Nausinous
03-11-08, 17:43
I was doing a bit of a clean up on my boyfriends laptop and I found a document that I soon realised was a story I had written. I was so impressed by my own handy work that I felt compelled to finish it. I've written a small plot for it, further more I have written the first few pages and editted them for you to review. It'd be really cool if you could just give me pointers on what could be changed or improved.
Chapter One
Lara grabbed the napkin from the table and wiped sweat from her brow. It was humid and her mouth was sickly dry, she wondered if the air conditioning in the café had broken. The heat coming from the scorching sun was enough to drive anyone crazy and she had hoped to find refuge from it under the umbrella of this café table but the pathetic patch of shade provided by the umbrella only added to her discomfort. Just as her thoughts escaped her mind a man in an engineer’s suit navigated through the sea of tables on the patio and into the interior of the café. She would have complained about the air conditioning if she had not already endured longer and harder moments of discomfort than this. Lara smiled at the sky as the glare of the sun disappeared behind a wispy looking cloud, serenity would have washed over her if it had not been for the buzz of the crowds and the inconsistent purr of Fiat Punto’s as they circled the piazza’s round about.
As she looked around, she spotted a waiter approaching with the glass of water she had ordered, he placed it down on Lara’s table. She thanked the waiter in Italian and the waiter looked up from his tray and his eyes met with Lara’s. The waiter gaped at Lara, the bottom of his strongly defined jaw hanging loose and his smooth, tan skin face expressing shock.
“Is there a problem?”
Lara said as she removed her red tinted sun glasses, the lenses of which became like dazzling rubies in the light of the sun. Embarrassed, he scurried back into the café, with his scuffed black loafers clapping on the cobbles and his little apron swinging wildly behind him. Lara’s lips formed a smirk, she mused:
“I love it when that happens.”
She shifted awkwardly on her metal seat as her shorts became ever more uncomfortable. Where was the contact she had spoken to on the phone? She thought as she fanned her self with the menu card. Could the journal finally be here? She probed at the possibilities and decided it was all too much to hope for. Sighing, she rose from her chair but froze when a hoarse voice came from behind.
“Going some where?”
She spun on the heels of her boots and looked at the speaker with the hoarse voice. A man was slouching in front of her; he looked like at any minute he was going to become a slave to exhaustion, drop to the cobbles and lay unconscious
“Is there something to keep me here? Say, perhaps some information about a journal?”
The man sat down on one of the chairs at Lara’s table. A putrid smell of bodily fluids lingered in the air around him and Lara tried her best to smile, brushing away several strands of her red hair from her face as she sat down.
“Do you believe in fairy tales Miss Croft?”
Lara sighed and she rolled her eyes. This was a wasted journey she thought, I’ve met up with a complete and utter stranger who wants to tell me a bedtime story, I should have accepted Winston’s offer of wearing a dress for an afternoon rather than enduring this.
She realised the man had been staring at her and he was a man much like a dog, in the way you didn’t want him staring at you in case he began to think he could play with you. Lara looked coldly into the man’s eyes as she said:
“Have you heard the rumours of how quick I can kill a man when I lose my patience? I’ve been sat here all afternoon and you want to talk fairy tales?”
The man’s odd smile faded from his unshaven face, he slammed the table with both fists and snarled at Lara.
“It would do you well Miss Croft, to keep with the pleasantries, other wise the precious information about the journal and its location will not be shared…”
He caught the attention of everyone in the café. The man stopped speaking abruptly and Lara could have sworn he was going to bark from frustration as she began drumming her fingers on the table. She smiled at him playfully and replied to his threat.
“Believe me I have many more contacts, if you were to withdraw whatever little amount of information you hold in your tiny brain, I doubt it would affect the course of my life.”
The man lunged forward gripping Lara’s shoulders and put his face inches from hers.
“Alessio de Puertega is my name, remember it well Miss Croft as I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough that I-“
He raised his voice even higher and his tongue lashed around, spraying foam and spit everywhere.
“I was your last hope!”
A gunshot echoed through the piazza and there was an explosion of blood from Alessio’s back, his grip on Lara’s shoulders loosened and he crumpled to the cobbles. The sound of the gun sent the people filling the piazza into a flurry of panic. High pitched screams filled the air, children began to cry, drivers had to sound the horns of their cars as pedestrians that were fleeing from the piazza flooded into the roads, chairs crashed to cobbles along with cups of coffee as people fled café’s and restaurants that encompassed the square. Lara who was immune to the influence of a screaming crowd calmly scanned the scene for the murderer of her contact. Then she saw the reflection of the engineer in her sun glasses and he caught her eye just as he slipped something into his toolbox. She navigated through the crowds that were like a torrent as they rushed towards her to try and get to the escaping engineer. Both cafe doors where congested with people trying to exit the café and Lara had to find another way to get into the café and to the engineer before he escaped, but how she thought.
Chapter One
Lara grabbed the napkin from the table and wiped sweat from her brow. It was humid and her mouth was sickly dry, she wondered if the air conditioning in the café had broken. The heat coming from the scorching sun was enough to drive anyone crazy and she had hoped to find refuge from it under the umbrella of this café table but the pathetic patch of shade provided by the umbrella only added to her discomfort. Just as her thoughts escaped her mind a man in an engineer’s suit navigated through the sea of tables on the patio and into the interior of the café. She would have complained about the air conditioning if she had not already endured longer and harder moments of discomfort than this. Lara smiled at the sky as the glare of the sun disappeared behind a wispy looking cloud, serenity would have washed over her if it had not been for the buzz of the crowds and the inconsistent purr of Fiat Punto’s as they circled the piazza’s round about.
As she looked around, she spotted a waiter approaching with the glass of water she had ordered, he placed it down on Lara’s table. She thanked the waiter in Italian and the waiter looked up from his tray and his eyes met with Lara’s. The waiter gaped at Lara, the bottom of his strongly defined jaw hanging loose and his smooth, tan skin face expressing shock.
“Is there a problem?”
Lara said as she removed her red tinted sun glasses, the lenses of which became like dazzling rubies in the light of the sun. Embarrassed, he scurried back into the café, with his scuffed black loafers clapping on the cobbles and his little apron swinging wildly behind him. Lara’s lips formed a smirk, she mused:
“I love it when that happens.”
She shifted awkwardly on her metal seat as her shorts became ever more uncomfortable. Where was the contact she had spoken to on the phone? She thought as she fanned her self with the menu card. Could the journal finally be here? She probed at the possibilities and decided it was all too much to hope for. Sighing, she rose from her chair but froze when a hoarse voice came from behind.
“Going some where?”
She spun on the heels of her boots and looked at the speaker with the hoarse voice. A man was slouching in front of her; he looked like at any minute he was going to become a slave to exhaustion, drop to the cobbles and lay unconscious
“Is there something to keep me here? Say, perhaps some information about a journal?”
The man sat down on one of the chairs at Lara’s table. A putrid smell of bodily fluids lingered in the air around him and Lara tried her best to smile, brushing away several strands of her red hair from her face as she sat down.
“Do you believe in fairy tales Miss Croft?”
Lara sighed and she rolled her eyes. This was a wasted journey she thought, I’ve met up with a complete and utter stranger who wants to tell me a bedtime story, I should have accepted Winston’s offer of wearing a dress for an afternoon rather than enduring this.
She realised the man had been staring at her and he was a man much like a dog, in the way you didn’t want him staring at you in case he began to think he could play with you. Lara looked coldly into the man’s eyes as she said:
“Have you heard the rumours of how quick I can kill a man when I lose my patience? I’ve been sat here all afternoon and you want to talk fairy tales?”
The man’s odd smile faded from his unshaven face, he slammed the table with both fists and snarled at Lara.
“It would do you well Miss Croft, to keep with the pleasantries, other wise the precious information about the journal and its location will not be shared…”
He caught the attention of everyone in the café. The man stopped speaking abruptly and Lara could have sworn he was going to bark from frustration as she began drumming her fingers on the table. She smiled at him playfully and replied to his threat.
“Believe me I have many more contacts, if you were to withdraw whatever little amount of information you hold in your tiny brain, I doubt it would affect the course of my life.”
The man lunged forward gripping Lara’s shoulders and put his face inches from hers.
“Alessio de Puertega is my name, remember it well Miss Croft as I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough that I-“
He raised his voice even higher and his tongue lashed around, spraying foam and spit everywhere.
“I was your last hope!”
A gunshot echoed through the piazza and there was an explosion of blood from Alessio’s back, his grip on Lara’s shoulders loosened and he crumpled to the cobbles. The sound of the gun sent the people filling the piazza into a flurry of panic. High pitched screams filled the air, children began to cry, drivers had to sound the horns of their cars as pedestrians that were fleeing from the piazza flooded into the roads, chairs crashed to cobbles along with cups of coffee as people fled café’s and restaurants that encompassed the square. Lara who was immune to the influence of a screaming crowd calmly scanned the scene for the murderer of her contact. Then she saw the reflection of the engineer in her sun glasses and he caught her eye just as he slipped something into his toolbox. She navigated through the crowds that were like a torrent as they rushed towards her to try and get to the escaping engineer. Both cafe doors where congested with people trying to exit the café and Lara had to find another way to get into the café and to the engineer before he escaped, but how she thought.