Sorry it took so long for me to get around to reading more of your story... Needless to say, I'm still enjoying it! The plot is moving along nicely, and the world the characters have ended up in is really intriguing. I'm hoping more information will be revealed about it later. Anyhow, I'm on to read more! Keep up the good work.

A good way to end it!

The chapter started out a little choppy. I liked the idea of her being called and forced to go on a date with her friend and her special other but some of the dialogue felt a bit forced. "El, why can't you go on dates on your own and leave me alone so early in the morning? All right, all right, I'll come. Meet you at half past by the theater?" that sentence especially caught my eye.

On the other hand, the descriptions of her getting ready were perfect. Not boring, in depth enough to keep my attention without making me want to shoot myself because of boredom. You described her perfectly and I was pleasantly surprised to find my self enjoying her stagnant daily ritual that so many girls must go through.

"...single- handedly save the skincare industry..." -- awesome

Kudos!Mack

PS if you're interested we have decided to update again

Wow, I wasn't expecting that. Nice cliffhanger! I love the whole plot set-up, I'm already really liking the characters, especially Liv and Nate. This seems like it will be a really interesting story; nice job so far!

Cute beginning... I like the personality you've started, and this is well written, a very suspenseful ending. You add some more detail of surroundings, but otherwise it's nice!

Okay, I'm confused. How is it that they run into the arms of kidnappers in the first chapter and then the very top of the next chapter they're in a completely different world? You may want to add something there

You only need one set of punctuation at the end of sentences/dialogue. Not a .? or ?? or ?!/!? or !! or any sort of combination like you have on occasion. For example: "Um, sirs.?" No period there, just a question mark. And I think you're missing ellipses (...) in a few places.

Why are they talking about the movie and reviews in this kind of situation? That would be the last thing on my mind.

When saying dialogue and then using a tag, if there is a period at the end of that tag before going back to dialogue, the dialogue NEEDS to be capitalized. It's a whole 'nother sentence.

Actually, a lot of these things would be easier to say in person than they are to write down. It just makes everything more confusing and complicated this way.

Anyway, I do like the idea you have with this story, and I'm sorry I'm so picky with spelling, grammar, and punctuation; it's a bad habit of mine that I'm trying hard to get out of, but it doesn't seem to be working too well.

I can't tell you which character is my favorite because we haven't really been introduced to them too much. At this point, they all seem to have similar personalities to me.

~Ty

This is a good start, but I have a few questions/comments/suggestions.

'...Much too *loud* for the hour'

I don't think Live would be so quick to agree to go. Maybe separate her agreement from the beginning of the sentence. If that doesn't make much sense, this is what I mean: "El, why can't you go on dates on your own and leave me alone so early in the morning?" "Come on, Liv, please?" "All right! All right, I'll come."

You don't need the apostrophe in the word "fridge".

I'm a bit confused: 'I often ate alone, since *per*, my older brother, had moved away for college...' Is that the name/nickname of her brother or a typo?

*Sigh* I think a lot of teenagers know the feeling of eating alone. I know I do.

I kind of don't get it. If they want to go out to a movie and lunch, and the movie doesn't start until noon, why are they meeting so early? Wouldn't it make more sense to meet at the theatre around noon instead of 10:30? Why meet an hour-and-a-half before the movie starts? I understand why you had them meet so early. You needed to get them in a situation where you could get them kidnapped,bBut it's not believable.

You may want to add a difference in speech among the characters. They all sound so much alike. Maybe give one of them a quirk like never using G's on -ing words or another one uses a few slang terms or something. Give us something to remember the characters so they stick out in our minds.

Who are "the" kidnappers? How do they automatically know that these people are kidnappers? "Straight into the arms of the kidnappers" suggests that there's been some sort of coverage of these people kidnapping children/teenagers.

Sorry if I'm being too picky in this review. I've been in a picky mood all day.

~Ty

nice cliffhanger :) i like your idea and the title a lot. there were a whole lot of characters, and though they were cool it was a little confusing. only thing is when you describe the boys, we don't know which one is matt and which is nate. also their personalities don't seem all that different, so it was difficult to tell them apart when you're reading a little quickly. (okay, so it's partly my fault hehe) but maybe you'd want to put some distinguishing character trait so that we can tell them apart? anyway, good job :)

Well, I WAS going to ask why she couldn't use her weapon when everyone else was, but that question was obviously answered.

I like the slight increase in Marcus' background information. Very interesting... *strokes chin thoughtfully*

Why is she so naive?

And faucets? That came out of nowhere. Seemed out-of-place, in point of fact.

Very intriguing, this chapter is. Marcus' implied knowledge should make things even more interesting, at least once it is shared with our POV narrator and thus us.

This is going to seem horrible, but...

(whispers) I think this was my favorite chapter.

NOT because of the killing. Or the eighty other bazillion ways you could think I'm weird. But... they seem to be arguing over more important things now. And feeling more important things, if that makes sense.

Out of curiosity... did you write this in two bits? Because the beginning of the chapter has a completely different mood and feel to it. It seems a little disjointed, but I'm not sure how else you could have done it.

I think Sursa may be my favorite character yet. She's a lot of fun.

I'm glad you had Matt attempt to escape. I was wondering what would really happen if they did. And I like the punishment. Having him take a different way also helps to seperate this plot line from the other two.

The last part sounds exciting...

While convenient, it still seems a bit odd to me that there are just supplies... sitting there. But I'm more than willing to just accept it as "how things are."

They seem TOO antagonistic. To the point (and beyond the point) of absurdity. Although I can't decide if that makes it good or bad or what.

These lines probably made only me laugh:

"We keep on going."

He sighed. "And going, and going, and going, and going.."

Little pink bunny rabbits, anyone?

Nate's pompostiy was hysterical. It made him seem like less of a jerk. Although Liv is doing a pretty good job of being a jerk, too. But I must say... they are clearly characters in a story, if that makes sense. Real characters, but not real people. Does that differentiation make sense?

Have you ever REALLY been tempted to slap someone? I haven't, so I wouldn't know, but the "hand itched" description seems... cliched.

However, the description of homesickness was dead on.

I may need to take back my assessment of these-characters-are-cliched-and-stereotyped once again. Because I can't imagine such characters making me laugh so often. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't keep reading if they didn't remind me of certain people. Not to mention any names, of course...

The descriptions in this chapter were very clear and easy to visualilize, and over all it was a very good addition and continuation of your story.The scenes flow together well, and the characters seem to match the previous descriptions.It was kind of wierd to think that the king didn't have any guards, but this needed to be the case for the story to work. Since the two worlds on either end of the portal seem to be communicating with each other, conveniences for the slaves/competitors can be explained away fairly easily.The biggest problem that I had with this chapter were the revelations made about the Games. They were very interesting, and obviously the organizers don't want the volunteers to know some things about the games. If this is the case, then why do they allow the pairing of a slave and a volunteer and then not restrict their conversation at all? It seems like that kind of revealing discussion would be very common between co-competitors. Since the only realistic way for the discrepancies to come out is through discussion between El and Marcus, I think that at some later point in the story it should be revealed that the organizers made a mistake, maybe by having Marcus and El split up after one task without explanation when the organizers realize what has happened. That could be an interesting plot twist as well.This isn't nearly so important, but it seems that El, a shy introvert who feels somewhat out of place at the dinner, would be very eager to talk to anyone that she didn't know, so her complaint about the lack of conversation seems out of character.As I said before, overall I like this chapter and think that in general this story gets better over time. However, for some reason that I'm not sure I can put my finger on, this story doesn't seem as serious as SotN. It reminds me more of Theta, only better written. Just an observation that I had. Waiting for the next chapter, whenever it gets typed.

The initial listing of family members becomes tedious and doesn't really tell us much except that she has a big family.

Yeah! Someone cried! I was hoping they wouldn't all be stoic. I'm pretty sure if this happened to me I'd be blubbering more than she is.

She has ridiculously low self-estemm though. As long as this turns out to just be temporary and not an eternal character trait it's pretty believable ~ everyone feels bad about themselves sometimes ~ but don't drag it out.

Does anyone really think in similes? She says/thinks/narrates "and no matter what I did I knew that I would stick out like a bedraggled duck among swans." Um, right. Poetic, but do people actually think like that?

I liked the bit of history about her and Liv. Very very very cute.

OMG! I love El! Nightmares? Freaking out? TOTALLY real!

"Dashing"? OMG! Literally ROTFLOL!

That lady is FREAKY! Very very very cold. (Many uses of very in this review. SORRY!)

Gr... It would have been interesting to know more about the enigma that calls himself Marcus. But then, if you wanted to tell us you wouldn't have had them be interrupted.

A "jiffy"? Really. A strange world says "jiffy." Right.

There have been a lot of interruptions JUST before we're about to get information. Tension is good ~ readers gone mad is not!

Overall ~ I liked this chapter's further look at El and the new action that has occured thus far. The story is getting EXCITING!

But I really have to say that I don't like Marcus. He's too. Too handsome, too dashing, too elegant, too skilled, too nice, too mysterious, too EVERYTHING. I'm waiting for him to do something terrible. It's probably just my cynicalness, though.

Ha! I am reviewing this chapter before you post number 8!I really liked this chapter. Nate is my favorite character; he is interesting to read about and seems to have consistent reactions. I particularly liked the mood that you started the chapter out with.One problem that I have with the chapter is that the first fight between Nate and Liv seems kind of fake. I think what makes it seem this way is Nate's harsh line 'You mean you maliciously lie about people to their faces for fun?'Also, it seems like as soon as Nate thinks about trying to find something out about the warlord, the info just begins to fall into his lap. This isn't very realistic, but you do a very good job of presenting the info, so it doesn't really matter.The second fight between Nater and Liv, over money, was very well introduced, and I thought themost realistic fight of the entire story.A few very minor points. The first is that Liv shouldn't ask if Nate found anything out in the common room, as he never said that he intended to try. He should bring up what he found.I am assuming that they were able to defeat the bandits because they were magically trained when they chose their weapons, which seemed to be the case. Their reaction to the fight seems a little exaggerated (Nate probably wouldn't think so much during the battle) but on the whole much more realistic than the stories in which people continue as if nothing had happened. I mean, killing would be pretty traumatic, I assume (since I haven't done it). Also, Nate seems pretty harsh with Liv. The line where he says that she has been 'No more stupid than usual' is fairly funny, but I can't imagine even he would be so insensitive, especially not after just having killed, as well.Remember, most of these are very minor (If I don't criticize in a review, I don't know what to write) I REALLY liked this chapter because of it's tone and various individual lines (particularly when Nate says 'No wonder farm families were solarge'). Keep up the good work!

Wow. I didn't even get chapter 6 reviewed before #7 came out. That's pretty bad. Over all, I liked this chapter, particularly Sursarassaphae. It's good to have some non-human characters. It is fairly unique, other than the ending; a traditional cliffhanger. Specifically, here are my suggestions:As Matt is wishing he could be with any of his friends, he says that he wishes 'Matt, Liv, or El,' were with him. This is obvioulsy confusing.Also, wouldn't El be the person he would most want to have with him, if they are almost going out? You write 'even El would be better than this cat'Possibly my favorite part was the mentioning of the warders; it's nice to know that the slaves aren't as free as they are told. Still, if there is a monetary punishment for owners to get their slaves back, why wouldn't they make it harder for them to escape? I guess they are supposed to be deterred by the punishment, which is plausible.A question that these games leave me is 'what happens to slaves that fail 3 times?' Do they just sit there and do nothing, unable to return, or what? I understand that the owners may be hiding the answer from the slaves, in which case the story could be made better by the slaves wondering the answer to this questions.Also, to be returned do they have to succeed their first three times, or just before they fail for a third time?The biggest problem with this chapter was the description of the landscape that Matt and the cat walk into. From the miniscule amount of experience that I have, I know that this is one of the hardest things to do, since the author already has an image in their mind, but can't really convey it to others. However, I really couldn't picture the scene at all, and just stopped trying. I won't go into too much detail, but one example is 'I was standing on a narrow spur of rock strung between the upthrust walls of two mountains.'At the end you tend to use 'the' to refer to objects that have not yet been introduced. An example is 'she turned her attention the two bulging backpacks and the small sledge' as opposed to 'she turned her attention to two bulging backpacks and a small sledge.'Finally, as I said before, I understand the need to focus on characters for no less time than 8 or 10 pages at once, but it makes it so large that it is intimidating to review.Sorry for being kind of picky. I liked this chapter a lot, but a story can't be improved through recieving endless praise, so I tend to focus on the negative in reviews. I hope to get to chapter 7 fairly soon!