consciousness mared by seventh beer
[marred, and I think “by _a_”]

making sixty dollars a hour
[sixty dollars an hour is fairly low for extremely hazardous, high-payout missions. Consider lawyers…okay, leeches are bad examples. Underwater wielders make wages in most cases, but their equivalence comes to hundreds an hour]

retreated behind there borders
[their – it’s really easy to get the right one]

levels at the ground zero of
[levels at ground]

most devestating event
[devastating]

level hit 23.0 on a one to ten scale
[By definition, a 1 to 10 scale stops at 10. If it’s “off the charts” then it might colloquially be read as 11, but that’s the most that can subjectively be read on a scale that doesn’t go above 10]

as another sprawling wave of monsters
[Are these monsters anything besides Acceptable Targets? Did they used to be people? Are they another form of life simply trying to defend what they understand as their territory? Why are there infantry here?]

If one didn't know better
[It’s always iffy to talk to the audience, and this is a thinly veiled attempt at such. It might be more effective to slip into the past tense and mention that ‘later historians would speculate that’ or something like that, or you could just state that Things Man Was Not Meant To Know were at work]

Although your story doesn’t have a lot of technical errors, they do disrupt reading. More of a problem is the lack of detail – there’s a little bit of setting that might have been acceptable in a video game in the mid 90s (and it seems strongly to echo such), but for a narrative where the possibilities range from the terror if invincible microbes to ponderance of the infinite universe…you can see why it’s important to make a definite impression. There’s really no strong sense of characters, places, or times. There’s very little attempt to get your audience emotionally invested in your character (or the ‘doomed’ place). I know that introductory chapters never answer all of the questions, but I end the chapter feeling more like I lack a foundation to continue rather than an invitation to read on.

"I have a feeling this'll come back to bite us in the ass, but I've always been a real sucker for explosions." -Well said Damien! Don't think just do it! A giant bomb sounds like a pretty good idea to me.

And oh my god! The scene with Chris waking up to the strange sounds in his room is so well written. It's spooky as hell and I love the description of the thing clinging to the ceiling: "The creature slightly resembled a man, turned inside out." Ew! And awesome. By the way, shoving a flare down a monsters throat has got to be the most epic way of dealing with a monster. xD

Here's hoping the CIA waits for you to finish this story before they come for you.

Wow. That was the greatest battle over a frosted floops bar ever!...It kind of made me want a frosted floops bar, just because everyone else did xD. I like Nermal's addition to the story, having the household monster lurking about really makes things more exciting. Sounds like he isn't going to last much longer though, I keep wondering when they're finally gonna deal with him lol!

Another great chapter! As usual your action scenes are great and I loved the incorporated flashback that came with him holding the sword. I hope we get to hear the story behind it soon!

Not a cliffy! NO! Er, ahem, AWESOME chapter! I'm so glad I have some time to catch up on it. I liked the creepy turn it took with the shadow thing beckoning to him, and I totally did not expect him to find a sword! It seems so out of place in a story where everyhting else is so technologically advanced...So I'm going to guess that it's a really special awesome sword. MOST EPIC!

I didn't find any real problems among your writing, grammatically and I liked the voice and tone you set for it. The voice of your Main character of course, you thought the same thing I did when he said, "what a load of bull". I'm a little confuused when it comes to SEAL, it's like you're mixing fantasy and technology, which is cool, but sometimes tricky and can get confusing. The political matter actualy seems realistic this time to.

On a bad note, I didn't like how the first chap ended. It seemed like it happened just to get things moving, I think. That, and what does he do by looking at the screen all day if monsters are met by infantry anyways? He reports the levels or something?

~SD

My first reaction was 'wow, we've jumped a fair way into the future'. Almost one hundred years to be exact. You've got to be careful not to alienate your readers with this technique. Having read this chapter I don't think you do, however. You draw us into the action in the same smooth way you did in the prologue.

The first three sentences of this chapter feel a little awkward. "Chris Falkner propped himself against the wreck of one of the Terran war-machines he had felled months earlier. He grimaced as the heavy fire of rail cannons tore through the air. Chris jammed another cartridge into the underside of his volt rifle." You're starting a new sentence for every action he did, when you could have an 'and' or use run-ons. As you've done it, the beginning of the chapter has a very stop-start feel about it.

Reading further on, you do seem to start a great majority of sentences with either his name or 'he'. It gets repetitive after a while and makes for awkward reading.

However, this chapter is just the right length to build the tension nicely, which you do. There are a few errors though. Without listing them all individually, these are the three that stood out the most.

1. If someone new is speaking, you need to start a new paragraph. Despite the fact that it splits up the text into readable chunks, it's the correct use of the language.

2. If someone is addressing another person in any way, then a comma is needed between the name they're addressing the person with, and the rest of the speech.

3. If you have a word such as 'said' or 'shouted' after speech, then the closing punctuation of the speech should be a comma, not a full stop.

One final note, as Chris has been the main character in this chapter, I think it's important to include him in the last sentence of the cliff hanger. What you have now is "A pair of armored gloves hooked Chris from his armpits and yanked him back onto his feet. Broderick tossed aside his rocket launcher and made a bee line for Damien who was struck unconscious…". Just switch the sentences round. :)

Wow. This actually gave me a horrible dead feeling in the pit of my stomach. This is a good thing by the way! XD You create a good picture of the hell that would happen if he Desmond wasn't there, and write in such a way that I didn't automatically expect you to carry through with it. When I read the last paragraph I really felt awful. :/

The first impression I got from this was that it was another prologue with a flashback scene. Unlike flashforwards (is that even a word?), flashbacks to begin a story always annoy me. Thankfully, you didn't focus on a load of useless details, but got straight to the core, saying what you needed the reader to know and nothing else. Both my eyes and I thank you for this. :P

I shall definitely be reading on. :)

Very interesting introduction of the flashback. I wonder how it relates to the main part of the story, and why the flashback actually occured in the first place. I'm especially interested in why the warriors are using such old fashioned weapons when they're fighting monsters that I assume were released by the SEAL cracking the Earth, which happened in the future when I assume they had far superior technology to that. I assume there is an explanation though, which makes it all the more interesting.

Also gravity guns? I think you're beginning to show us some more of the technology they have, and that is extremely interesting to me because I'm a bit of a geek like that. I'm eager to find out some more of the stuff they have so far in the future, and how it works. I also like the struggle you have between mann and machine going on. It's kind of an iconic struggle and is always really fun to read and write. Hopefully you're gonna explore that further (why droids are used instead of humans for example.)

But anyway, another good chapter.

Review or the protagonist dies? Well I have to warn you I have a bit of a sadistic side when it comes to protagonists, as you'll probably see later on in my own story! I'm not averse to killing a protagonist if the mood takes me :P.

But anyway, you have made me vary curious about this weapon, and ending on such a cliff-hanger is just annoying. I also wonder what use is a sword against guns and droid and all the other high-tech, heavy duty weaponry you have here, so I'm guessing this is no ordinary sword.

As always, you've written the action scenes quite well, and your description is suited to the story I think. Some people may say make it fancy and poetic, but that would probably seem out of place in the post apocolyptic war zone world you've got going on, and you manage to paint simple, but clear descriptions which do the job just fine. It also means the action does not become bogged down in places with over done description, and it creates easy to read, almost cinematic action scenes.

I'm glad to say I didn't pick up many mistakes, just one that I think you may have not phrased right:

"Broderick lethargically pulled out his gauss rifle and iced the recon droid mid-monologue." Do you mean lethargic? Soldiers don't normally shoot lethargically I would've thought.

I've finally got round to reviewing this, sorry it took so long. There's not a lot of action in this, but not all chapters to be. It's a good change of pace, and gives us some answers, and an insight on the Phalanx, which, being the title of the story, will probably feature a lot more in further chapters.

And there's nothing wrong with the angst. In some places it's a perfectly justified reaction, although by having hardened soldiers as your main character it probably won't come as often if your characters are inexperienced recruits for example. It also shows that your characters have some emotion in them, which is obviously extremely important to help the reader emphasise with the character.

One thing I am worried about is the way you've described the Phalanx: "Under normal circumstances the SEAL would twist and mutate their bodies turning them into sickening monsters. Somehow the SEAL is altered to where the soldiers get all of the enhancements without suffering from any of the negative effects of the radiation." Now it might just be a turn of phrase, but you do need an explanation to why it doesn't have the negative effects on these particular soldiers. Now I might be being unfair, and if you have a good explanation for it then that's perfectly fine. However if you don't, then you probably need to think of one fast. Think of this quote: "The difference between fantasy and reality? Fantasy has to make sense."

But apart from that, you're setting things up fantastically for the next chapter, which I'm sure will be great.

Hahaha, awkward shower is awkward.

I liked the TV scene. It offers a bit more perspective, descriptively and socially, on the outside world, as it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day survival of the team.

Phalanx soldiers sound pretty cool - kinda like Space Marines, except crazier.

I think I loved the ending most, where you dove straight in the middle of their conversion about Nermal eating the knife. Chris's new energy is facinating considering I thought he was almost going to die in the last chapter. Great chapter, can't wait for the next one!

Yeah, I got the point - reviewing! :)

And I've got nothing to say, except that I'm going to read the rest as fast as I can - which is a good thing. :D

Oh, and that you're doing a great job.

That's 'bout it.

:)

Before I start, I'm gonna point out what may possibly be either a typo, or some thing that I don't know of. It's most likely the latter... 'due to the dearth of Floops cereal' Dearth is the word I'm pointing out.

And I really like this chapter! It's like a calm oasis. And I noticed you changed the summery... Dragons...?