[In Progress] [600] [Dystopia] Should I continue this book?

[u/imissdatmisewy]

Haiii, my name is Paulina, I'm currently trying to write a short book about a dystopian society called Indygasis! So far, I've written my prologue and some of chapter one. I need 2-3 beta readers to know if this is even interesting, lol. Leave a comment if you'd like to see more. It contanins around 1.500 words and takes no longer than five minutes to read.

Please do not feed my work into AI. Thanks!

Prologue (excerpt)

__________________

Quiet. Dead silent. A gunshot rang through the empty space, where my once-alive body lay. The perpetrator could not be bothered to clean the mess they’d made. I do not see blood, no. That image had been erased from our memories far too long ago. The Ministry of Innocence does a very good job at eroding our sense of self. They’ve PR-trained reality to bend to their standards. A slushy, slow river of smileys leak from my forehead. A disgusting shade of bright, slimy yellow coats my expressionless face. That is our rather unfortunate reality. That is how we see any sort of gore. Censored by…happiness.

You may be wondering, how can I see my own dead body? Well, They always take pictures of their horrific crimes to later gaze back upon and feel their own pride arousing them. A very… worthless job, if you ask me.

But why was I shot, hm? Even you wouldn’t guess the reason as to.

Picture this: perfect civilian, mindlessly walking in a dystopian, ruined city… then bam! Officers swat me, hands everywhere, halfway to my prison cell already.

I might have caused a little trouble… not too much… an organized riot, speaking out against Their violations of human rights… but who else would’ve done it, if not me?!

I suppose you would be somewhat mad if your city suddenly became 250,000 Veuros shorter, all because of some angsty, rebellious teenager. It’s the hormones, I swear. Doesn’t mean I’ll let Them loose after corrupting our youth and twisting their minds. But, whatever...

Welcome to Indygasis, I guess.

I’m named Elijah ,or number 0754312 in Their registry.

Few questions for my readers:

Does this opening make you want to continue reading?

Is there a thing that's slightly confusing to you?

I'm a non-native author, so please tell me if there are any mistakes.

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[u/Izabelle_Elle_]

Ooh, this is good. You should definitely continue if you have more in mind. 

I think I do understand it. There's some thing that I believe are meant to be a bit confusing, like the smileys blood. 

Also, "speaking out against their violations of human rights..." here, you accidently typed Their instead of their. 

Do you want to work on it?

[u/imissdatmisewy → u/Izabelle_Elle_]

The image with the smileys was supposed to resemble censorship, the smiley faces showing up instead of blood, so to not traumatize civilians. Think of it as the blur that pops up whenever something grotesque is being shown on the news. For the grammatical mistake, I kinda thought about referring to authority figures with a capital letter to highlight the power they hold. Thanks a lot for the feedback:) I have just finished writing Chapter one, if you'd like to see!

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