The Last Child on Earth

by ThePonyCritic

Chapter 8: Putting the Past in Front of Us

//Flashback//

"U-huh? Yea? Really? Awesome! Okay, see you soon, I love you both!" Aiden said on the phone, then hung up. He had just gotten off the phone after a call from his parents, who told him that they were coming soon, most likely on his birthday! He was so happy to hear their voices and the news that as soon as he hung up, he jumped out of his chair that he was sitting in and let out a big whoop for joy. "I gotta tell the others!" He said to himself, then ran to the children's quarters, where the children slept. He swung open the door, making all the kids turn towards the door and Aiden.

"Aiden? What's the hurry-ahh!" Asked a boy, a year younger than Aiden, whose name was Jack. But as Jack was asking Aiden, Aiden had ran to Jack and pulled him into a hug.

"They're coming, they're coming, they're finally coming!" Aiden chanted as he pulled back and twirled around happily, making some of the kids in the room laugh and smile.

"Who is?" Asked another boy named John.

"My parents! They're finally got enough money to take me back and live with them again!" Aiden announced to everyone. The kids cheered and clapped for Aiden, making Aiden twirl around and dance.

"Yay Aiden! We're happy to hear that. When are your parents coming?" Jack asked who had sat down after Aiden massive hug.

"Hopefully on my birthday! And that's not all! My parents said that they're moving down here, so that I can come visit you guys and help out still!" Aiden added. This was followed by more cheers and applause.

"That's awesome! I bet Andy would love to hear that." John suggested.

"Oh yeah, he would love to hear this! He's still in the medical room right?" Aiden asked. Andy was Aiden's closest friend, although recently had been sent to the medical room where injured kids slept, because he had twisted his ankle badly from tripping on an unearthed tree root, while playing in the orphanage's backyard.

"Yep, still there. He should be able to get out of bed soon." John answered.

"Awesome! I'll see you guys later!" Aiden said, as he rushed out of the room while the children waved and said goodbye as he did. He didn't bother closing the door, as he was too distracted about getting to the medical room. He went upstairs to the next floor, went down two hallways, and took the second door on the left. He slowed down before heading to the door, so he wouldn't slam into the door. Aiden took deep breaths to lower his heart rate, then opened the door and went inside. He looked around until he saw Andy laying down on the bed, reading a book. Aiden closed the door, making Andy look up from his book to see who it was, and smiled as he saw Aiden.

"Hey Aiden, what's up? You look more excited than usual." Andy asked, seeing Aiden with a big smile as he sat on the end of Andy's bed.

"I am, because I got some awesome news!" Aiden replied. Andy straightened up and nodded in response.

"Oh! What's the 'awesome' news?" Andy asked.

"My parents are coming to get me...on my birthday! Or, hopefully on my birthday." He answered excitedly, bouncing up and down a bit on the bed.

Andy smiled and clapped. "That IS awesome news dude! That's gotta be the best birthday gift EVER!" Andy said, happy for Aiden.

"I know right? And it gets better...we're going to be moving somewhere." Aiden added. Andy's happy faced changed slightly.

"Where? Far away?" Andy asked.

"Nope! Totally opposite: we're moving into THIS city, close by here!" Aiden assured, which Andy let out a big sigh of relief and sit back in his bed.

"Oh thank goodness! That would've sucked if you were in another state or something." Andy replied.

"Yea, it would, but I'm glad it's not-" Aiden started to stay, but some audible commotion from outside the room, and getting louder, meaning whoever was coming closer, interrupted him as he looked to the door, as well as Andy. The door opens, and two men in lab coats come in, along with the receptionist lady from the front desk.

"Which one of you is Aiden Fierce?" One of the men asked. Aiden slowly raised his hand.

"Mr. Fierce, it is VERY important that you come with us." Said the other scientist. Aiden looked over at Andy, and Andy looked over at Aiden, then they both looked back at the men.

//flashback ends//

Aiden wakes up a while later. He tilts his head around to see what was going on. It seemed that Tony and Rebeca had changed positions, as Rebeca was now driving and Tony was managing the pedals. It also occurred to him that something felt heavy, leaning on him, and saw it was Silvia's head resting on him. He smiled lightly, then looks out the window on his left. He sat up more and leaned more into the window, and saw that this place was familiar, too familiar. He realized it was his town he stayed in for 3 years at the orphanage, ad by the looks of the street and the homes, they were about to come up at the orphanage.

"Hey, you're awake." Rebeca said, looking into the rear view mirror and at Aiden momentarily. Aiden looked at the mirror and smiled slightly, nodding in response, then looked back out the window. Finally, they approached his orphanage. He looked at it with his expression changing to a worried one. The place, his home for 3 years, had become dusty, dirty, and dark. There were a couple of curtains brought down, the glass of them cracked and smudged up with dirt, not really able to see through. From top to bottom, it was in bad shape. "Aiden? Is something wrong?" Rebeca asked as she looked back again and saw his worried look. He didn't respond, and then he caught a glimpse of something, or someone. The car wasn't going that fast, a bit slow since Rebeca had slowed down from not getting a response from him. What he thought he saw, was a figure he could barely make out.

"Stop the car!" He said suddenly, waking Silvia up in the process.

"What? Why-" Tony started to say but Aiden interrupted saying,

"Just do it!” Tony pushed on the brakes, and the car rolled to a stop. Aiden instantly unbuckled, open the car door, then jumped out of the car and ran to the building.

"Aiden?! What are you doing??" He could hear Silvia call out, but he didn't reply as he rushed to the front door. The door was a bit rusty, but that didn't stop him, as he kicked at it, and it swung open. He ran inside, went down a hallway, up the stairs, and to the room he saw the figure in. It was in the children's quarters where he stayed in, but now it looked dusty and dirty like the outside. He looked around aimlessly, getting on the ground to check under the beds, only to see some mice, which scurried off at the sight of him. As he got up and kept looking around anywhere else that might be a hiding place, the ponies found the way upstairs and saw the door that he had open still, and went inside the room.

"Aiden! What the hell was that? Why would you want to come to this rotten place-" Tony started, annoyed at Aiden yelling at him and making him stop the car, but his tone and expression changed when Aiden turned towards them and showed that he was crying.

"This...this was my home." He said quietly. Tony slowly started to feel bad, and Silvia confirmed that by punching his shoulder with her hoof. After hearing him make a grunt noise of pain, she went over to Aiden, who had sat down on what used to be his bed. He stared at the ground, letting the tears drop to the ground. Silvia sat next to him, and rubbed his back with her hoof. Silvia looked around the room, since she hadn't done that before she came in. A couple of beds were a mess, the sheets off or scattered on the bed, dusty, and the drawers next to each one were open. Articles of clothing hanged out some of the drawers, and the shapes with least amount of dust might mean whatever was sitting on top of the drawer had been taken off.

"It looks like they might've been in a hurry...maybe they had to leave because of the Event. They might be okay." She tried to assure him.

"Yeah...might." He said quietly, looking away from the ground and at the wall.

"Why'd you come in here then? Why'd you run in here?" She asked.

"I thought...I thought I saw someone. Someone I knew." He answered, a bit louder so she could hear him better. She nodded, acknowledging his response. He laid back on the bed, his legs still hanging off the bed, and he didn't care about the dust on his pillow. His hands went under and around the pillow as to hold it, but something made a crinkling noise when he did. He sat back up, and removed the pillow, to reveal a crinkled up piece of paper. Aiden took the piece of paper quickly, smoothed it so he could read it better, and then read the note.

Dear Aiden,
If you are reading this, then that means we have already left without you. The workers said we couldn't wait for you until you returned from the sciencey place or wherever you were taken. Something has happened, and it might be what 'important' reason for taking you away. Please know that we will be leaving the state and to Colorado. It said on TV that there's a government place that'll take us in and keep us safe from whatever is happening. I hope you're okay...me and the others will wait for you there.

From, Andy.
P.S. We were able to get a hold of your parents, they are meeting us there. They said to tell you they love you, and hope to see you soon.

Aiden read over the letter once, then twice. He folded the note afterwards so that it would fit into his pocket, then stood up from the bed. "I know where my parents are, as well as my friends." He said, looking to everyone.

"And where is that exactly?" Rebeca asked.

"Colorado." Aiden answered, solemnly.

"Colorado? Are you serious? We can't drive all the way-" Tony started, but Rebeca interrupted him.

"We said we would get him to his parents, and that's what we’re going to do!" She said.

"But-" Tony started.

"But nothing! Plus, if there is anyone there, they can help us with our...situation." Rebeca explained, referring the 'situation' to her and Silvia's pregnancy. Tony looked away in thought, then sighed and nodded.

"Colorado it is then." Tony said. Aiden smiled lightly at Tony, which Tony noticed but didn't reply to.

//later//

After a bit of searching of the place, not finding much. Aiden remembered a secret cabinet where he and his friends would sneak some snacks whenever they were hungry at night, and found them all there. They also found a medical cabinet, with a bit of medical supplies, most being bandages and prescription medication. They packed all of it in Aiden's backpack, headed outside to the car, and got into the car. Aiden was the last one in, as he stood there, looking at the orphanage with a sad expression. He took out the note and looked at the message.

"Don't worry guys, I'll be there soon." He mumbled to himself, then with one last glance at the building, he stepped inside the car, closed the door, and they drove off.

Comments

[Immortan Joe]

The description reminds me a lot of my Fic "The Last of My Kind.". I hope this story's good.

[Starscribe]

Got some really interesting ideas here. For one, I didn't understand that it was going to be just one character that was going to be immune to the destructive effects of magic, not "every kid on earth", which would've broken my ideas for the canon. Assuming it's just the one person, I wouldn't see any problem with a story like this being canon. I've moved it accordingly, hopefully it will get more attention which I think it deserves.

Story

I'd like to examine the ideas/premise and the writing itself differently, because I've got very different things to say about each from my reading so far. The idea of a child somehow preserved through the Event via cryogenic stasis is really neat. I have to wonder if maybe what allowed him to survive wasn't being a kid at all, but something unusual about being frozen. Maybe the process of being frozen allowed magic to change him just enough to survive, and would have done to his companions baring whatever may've happened to them (I'm two chapters behind currently, so if it's been revealed I don't know).

I enjoyed the children and their relationship for the brief period they appeared onscreen. I would have liked to have seen this section expanded. Perhaps a whole chapter (or at least several scenes) to establish their friendship would've made their reasons for seeking each other out later in the story far stronger. As it is they didn't seem to have known each other all that well. Meeting on the day before is kinda weak so far as motivating them is concerned. Now if they'd been together in training for months, then had the chance to develop a powerful relationship of friendship, that would give us a reason to share their outrage when two of the kids go missing.

One huge danger with writing "genius" characters is that very few of us are geniuses. I know I'm not. As a result, one is left with considerable difficulty in making a character's actions seem authentic. How do you write a character smarter than you are? Not easily, for sure. They need to make leaps of logic that an ordinary person wouldn't make, in general make better, smarter decisions, but NOT decisions that couldn't be made by someone with the information they have. Genius doesn't mean being able to predict the future or read minds.

But you didn't just make a genius character, you made a genius child. Even as a genius a child still has limited experience and maturity, so may make decisions far beyond their peers but still bewildering to an adult. I think in what I've seen so far you captured the limited maturity and experience of your child protagonist well, but not his superior intelligence. Perhaps something to look at for the future.

Your characters in general are good, though I wish I understood their motivations better. I can't really tell what our party of ponies wants. I shouldn't have to guess and speculate about character motivations, so filling in the blanks would be good for future chapters.

Writing
Now, the writing of the story itself. This is separate from how good the ideas are, which I've said I like, or the characters, which I think you've done a generally good job with so far.

The writing itself, though, could be stronger. First, almost every chapter needs a solid editing pass. Typos and grammatical mistakes are frequent, at about the rate of one every other paragraph. I started out this comment by trying to make a list, but i found the list got far too long. Find a good copy editor, or a friend who's good at English, or something. I would suggest doing this to your first few chapters in particular, because they're full of mistakes and mistakes tend to discourage readers. These simple mistakes are frequently enough to take away from the quality of the story.

Secondly, a style suggestion. Yours is way too wordy. I got distracted by confusing sentences in places, particularly around dialogue and action attribution. Characters said things "at" each other, which isn't necessary. You generally don't need to tell me who a character is speaking to: if the other person has dialogue nearby and the scene was set up well, readers can figure that out for themselves.

It's hard to give more specifics about how to fix the second problem, though I do have one. When I write, I run my chapters through the HEMINGWAY EDITOR. This amazing tool cannot fix the errors we talked about in point 1, but it can make your story easier to read. Put your chapter into the editor, and all the bad stuff you could improve will be highlighted. Don't try to fix EVERYTHING, but the editor will pick out the biggest trouble spots you can improve. Take this excerpt from chapter 3 I put into the editor:

i.imgur.com/R4PFOkQ.png

You can see a particularly confusing sentence full of run-ons has been highlighted in red and yellow to show it's hard to read.

I hope to see your story continue to update and improve. You've got some great ideas, and I look forward to seeing more of them.

-Starscribe

[Szalhi]

Man this is epic.

[ThePonyCritic]

6707136

Dear Starscribe,

I have read your comment a bit and I am understanding your concerns. Although, if you had the time to do so, I could explain what might be happening, since not only are you the credit creator of the group, but also because I feel your opinion is the most important (don't worry Szalhi, thx for calling it epic ) I have also read that you have seen some grammatical sentences, which concerns me, as I have checked all grammar myself (oh wait I just remembered some slang was in there, ex. gonna ) and my friend/co-author has helped as well. If you do have the time to talk, please reply in private comment so we could talk more

[Starscribe]

6708053
Sure, no problem! I'll send you a PM and show you what I mean.

[JustSomeDyslexic]

Wow its been awhile since i've seen this and i kinda felt the need to post here even if no one will see this probably