When the first wave of pain hit him he was unaware of the danger he had put himself in.
There was a flash of light and all sound around him disappeared. He could barely feel his body crumbling to the ground. The only evidence of contact with the soil was when a pair of arms wrapped themselves around him and he was picked up and carried to safety.
He could feel nothing. He could hear nothing. He could see nothing. His senses were failing him. He could not move. He could not speak. He was useless. A body racked with pain; destroyed from the inside out. He was a wrecked pawn who needed to be tossed aside.
Then a smell touched his nose.
It was familiar. Very, very familiar. He recognized it immediately and he knew then who it was carrying him, and why they had not left him laying on the battlefield to die.
Reanna.
As the name passed through his mind he fell into what he thought was sleep. He dreamed of darkness. A darkness that was everywhere, eating away at him, ripping him apart, wanting his body and soul for their own. He screamed for help. He hollered with all the strength in his lungs for someone to rescue him. Reanna, Terry, Father--anyone! He was going to die. He was going to be killed. Fear took over and he collapsed into the shadows, allowing them to devour him.
Then, he woke up.

It was not a room, but a tent. There were groans and sobs filling the air. The disgusting odor of death lingered around them. He felt his chest fill with the dying breaths of the men and women of the battlefield. Their sorrow, their pain--it began to bubble inside him.
Tears grew behind his eyes, spilling out and over his cheeks. He bit his lips to silence his sniffles, not wanting to disturb anyone around him and let his weak appearance be seen. Somehow, there was always a person to find him in such a state. On this occasion it was his friend, and he was glad for that.
Reanna peered down at his face. "Dylen?" She asked. Her hair, which was usually a vibrant shade of pink, had dulled and grown dark at the roots. Her gaze flittered over his features. From his running nose to his wet cheeks and eyes. Her expression did not soften. If anything it grew harder. "Yer cryin'." She said.
"I..." Dylen could barely speak through his tears and sore throat. "I am... s-sorry."
Reanna frowned. "Ye don' need t' apologize. Ye do it too often fer that."
He wanted to smile, yet the pain stopped that. He gulped, swallowing a large breath. "Wh-what is... the status of the war?"
Something flickered in Reanna's magenta orbs. What it was, Dylen could not pin-point. "It's over."
"How many lives?" He whispered.
Reanna lowered her stare from his eyes to his neck. He knew from that action the number was high. "It ain't offical, they're still countin', but so far it's at five million."
Five million...
Five million people gone... Gone from his planet. Five million of his people wiped out just like that. Never to return.
The tears grew thicker. They gushed down his cheeks, through his hair and touched his ears. He sobbed openly then and Reanna only stood there, her hands on either side of him as she watched her friend cry for the loss of those who could shed no tears. Who lost their lives in a senseless battle.

Dylen was released from the medical station twelve hours later. His wounds had been healed up nicely by the head nurse, and with her final blessings for his heart to mend quickly, he walked down through the destroyed streets of Neptune with his cousin, Terry, by his side.
"Wow..." Terry whispered as they stared at the damage all around them. "I can't believe this..."
"If only we had done something more." Dylen murmured.
Terry glanced at him, curious. "What are you talking about? There was nothing we could have done."
"Not us," Dylen corrected, "I meant Neptune. The dimension. Had we acted sooner countless lives would be saved. Children would have their parents, family's would still be together..."
Terry stared at the blonde. Like Reanna, their hair had also become dark, unpolished versions of what they used to be. With the time that passed for them to heal, the bright colours were beginning to return, thankfully. "Dylen..." Terry stopped himself from saying anything more. Ranting on about how nothing could change the past would simply push Dylen into a fit. Instead, Terry smiled gently and shook his head. "You put far too much blame on yourself. Look to the future! Try thinking of the good things. There is always a silver lining, you know." He grinned gleefully. "That saying came from the humans. I think it's quite ingenious."
Dylen could not stop the small smile that graced his lips. Terry was so optimistic. Always looking on the bright side of things. Dylen envied the older boy for that. It was a trait he wished he had gotten through their shared side of the family.
As they reached the palace they both stopped at the bottom of the steps, gaping at the giant hole in the one side of the large castle. Where the library and study room had once been, was gone. It was as if a monster had come along and taken a bite out of their home, inhaling everything inside.
"All... the books..." Dylen whispered, horrified. "All of our history..."
Terry cast a hand over his face, swearing softly under his breath. He took Dylen by the shoulder and tugged him up the stairs. "Come, we'll talk to your father, the King. Be happy we didn't lose our bedrooms!"
Inside the palace was more chaotic that outside. Workers were rushing to and fro, yelling at each other, trying to have their voices raised over the commotion. Rubble and debris littered the floor. The beautiful paintings on the walls were burnt and the rugs that had once coated the clean, tiled ground, were nothing but ashes.
With all the noise and movement, it took Dylen a bit before he caught a servant by the arm. He tugged them closer so their conversation could be heard between one another. "Have you seen my father, King Artemis?"
The servant--a young Fortreenian--shook his head. "My apologiez, young mazter." He said, his accent thick from lack of training in the Neptune language. Bowing ever so slightly, he shuffled away into the dining room.
Terry put a hand on Dylen's shoulders. "Let's try his room," he said cheerfully. "Maybe he's in there." It was highly unlikely the King of Neptune would be in his chambers while his planet was trying to clean up the mess, but they had no other leads.
They took the staircase up to the second floor, and walked along one of the main hallways before taking another, smaller, set of stairs to where the King's quarters were. As they approached the large, double oak doors, both boys paused, hearing cries of anguish coming from inside the room.
Dylen tapped one of the doors gently. "F-father..?" He meekly asked. After no reply, he glanced behind him at Terry who shrugged his shoulders.
Dylen tried knocking a little harder. "Father?" He repeated. "Are... you in there?"
"Dylen?"
Terry shrieked, startled from the sudden voice. "Reanna!" He cried. She had appeared from nowhere behind him. "D-don't do that!"
Reanna gave the blue haired male a look, but it was not nearly as lethal as her usual ones. Slowly she slid her stern gaze to Dylen and it was then he knew something horrible had happened.
Dylen stared at Reanna. "What is it?" He asked. When she did not reply his voice became a whisper. "What happened, Reanna?"

His friend hung her head. She touched her fingers to her temple, running a hand through her short hair. She did not want to be the one to inform Dylen of his loss. Unfortunately, no one else would do it. The planet was in ruins, the people distraught over the deaths. And she was his friend. He only had two of those. Her, and Terry--who had no clue about the incident.
It was up to her.
"Dylen, yer father is dead."
It had killed her to see him cry in the medical tent. It hurt her so much to watch him sob helplessly from all the deaths of his people. But seeing the blonde fall to the floor with his head in his hands, screaming in the most blood-curdling way from the loss of his father, shattered her heart.
Terry stumbled back a step. "N-no... way..." He looked to Reanna, dark turquoise eyes wishing she would just laugh and say, 'Kidding!', making it all a bad joke.
It was the truth though, and she could not change that. So they remained in the hallway together, watching Dylen crouch on the ground, beside himself with despair, unable to comfort him, unable to ease his pain.
Unable to do anything helpful.

Please tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is encouraged.

Wow. That is amazing! Really cool. :D I loved it!

I enjoyed it. ^_^ Your writing style is very in-depth.

Thank you very much you guys (:

This is really good. You should have someone go back and do some nit-picking for you, because the grammar and sentence structure is a bit odd in points, but not so much that it's too difficult to understand what you're trying to say.

All in all, though, I think you should finish the novel, and post it somewhere, even if you don't try to get it published, because I (and obviously at least two others) would like to read it!

Good job.

I read this on Solia...AND IT'S STILL WAWESOME!!! YOUR THE BESTEST WRITER EVAR TOSH-SAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG I CAN WRITE NON-PHAIL THINGS NOW!!!! 8D And I agree with KaiCalan, you should so get this novel published or at least post the whole thing somewhere! I'd DEFFINATLY READ IT!!!

Originally Posted by Seblocry

The only evidence of contact with the soil was when a pair of arms wrapped themselves around him and he was picked up and carried to safety.

I kind of get what you’re going for here, that the only reason he knew he was on the ground was because someone picked him up, but something about it just doesn’t seem evident enough. My first thought was “what does that have to do with soil?”. Maybe it was just me, so I’d wait to see if anyone else thought that before changing it.

Originally Posted by Seblocry

He could not move, he couldn't speak.

I really liked that the other two were their own sentences. It had a lot of punch behind it. So I’d make these their own sentences too. I also think the second “couldn’t” might work best if it was “could not” like the first.

Originally Posted by Seblocry

A body racked with pain, destroyed from the inside out.

I’d change the comma to a semi-colon.

Originally Posted by Seblocry

… to recuse him.

‘rescue’ just a little typo.

Originally Posted by Seblocry

It was not a room, but a tent instead.

I think you could knock out ‘instead’.

Originally Posted by Seblocry

… of the men and woman of the battlefield.

‘women’. Just a little typo.

Originally Posted by Seblocry

… had also become a dark, unpolished versions of what they normally were.

You accidentally switched between singular and plural. You should knock out ‘a’.

Originally Posted by Seblocry

Inside the palace was more chaos that outside.

I’d use ‘chaotic’ instead of ‘chaos’ and ‘than’ instead of ‘that’.
--

I really can’t think of anything to critique besides grammar. The story was well-written and well put together. Since this is only a small part of it, I hope Reanna and Terry are as easily lovable as Dylan is. Even in this small portion of story I already felt for him – not an easy thing to pull off in only two pages.

I noticed that the view point switches to Reanna for a short bit; will this happen for Terry also? I’d like to see the not so happy view of him.
I also thought that the name ‘Terry’ didn’t really seem to match the naming structure of the other characters. Is that his nickname?

Also, when the view point switches to Reanna I suggest putting a space between paragraphs. The handling of switching view points really seems to depend on the writer, but I think with an extra space between paragraphs it’s easier for the reader to distinguish that something has changed.

I really do hope you post more.

@ KaiCalan: Thank you! I would love to get it published but that goal still seems a far off dream for me. Far too many knots to smooth out right now, haha.

@ Nolori: Thank you so much for showing me what I should fix. I've been hoping someone would come along and do that for a while.
There is a piece before this in Terry's point of view but it's very quickly written and I need to redo it before I can even think about posting, haha.
And yes, 'Terry' is a nickname. His real name is never said in the novel so it's one of those mysteries you never find out. It's neat that you noticed that, nobody else has ever said anything about it before.

Thanks you two! xD
Oh and you, Nereis, even though you've already read this before...

I'm always glad to be of help!

Is it ever stated in the novel that it is a nickname then? It would kind of lose its mystery if we didn't know it was a mystery. Haha.
Also, it would be pretty amusing if people called him by his full name in the story, but it's only ever stated that his full name has been said instead of telling the reader what his name actually is.
I hope you post some part along those lines, I think it'd be fun to read. Hehe.

Yes, he states it once after one of the other characters, a younger girl named Kass, tells him how stupid "Terry" sounds (she's not a very pleasant person). Then there's a fuss over trying to get him to spill his real name but he refuses and simply changed the subject quickly.
Reanna calls Terry "Sock" when they're older because he tends to steal people's socks when he can't find any to wear, and so he has a huge stash up in his room. But I don't think that would be a good true name for him, haha... I haven't even though one up.

I absolutely loved it! Its not everyday I find good writing, and this has really inspired me. Thank you sooo much! ;D I wouldn't mind reading more.

Originally Posted by iinsanely Sane

I absolutely loved it! Its not everyday I find good writing, and this has really inspired me. Thank you sooo much! ;D I wouldn't mind reading more.

Haha, you're welcome and thanks for the compliment! :D