the good qualities I’ve got. The bad makes it seem a little more balanced.

People always look at one thing on me the first time they meet me, and it’s not my breasts. It’s my eyes. My damned eyes. They’re a sickly cream color, no pupils or iris, and they glow. I’ve heard ‘em described in many ways, but I think the most accurate is “like fuckin’ lanterns”. You see, I’m a ghoul, the perfect killer. Once dead, but brought back to life through some science-y voodoo, and upgraded to do some death-dealing of my own. I don’t breathe, my heart is still, and I feed on the dead. I’m immortal, in the truest sense of the word.

“But Karma! You said you were gonna talk about what’s bad about you! Immortality is super cool…except for the feeding part” That’s right. To keep myself going strong, I’ve got to eat the people I kill. Goody goody. However, I’m the only one that survived the ghoulification, and since they did such a good job, the scientists couldn’t re-kill me to study why I succeeded. Stupid men.

Audio log #1, Year 2153, Karma~

All quiet on the home front. A lone raven cawed in the distance, rising to the appearance of the sun. On the roof of a desiccated skyscraper, a bundle of rags shifted about. Slowly, a woman unfolded herself and stood up straight, stretching towards the sky with a groan. She smacked her lips and blinked sleepily, scratching her back as she scanned the horizon. With a sigh, she approached the ledge of her temporary home and looked over, peering at the ground far below. Small shapes moved around aimlessly, occasionally clashing and squabbling, but never for very long.

“Breakfast,” grinned the woman as she simply stepped off the ledge, plummeting straight down like a rock. After freefalling for around ten seconds, she slammed into the pavement at ground level so hard that she was buried up to her knees. However, she was unfazed and pulled herself out as if she was simply stuck in loose sand. The shambling, rotting creatures around her looked at her blankly for a second before resuming their business.

Karma scoffed in disdain. “Fuckin’ zombies. No fun attol,” she spat. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a bit of movement and turned to her left. One zombie had turned and was shambling quicker in a general “away-from-her” direction. Karma smiled a bit as she trotted after it, hoping it would run. When the rotter noticed its hungry pursuer chasing after it, the creature broke into a full fledged sprint. This one must have been recently turned, as it was making little fear noises and had pretty good balance and speed. No matter.
Like a hungry dog, Karma dropped to a sprinters stance and took off, using all fours to catch up. Her arms elongated to assist in her gait, and her fingers and bare toes dug little divots into the concrete as she tore after the prey. Right as she entered leaping distance, the zombie was splattered by a group of bandits in a buggy. Karma didn’t miss a beat, however and pursued her new targets.

“OI! GUNTER! Got ourselves a chaser! Get rid ovit!” barked the driver, having noticed Karma in his side mirror. The gunner looked over his shoulder, swinging his gatling gun into view and spooling up the weapon. As soon as it was ready, he jammed down on the triggers and sent a blistering lead wind downrange at his pursuer. Unfortunately for him, Karma took that exact moment to pounce, and she cleared the little buggy, landing on the hood gracefully.

Karma turned around and grinned at the driver, exposing her obsidian teeth…all of them, in their sharpened, unholy glory. The bandit screamed high pitched like a little girl and swerved, trying to shake her off. Adopting a “silly man” facial expression, Karma punched through the steel mesh that served as the windshield and ground her fingers into the man’s skull. His passenger opened up with a hand cannon, blasting at her fruitlessly. The ghoul’s nails elongated into talons, extending into the man’s head and causing him to scream even louder and incidentally wet himself.

“Yummy. I like screamers,” she giggled, before pulling the front half of the man’s skull through the windshield. The buggy slowly revved down and ground to a stop, at which point the bandits spilled out of the car and surrounded her, guns pointed but not firing. Karma ignored them, instead focusing on her breakfast. She glanced at one of the bandit men before popping one of their former leader’s eyes into her mouth and squishing it with her slate grey tongue, sending eyeball jelly out of her open lips and all over the hood of the car. One of the bandits vomited.

Karma tossed the remnant of the face onto the buggy, sporting a disappointed expression. “Too fresh, he was. Makes me a bit sick inside. No matter. It’ll pass.” She stood up and brushed off her raggedy pants, turning to the men with a blood-stained smile. “So…What’s new then, hey?”

~~

Heyo everyone! It’s me, Karma. I decided to keep recording these logs in case anyone actually wants to know about what the hell happened to our once green earth. Anyways last time I talked about the scientist scum, I think, so this time I think I’ll talk about why the environment is so shitty.

Remember space? Not like “the gap between the cupboard and the sink”, but Outer Space, the final frontier, the big blackness, all that. Well Space decided that Earth was smiling far too much, so it brought its big, cosmic hand across the Earth’s pretty face, in the form of Haley’s comet. Normally the comet orbited our dirtball peacefully, but some freak magno-wave from the Sun altered its flight path and it sort of used Earth as the surface of a lake to play “skip-stone”. So, while the planet wasn’t cracked in half by this cataclysm, it was damn sure burnt to a crisp.

Indian ocean, gone. Asia, toast. World water level dropped about seventy feet, and the whole eastern hemisphere pretty much fried. Luckily the hardiest plants, animals, and humans managed to survive, but not by much. World population went from 8.36 billion to about 2 billion. “Well, Karma, 2 billions sounds like plenty of humans to me.” Yea? Well…fuck off then. 2 billon people is barely scraping by in terms of world populations and whatnot. That’s not the worst part, either.

“Oh now there’s a worst part?” Yes, and if you don’t shut your gob, I’ll kill you. Haleys comet had some kind of space germs on it, and as it skipped off earth, the impact dusted the planet with these germs. 1 in every 7 people were susceptible to the space virus, and they in turn try daily to spread it to the other 6.

Y’see, this space virus, when contracted, forces the body to stop regenerating cells, impedes brain function and makes the infected perpetually hungry. Their skin fades to a gross, pale white color, as do their eyes and hair. Their gums recede, but their teeth stay strong. Basically, they become retarded but angry cannibals, whose flesh slowly rots off of their bodies. They do feel pain, but it doesn’t stop or deter them from a potential meal. The non-infected took to calling them “Zombies”, but really the only being on the planet that qualifies as a zombie is me, since I am the first…actually the second person to die and be resurrected. But I’m in no way a holy woman, so…

Anyways, so Zombies walk the earth. Fortunately for you, if you are not in the “1-in-7” category of susceptibility to the virus, you won’t catch it ever. However, you can still be eaten to death, so don’t get cocky. Remember boys and girls, if the walking dead can’t catch you, they can’t taste you. Keep that cardio strong.

Audio log #2, Year 2153, Karma~

“Hey…Hey! Crazy cannibal bitch! HEY!” shouted Gunter, roughly kicking Karma in the side. Finally, the ghoul roused herself from sleep enough to look at him, albeit through only one eye and a frown.

“Whachu wan’, Goonter? I’s sleepin’,” muttered Karma, annoyed at being woken up. At the mention of food, however, she perked right up. A patrol had been ambushed by rotters not too far from the camp, and they needed to break out some big guns if they wanted to survive through the night.

“Listen…I still don’t trust you, but if you help us out I’d be a little less twitchy with you followin’ us around like this, okay? Just go fight off the rotters, okay?” He backed up a bit in fear as Karma’s stomach growled, but she simply crawled to her feet and stretched, grunting in pleasure as her joints popped like firecrackers.

“Jus’ sit tight ‘ere with yer boys. I’ll be back in a flash,” ordered the ghoul as she trotted to the edge of the firelight. A sentry pointed her in the direction of the patrol’s last report, two miles to the northeast. Nodding her thanks, Karma took off at an easy, distance eating lope that she developed to cross the countryside with ease. She’d studied wild dogs running down their prey and adopted that running style. You have much more control on all fours than you do on two legs, she found.

Soon, the shambling horde came into sight, a little to the east of where she was originally headed. They seemed to be surrounding a squat little office building, which lead Karma to deduce that the bandit patrol must be hidden in there. She skidded to a stop and evaluated the situation. It looked like the front doors were pretty heavily barricaded, but the second floor windows were clear. So long as the Zombies couldn’t climb, that would be a good entrance. The problem with zombies is that they do all kinds of unpredictable things, which in this case translated into making a zombie tower to break into the second floor.

The rotters started clumping together, with their fellows getting on their shoulders and stacking. The structure looked pretty coordinated, but it had its weaknesses. Karma scooped up a couple flattish stones and tested their weight, nodding to herself. Exploding into movement, she blasted the two stones into the column of zombies, killing the key members of the stack and causing the whole thing to tumble down. With a smile, Karma sprinted forward and vaulted the whole horde, smashing into the wall of the building and grinding her fingers and toes into the wall.

“Itsy-bitsy spider and all that…” she muttered to herself with a chuckle. The ghoul scaled the building as easily as if she was simply strolling down the street. If the bandits were indeed in this building, she’d kill enough zombies outside to satisfy her hunger and get the men out. As she crawled over the edge of the roof, her forehead bumped into something cold and metal, which turned out to be the barrel of a very large gun. As nonchalantly as she could manage, Karma stood up and brushed the weapon away from her, looking around and taking stock. There were 4 men and 2 women on that roof, armed to the teeth and more than a little tired.

“Y’all the patrol? Gunter sent me.” At the mention of someone they knew, the group nearly collapsed in relief. They instantly changed to a happy and accepting mood, crowding around Karma and asking about their home. She became confused, as these people sounded like they’d been gone for longer than a night.

“How long exactly ‘ave you been stuck up ‘ere?” she asked the man who’d had his gun in her face. He looked to his friends concernedly, then back to her.

“Two weeks…We had to stop going down into the building when it flooded with those…things,” said the man with a shudder. “I’m Cristof, by the way. This is Cherie, Matt, Dasim, Sebastian, Lily, and Rico,” He said, pointing to each in turn. Karma evaluated them all one at a time.

Cristof was the most fit of the group, it looked. He was 6’3” at least, very well built and tan. His sandy blond hair hung down to his ears, and his beard was bushy, but neat. Cherie was a skinny blonde, standing at 5’5” and couldn’t have weighed more than 100 pounds soaking wet. Matt looked a bit sickly, his dark, chocolate colored skin a bit ashy and his face was tight around his skull. If she was really suspicious or paranoid, Karma might have thought him infected, but since Cristof said that they were trapped on the roof for two weeks, it was impossible. Dasim, the elderly Indian man, simply grinned toothlessly at her, winking in a disturbingly provocative manner. The scariest member of the group, Lily glared with all her might at Karma, trying to stare her down. She stood at an even 6 foot, so she was able to look her dead in the eyes. The woman had shaved her head into a Mohawk, into which she’d threaded hawk feathers and beads. She was covered in tattoos, and running down the left side of her face was a nasty scar, which actually showed on her left eye as well. There was a small ridge cut into the eyeball itself, coloring the whole thing white and rendering her blind in that eye. She was playing with a Chinese broom handle pistol, priming and un-priming the handgun. The last member of the group, Rico, was probably the most combat hardened of them all. His bare arms were dotted with bite marks, and he was missing the last two fingers on his left hand. Karma smiled a bit as she looked at his bushy mustache, thinking that it reminded her of gigantic caterpillars that covered his lips completely. He pulled a cigarette out of his bandanna that he wore wrapped around his head and put in his mouth, but didn’t light it.

With a nod, Karma addressed the whole group. “Listen up everyone. You’re not the group I’m looking for, but since I found you and not them, you’re all comin’ back with me. Anyone know a way back that doesn’t involve having to fight the hoard? That would take a loooooong time.” The group was silent for a time, looking back and forth between each other until little Cherie raised her hand and spoke up, her quiet voice shaky from nerves.

“We have a rope…You could use that to make a zip-line to the other side of the street…” Everyone looked at her blankly and she withdrew into herself, thinking she said something stupid. Cristof looked from her to a pile of steel cord on the ground near them, and then to Karma.

“I feel like a regular ignoramoose…Why didn’t we think of this before, I don’t know. Good work, ma Cherie.” The skinny blonde beamed at the praise and looked on as the group got prepared to make their escape.

~~

[part two- I welcome any critiques or comments that anyone wants to offer.]

The Audio Logs are what most captured me. Karma is hilarious. Your character, I mean though karma itself can be pretty funny at times as well. I do wish there was a bit more focus on her personality though. She is a ghoul and unlike the zombies (or the 'rotters' as I prefer), she was once alive and has been revived. I understand keeping exactly how she survived when the others like her died a mystery. It makes sense. Having more than one of her (considering her capabilities and nigh-immortality) could create a lot of imbalance.

I go back to Karma's personality however in that I wish there had been more focus or even explanation for it. Was this her personality from when she was alive? Would it have even been possible for these unnamed scientists to have brought her back with her original personality intact. I cannot imagine that she had such a disregard for human life when she was alive but perhaps she was just as snide and sarcastic as she displays now as a ghoul. Or maybe this was not her personality at all and what the reader is seeing now is the personality she has developed since her 'revival' and so she has little or even no memory of her past life. Did the scientists even know who she was or was her body just a suitable guinea pig for their experiments?

I just feel that there was a lot concerning who Karma is now that was needlessly left unsaid.

I loved the two Audio Logs. They really put in to perspective how Karma feels about these scientist-types who 'created' her but there is not a whole lot of information of how she has all of this information. I would assume however that she had access to these scientists' logs and computer data but just a little clarification would have been preferable. The Audio Logs were a great method though of explaining the current dilemma of the world and how it came to be that way. Narration does a good job of explaining the current state of the world to a reader but sometimes dialogue straight from a character within that world does an even better job and this is exactly what you accomplished. Good job! :)

Outside of the Audio Logs however I noticed there was not a lot of time spent on actual story structuring or plot development but rather a focus on action sequences. Now don't get me wrong. I love action in anything I read. In fact, even though I am not a big fan of the sword and sorcery genre of Fantasy (I am not sure what you would call the science fiction equivalent of that as this seems more closely related to SF than Fantasy but I am just using what I know to better clarify myself), I feel that action is among the most important elements of a story.

However, action does not always have to do with physical conflict despite how much fun it was imagining the ghoulish Karma ripping apart bandits and rotters. xD It is just that I noticed little action in the story outside of Karma's fighting prowess. You completely skipped over why it is that she chose to help these bandits (most notably Gunter) when just before the second Audio Log she was eating the eyeballs out of one of their heads.

(As an after thought and do not take this the wrong way as it is not necessarily a bad thing but I got a very Borderlands bandit feeling from Gunter and his crew. I felt it was rather nice. This could be from the sudden squishing of the rotter that Karma was chasing by the bandits' buggy.)

I just feel that you skipped over a lot of potentially interesting action points in why Karma chose to help these bandits and why she did not rip off Gunter's leg when he roughly kicked her awake. You also took the time to explicitly name Cristof and his crew along with physical descriptions that hinted at their personality but then the story comes to a sudden halt. The same goes for Gunter and his posse. Not counting Karma, you introduced by name a total of 8 different characters and yet I feel like I do not know any of them aside from their physical appearance.

I mean sure, Rico's scars show that he has seen a lot of combat and Lily's hard stare and eccentric look hints at a stern and unpredictable nature but I do not know anything about why I am getting these feelings from Rico and the others. I guess what I am trying to say is that maybe you should have spent a little more time on Gunter (and maybe even a fella' or two from his gang) before introducing the other 7 characters. It can be difficult sometimes for a reader to remember characters only by their name and appearance. A solid personality, mannerisms, and even the way they speak (such as with Karma's interesting dialect) are also attributes that help a reader better remember a character.

Concerning your writing style; you are quite the skilled writer and I find reading your work to be easy and possessing of that special flow that really makes it easy for your reader to lose themselves in your writing. A few things I would like to point out however I think would make that flow even more natural.
When you had Karma assessing Rico you wrote, "The last member of the group, Rico, was probably the most combat hardened of them all. His bare arms were dotted with bite marks, and he was missing the last two fingers on his left hand."
This is something that I am often guilty of myself. I do not feel that the first line is all that necessary. Rico's arms being dotted with bite marks and his missing fingers already tell us that he is likely combat hardened and so it does not bare repeating. This is what I like to call 'over-descriptive' or 'not giving your reader enough credit'. It really goes along the lines showing us that Rico is combat-hardened rather than telling us. In this case, you have done both.

I would like to give an example which was given by A.B. Guthrie Jr. in his book A Field Guide to Writing Fiction. Note, I'm not copying this directly from the book and so it will not be in quotes. I do however recommend this book to novice and adept writers alike.
Now for the example:
Let's say you are writing a detective story and your protagonist is investigating a series of brutal murders. Your detective approaches the body of the latest victim who is laying face down in the grass. Now, when your detective goes to look at the victim's face you could just as easily start going in to gruesome detail about how horribly disfigured it is. Such a descriptive style may not necessarily be the wrong approach but it does sort of take away from your reader's own imagination. Instead, you might have one of the police officers suddenly stop the detective and say something along the lines of, "You might not want to do that, detective." This gives your reader a sense of, "Wow, it must be pretty bad. I can just imagine..." As a writer, you are sharing the works of your imagination with your reader but at the same time you have to remember that the reader has their own imagination and looks forward to filling some necessary gaps with a few of their own details.
(It is also one of the reasons why I love watching a movie based off of a book (regardless of how good it turns out) because I like to see how someone else (in this case the director, producer, actors, etc.) visually imagined the story.)

This example, I feel also holds true for when you described Karma eating the man's eyeball. I was already imagining the eye-jucies squirting out from between her lips as soon as she ate it even before you described the action. So, in my opinion that makes explaining those juices squirting out an unnecessary description that took a little bit away from my own imagination. I can't imagine any freshly yanked eye would not squirt upon being squished.

(Yes, I said eye-jucies. xD)

I really do hope to see not just more of your work in the Creative Forum but more of this particular piece. I've grown fond of Karma (she really is a bitch, huh?) and I would like to see some more of her adventures besides just zombie-bashing. She mentioned possible werewolves and even bird-men in the first Audio Log. Not only would I like to see how Karma might deal with such formidable foes but I'd also like to see how people like Gunter or hard-asses like Rico might handle them as well.
I wanted to say that Karma appeared a little too over-powered but all you have shown so far are mindless zombies (retarded cannibals LOL) and ordinary humans and so I am greatly enjoying how formidable an aerial opponent like a mutated bird-man might be.

(I'm personally imagining a sort of cross between harpies from Greek myth and those weird corbie bird-monsters from D&D.)

Anyways, I'm really, really sorry for the possibly over-bearing length of my critique but I promise that it is only so long because I truly enjoyed your work and I see a lot of potential sifting between the lines. More potential, I'm afraid than I may have given it credit for above. There is still so much more I'm sure I could say about this such as how I love the way Karma took the time to brush her pants off even though they were described as being ragged. So many things.

Okay, I'll shut up now. lol Again, I look forward to seeing more of your work in the forums and remember, *"No More 0 Replies!" Don't forget to get out there and contribute in your own way by possibly offering some of your own critiques on work you find interesting. Keep on keepin' on!

-Mins

* the-creative-realm-more-replies-t66073.html

Bloodstains are red, Rotters are grey,

If you don’t watch your head, They might come out to play.

Keep a good pace, Outrun your dog,

If you can’t win the race, Their intestines you will clog.

~Limerick, post-apocalyptic children.



What's up, lads 'n ladies? It’s Karma again. I thought I’d start with some fluffy goodness this time. I’ve learned a thing or two in my stay here in the hellhole, and one of those things is that if you want to survive, you gotta stick together. I don’t mean physical survival either, ‘cause just livin’ day to day is easy. I mean mental survival. If you wanna keep all your marbles in the same bag, you need other people.



“But Karma, if you’re a flesh eating ghoul, how do other people accept you?” Valid point, voice-in-my-head, but irrelevant. There’s no greater weapon in a survivors arsenal than a weapon that fuels itself off the bodies of its enemies. Occasionally I run into a group of bandits that are too thick-skulled to see the value of keeping me around, and then I eat like a queen for weeks. I avoid the living if I can, however, ‘cause the fresh red gives me a bad case of the stomach bug. Rotter flesh, on the other hand, is aged to perfection and ripe for the chewing.



On the subject of sticking together, I’ve been at this whole Post-Armageddon thing for…about twenty three years now. I found this recorder roughly four months ago in one of the abandoned labs that the scientist scumbags kept scattered around the metro area. Actually, I found it with the help of some survivors I saved from a passing horde, who were gracious enough to let me tag along as they plundered the ruins. They looked for medical supplies and weapons, while I hunted up info. Y’see, the more I know about what happened, the more I can share with everyone I meet. The more they know, the more we can re-build.



That’s the end-game objective here, kiddies. Rebuilding the human race to its former glory and eradicating the infection. I know that’ll mean less food for me, and I’ll probably starve to death, but this world only needs me because of the rotters. Without a target, a war-machine like me would go crazy and probably cause a problem as big as the rotters did. So I do what I can to help out the people I can, and maybe one day the world will go back to normal. That is Karma, and that’s what I’m here for…



Audio log #3, Year 2153, Karma~



“Okay, so on the count of three, we make a break for it,” Cristof reminded the group. They’d jerry rigged the zipline to a light pole on the other side of the street, with Karma’s help, and everyone lined up to get ready. As the tall blonde man counted down, the rest of the group tensed up, ready for action. Cristof shouted three and charged toward the edge of the building, jumping out into space and catching the wire with a bent piece of pipe he’d scavenged. Once on street level, he motioned to the rest of the group to follow suit while he kept watch with his rifle leveled. The rotters had long since dispersed after Karma’s arrival, so the area was a little safer. Something about Karma's smell irritated them and caused them to move off.



“’Kay, everyone, listen up. Th’ bandits ‘re about a mile ta th’ southwest o’ us, so I suggest we get movin’,” cautioned Karma. It was a long walk back to the camp, made all the more tense due to the lack of infected sightings. Karma was more interested in the fact that it’d been several weeks since she’d tangled with another of her genetically twisted siblings. They were usually attracted to predictable bandit groups, like the one she happened to be babysitting at the moment, and she was getting antsy for another real fight.



A sentry spotted the group as they neared the camp, still a quarter mile out, and sent a patrol out to meet them in a small pick-up. The rest of the group piled into the bed, while Karma perched on the cab to keep lookout. The group was greeted with joy and open arms as they returned, and soon the camp was gathered around the bonfire of brotherhood. It warmed her heart (figuratively, of course) to see the people re-united with their loved ones after having believed them dead.



Noticing her hiding back in the shadows, Cherie beckoned Karma to sit next to her and Cristof on the rusty hull they’d picked out for themselves. Genuinely surprised but grateful, the ghoul took the proffered seat and listened in to the stories being passed around the fire. The bandits she’d originally been following still eyed her with some suspicion, but she ignored them. The only reason she’d been following them in the first place was that they were loud, noticeable, and trigger happy, and that attracted food. A girl’s gotta eat, after all.



As the stories turned to shared experiences, she began feeling like an outsider. In order to stave off boredom, Karma decided to evaluate the company she picked to spend time with, a practice that kept her mind sharp. She picked a person and focused on them, trying to deduce things about them through their physical mannerisms and speech patterns, as well as body language. She started with the two closest to her.



Cristof and Cherie gave off that glow that two people get when they love each other and decide to share their lives openly with one another. While he gave off an aura of masculinity and primality, Karma decided that those were traits picked up from life in the wasteland and not his natural traits. He talked loud, laughed loud, gestured loud, but sometimes his mask slipped and the real man showed through. Inside, he hurt, but was afraid of the pain and the weakness that it brought. She saw it in the way his smile never reached his eyes, in how he had to reach out and touch Cherie every few minutes, as if she would leave him. Cristof, however, also had an iron soul. Karma could see his will to live outshined his fear of the unknown. Despite his pain, or perhaps because of it, he sat up straight, looked his friends in the eyes, and displayed to the world that he wouldn’t back down.



Cherie seemed to be just be happy that she was with a man she could love and that wouldn’t take advantage of her. She radiated an aura of both calm and peace, which was increasingly rare out in the dust. Cherie was the type of person who accepted the world’s hardships with open arms and washed them away with her acceptance. It was hard to imagine anyone that would be able to maintain a sour mood around her. Cherie struck Karma as a sort of “magic charm”. You could come to her with what seemed the biggest obstacle in the world, and after talking to her it would be revealed to be only a triviality. She was the rock that Cristof leaned on for support, and it made her fortified knowing she strengthened him.



Karma turned to look at someone else, but a yawn caught her off guard and fogged her thought processes. She could never stay awake more than thirty or so minutes past midnight, so after she bid goodnight to her companions, Karma climbed up a tower of tires nearby and curled up in one of them, sharing her bed with a family of spiders.



“Nighty night, ya crawly bastards. See ya in th’ mornin,” mumbled the ghoul as she nodded off.

A definite improvement in my opinion! I really feel like I know Cristof and Cherie a lot better than I did before. A LOT. Especially having Cherie offering Karma a seat and Karma being surprised by this. That seemingly small action gives your reader a lot of insight in to both Cherie and Karma and makes them feel closer to them and if there is anything that every author aims to do it is to make their readers feel close to the characters. This piece was a little short for my taste but one cannot expect a novel overnight. It just doesn't work like that. At least not a good novel.

I did not mention this before but it was something that I noticed even in your first piece; Karma talking to herself. It only seems natural that she would talk to herself and it is even more natural that she would start keeping audio logs. Even while I feel that your implied reasoning for her to do so was a little too goody-goody that does not matter. It is perfectly reasonable that Karma is truly a good person (or ghoul) underneath all of that blood and sarcasm. It also makes sense because she spends so much time by herself and when you spend that much time alone you either end up talking to yourself or you stop talking altogether. Let's just say that Karma would not be much fun if she didn't talk.

Why can't she seem to stay up any more than thirty minutes past midnight? Is it just her or is that a part of who she is (or what the scientists turned her in to, actually)? More mysteries damn you! That's okay though. This one I think is a good one. It is just another reason for me to come back.

Like I said before this piece was a little short for my taste and I'd really like to see something more. Again though this is not something that can be rushed. Even the best authors can only write one word at a time. The audio log felt natural (or as natural as a ghoul named Karma can make it sound) but the narration afterwards felt sort of rush. I'm not sure if I have any tips on this I'm afraid but then again this feeling could once again come from it being so short. Just remember, you do not have to rush to a conclusion. In fact no reader in their right mind should ever want you to rush to a conclusion even though they may be eager to see it.

I did find it odd that Karma bid goodnight to everyone. That's just me though as no one knows her better than you. It is just that she still strikes me as very much a loner and still something more than (or less than) human and saying goodnight to everybody just seems so ... well, human.

Well, that's all for now. I hope to see some more!

-Mins

P.S. The limerick at the beginning was a charming addition.