Four Days Later

Uhm.

Yeah, it's been four days since I've posted and I apologize.

I've been so busy trying to catch up, and I'm slowly managing to do so.

You can look at the side bar to the right to see where I am... 17,533 words right now. And I should be at 21,671 at the end of the day. I may or may not be able to catch up today, but I am surely going to try my best.

According to the NaNo website, right now I need to write 1,804 words per day to finish on time.

I think I can manage that, what about you? (I've written 2,291 in roughly 3 hours.)

On the second novel I started this month, I have almost a plot. At least, I have many scenes in mind, and that leads to the in between steps from one to the other. I can't wait to write some of them!

I don't really have much of substance to say today, so I will give you an excerpt of my new novel. (still untitled)

Cold metal shackles dug into his wrists and his ankles. He was forced to lay spread eagled on an ice cold, hard stone slab in the middle of a room. The walls were covered with mirrors, as was the ceiling, and the walls reflected every scream he screamed back at him. And he did scream. There was no way he couldn’t scream. They wanted him to scream, he thought, it was why they didn’t gag him.

For now they were gone. A short respite before the torture began again. He didn’t know what they wanted. They didn’t ask questions, they didn’t even speak. They had bought him from a slaver for cheap. After all, who would want a starved, weak, half elven child? He was no good for physical labor. He was too small and too thin. He wasn’t smart, he could not even add simple numbers. But he had been bought. The only thing they’d done to him since they’d gotten him was to hurt him, though. Why?

He heard a door echo in the distance and he struggled weakly against his bonds. It was no use. It never was. That never kept him from trying every time they came back. He thought that may have been what they wanted as well. They wanted him to fight. When they came into the room, though, he stopped struggling. If that was what they wanted, he wouldn’t give it to them. One of the man, with a sharply hooked nose and beady unfriendly eyes, came close to his face with a long, wicked knife in hand.

As usual, nothing was said. The man placed the steel blade against the skin of Aoduain’s cheek and cut a ragged tear from the bottom of the boy’s earlobe to the corner of his mouth. A scream of pain tore from his mouth yet again as the blade seemed to not only cut, but to burn him as well. With the pain, though, came anger. A fury so great rose up in him that it tinted everything red. Looking up at his reflection in the mirror there, he seemed to grow. He grew taller and thinner, but his muscles also became more well defined.

The bonds keeping him tied down snapped and a fierce pleasure rose up in his stomach at the identical looks of fear on the two men’s faces. Aoduain stood and had to duck his head in order to keep from hitting the ceiling. As he took a step forward, hand outstretched, the man with the beak like nose burst into flames and the second, portlier, man ran. Aoduain reached out to him and a whip of fire extended from his palm, wrapping itself around the man’s fat neck. Pleasure once more warmed his stomach as he watched the life fade from the man’s eyes.

The man’s mouth opened wide. “Aoduain!”

He jerked awake at Talliel’s voice, blinking away the confusion as he sat up. It was bright, had he slept past day break? But no, it was warm. Too warm, he was sweating. Blinking once more his gaze came to rest on the tree, or what was left of it. It was on fire, a blazing beacon in the night. He flinched away from it in fear and the fires grew higher. All around him, as he looked, were scorched patches of ground. Directly underneath him the grass had browned and withered, not burned, but as they die in the winter.

Yup.

Dream sequence/flash back.

It was quite fun to write.

Enjoy!

And happy NaNo'ing.