The biggest question I want answered is: Would you want to keep reading?

I have about 120 pages of my manuscript complete, but I find myself coming back to work on this from time to time because I feel strongly that if my intro isn't captivating and high level, especially after 20+ revisits and rewrites, that I won't be capable of doing much better in other scenes.

Don't get me wrong, I know there's no such thing as "perfect" when it comes to writing, but with that being said... I'd like this to feel polished.

Anyways, help me out in any way you'd like to. I appreciate and want criticism, but don't forget to throw me a few bones as well. Insult sandwiches, people-- critical bread with complimentary deli meat.

Posting an image and text so you can see format but still copy/paste if you want.

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# Day 1

“What’s my name?” I mutter, lying on the floor, eyes closed. The words wander out of my mouth and crawl back in my ears, as if someone else had said them. Had I woken with no arms, at least I’d know what was gone. “I’m missing my arm; I can’t grab, climb, or hold.” But what’s missing now, I can’t even name. I feel naked inside my own mind.   
My eyes dart open, and I shiver as I breathe.   
“Why can’t I remember?” I ask through chattering teeth. Suddenly, against my skin, a light breeze coils around my arm. The wind is barely tangible– the mere suggestion of sensation. It makes its way up to my head and laps against my temples like a brook carving stone.   
*How can something so serene be so sickening?*   
The reek of stale urine and rot scorches my nostrils. My eyes begin their slow crawl, dragging a room into view. *I don’t know where I am.* Shadows stretch and shiver, taking the lead in a trembling waltz across granite walls .   
*Are they alive? Can they see me?* They disappear and reappear at the beckoning of the sconce.   
On one side, the wall becomes a forest — not of wood, but of iron. Metal trees sprout from the floor, slick with mildew. These sentinels tower high, guarding the only route of escape.

Out in the periphery, chittering creatures cascade down the wall. They scatter the room and crawl over my skin. Water droplets trail down,  
*Drip,*  
*Drip.*  
Falling with the arthropods.

I press my hand against the floor, desperate to put the illusion of distance between myself and the small, inky beasts blanketing the corners of the room. Ice pierces my palms and I flinch. Beneath me, the ground had been warmed by my body heat. The untouched rock, however, remains so frigid it burns. 

*He’s watching you.*  
I push past the hesitation and force myself up, reaching for the trees. Grasping at their slimy trunks, I strain to separate them. They don’t yield as saplings do, but remain frozen— steel disguised as wood. I relent and step away. I’ll sooner break myself than these trees.   
Physically exhausted, I rummage through my mind for anything familiar, hoping to relearn something that I already know. I cast my net out, and wait to reel it in. Each time I draw it back, it returns to me empty.   
At last, a faint whisper rises in the swirling wind, as if the world itself means to answer me. A deep and hollow rumbling commences in my chest as a word rolls down from the back of my mind to the tip of my tongue:  
“Letha.”  
The air turns heavy in my lungs.  
I breathe in. Tighter.  
Another breath. Tighter.  
With all my strength. Tighter.  
 The wind won’t stop. Faster and faster. I crash into the forest; I need air. But I can’t breathe.   
At last, I howl, and out goes every last bit of cruel wind. A torrent bursts forth; something has ruptured. My shrieks become ceaseless, but the cries are not for me. The most urgent thought hovers just out of reach. Something calls for me. If I can’t find it, it will slip away.   
My shouts grow fainter, my voice distant, echoing back after a delay.   
*It’s not real. It is real. It’s a lie. You know it’s true.*   
What I see fails to match what I hear. 

The breeze is now inside me, flowing calmly through my blood. Hands that once held metal bars now grasp melting, shapeless forms. For a moment, I have no senses at all. In this calm, a faint sound returns to me.   
The shouts of a helpless young woman reach me, barely audible — with the volume of a cloth falling to the ground. 

This state I’m in is tranquil, serene. At this moment, I’m free of worry— of the burden of thinking.   
Then, a trickle begins to build— now a brook, now a stream. I feel it rushing forth; I hear it loud and clear. 

The screams persist.

My senses return to me all at once, and before I can even see, I hear myself screaming. I quiet my voice and open my eyes. With a couple of blinks, I’m met with horror; a monstrous great eye stares back at my own. Startled, I jolt backward into the bed — heart racing, fingers tingling, before I realize — it’s just a ceiling light, left on while I slept. As I stare at the light, the last of my dream dissolves, slipping through the cracks. Alone with my thoughts, I’m left only with a question: *What caused me to scream?*   
I reflect for a moment, and my heart begins to flutter. A dangerous thought takes hold. I haven’t just forgotten about a silly dream, but I can’t remember *anything*. Not this place, not my family, not even who I am. Maybe my dreams mixed with reality, and I’m somehow still asleep— or what I once considered real was actually a dream. But lying groggy, hoping to wake up, I finally accept it: this is real. I'm awake.

My name comes to me abruptly:   
“Laverna,” it seems to be the only thing I know. My grogginess dissipates, and I push the comforter away. I land feet-first onto a red carpet. I can see the entire space from where I stand: a cozy orange bedroom with walnut wood furniture.   
At the foot of the bed stands a vanity, not far from the wall. At the center, where a mirror should be, hangs a painting of a bizarre woman staring my way. Her brown hair appears tangled and matted, the disheveled nest of an old stork. Her clothes are tattered, rugged, and filthy, and her skin is decorated with mud and scrapes of varying sizes. One particularly nasty wound appears to gape wide on her left shoulder.   
“Ouch…” I rub my shoulder. It looks so brutal, I can feel the gash myself. Despair, anger, hunger— it all rises at once, and I start to cry. This instantly gives me a headache.  
Stifling my tears, I make my way around the room. I pick up photos of what I can only assume to be my daughter and me, one by one, from the tops of the furniture. Long, lush brown hair frames my face in the photo, with bangs that give it a fuller look. A wide and captivating smile reveals perfectly straight teeth and makes way for laugh lines.   
“I’m so… beautiful…” My blue eyes stare down at a little girl, with chubby, rosy cheeks. Her blonde hair in pig tails, with bangs like her mom. They fall differently on the girl, loosened from running around; they accent a playful nature. She laughs back my way, though I can’t determine why. At the bottom, a word is written. It’s labeled “Liliana.” The nickname “Lily” sounds more natural as I read the word aloud.  
“Lily,” I exclaim with a little relief. The sort you feel as you finish a puzzle’s border, knowing the rest should fall much easier. Placing down the last of the photos, I need to find more pieces. “Where is Lily?” I ask myself as I set off toward the door.  
“Lily!” I call as I head into the hallway. Photo after photo tells a story on the walls. Lily at the park, or riding on a tricycle. A man holds her on his shoulders, wearing a hard hat. I wander slowly while observing, careful not to miss a detail. Finally, I make my way to a shut door. I give it a light push and step inside.   
Pastel pink walls covered in posters of dogs, horses, and princesses. This has to be her room.   
“What a pretty room… Did I make this?” A canopy bed faces my way with a strawberry-pink curtain draped down the sides. There’s nowhere to hide in such a clean room, so I retreat into the hall and make my way down the stairs.  
“Lily, where are you?”  I call down as I walk. The comfort I feel in knowing I have a daughter is beginning to fade; every time I cry out, I’m met with no reply. From room to another, I call her name and then enter. As the remaining spaces dwindle, my calm morphs into panic, which then starts to build.  
“Lily, please! I have no idea where you are, so just come out, ok?” I’m becoming desperate. “I… I don’t know who I am! I don’t know who you are! Please, just come out!” My throat seems to close as I enter each new room. I’m in a place I don’t know, and yet I’ve been here before. A strange deja vu to the dream I can’t remember. My lungs begin to fill, my hands and feet go cold.  
I scramble around the house and finally fall upon the kitchen— a scream is yanked out from the pit of my chest. Utensils thrown around, and furniture destroyed. Something shifts in my stomach; the buzzing scarlet of my panic collapses into a black abyss. My breathing fully stops; I try to clutch my chest. But I can’t. My fingers have gone numb, icy through my shirt. I drop onto the ground as something in me breaks.  
“Lily!” I force out, “My baby girl, my whole world! Who did this to you? Who did this to us? And how could I forget you, how could I let this happen?” I begin to shake violently, my head spins in circles. “No one could sleep through that! You’re a horrible mother!” Nausea takes me captive as I simmer in the guilt.  
“There isn’t time for this,” I cry. I consider what this means, if I can’t recall my daughter. She must be terrified, maybe even feel betrayed. To be alone is one thing, but forgotten is another. I think I’d rather die than be forgotten by everyone I love.   
*You can’t remember who you love.*  
And who knows how they’re treating her? It hurts to even start thinking of the possibilities. Where she might be, or what they might have done. But worst of all, to ponder on the aching emptiness that she might feel of being completely and totally alone. To have your own mother forget who you are…   
*Do I love her after all? Can I love a person I don’t know? Or is it the idea that I love? The very concept of a family?*

I snap myself out of that train of thought,   
“No, it doesn’t matter. She’s expecting me to find her, she’s calling out to me— I know it. Wherever it is they have her, I’m on my way right now! Why do I need that memory anyway? Of passing moments of my life? Where we’ve been or what we’ve done? I have this hole inside my chest that guides my mind to what matters most— the only memory I need to have— that I would die to protect her.”   
With my new determination, I make my way back to her room to find something that I missed. In that moment, the biggest thing I had lost was the memory of the world. Now, I searched for my whole world itself.   
The room felt somehow different as I stepped inside the door. Just on the pillow, I find a message waiting— an overlooked white letter, lying on white sheets. I tear it open urgently. I almost rip the note beneath. I study the poor writing, child-like on the page;

*11 Crown rd, passed the playground, through the gate*

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Feedback Request -- (Intro to) The Trials of the Thief of Innocence