Small Changes = Small Victories (an IWSG Post on the Proper Day)

So, in the drunken-stupor-like haze that has apparently become my life, I actually posted my IWSG post last week on what my brain was telling me was Wed, Sept 1st, but was actually Wed, Aug 31st. I posted it early in the morning and went to work fully certain that it was Sept 1st, and didn’t really figure it out until late in the evening, by which time I’d gotten a few comments on the post, making me not want to reschedule it. So…yeah. If you want to read the post that was meant for today, here it is:

https://nopageleftblank.wordpress.com/2016/08/31/small-changes-small-victories-an-iwsg-post/

And someone, for the love of god, please figure out how I can get an extra 4-5 hours of sleep per night without completely destroying what little productivity I have. @_@

Tween Justice

Another truly challenging assignment for today, one that may take me some time to work out in my head. It involves writing from the perspective of a child, which is actually something I’ve never done since I was a child, so this should be interesting.

The challenge also begins with a prompt, so please keep in mind that the italicized bit at the beginning is the prompt, and what comes after is what I wrote.

Today’s prompt: Write this story in first person, told by the twelve-year-old sitting on the stoop across the street. Today’s twist: For those of you who want an extra challenge, think about more than simply writing in the first-person point of view – build this twelve-year-old as a character. Reveal at least one personality quirk, for example, either through spoken dialogue or inner monologue.

———-

The neighborhood has seen better days, but Mrs Pauley has lived there since before anyone can remember. She raised a family of six boys, who’ve all grown up and moved away. Since Mr Pauley died three months ago, she’d had no income. She’s fallen behind on the rent. The landlord, accompanied by the police, have come to evict Mrs Pauley from the house she’s lived in for forty years.

I always stick my tongue out when I’m concentrating. It looks dumb, I know, but I can’t help it. My dad does it too, and mom makes fun of both of us for it, but the joke’s on her; she wiggles her nose like a bunny when she’s concentrating.

I was sticking my tongue out this time because I was trying to paint my toenails with mom’s bright red polish while my baby brother pulled on my ponytail.

“Anna! Play!” he begged me.

“In a minute, Sam,” I told him for the hundredth time. Two-year-olds are cute, but annoying.

I was just finishing my last pinkie toe when two cars pulled up in front of Mrs Pauley’s hosue across the road. At first I didn’t even really notice because I was admiring my toes, but when Sam said, “Po-wease!” I looked up. Sure enough, the first car was a cop. The second car was the ugly green one that had been showing up at Mrs Pauley’s house a lot lately.

The man who drove the green car came out first. I’d seen him a couple of times in the past few weeks. He was a creepy-looking guy with more hair in his mustache than on his head, and his clothes looked like he never washed them. Whenever he showed up at Mrs Pauley’s he would bang on the door and shout a lot, and his face was always as red as my newly-painted toes. But today he was smiling. It actually made him look creepier.

The cop who stepped out of the police car looked a lot nicer, but he didn’t have a smile on his face. In fact, he didn’t look very happy at all, and that gave me a bad feeling in my stomach.

Mr Green Car smiled all the way up to Mrs Pauley’s front porch.

By this time I was curious, so I took Sam’s hand and led him across the lawn to the side of the street so I could hear better. He was looking very interested in the police car, so he didn’t complain.

Mr Green Car stood to the side with that creepy smile on his face while the police officer straightened his hat and knocked on the door three times. There was no answer, so after a few moments he cleared his throat, knocked again, and called, “Mrs Pauley, this is the police. Could you please come to the door.”

For a while I didn’t think she was going to answer, even though I was pretty sure she was home, but then all of a sudden the door opened a crack. The police man looked like he was going to say something, but before he got a chance Mr Green Car jumped in front of the door and pushed it open with a shout. I could see the white bun on the top of Mrs Pauley’s head as she stumbled back. I found myself crying out, but Sam was the only one who heard me.

“Your time is up!” Mr Green Car was shouting. “Thought you could just avoid me forever, eh? Well it’s the LAW, Janice, and the law is on MY side today!”

The police man looked very much like he wanted to punch Mr Green Car in the face, and I wished he would. Instead he nudged the shouting man out of the way and took off his hat before speaking to Mrs Pauley. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he told her in a quiet voice, “but he is correct. All the paperwork is in order and he is fully within his rights to evict you. Do you have anywhere else to stay?”

“Who cares?” Mr Green Car shouted. “It’s not my problem where she goes, just that she goes!”

Before I knew what I’d done I had Sam up in my arms and I was across the road. I pulled back one red-toed foot and slammed it into the back of Mr Green Car’s knee as hard as I could. He almost went right down to the ground, and the next thing I knew the police man was holding him back as he tried to lunge at me. “Why you little-!” he screamed.

“Now you listen here!” I shouted back, and suddenly all eyes were on me. “You’re a rotten, disgusting, pathetic piece of crap and you should be ashamed of yourself!”

Mr Green Car’s face turned a sickly kind of purple. The police man looked like he kinda wanted to laugh. “I understand how you feel, sweetie,” he told me, “but he does technically own the house, so it’s his right to evict Mrs Pauley if she hasn’t been paying her rent.”

I set my jaw. “That doesn’t make him any less of an ass.”

Now the police man did laugh out loud, and Mr Green Car was starting to look more pink than purple.

A hand touched my shoulder. I looked up to see Mrs Pauley’s wrinkled face looking down at me. Her eyes were wet. “Thank you, sweetie,” she whispered. “Thank you for caring.”

“She’s a very caring girl,” a voice said from behind.

I hadn’t noticed my mother come walking up behind me. She was still wearing her apron and hand a dish rag in her hand. I thought at first that she might be mad, but she had a strange smile on her face and she kissed me on the head before taking Sam out of my arms.

“Is this brat yours?” Mr Green Car growled, wriggling out of the police man’s arms.

I’d never seen my mother’s face go so red so quick. “This ‘little brat’,” she hissed, “has more human compassion in her little finger than you have in your entire body, you sniveling little monkey.” She raised a hand and pointed a finger right into Mr Green Car’s face. “I’ve been watching you, harassing this poor woman every week. What, you’ve never fallen on hard times before? You’ve never lost a loved one and had a hard time recovering?” And then my mom did something that I never in a million years would have expected her to do. She spit at Mr Green Car’s feet. Mr Green Car looked like his head was going to explode. He looked at the police man like he was expecting him to arrest her or something, but he just gave Mr Green Car a raised eyebrow. I think he agreed with my mom, even if he wasn’t really allowed to say so.

“Come on, Janice,” my mom said more gently. She extracted one arm from Sam – who was starting to squirm – and put it around Mrs Pauley’s shoulder. “I’ve got a beautiful pie baking in the oven and you’re going to come over and have some tea with us.”

Mrs Pauley was crying as they began to walk away, back across the street. I started to follow them, but I had to do one more thing first. I turned around, pushed past Mr Green Car and the police man, and pulled Mrs Pauley’s door shut, making sure that it was firmly locked. And then I stuck my tongue out at Mr Green Car and ran for my house with the police man laughing behind me as Mr Green Car’s face turned red again.

A Brief Tale

Today’s assignment will be a piece of fiction, so welcome to the first ever Writing 101/Fiction Fragment Friday conglomeration!

Today the name of the game is brevity, which can mean something different depending on how you’re used to writing. I’m no stranger to the drabble (100-word story), as you all know, but in my everyday writing I tend to be a lot more talkative. This is something I’ve actually been working on because, depending on the scene in question, sometimes fewer words is better. So this assignment should be good exercise!

You stumble upon a random letter on the path. You read it. It affects you deeply, and you wish it could be returned to the person to which it’s addressed. Write a story about this encounter. Today’s twist: approach this post in as few words as possible.

---

It was just laying there on the walking path: an envelope with the name “Kevin” written on the front. I couldn’t resist. I picked it up and pulled out the single sheet of paper.

The handwriting was loopy and feminine, and appeared to have been written in a rush.

My dearest Kevin,
I am so sorry. I wanted to wait for you, but I’ve run out of time. I’ve gone. I pray that our paths will cross again. Please know that I love you, and I always will.
Your Ashley

Unbidden, tears appeared at the corners of my eyes. I folded the letter back into the envelope. For a moment I thought to place it back where I’d found it, but instead I found a spot to sit under a tree and wait. I thought, perhaps, Kevin might need a friend when he came.

Transformation

I love monsters. It’s one of my (many) things, and one of my favorite monsters is the werewolf. These creatures have been romanticized in recent years, and I won’t say that I haven’t leaned over to that way myself from time to time, but I prefer the scary, hairy, rip-out-your-throat-style werewolf, and one of my favorite things about this particular brand of monster is the transformation. The movies, TV shows, and books about werewolves that I love the most are the ones that show the transformation as being a horrible, painful, frightening thing. Does that make me a little creepy? Bah.

So today I want to share a scene from a short werewolf story that I wrote. It’s not something that is ever likely to be published, but I had fun writing the transformation of the female character. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

---

Minutes passed while Aya waited to die. She’d managed to turn her body over so that she was laying on her back, looking up at the moon peeking through the trees. The rain poured into her wounds, but she didn’t care because she couldn’t feel them anymore. She couldn’t feel anything except the ache in her heart, knowing she’d found and lost love all at once, and was about to lose her life as well.

She lay for over an hour, just staring at the moon.

Then, strangely, her wounds began to sting again. She wondered at this. Did people get one last shot of physical pain before passing on? That seemed cruel and unnecessary.

As she thought this the pain came stronger. Suddenly she found herself hissing from the agony of the rain dropping onto her open flesh. A moment later she found the energy to roll over, and soon after she had pushed herself into a kneeling position with her fingers clenching at the ground for support.

She only had a few seconds to reflect on this strange end-of-life burst of energy when her entire body was thrown into violent spasms. At first she couldn’t even scream, the pain was so intense, but soon enough she found her voice and her shrieks sent night birds flying off through the trees.

Every inch of her skin was burning and freezing at the same time, every muscle twitching, every bone stretching as though it was about to crack in two. She had an almost uncontrollable urge to tear her skin from her body. It felt like there were bugs crawling beneath it, like it was shuddering of its own volition. Could this possibly be what it felt like to die? No, no, it couldn’t be. This was something entirely different.

When her jaw cracked and she felt her canine teeth suddenly jabbing into her lower lip, all at once she understood.

Kaleb’s last kiss. He’d bitten his lip a moment before. She hadn’t even registered the coppery taste of his mouth.

Blood. Werewolf blood.

She couldn’t keep track of all the thoughts rushing through her mind at once. She wasn’t dying! She was going to live! She was going to be a werewolf, but she’d still be alive! And she could be in Kaleb’s life, if she could rescue him somehow… She had to find a way to save him! If only she could get past this excruciating pain!

The flow of thoughts was cut off, as was her breath as she began to choke from the agony. She felt as though she was being stabbed by a hundred flaming swords, like her bones were trying to escape her body. Was it like this every time a werewolf transformed? It couldn’t be; it looked so flawless when the others did it! Was it just her? Was she broken somehow? Rejecting the change?

She couldn’t scream, couldn’t move. She simply fell to the ground and trembled, twitched, gasped in horror.

A long time later, when the pain finally subsided, Aya was no longer Aya. She was something more, something different, something wild. She didn’t think about who she was, where she was, or how she’d gotten there. She simply rose her nose to the wind and took a long, deep sniff. Her mind was muddled, confused, feral, but one thing was clear: she could smell them on the wind, the ones who had hurt her and taken her mate away from her.

She let out a long, loud howl toward the high moon and burst off into the woods as fast as her four legs could take her.

Fiction Fragment Fridays: What Will You Write? Ed. 5

The most recent “What Will You Write?” over at I Read Encyclopedias was put on hold shortly after being announced to allow for the fact that a lot of people are pretty busy during the month of July with things like Camp NaNo. However, July is almost over, so in anticipation of the challenge reopening I decided to share my entry a little early.

This prompt, offered up by former winner Tara Southwell is a little different than the previous ones. Instead of writing the beginning of a scene and having us finish it, Tara has offered up this concept:

Just write a story, 1000 words or less, which includes one character taking a small object out of their pocket and saying, “It’s time to shake things up a bit.” Any genre, any character, as long as they have pockets.

So with that strange and wonderful idea in mind, I present my entry for the 5th “What Will You Write?”

—————————————————–

Jeremy yanked hard on the stiff collar of his brand new black and white suit. He glared at his mother out of the corner of his eye, and although she couldn’t possibly have seen him with her eyes fixed on the road in front of her, she immediately clicked her tongue in disapproval.

“Don’t you give me that look, young man,” she said in her frustratingly high-and-mighty tone. She removed one hand from the steering wheel to smooth her silk floral dress, and then glanced in the rearview mirror to make certain that her perfectly coiffed blond hair was still in place. The look she gave herself indicated that she saw perfection in the mirror. Jeremy saw only a cruel devil woman.

“You’ll be the model son tonight,” she commanded in what only she thought was an authoritative voice. “Or else.”

Jeremy glowered at her and yanked at his collar again. “It would have been easier on everyone if you’d just let me stay home,” he whined. “No one is going to give a damn if I’m there or not.”

“You watch your mouth,” mother hissed as she pulled the car into the hotel’s front parking lot. “This discussion is over. I’ve already told you, this is a very important business party and my boss insisted that families attend.” She chose a parking spot, turned off the ignition, and turned to give Jeremy the meanest glare she could muster. “So you will smile, and you will be polite, and you will prove yourself to be the most well-behaved child here, or so help me!” Here she whipped around with a huff and exited the vehicle, having apparently made what she thought was a point.

Jeremy moved as slowly as he could while still technically following. He frowned as they entered the huge old hotel with its twin lion statues on either side of the front doors. He frowned as the desk attendant greated them cheerfully and directed them to the confererence room where the party was being held. He frowned all the way down the long hall with the super-fancy, super-ugly old antique rug. He smiled as they entered the party, smiled as his mother proudly introduced him to her stuffy, grotesquely overweight boss, and then frowned all the way over to the table that had been set aside for the children in the far corner of the hideously-decorated room.

Jeremy was the fourth child to join the table, alongside a pretty dark-haired girl about his age, and two younger twin boys who were fighting over what appeared to be a parent’s cellphone. Jeremy sat next to the girl and together they stared grumpily out at the room full of adults in their fanciest clothes, talking and laughing quietly while sipping wine and listening to horribly boring music.

“I’m Jeremy,” he offered to the girl.

“Stephanie,” she answered back.

“You bored yet?”

“Dear God, yes.”

Stephanie turned to Jeremy with an expectant look and he couldn’t help but smile. He reached into his pocket – the bulging one that he had been careful to keep out of his mother’s line of site since she’d hustled him into the car. Inside was something coiled into a tight little ball.

“What is it?” Stephanie asked, excited, seeing the look on his face.

Jeremy grinned, and his gaze landed on his mother, chatting it up with her hideous boss. These were the two women whose fault it was that he was sitting here in this ridiculous party instead of playing street hockey with his friends. With a look of elation on his face, Jeremy pulled the object from his pocket and showed Stephanie the snake as it uncoiled and flicked out its tongue.

“It’s time to shake things up a bit.”

Fiction Fragment Fridays: What Will You Write? Edition #3

Today’s “fragment” is another entry for Jay Dee Archer’s ongoing “What Will You Write?” series of writing challenges. I have to admit that I almost skipped this one because I’ve been really busy lately and I didn’t think I could spare the time required to actually put thought into writing something (me brain tired), but in the end I was reluctant to miss the challenge. For one thing, I’ve already participated in the first two and I kinda want to keep going because I like accomplishing these kinds of challenges, and for another thing I realized that it would probably take me just as much time to hunt down something else to post for today. So, here we are.

As always, the beginning of the story (in bold) is Jay’s prompt, and what follows is my entry to the challenge. As a fun side note, since I won the first challenge, I’ve been invited to write the prompt for next week’s edition. Look forward to it!

---

The pride of lions stalked us.  Their hungry eyes focused on my little one, my only daughter.  She didn’t understand the danger.

I warned her, three infrasonic grunts.  “Come close to me,” I said.

She shook her head and stumbled.  The largest lioness crept closer to my daughter.  I couldn’t wait any longer.  I charged at the group and they scattered.  But there were too many of them, I realized.

I cried out to the herd – a single long, loud blat – but I couldn’t tell if they’d heard me because suddenly I was knocked to the ground as clouds of sand and dirt flew up into the air all around me. I heard my daughter cry out and I squealed for her to run, but it didn’t really matter. The pride had a new prey now, and my body would feed a lot more hungry lions than my daughter’s would.

A part of me wanted to just let them take me down, if it meant that my daughter would be safe, but survival instinct is a very powerful thing. I simply could not ignore it. I began to kick and thrash with all of my strength. I felt my hind leg connect with one of the lion’s jaw and heard it snap. With my trunk I managed to grip one of the smaller beasts around one leg and I used all my strength to throw it as hard and far as I could. I heard it cry out as it hit the ground and I couldn’t help but feel a morbid sense of accomplishment.

My small victory was short-lived. A pair of jaws found their way to my throat. The pain was immeasurable. I cried out again, and I thought I heard a reply but I couldn’t focus. I was weakening, covered in a blanket of teeth and claws. I was going to die, I realized, and I didn’t have the strength left to do anything about it. I could feel the darkness coming. There was a thrumming in my ears that was surely the rushing of blood from my body.

No…no, this sound was something else. It was getting louder.

The ground was vibrating against my skin, I realized. So that meant that the sound I was hearing was actually…

Trumpeting cries filled the air, barely audible above the sound of a hundred feet pounding the ground. One lion went flying from my body in a wide arc as a trunk caught it full on the side of it’s body. Two more roared angrily and ran off of their own accord. The world around me was noise, noise, noise. It was beautiful.

I felt as though I’d fallen asleep. The next thing I knew I was looking at my daughter’s face through moist eyes. She was nudging me with her trunk, making sad little squeaky noises. For a moment I thought that she was hurt and I almost panicked, but I then I realized that she was crying for me.

There were a few others from the herd standing around me. I could hardly make them out through the haze in my eyes. One of them trumpeted at me: “Can you get up?”

I felt suddenly very old, very tired, and very sad. But I couldn’t help looking into my daughter’s eyes then. I reached out with my trunk and wiped the moisture from her eyes.

“I’ll try.”

 

Fiction Fragment Fri- Uh, Saturday: What Will You Write? Edition #2

Last week for my “fiction fragment” I took part in the first edition of the What Will You Write? challenge, hosted by fellow blogger, Jay Dee Archer. My entry ended up winning the very first challenge, which I have to admit gave me the happiness. 🙂 It was a fun challenge with a fun premise, and there were lots of great entries. I had so much fun that I knew I was going to have to continue playing along. So here’s my entry for the second edition of What Will You Write?

A reminder: the bold text is Jay’s prompt, and what follows is my idea of how the scene continues.

---

 

Ferd opened his eyes, his head throbbing.  Scrambling up to his feet, he remembered the rock slide.  That was no accident, he thought.  Someone tried to kill us.  Us.  Where is Cassia?  He couldn’t see through the dust, but she had to be there.

“Cassia!” he shouted.

“Ferd?” The faint voice came from the direction of the cliff.  “Ferd! I can’t get up!”

Ferd edged his way to the precipice and looked down.  Through the dust, he saw Cassia.  She held onto a branch over the chasm.  He reached for her, but she was too far away.

“I can’t reach you,” he shouted miserably.

He could hear the tears in her reply. “I can’t hold on much longer!”

Ferd stood up and contemplated as quickly as he could. His eyes scanned the nearby landscape, but he couldn’t see anything that might be used to help him reach Cassia. Rocks, rocks…nothing but rocks. There was no other way…in order to save Cassia he was going to have to reveal his secret to her. His gaze landed on the ledge where they’d been walking and the mess of dirt and stone that had come barreling down it. Was that the intention of whoever had started the landslide? To force him to reveal his secret? He bit his lip. The consequences…

“Ferd!” Cassia cried. “Help!”

He heard her fingers slip from the branch, rather than saw it, and in that second his mind was made up for him. He turned, ran, and leaped over the side of the cliff. The wind beat up against his face as he began to fall, hands outstretched for Cassia’s. She stared back up at him with abject horror, a scream frozen on her face. And then Ferd began to change.

His bones cracked and his skin stretched. Normally his face would have contorted in pain, but he was too focused on the end game. Skin and shirt alike ripped open, sending a splay of blood and fibers out into the air above them. Now Cassia really did scream, although it could barely be heard against the air rushing past them. The thoughts that must have gone through her head at that moment…Ferd could only imagine.

And then Ferd’s fingers touched Cassia’s, and the whole world was filled with blackness. He pulled her close, hugging her to his body as their direction ricocheted and suddenly they were moving up, up into the sky.

For what seemed like a long time, Cassia didn’t move. She kept her face firmly pressed against Ferd’s chest. But eventually, with the soft beating of wings in her ears, she peeked up at Ferd and her eyes went wide. She took in the huge black-feathered wings with the look of a child first discovering that magic was real.

“You’re an angel,” she whispered.

And Ferd had never felt so relieved in all his life.

 

 

Fiction Fragment Fridays: What Will You Write? Edition #1

Recently, Jay Dee Archer over at I Read Encyclopedias decided to start a new writing challenge called “What Will You Write?” The idea is that Jay posts the beginning of a scene, and we (the participants) have to finish it. There’s a deadline, and once it is past Jay will judge all the entrants and decide who he thinks did the best job. There are a few other rules, and if you’re interested you should check out the first edition of the challenge here. By the time you read this the first challenge deadline will likely be up, but keep an eye out because I’m sure there will be many more coming. 🙂

Since the writing for the challenge is fictional in nature, I thought this would be a great opportunity for something new to post for Fiction Fragment Fridays. So this is the way it goes: the text in bold is the “prompt” written by Jay. What follows in regular text is my addition. Please feel free to let me know what you think! And if you’re interested in joining in on the next challenge, make sure to visit Jay’s blog and follow him so that you won’t miss it! 🙂

 

---

Conrad opened his eyes to a view of a massive blue globe.  He jerked back and twisted around in the microgravity.  He touched something solid in front of him.  A window.

He pushed against the window and turned around.  Conrad scanned the small room, no larger than a public bathroom stall, and empty except for an EV spacesuit and door.  He studied the view through the window.  Neptune, he thought.  How did I get here?

His head was ringing, and his body was covered only by his boxer shorts and a loose white t-shirt. He tried to think back, but the last thing he could recall was sitting in that little coffee shop on Mars. Had he even finished his coffee? The memory was hazy, as though it had happened a lifetime ago.

 

“What happened to me?” he whispered to himself. He was surprised to find that his throat was hoarse and croaky…a sign of lack of use?

 

With few options available to him, Conrad reached for the spacesuit and manoeuvred himself into it. Even with the microgravity working with his body, he felt achy and weak. He didn’t want to think about it, but the evidence thus far caused him to believe that he must have been unconscious for quite some time. Or perhaps he had been drugged and the effects hadn’t worn off. Either way, he was concerned.

 

The door didn’t have a handle, but it slid open at his touch, moving as quietly as a baby’s breath. Conrad peeked out into a vast white hallway. It was silent as a grave, and empty save for the dozens of identical doors that lined both sides of it. The end of the hall nearest Conrad appeared to be a dead end. The opposite end was so far away that he couldn’t tell if there were any turns from here. All he could see were the doors. He thought there must have been a few hundred of them.

 

Tentatively, nervously, Conrad stepped out into the hallway. The door to his room slid shut behind him. He immediately began to shiver a bit. There was something truly frightening about this completely white hallway, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He almost reached for the door to his room, intending to return and hope that someone would come to him, but when he turned to it he noticed a tiny white placard on the wall next to the door. It was so small that he might never have seen it if it hadn’t been at exactly eye level. It blended into the wall, but the small black letters were what had caught his eye.

 

Conrad Skye

3 Counts of Premeditated Murder

Lifetime Sentence

 

Conrad felt his heart constrict. He reached out with a shaking hand to touch the words, praying to ever God that ever was that he was imagining what he saw. But no. He could feel the indentation of the words drilled into the placard.

 

“You’re new,” a gentle voice spoke. Conrad nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled around and found the source of the voice. A girl – no older than 15 – was standing in the open doorway of her own room across the hall. She had been pretty once, Conrad thought, with her long blond hair and bright blue eyes. But her hair was hanging limp, and her eyes had very dark circles around them that gave her the appearance of having not slept in a very long time. “You’re new,” she repeated.

 

Conrad opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, but he wasn’t sure what to say. He stared at the girl, confused, upset, angry, before his eyes found the little placard next to her door.

 

Eliza Ratchford

5 Counts of Kidnapping and Child Endangerment

30 Year Sentence

 

Conrad’s eyes returned to meet Eliza’s. His mouth felt dry. “I didn’t do it,” he found himself saying. His hand seemed to move of its own accord to point at the placard with his name on it. “I didn’t do it,” he said again. “I never killed anyone.” He licked his lips. He felt as though he was listening to his own voice from a far away place. Surely this had to be a dream. “I’ve never even been in a fist fight,” he added, as though that meant something.

 

Eliza smiled a little, but her eyes were sad. “We’re all innocent here,” she told him. “But that doesn’t seem to mean much to the politicians whose crimes we’ve been chosen to pay for.”

 

Panic was setting in. All of a sudden a thousand images were flowing into Conrad’s mind. His wife and daughter, whom he’d left sleeping in bed when he decided to visit his favorite coffee shop. His sick father, who would be needing his medication soon. His mechanic job at the interplanetary travel agency, where his closest friends would be wondering where he’d gone. All the things he’d planned to do and not yet done. All the things he’d never known he wanted to do, but were suddenly filling his mind and body with desires.

 

“I can’t be here,” he croaked. “This isn’t right. I have a family, a life. I haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t done anything wrong!” By now he was screaming, and all up and down the long, white hallway, other heads were starting to peek through their respective doors. Some of them had begun to walk toward Conrad, and it was making him feel like a small, trapped animal. He tried to back away, but Eliza had moved in front of him and had her hands on either side of his face.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But unless you think you can jump to Neptune from here, the life you left behind is over. Welcome to the Intergalactic Government’s robotic, automated prison for completely innocent scapegoats.”

Fiction Fragment Fridays: Chrono Trigger Timeless (The Future)

I still haven’t had time to get back into my Final Fantasy novelization (I really need to get some organization up in this thing I call my life), so for the third week in a row, here’s a clip from my Chrono Trigger novelization. This one is from the scene when Chrono and the girls first discover that they have truly traveled to the future and that it has been destroyed because of the evil creature, Lavos.

Enjoy!

*Spites via http://www.videogamesprites.net

“Lucca…” he whispered, “What year are we in?”

Lucca shook herself back to the moment, her eyes wide and mouth dry. She examined another console for a few moments before finding the answer. “We’re…” she stumbled, “We’re in the year 2300 A.D.”

Chrono could barely stand under the weight of the words. “2300…” he whispered, “That thing screwed up the world so much that the survivors couldn’t drag themselves out of it in 300 years?” He couldn’t help imagining it…that awful creature rampaging through the lands…all the survivors holed up in the domes, hiding and scared…slowly, over time, they would begin to run out of supplies. For a while they probably went out in search of new supplies, but the land wasn’t helpful and people began to die…soon there were only a handful of survivors in each dome, struggling just to keep moving forward.

“No!” Marle cried suddenly, “No way! I refuse to accept it!” She jumped to her feet, tears of anger streaming down her face. “This…this can’t be the way the world ends!”

Lucca looked at her with miserable eyes. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t figure out what to say.

“Marle…” Chrono sighed.

“Chrono!” she shouted back. She stomped up to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “There’s only one thing we can do! We must change history! Just like you did when you saved me!” Her eyes were so full of light and hope that Chrono couldn’t look away. “We have to figure out how this happened, and we have to change it!” She ran to Lucca and shook her. “Okay Lucca?!” she cried.

“I…” Lucca stumbled, “I…guess so…” She seemed uncomfortable and unsure of herself.

Marle ran back to Chrono and grabbed him by the face, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. “Chrono…” she said quietly, “Please…”

Lucca was starting to come into the idea. “We can’t just go back to our own world and live comfortably after seeing this…” she spoke to herself, “Especially since it’s going to happen in our time…really, it was a stroke of luck that the Gate sent us here…”

Chrono was still staring into Marle’s eyes. There were so many emotions there…fear, desperation, sorrow…and hope. Slowly, Chrono raised his arms and mirrored Marle’s stance, holding her face in his hands. “Let’s do it,” he whispered with a smile.

“Chrono!” Marle sobbed. She collapsed toward him in a huge hug before stepping back and swiping the tears away from her eyes. “Chrono, Lucca…” she said, “We can do this together…I’m sure of it!”

Lucca nodded, suddenly very sure of everything, and grinned. “There is absolutely no way we will fail!” she insisted, “We know about Gates now, and we have the Gate Key. All we have to do is find an era with answers about where that creature came from.”

Normally it would have sounded like an insane statement, but somehow Chrono knew they could do it. “Then we’d better get going!” he announced.

“Next stop, Proto Dome!” Lucca cried, pumping a fist into the air.

Fiction Fragment Fridays: Chrono Trigger Timeless (Execution)

Since I’m currently attempting to catch up on my Final Fantasy novelization, I thought I’d share another scene from the Chrono Trigger novelization this week. This scene pairs with the last one as the scene in which Chrono is dragged off to the guillotine. In the game I always preferred to ensure that Chrono was found guilty so that I could skip trying to escape the jail. 😛

Enjoy!

*Spites via http://www.videogamesprites.net
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Chrono stared up at the ceiling of his tiny, windowless jail cell, wondering what time of day it was. How much time had passed? What was going on in the outside world? Did his mother know what had happened yet? What about Lucca? Did any of the people he’d lived his entire life with have any idea what had happened to him, or more importantly, what was soon to happen to him? How was Marle reacting? He wished he could see her again. The image of her tear-stained face being pulled away from him in the courtroom had haunted him since he’d been thrown in this light-free cell.