There's new people to meet,
Night had since fallen over the city, and the streets had come alight with flashlights handed out by the so-called "Sustenance Sector". Many, however, continued to blindly stumble along the dark streets into their respective houses and shelters.
Lisa stood alone at the steps of the city hall, watching the people pass.
"Hey!" A rather familiar, and loud, voice chimed, "Why aren't you going home?"
"Huh?" Lisa mumbled, turning to the direction of the voice. It was the same man she had run into earlier.
Andrew, she recalled, watching the tall man near her.
"C'mon," Andrew repeated, "Why aren't you going home? It's gettin' pretty late out, y'know."
The girl nodded. "I know," she replied as she stood, "it's just that... well, where I live is kinda..."
Andrew's eyes turned in the direction of Lisa's gaze. Silently mouthing an "Oh", he turned back to the girl.
Lisa shrugged in response.
"I guess... you could stay at my place?" Andrew suggested, pointing a finger towards an apartment nearby, "I mean, I don't mean for it to be awkward, and--"
"Yeah, I guess..." Lisa cut in to avoid the awkwardness, "Do you have any books?"
Andrew raised a brow. "Books? When all anybody here has are cots? Nope."
The girl sighed as she looked towards Andrew's apartment.
"So this is your room." Lisa deadpanned tiredly as she glanced about yet another barren room.
"Well, what do you expect? We all have the same rooms." Andrew returned as he lounged on his cot, the tubing and headset since shoved into the corner beside the machine.
"Fair enough," the girl sighed, sitting herself on the floor, "I assume you'll be taking the cot?"
Andrew nodded. "Yup. Sorry 'bout that."
The girl dismissed him with a gesture. "No no, it's fine. I've slept on the floor a few times before back in..." she paused for a moment, remembering where she was now. "well, y'know."
"Alright." Andrew waved from the cot, "G'night then."
Lisa yawned, and lay down on the cold floor, the sheets still wrapped around her body.
It was the beginning of a new day. Lisa, along with a vast majority of the population, seemed to move in unison as the sun blindingly shone through onto their cots.
"Good morning... Lisa, was it?" Andrew yawned, stretching lazily on his cot.
Lisa groaned from the hard floor.
"...I take that you weren't a morning person back in your other life, huh?"
Lisa shook her head. "No, I was." she groaned, "I just normally sleep on an actual bed."
Andrew paused for a moment to stare down at his wristband, then Lisa. "Heh," he chuckled, "feels weird talking about our lives like this, isn't it?"
Lisa nodded. It did still feel strange. She wanted to believe that it was all real, both her old and new lives, and yet, at the same time, she knew that one would prove to be nothing but an illusion. What was troubling though, was that she now had no idea which reality to believe.
After taking a few minutes to thank the only person she knew for letting her stay the night, Lisa set off once again into the center of the city. It was hardly as bustling with activity as it was the day before, but that was likely due to the majority of the populace still being indoors for the most part.
"Whoops. 'Scuse me!" A lanky teenage boy yelped as he slipped past Lisa, slinking off into the distance.
Lisa continued walking, the boy's voice repeating inside her head as she watched for anything interesting happening around.
Wait... she paused, turning to watch the boy that was now stacking cobblestones, I know that voice.
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What's Pixabay?
8618334
Stock image site.
These are corn chips. Each chapter is tiny, and it really isn't a meal. "Andrew" was neither described nor introduced; one moment she was walking around, the next she wakes up in a strangers house, and then is gone again.
Please explore this in more detail. I love the premise, but it isn't so much a story as cliff-notes of a story.
8618359
Alright. I can do that in the next chapters following, or go back and extend this chapter. Which do you prefer?
Either way, I don't really have the time for much more writing for now, so it'll have to wait for tomorrow.
8618360 It's not so much just saying "you should redo this chapter," but more that you need to be more descriptive and include more scenes to show us the characters.
A great game to make you remember to do such is to treat all your characters as if they were naked robots until you describe how they are different from them. Andrew is wearing anything? What does his voice sound like? What color hair does he have? What race is he? How did he and Lisa meet? What made him trust her? What makes her trust him? What have they eaten? Is there anything odd about eating food as a human compared to their simulated experiences as ponies? Would they introduce themselves as their pony-identity just in case they knew each other? How would he react to this, finding out Lisa was the princess of friendship (not sure on your timeline)?
There are hundreds of things you could have these two have explored that would add depth to both of them.
As an idea of how brief this chapter actually was:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/389616197567512576/392490354223480832/unknown.png
It fits on my screen (at 150% zoom) including your author note.
8618372
ALright. I'll take note of that. I haven't exactly written anything quite like this before, so comments like yours are very helpful for me.
8618372
8618376
also keep in mind that, for an "out of this world" fiction like this, the current pattern of excessive brevity is safer for the narrative.
There is so much new yet familiar, you always run the risk of the story's observations of the world itself distracting your reader into losing track of the intended narrative.
Even if you limit the observations to a single-character/unreliable-narrator perspective, it can still contain too much general detail yhat yge reader can find comparably-recognizable idealisms or patterns iconic of the real world where there are none intended, which will stifle the intended narrative as the reader finds more and more "evidence" that the world presented is somehow an author tract being sledgehammered into their faces.
Brevity, and purposeful limitation of observation, can readily guard a narrative against unwanted reading-between-the-lines.
A short one, huh? Well, at least she's found "Spike."
8618909
Huh. Well then.
8618359
8618909
There. I've expanded the chapter and dove a little bit into how Lisa ended up staying the night with Andrew, but otherwise avoided straying from the plot.
8618359
Agree.
"gives a corn chip as a meal."
Joking aside this chapter did feel...a bit................distant.
IT BEGINS