Survivor of Theft

[Oudeis]

No one understands what I’ve lost.

 

The worst to me are the ones who think they do.  I see them judge me. I hear them whisper that I’m arrogant, that I lament losing something that made me better than them, that I’m complaining because now I’m just a normal person, now I’m not special.

 

This cannot be what normal feels like.

 

I don’t care about the allomancy. I loved it, and it was a part of me, and I would never have given it up for the world… but I never thought it made me better than anyone. It was like being left-handed, or good with numbers. Just one part of me. Still, even without it, I could find a way to go on.

 

It’s not even my eye. The pain is always there, but without my tin, even that feels dull most of the time. Even the flat world my one good eye gives me isn’t that bad. If that were my only problem… well, yeah, I’d still be very sad.

 

But no one seems to understand. People see these things, and they add them up, and they think they know what it’s like to be me.

 

I’m angry all the time. But… it doesn’t feel like how I remember anger. It feels… hollow. It’s the shape of anger, but it doesn’t have the fire. I remember being angry, beforehand, and it felt passionate and strong. Now it feels like my mind is trying to act angry but can’t remember how.

 

I don’t understand what happened. It was over in a moment. I didn’t see whoever did this to me, I just heard some sound behind me, turned around, and suddenly I was in a world of pain. My eye hurt a lot but it wasn’t just there, all over my body like a rash on the inside of my skin. Eventually passing out was a blessing.

 

When I woke up, one of my first thoughts was that I had lost my tin. I don’t know how I knew, I’d never felt it inside of me before when I didn’t have a reserve, and I certainly can’t recall what it felt like before I ever Snapped, but among the other things wrong with me, I could just feel this part of me missing, and I somehow knew it was tin. I think I realized that before I realized I was only seeing out of one eye.

 

I don’t talk to my friends anymore. They irritate me now. I mean my real friends, the ones who’ve stuck by me. Maybe they’re the worst. Every last one of them is convinced she just needs to drag me out to a party, take me for a walk in the sunshine, show me that life goes on, that it’s not as bad as I think. I don’t need tin to hear what they’re really saying. This is your fault. Just get over it. Just want to be normal again, and you will be.

 

Fun is like anger to me, now. Even when I’m genuinely enjoying something, it’s just the shape of happiness. It’s only skin deep; it can’t reach my heart.

 

No one understands what I’ve lost.

 

No one understands what was taken from me.

[Quiver]

Hmm.

 

Interesting, if rather short. I admit, when I started it, I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be one of the main characters or not; the title reminded me of what Sazed said re: The Survivor of Flames, and if you plan on continuing beyond this short, I would be interested to see it go in that direction.

 

I was also a little confused about the setting. Obviously, there wasn't much detail-you focus on the Narrator rather than the place, after all- but with the Survivor and the fact it's Mistborn, I assumed it was a Final Empire-era piece... which made the colloquial "yeah" or the comment about parties stand out. Yes, there were balls in the original Mistborns, but for some reason I pictured something more like a modern-ish rave.

 

I'd say it took me out of the story a little, but why should you be penalized for my baggage?

 

Anyway, that aside, I like it, particularly how you describe the emotions the Narrator feels and how they differ from what they used to have. Honestly... I can relate to them. That sort of apathy is a terrible place to be.

 

One thing I would say might be relative on whether or not this is going to be a larger piece; if you want this to be a stand alone, I'd say remove the last line, so that the start and endings mirror one another. The piece is very focused on the Narrators personal feelings, his own loss (arguably being self-indulgent by claiming that no one understands them). Having the story close right back where ti started, with the simple declaration that they've lost something and can never get it back really hits home how desperate and miserable the situation is, and keeps the audience focused on the fact that this narrator hasn't really moved in the piece; they are still stuck in the same pit they were in when they started.

 

By contrast if you want to continue it, keep the ending, because it's more dramatic. Everythign up to this point has been about how they "lost" their allomancy, almost like it was their fault it happened. That line makes it clear that it wasn't; it was someone elses. It carries a bit of a threat to it, or at least (to me) the sort-of promise of a throughline- the Narrator had something taken from them. They are going to find the person responsible and take it back.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Quiver

[Oudeis]

Thank you.

 

The ambiguity of "when does this happen" was deliberate. Thank you for pointing out the anachronisms; I'm going to smooth it out and try to remove those. I want it to be unclear to the reader when this happens. The point is that setting would be a distraction.

 

If you are mentioning that fact that Sazed says they might see more "Survivor of [blank]," than yes, that was very deliberately what I was trying to allude to. Going forward might be difficult, based on my own personal mythos, which is that the Survivor first overcomes something, and then later returns and defeats it. Kelsier first simply made it out of Hathsin alive. Later, he came back and actually destroyed what made the place worthwhile (only for a few centuries, aka until the end of the world). Spook first simply flees a burning building. Later on, the city is aflame, and he is the one who puts out the fire.

 

By this logic, I would have to have her find the spike of her own tin and... stick it in her own eye? I dunno. Also, it would be a foregone conclusion, considering the precedent, so it sorta bores me to write it. I will prolly not write it, but it's a possibility.

 

My ending was very specific, and very deliberate. I wanted the ending to mirror, and then I wanted to take it one step past that. This is a piece about hemalurgy, so it's not going to wrap up nice and neat. The writing style is meant to be an analogy for the pain of a hemalurgic wound. I want the reader to feel that tension. I want to bring them to the logical conclusion, and then I want to push them out of that comfort zone. I want them to feel that there's something difficult to explain that just isn't right. And yeah, it's partially in case this turns into a prologue for an actual story.

 

I want to revamp it a bit to add a few external touches. How it feels is important, but what is also important is that this was a violent crime committed against her, and as you mentioned, I make it way too internal. I want the internal bits to emphasize how horrible this thing is, but I'm not connecting that enough with the externals to make it clear that this was something done to her.

 

Thank you for your feedback! It is invaluable.