Tourniquet [My book]

So here it is. Forgive me for some parts, it is sorta unedited but I still haven't finished it so yeah, here it is guys, Tourniquet. Will be going by chapter per post, so I would really lurve some feedback. p.s. I don't believe in double paragraphing.

Chapter 1
Welcome to the New World

The fog over Los Angeles had started to sweep the city of its mist and the lights from the large spherical buildings that lined the skyline and the streets. People down on the street were rushing from one end to the other. They walked and they rode their bicycles. They ate on the sidewalk where Chinese eat-in shops were always opened twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, under large advertising billboards that glowed in the dark with their neon lights.
There was a girl, a young adult, she wore denim blue jeans that she had torn up the sides, matched it with a black short-sleeved top, had her hair tied back in a loose ponytail, and was kinda bored with the life that Los Angeles provided her. Just like the rest of the people that sat down at these Chinese shops. Mel sat down at one of these, eating her bowl full of noodles that the chef behind the counter, with the sweat beads and the grumpy look on his face had made her. She looked up to thank him, but he had disappeared in the mist of steam. She hated this world. A world controlled by global corporations.
Spyral was the largest corporation in the world. And what did they do for a living? They made the world artificial, nothing in the world was real because of them, Mel scoffed at her own thoughts as she shoved noodles down her throat with the help of the Chinese utensils that the chef had provided her with. Spyral, the largest building in Los Angeles, the one just over the Dark Hills that had the nice arches in the hallways, the antique framed mirrors and they owned the only existing Comet’s Eye. A super magnetically charged power ball that had the ability to destroy an entire continent. From what Mel had been told by various people on the streets of LA, the Comet’s Eye was that powerful in was kept in a thick vault underneath the headquarters of the company. Mel didn’t know to be honest, only rumours. The company had destroyed the technology they hated, such as the internet and computers, and made holograms and other artificial inventions a part of every day society. Television was still there. But it had one channel. Spyral Ltd. A sad excuse for them to gloat about their profits and new sufferings they had brought to the world.
Mel had thought to herself many times that she was the only normal human was around and everybody else was just holograms and ghouls of the past. The ghouls of the past were the worst things one could run into on the streets. Holograms, the really stingy ones, could be easily recognised by the pixilation and the fuzziness, and usually the lack of sound as well.
Things hadn’t been the same for a couple of years now. World War Three had broken out in Europe and in the end result of America’s involvement in the fighting on the lines, just say Japan’s second attack on supposedly Pearl Harbour in history, wasn’t aimed at Hawaii and it was no ordinary bomb either. It wiped out not only capitalism and democracy; it wiped out half the population. Spyral gained control of the nation’s politics not soon after that bomb, wiped the political status of every politician clean, and exiled them for eternity. Spyral had gained that much power of the world, the world was now Eisenhower’s domino theory brought to life. The world was now just a ball with a large building on it now.
Mel stopped shoving the noodles down her throat, stopped, and looked around, as people rang their bicycle bells at one another or at passing friends or relatives. The only people that were privileged enough to own cars and licensed to have cars, were the people that worked for Spyral. Mel had seen the boss of Spyral once. Mel wanted to run over and slap the boss for everything that came under her belt. She looked back to her noodles and started to pick the meat out of it. Not even the meat was real. It was over-processed and condensed tin meat that Spyral rationed the people with during the big war. Even though it wasn’t the war right now, Spyral had plenty left and encouraged the citizens of America to eat the rest of it. Mel couldn’t remember the last time she had real meat. The only real things that she had tasted lately were noodles, because they were one of out few things that were genetically real. She still didn’t know how Spyral did it, but they managed to annoy her more than her mother did.
She stopped eating and swung around on her bar stool, as she suspected someone was behind her. It wasn’t a someone, it was a something. It was a hologram of the mailman, shining brilliantly in the night time.
“Are you Melissa Phoenix, dear?” asked the hologram as Mel nodded and was handed what seemed to be a wavy envelope that was buzzing in and out in co-ordination to the mailman. One thing that she did like, they replaced email with an instant mailman hologram. Any place and anytime, if mail came he would be there in front of the recipient in a manner of seconds. She touched the envelope and it automatically became solid. “Take care dear.” Were the last words that came out of the hologram’s mouth as he buzzed off and disappeared out of Mel’s sight, as she opened the envelope, tearing at it impatiently like she felt it was something important. She chucked the envelope and its shreds to the ground.
It was a letter from Spyral warning about what she had done the previous night. She had gotten drunk and she was going to get fined for it. Mel remembered the ordering processes of drinks at a Chinese drinking place on the west side of the town, the only place permitted to sell any alcohol beverage. Sign your name, do an identity check and then you can drink. But drink more than five standard drinks if you’re a female and you’re automatically considered drunk and discriminated by Spyral as disorderly and defiant and then the present comes in the next day after Spyral’s systems have gone through and been analysed, a five hundred dollar fine for drinking, ignore it, and be prepared to be exiled. What a society she lived in…
She sighed as she put the letter down on the bench in front of her, as the chef that had made her the noodles that were going cold came out from the kitchen and leant against the bench looking to the fine in front of Melissa.
“Spyral being a bitch?” asked the chef.
“Why would you care?” asked Melissa. “You’re the person that makes my noodles and that’s it. I hate this society and what we have become.”
“You come here every second day and order the same thing, so I think I have a right to make conversation with you,” retorted the chef, wiping his hands clean on his once-white apron.
“Spyral’s always being a bitch, communism it’s called, we are the pawns in the game,” bitched Melissa.
“What, do you want to go back to living like we did back in the war?” asked the chef, somewhat defending Spyral’s actions. “Spyral saved us.”
“By sending me a five hundred fine for getting wasted?” asked Mel, a bit annoyed. “This isn’t democracy, its over-globalisation and corporal abuse.”
“Just, do you really want to go back living like we did in the war?” asked the chef. “I had no food, no supplies for my restaurant, I nearly went bankrupt, and because of that, I got conscripted into the army and fought in Berlin against the Germans.”
“Spyral would conscript us all if there was another war,” retorted Mel.
“And so would the Old World, where the politicians roamed around like lions in Africa,” argued the chef. “Spyral did at least me a favour by getting rid of the politicians. Wait, were you around in the Old World? You seem a bit young to be around back then.”
“Just, I was a teen,” answered Mel.
“I’m Viking by the way,” introduced Viking, as he held out a hand for her to shake. She smiled and shook it with a free hand. “You’re name is….?” The lights around them started to flicker, as Viking rolled his eyes. “I have to admit Spyral does a bad job maintaining the electricity around here though.”
“What are you talking about? They do a bad job at everything,” snorted Mel, as Viking was going to say something to it but didn’t. “Melissa by the way.”
“Glad to meet you Melissa, see you around this place a lot but I don’t say anything,” smiled Viking, letting go of Melissa’s hand and supporting himself with his two palms faced down on the bench and Mel placed her hands by her side.
“I have to go now,” said Mel, looking for excuses to not talk to a Spyral supporter.
“You didn’t finish your noodles,” replied Viking, taking the bowl in his hands.
“Not hungry anymore, the dry taste of artificial meat makes me sick sometimes,” explained Mel, as she got to her feet, picked up her fine, stopped, and smiled. “Nice to meet you Viking. I’ll be back tomorrow to have what I usually have.” She waved goodbye with a hand and Viking did the same thing, as he smiled and walked off just as Mel walked off down the road that was lighted by neon billboard lights and dodging bicycles and being yelled at for not sticking to the side of the road.

****​

 

I think... there's promise there, but I think the tone is a little bit inconsistent so far, between the description and the dialogue. Also, I think it could benefit from editing, but as you said you haven't finished all of that. I think it could be pretty good once you have.

 

thankies Deani

Chapter 2
Neon Memories

“Torn….i….et?” asked Fox, as she looked up from the book and looked at Rob in confusion. They sat down in an alleyway where there were various other children playing in the mist and amongst the trash cans. She could only see the words in the book because there was a street light nearby but she was having even more difficulty focusing because the street light was flickering. Spyral was getting lazy with their electricity supply, and maintenance, and Fox was finding it hard to cope with the blackouts. She was basically illiterate, had a severe anxiety disorder, and hadn’t had the proper schooling the other children had, before the schools were destroyed by the bomb and of course, by Spyral’s political correctness. Rob had taken her in after he found her by her dead mother’s side in what was originally a house, but it was nothing but rubble, after the bomb was dropped. He still didn’t know how he or anyone had survived the blast. “I’m lost Rob, again.”
“Tourniquet, it’s a French word,” Rob corrected, as he lent over and turned the page back a couple of thick pages. “I didn’t expect you to understand it. I didn’t understand it to be honest, when I first read it. What’s that word?”
Fox looked to where Rob pointed and frowned.
“Ahh…” Fox stared at the word, knowing that she had been taught this before, but she couldn’t understand the word. Aqua it read and she frowned. She was biting her bottom lip at the fact that she remembered the word but couldn’t remember how to pronounce it. “I know it, it’s just I can’t remember how to pronounce it. What is it?” Rob sighed. “I’m sorry I don’t know how to read.”
“That’s okay, it’s Spyral’s fault that they got rid of the correct facilities for you,” Rob clarified taking the book from Fox’s grip and flipping through the pages to look for another word that he had taught her and that one that he thought she could remember.
“What was the word anyway, Rob?” asked Fox, getting anxious. Rob looked up and smiled.
“You don’t have to worry about it, it’s nothing, I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t care for you, in fact, I wouldn’t have picked up from the rubble and taken you in like I did,” answered Rob, sentimentally. “The word was aqua, it a shade of blue and it’s kinda greenish as well, and that’s why they call it aqua. It’s what is considered as an Old World colour. Again, it’s banned.” He stopped at one page, handed the book over to Fox, and pointed to the final word that he had concluded one more word and then he would take her out. He treated her like someone half her age, in which he felt guilty about. “Final word and we’ll be done for today. What’s that word?” He pointed to another word.
“Huh? Ron?” asked Fox, squinting at the page. It wasn’t the word but was more like a part of the word that Rob had given her, irony. “Is that it?” She looked back to Rob for answers. She hadn’t been shown this word before. “Is that it, Rob?” He shook his head. “I don’t know then. Maybe I’m just a kid that was supposed to not learn how to read.”
“Don’t be upset,” comforted Rob, patting Fox on the back and comforting her. “I know plenty of kids your age that don’t know how to read, because they were born after the war and not in the Old World like I was. See, back in the Old World, education and the basic tools to life were basically free, and now in this New World of ours, no such thing even exists. Spyral took it away.”
Education and medical needs were banned entirely. If someone were to be sick, they would have to either live with it or just simply die from it. Education was a threat to society and it would only create unbalance. And an unstable society was the last thing that Spyral needed.
It would be a domino effect. It would only have to start with one person to uproar and defy Spyral and then the whole world would start. But Spyral had its tactics to get rid of protesting pests to a certain extent; it was called exile from Earth entirely.
If someone was to be exiled and it was derived from Spyral’s orders, they wouldn’t be exiled from the state or the continent and shipped off to the USSR, they would be kicked off the planet entirely. Because Spyral was a global corporation that had a lot of influence on some kinds of people, which happened to be the ones that had a lot of power (and then Spyral came along and backstabbed them) and dominating powers, it didn’t stay still in one country, it was spread all over the globe like butter spread over toast. They had even gained control social and political control over NASA. That’s how they got away with it. There was not a single animal, ghoul, memory, or person that Spyral did not have any sort of power over.
Spyral had a reputation for being merciless.
Rob had heard nasty rumours about how people had been exiled and when people spread the word about who and who got kicked off the planet for damnation, they were usually very descriptive and gory.
“What was the word?” Fox repeated her question. “What was the word Rob?”
“Irony,” answered Rob, as Rob took the book from Fox’s grip and closed it. “We’re done for today. I hope you remember those three words Fox, well I don’t expect you to remember tourniquet, but remember irony and aqua.”
“What’s irony?” asked Fox.
“It’s something that contradicts itself or plays on words,” answered Rob, getting to his feet as a number of kids ran past him, almost knocking him over, and made him drop the book that he was holding. He turned around so that he faced the kids running off in the misty distance. “Watch it!”
“I know them, I hate them, they hang out behind the abandoned warehouse just before you reach the Dark Hills,” said Fox, getting to her feet and wiping off the dust that had made its way onto her black pants. Rob turned around to face Fox. “Where are we going now?”
“What were you doing near the Dark Hills?” asked Rob, a bit angry that she had tread near the Spyral building as he bent over and picked up his now soggy-paged book as he realised that there was a puddle of water there. “Do you not know those Spyral guards have a temper on them?”
“I was there with Benji, just chilling that’s all, well, then they came along, I’m sorry, I wasn’t there to stir the guards,” explained Fox, apologetic. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good, I don’t want you to get up to mischief after what I’ve sacrificed for you,” replied Rob. “Come on, I’ll show you some things with the billboards I’ve been noticing ever since the New World was created. This is completely ridiculous the New World’s advertising that Spyral has approved of.” Rob and Fox walked down the misty alleyway where the light of the street light became dimmer and dimmer the further they walked away. In a matter of time they had turned three corners, avoided being run over by three people on bicycles and arrived on of Los Angeles’ main roads. He stopped on the sidewalk with Fox on his side, crossed his arms, and then decided to uncross them. He pointed to a large advertising sign promoting an artificial food brand. “See that yellow?”
“What’s so special about it?” asked Fox, unimpressed by Rob’s attempts to impress her with knowledge about a colour that was practically everywhere. “It’s just yellow, the most overused colour in the world.”
“In the Old World terms… that’s not yellow, it’s orange,” explained Rob, as Fox was confused. “I shouldn’t be talking about the Old World so publicly. Don’t know about it these days, there are Spyral spies everywhere on these streets.”
It was considered unjust to the generation that was born in the times of the New World and treason to talk about the Old World and its ways. Spyral didn’t want anything to do with the Old World, that’s why Spyral had risen to social and political power to get rid of it. There main aim was to try and make a better society that was full of stability and logic, unlike the Old World where it was full of nothing but politics and wars. Spyral got rid of the trouble-makers to prevent a war.
“I don’t want you to get exiled,” commented Fox, looking to Rob innocently. “Who would teach me to read?”
“No one, who doesn’t have a decent heart set in them,” answered Rob, looking to the child that he had rescued from the rubble years ago and still, from day one, she still had a lot of trouble reading. “Come on, I’ll get you some takeaway. Chinese or McSpyral?” Rob had restrained himself from saying McDonalds, because he didn’t want to be exiled for saying an Old World term.
“I’m getting sick of having McSpyral’s burgers all the time, they don’t have look real or taste real, so I’ll go Chinese,” answered Fox, smiling happily. Rob smiled back as they started to walk to the other side of LA to the restaurant together.

****​

 

It's getting better. Please post more.

 

Chapter 4
Intravenous Narcotica

Everything in this world was unnatural and the things that were natural, they were hated or bitched about. A lot of people approached the New World this way, for the people who were born in the New World hadn’t had the experience to live in the Old World right before Japan dropped the megaton blast that wiped out democracy, elections and of course, people. The bomb had brought communism, global corporations that dictated the way that people thought of things and controlled their lives, threatening them with exile if they defied orders. Spyral Incorporated Limited, had mottos like we bleed when you bleed and not one for one, that’s narcissism, but one for all and we’re all working together to bring a better society.
Ravyn hated these days, as she looked out her window and down to the dark streets below her apartment building. They had replaced the rectangular buildings with spherical buildings which made everyone living inside them; feel like they were living in a bubble. Even thinking about the Old World was hard for her.
She fell victim to their program to extinguish all memories of the Old World, which in all historical facts, failed greatly because people just went into hiding. The official name of the project that ended up being terminated was Narcissi Extraction.
Spyral had concluded that having lasting memories of the Old World was a threat to society and a threat to conformity. The last thing they wanted the residents to have was individualism.
Having memories of the Old World was considered narcissistic and wrong. And so they must be extracted and put into a compression chamber that held the memories of the Old World, so that Spyral could physically destroy them with a small dynamite blast. The things that were Spyral’s worst enemy was the fact that memories were atomically strong in their structure and they couldn’t just be ripped apart once outside of the head. They had to have a good force and pressure applied to them to let them implode.
Going into hiding hadn’t been an option for her from day one. Ravyn couldn’t remember much from those days, but she knew she didn’t like the New World. She wasn’t alone and she knew it, despite the fact that her sister was a Spyral supporter. Since those weeks of being experimented and their attempts to get rid of her memories of the Old World, she found it hard to retain the most simplest of things, that’s why she had to live with her sister. She continually asked herself; where did I put that? And who are you again?
She saw her sister down on the street below and frowned. Ravyn could easily recognise Joanna from anywhere, but put an object in front of her and then obviously hide it in your hand right in front of her; she wouldn’t be able to remember where the object was. They had done something to her that she couldn’t explain. She could remember the banned items and the banned words of the New World, and some people’s names, but not a lot, but she couldn’t explain it. It confused her a lot and she felt like she was housebound.
She saw Joanna enter the door downstairs and disappeared out of sight. Ravyn didn’t move from her window. Her memories were blurred of the Old World. She could recall certain characteristics of her house that she shared with her family and little bits and pieces, but again, she couldn’t even what her old cat’s name was. She knew she had a fluffy grey cat that would just look up to her in her dreams, with its red collar around its neck with a small silver bell hanging off it. It would meow at her in her dreams, and then wind in and out of her feet, wanting attention. But when she awoke, the only thing that was staring back in the mirror opposite her bed in her bedroom across from the bathroom was herself.
The front door opened and her younger sister came through with some plastic bags in her hand. Ravyn looked to Joanna who had been walking everywhere to get some Chinese, because it was one out of few types of food that was around nowadays. Joanna was red in the cheeks from walking everywhere, because there were a couple of Chinese side-shops that had stopped doing takeaway, they only had dine-in.
“Hey, are you alright?” asked Joanna, putting the bag with the plastic containers containing a combination of Chinese delicacies. Ravyn nodded but she didn’t say anything. Joanna was only six or so years younger than Ravyn and already she still felt like she couldn’t talk to her because of Joanna’s pro-Spyral attitude. “I got some fried rice, I got some prawn chips, and I got some duck with rice. Hopefully, it’s that artificial duck stuff. Tasted that real duck the other day at Yana’s on the corner, and it tasted awful, I had to even spit it out, yuck.”
“Sounds like fun,” muttered Ravyn, still in her lost sense of mind, still not taking her eyes off her sister. “Is that all you got?”
“Yeah, why? You think you’re going to be hungry after this?” asked Joanna, stopping what she was doing. Ravyn shook her head. “I don’t get you sometimes.”
“I just don’t like this New World, and I don’t like how I always ending up confused about what I did and what I didn’t do,” explained Ravyn. “I don’t know if you know this but there’s something in the back of my–”
“Head, and it feels like someone is etching to tell you that something but you cannot remember who that someone is, yes I’ve heard it before a million times,” interrupted Joanna, rolling her eyes, impatiently, at her sister. Joanna had to take care of her sister or else her sister wouldn’t survive in this New World. “I don’t get what’s so bad about this world. It’s absolutely grand and I’m living my life up to the full, Ravyn. Just think of it, there are neon colours everywhere. Don’t you think it’s pretty the sight of those glowing billboards?”
“The Old World was better, from what I remember of it, I feel so restricted here, I cannot do or say anything without being called a mental bitch or a nut, I can remember stuff, but not a lot, and I’m kinda not good at withholding information,” Ravyn tried to explain. Even though Joanna was her sister, she felt like she couldn’t talk to her, because half the time Joanna rolled her eyes and walked away. That part she could remember. “I don’t know what democracy is meant to mean anymore to me in this world. I think I’m going to go and kill myself near the Dark Hills now, if you don’t mind.” Ravyn stood up, as Joanna finished serving the Chinese and walked over to her sister, held her by her shoulders and looked to her in the eye. “Please, you don’t know how frustrating it is for me at times.”
“I empathise completely with you big sister, but you need to relax, take some Ivna,” advised Joanna, as she pulled out a small bottle out of her front pocket that read Ivna in black and blue letters. She spilled a couple of the white small dissolvable tablets into her palm and gave it to her sister. Ravyn took it without hesitation and swallowed it with a gulp. “Now is that better?”
Ivna or like it was in its full form, Intravenous Narcotica, it was a suppression drug for the emotions of an emotional citizen of Earth, and it was created for the soul purpose of maintaining stability amongst one another. It was created by Spyral to make sure there wasn’t a mass uprise against the corporation. It was something that Joanna made sure Ravyn had at least three times daily. The suppression drug worked within five minutes of consumption. Its atomic structure was so parallel, under a Spyral microscope which was the most powerful microscope on earth, the structure of it atomically, was to be considered the straightest of all lines. Even though medicines were banned, this was the only authorised medicine there was, because the Spyralans had made it for a good social and emotional purpose, one that would suit them very well. They assumed with the Narcissi Extraction project that memories could be suppressed by Ivna. The memories resisted treatment, while still contained within the walls of the human skull, and sent the patients into a violent psycho spree in which three scientists died during that terminated project.
“I can’t help but to think about that grey cat, and its bell ringing in my ears,” Ravyn explained. “What is it to me? Why is it coming to me in my dreams? What does it want with me?”
“Stop thinking about the cat and let the Ivna work,” advised Joanna, as she forced her sister to sit down back where she sat before at the window sill. Joanna let her sister sit there, knowing that the Ivna would start to work by now and walked back to the kitchen to pick up the plates that had been served up with the Chinese that Joanna had walked forever to get, get some spoons with a partially spare hand from the top drawer and walked back to her smiling sister. She placed the plates beside her elder sister and she sat down on the floor, watching her sister smile and nod her head, as she got a plate and a spoon from the sill. “Happy now?”
“Very, indeed, I have no idea what the hell I was thinking about before,” answered Ravyn, smiling like a drug addict. “What was I thinking about before again?”
“About how much you love artificial meat, the best kind,” answered Joanna, starting to eat her Chinese. “There’s food right next to you. You need to eat something or that Ivna’s not going to work properly and I’m going to end up with a psycho sister like last time you decided to not follow Ivna’s instructions.”

****​