Tris woke on the mat Zhao had supplied him with no concept of time. The warehouse was still lit in the same dim light. He heard Zhao shuffling about inside the caravan. Suddenly the old man appeared at the door and headed straight for Tris. “Time to go,” he said. Tris rose unsteadily but was trained to not outstay any welcome.
Tris went to head towards the door he’d run through the day before but Zhao snipped, “No! This way,” and headed to the far end of the warehouse. Tris followed as he zig-zagged through a disorganized section of the warehouse, piles of miscellaneous objects forming the halls instead of the tall metal shelves elsewhere. Finally, Zhao paused next to an oddly-placed piece of carpet, bent down, and flung the carpet aside. Beneath was a makeshift manhole cover. It was pulled open, revealing a ladder. They quietly descended.
The tunnels underneath the warehouse were dry but the smell was undeniable. Zhao had a secret egress through the sewer. Tris was relieved when their time below ended at another ladder, which Zhao ascended after extending a hand towards Tris that clearly indicated, “Wait.” From the top, he popped open what looked like a legitimate manhole cover and stuck his head out of the top. Then, a wave that said, “Come on.”
But when we give critique were often giving it to ourselves as well. But anyways here it goes.
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I think that there's not enough action here. For some reason the level of description + action worked well in the earlier posts.
But at this stage I think the descriptions of things is getting in the way. I don't know why that is though.
But my main actionable critique here would be you put .25 post worth of action into this one post. I think that wave and "come on" should be happening in the beginning of the post and by the end we should be left on a cliff hanger.
Just so in a story: we should always be pushing the new bead to the knot. If you know where a story is going, don’t hoard it. Make the story go there, now. But then what? What will you do next? You’ve surrendered your big reveal. Exactly.
Often, in our doubt that we have a real story to tell, we hold something back, fearing that we don’t have anything else. And this can be a form of trickery. Surrendering that thing is a leap of faith that forces the story to attention, saying to it, in effect, You have to do better than that, and now that I’ve denied you your trick, your first-order solution, I know that you will.
I always love it when a character who's introduced earlier makes a meaningful later return.