Side note, but do you mind not creating a long line of hyphens to divide your author's notes from the story? I don't exactly have a narrow screen, and it forces me to scroll sideways to read a paragraph, then scroll back to get the rest of the story. O_o In other words, it's just a bit inconvenient and awkward. Ten or less is sufficient enough to get your point across that what's below is something separate.
That said, another small tip is that if you're starting a new paragraph in dialogue, you need an opening quotation mark at the beginning to show that you're continuing. (You don't exactly need one at the end.) It's a weird and obscure rule, but it's one of those odd things about dialogue.
Either that, or put everything in one paragraph, but you probably don't want that for the sake of rhythm and a poetry-like feel.
Additionally, in some places, you actually don't want a period because that would create a choppy feel if read aloud. For example:
Waiting and watching.
For when the light comes.
Now, you
could have the first part be a fragment to emphasize that they're waiting and watching, but the second part really shouldn't be on its own. Imagine. Punctuating sentences. Like this. See how it's a bit shaky and jerky? How you take a breath at every period, which keeps the poetry from flowing nicely? You don't want that. So,
don't end every line with a period.
I'd also suggest removing the line breaks from between each line (as in, remove that blank space) because you're trying to write poetry, not actual prose. With poetry within a story, it's completely kosher to compress and remove that blank space. (It's with everything else that you don't.) If you do this, then you can actually ignore my earlier comment about opening quotation marks before each paragraph. (Confusing, yes. If I've lost you, feel free to say something.)
The horrors waiting outside of the light.
You may want to play with the idea of removing the word "of" here. The sentence still makes sense without it, and it seems to flow better by removing one extra syllable.
Never will we smell them.
Somehow, I'm less inclined to take this seriously if I'm reading a prophecy that needs to take scent into consideration. You usually don't stop to take a big whiff of your enemies (unless it's completely unavoidable), so including scent is usually something you reserve for comedy.
We will live together, forever in harmony."
John said, finishing the prophecy.
Because this is one long quote, you'll want to put the "John said" part right after the closing quote after "harmony." Additionally, you'll want to drop the period after "Harmony" and opt for a comma. The reason why is because the dialogue tag (the "John said" part) isn't a sentence on its own. It modifies (or goes with) the quote.
Alternatively, you could drop the "said" bit and rewrite the sentence to say something along the lines of "John finished the prophecy and (insert other action here)." This would be a good time to describe his surroundings, what he's reading from, or, for that matter, what everyone looks like.
But I'll go over this in more detail in a moment.
First off, comma after "wow." This is actually a nonessential element (i.e., a word that doesn't actually have to be in the sentence but is for the sake of adding emphasis or information), so you separate it with a comma.
Second, you actually should capitalize "dad" here because it's taking the place of someone's name.
Same deal here, although "son" doesn't necessarily have to be capitalized because it's referring to a relationship, rather than the actual person.
Goodnight dad." Jake replied, turning over in his bed.
First, comma after "good night." (Which is, by the way, two words. It's only one word -- or hyphenated -- if it's in reference to the
act of saying farewell.) This is a direct address, or a moment in which a character is directly speaking to another character by using their name. So, yeah, this is separated by a comma too.
Second, comma after "dad" because this is dialogue, and the sentence continues on into the dialogue tag.
Third, again, capitalize "dad."
As he walked down the stairs,
Because you've mentioned that he was walking down the stairs in the sentence before this one, you're implying that he's doing it
again here. You'll want to either leave off or rewrite the first sentence, perhaps changing it to say he just walked out of the room.
with his around his spouse.
With his what?
Him and his wife and son, both Pikachus, just like him.
Him is an object pronoun, which means it can't be in the subject of a sentence. Think of it like this: if you removed "and his wife and son," you'd have "Him both Pikachus," which, uh, doesn't make sense.
So, it's "he."
Also, this sentence doesn't seem to make too much sense anyway. I know you're trying to say they're Pikachu, but you're missing a verb (which is probably "were"), and the "just like him" is unnecessary because you already say in the first word that he's included. He can't be just like himself.
I'd recommend reading over your work before posting it to avoid odd moments like this.
Also, the plural of a Pokemon's species is canonically the same as the singular. So, there's one Pikachu, there are many Pikachu, they're all Pikachu. Doesn't change.
Off a grammatical note, I think it's a bit odd that Pikachu would be living in a house with multiple stories. If they were Pokemorphs, that'd be one thing, but wild creatures don't tend to live in very human-like dwellings. Even in Mystery Dungeon, you have more along the lines of one-story huts.
I should hope so.
Overall, it just feels like there could be more to this. Mostly, I'm thinking about description here, not actual length. While I understand that you're trying to keep the species a secret until the end of the prologue, you don't really describe the house or the characters themselves in enough detail to make us think they're anything other than human. So, the shock that they
are Pikachu isn't as great as it really could be because there's no reason why we should be so certain that they're not any other father and son. You don't mention if the prophecy is being read in a book (and, for that matter, what John did with the book afterwards) or spoken aloud from memory, and you don't offer us a reason why John would stop at a picture that he's probably passed hundreds of times every day anyway.
Additionally, the Pikachu seem a little too human, complete with human names and a human dwelling. This makes me wonder if they're actually Pokemorphs, but if not, it's just difficult to believe that these are Pokemon. It just feels as if you took human characters and put them in Pokemon bodies without considering that life as a Pikachu
could be different compared to human life.
Lastly, I'll have to recommend proofreading before posting. You have trouble with commas, so I suggest
looking over this guide to help out as well as the stickies over in Writer's Lounge. Additionally, there's a few odd parts that really could've been avoided if you read your work over, preferably aloud (because doing so lets you hear what mistakes you've made).
