One Night

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The prompt cards for this one were “recluse” and “blood.”

Typically my first thought with recluse is spider, and my first thought with blood is sacrifice. I had to sit and think through a few more associations trying to brainstorm a short tale, and I kind of like the result. The ending could be tied together a little better with a stronger line. Also I’m second guessing every comma this time.

Anyhow, the story.

Tara lived alone in the middle of nowhere.

It was hard sometimes. She had once been something of a social butterfly and loved to go to parties and special events hosted by her friends. And she was a wonderful hostess as well. There was nothing quite like the thrill of being the center of attention, being the one drawing all the admiring glances, the one to cause the raucous laughter. Tara had loved the dresses she had worn, the company that she kept.

And now she spent her time alone, far from anyone. She slept her days away and quietly whiled away the nights. She absently thought of happier times as she hunted for herself and attended to the chores and upkeep of her own little abode. The loneliness made time stretch eternal, and she found herself wishing for happier days. But she could never return to that. The world had moved on, turned without her, and it was for the better.

One night, as she sat by the fire, there was a knock at the door. She set her book down, a frown creasing her brow, as she stared apprehensively at the door. Was there really a person so far out here? In the middle of the night? Had she been hearing things?

Now whoever was there pounded on the door, the sound so loud it made her jump. “Please…!” a female voice called, high pitched with desperation and worry.

With a heavy sigh, knowing it was a bad idea, Tara stood and opened the door.

Standing outside was a young woman, her clothes disheveled and torn, her eyes wide with terror. She had leaves in her hair, and scratches on her skin, and she was shivering. Tears streamed down her face. “Please, help me…” she whimpered.

Tara hesitated before stepping back to let the younger woman in. “Is there someone after you?” she asked, as she closed the door.

The young woman looked dazed. She nodded briefly, but then paused and said, “I’m not sure. I got away, but I don’t know if he… he…” and then she burst into a fresh set of sobs.

Tara placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, feeling desperately sorry for her, for so many reasons. Not just for what had likely happened, but for what was going to happen. Tara stared at a smear of blood along the woman’s jawline, and found her eyes drawn further down to her neck. Already the hunger was starting to take hold…

“I’m sorry,” Tara said simply.

And then she sank her fangs into the young woman’s neck. The woman screamed – not that it mattered out here, in the middle of nowhere, far from anyone that could hear. Likely whoever had brought the poor thing out this far had thought the same – so secluded, there was no help.

Tara would never have chosen to live as a recluse, but when she had been turned, she had found her hunger insatiable. It hadn’t taken long for her vampiric nature to be outed, and for her to be ousted. She had left everything behind and come so far into the woods so she could not be tempted by the sweetness of human blood. She could feel the young woman grip her hair, desperately attempting to pull her head away, but her ordeal had left her weak and Tara enjoyed heightened strength since her turning.

The blood burst salty and then sweet into her mouth, invigorating her. Tara moaned in pleasure at the familiar flavor as she drank deeply. It was the first human she had glutted on in years. After a time, the unfortunate woman stilled in her grasp – her heartbeat slowed, slowed, and then stopped as she was drained of more blood than the body could bear to lose. Tara laid her down on the floor.

She tilted her head, staring down at the woman’s corpse, and then glanced at the time. She made her way to the door, ready to scour the woods in the hopes of finding the man that had been mentioned. She had a few hours to kill before dawn.

Sidequests Week 9

On By MaryIn SidequestsLeave a comment

My sidequests for this week involved trying a new food or drink, learning to make something with origami, and spending time out in nature.

So, Friday night I decided to doordash some food from a local Indian restaurant. The extent of my forray into Indian food has mostly just been curries, which I love, but there’s a lot that I’ve simply never tried. I ordered samosas, korma, and a few different desserts, gulab jamun, rasmalai, and kheer.

I’ve heard of samosas before but have never had them. The website describes them as lightly spiced turnovers stuffed with potatoes and green peas. They were bigger than I had expected, and came with two different dipping sauces – one kind of sweet, and the other a spicy green sauce. Whatever spices they used inside the samosas made everything look green, and was kind of similar to the green sauce. It was really good.

The korma was described as being cooked with exotic spices, herbs, cashew, almonds, and raisins in mild cream sauce. It came with rice, and I chose lamb for the meat (the option said lamb or goat, and I was thinking I might try goat as part of “something new” but then it didn’t present it as an option and the description says lamb. I have had lamb before, but only a few times – so new’ish?). It had a bit of a kick, but was still fairly mild – the first impression once it was inside my mouth was that it was very fragrant, so I’m a bit curious what the spice combination is. It was also really good, even though I’m not the biggest fan of lamb or the style of rice they use (being half-Korean, I definitely prefer my rice stickier).

And then there were the desserts. Rasmalai is made of cheese patties cooked in condensed milk with pistachios and rose water. It also had raisins and rice. My first impression of the texture of the cheese was kind of coconut’y because it was rough and crumbly. Kheer is a rice pudding flavored with cardamoms and garnished with pistachios. It was actually very similar to what the rasmalai was soaked in, and despite being described as a pudding it wasn’t very thick. Both were sweet without being too overwhelmingly sweet. The gulab jamun was described as condensed milk and homemade cheese balls deep fried in butter and dipped in sugar syrup. For something that was described as deep fried, it was very soft textured. I also would not have guessed it or the rasmalai were cheeses. They were all good, but I wouldn’t seek them out as my new favorite desserts.

This wasn’t a very hard task for me because I don’t mind trying the occasional new food.

The origami one was a little harder because I wanted to try to find something that could be made with lucky star paper strips. I bought a whole bunch years ago when I was really into folding the little bastards, but I never got around to using all of them. There was an intriguing rose design that someone had, but it was so intricate and tiny that in my ripe old age of almost 40, my hands are just arthritic enough to go, “Ha, fuck that.” So I decided to make lucky hearts – the only downside being that apparently you have to cut the round edges on them, so it was going to be very annoying to do.

Also wondered if I could cheat and just make more lucky stars because I forget how to make them easily and have to look up the instructions each time? It doesn’t say to learn to make something new with origami – just learn to make something with origami. If you know but forget, and re-learn… does it count?

So I did initially start with hearts, but the strips I have are too thin and long to make nice looking ones, so I opted to cheat and re-learn the stars. Once I followed the directions the first time it came back really easily. I decided to go ahead and make 100 and put them in a jar, for one small wish. But I didn’t really keep count and made 210.

I decided to use the nature card as an excuse to visit the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge, which I don’t do very often despite living quite near it. Unforunately I did so on Saturday, which had some nice weather, so the result was that everyone else was out there too and every parking spot for every hiking trail and picnic space was packed. In fact, I’m pretty sure I drove in on someone’s family reunion. So I didn’t find a spot to actually get out of the vehicle and enjoy anything up close. Still, I did spend a good couple of hours simply driving around and enjoying the view, which was nice.

The Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma aren’t very impressive as far as mountains go – there are many ranges that have taller mountains, and you don’t have to travel far before they’re out of sight. But it is a very very old mountain range. So old that it is more accurately described as the skeletal granite remains of a mountain range. As such, they mostly look like clumps of crumbling rock formations dropped on top of each other. A lot of people like to visit the Wildlife Refuge to fish or hang out at some of the ponds or campsites, or to go hiking along some of the trails there. They’ve also got bison, longhorn cattle, deer and elk, and a prairie dog city.

51. Cassandra (WIP)

On By MaryIn 2023, WritingLeave a comment

Okay, so instead of an actual full chapter I’m posting a kind of half assed chapter and some brief summations of things I intended with it, and I’m going to kind of skip this part to move on to the remainder of the story and finish it out. Part of the reason for this is that there are whole sections involving this part that are going to be completely rewritten. When I work on my rewrites, the Interludes are going to be more frequent and involve the tensions between Cassandra and Jennifer’s relationships as parent/child.

There were also a few things that were supposed to happen before this point that I simply forgot to add in. Most significant being that Jennifer was supposed to hear Asterollan reveal Cassandra’s diagnosis and then she was supposed to sit and decide whether to read or not read the letter (I have not decided yet whether she will at this point or not). Which of course informs a lot of her interactions with Cassandra in this chapter. And since I flubbed all that, I can’t expand on it here. So basically within this chapter, Cassandra and Jennifer are supposed to defeat the bad aliens, save the day, return to Earth.

Since I’m also already blabbing on about intentions for the story, I’ll go ahead and discuss something that I was saving for when I finished to give an idea of next steps. I’ve been taking notes on things I definitely plan to expand upon when I do my rewrites. The notes are as follows:

  • Lucas will start off awkwardly calling Peyton “Miss Hobbs” because calling her by her first name sounds too informal, and he will kick himself in the head for it immediately because he knows it sounds dumb, but stubbornly stick to it for more than half the book.
  • Add show instead of tell where possible.
  • No clear baddie at first beyond the “idea” of a bad guy, need to impress stakes upon the characters from an earlier point
  • Have Cassandra see her goddess out of the corner of her eye from earlier, and maybe even the bad guy?
  • Show more interlude bits of Jennifer reacting to the feeds. These are likely to be shorter insets anyways
  • Evil being = god ascendant?
  • Change Peter to Parker?
  • When Lexie has her god meeting, she should start to display fiery properties to her aura when she reaches for her magic. Her god grants her full power earlier after all.
  • Play up awkward for Lucas and anxious for Cassandra.
  • Expand upon the characters and world a bit and have them stay a bit longer in a few places. Greyjon should have celebrated and well known military accomplishments that people comment on when they meet him, etcetc.

So when I actually go through and do the edits, a lot of the minor characters are going to become more important, places are actually going to get named, history is going to be built in, and themes are going to be strengthened. My next rewrite will be shameless expansion and bloat and worldbuilding. And then my third rewrite will be trimming that back down and tightening everything into place.

So all that in mind, here is my sloppy writing to stand in place for Chapter 51, and then next week I will move on to Chapter 52, which switches back to Lucas.

As we freed the prisoners, I worked on ripping out the dampeners and healing the small remaining wounds one at a time. Despite the tedious and tiring nature of the work, the blaring alarm kept me on high alert, my system coursing with adrenaline. As the crowd of freed prisoners grew, I felt my indignation grow as well. There were so many people here – some were of the same race, prisoners from the same world, but still the variety accounted for well over a dozen worlds. And all these worlds had been destroyed? Just like these aliens planned to do to Earth…

Even as worn out as I felt, I was swept up with the group as someone led us toward the main deck of the ship. I’m not sure if anyone had an actual plan or if they were just spurred by anger and revenge. The alarms grew louder as we moved through the halls, and soon the sound of fighting reached my ears. Those at the front of the group sped into a jog, and soon all of us were sprinting towards whatever lay ahead, toward the cacophony.

It was as chaotic as it sounded. An entirely separate group of freed prisoners were in the middle of fighting across the control deck. They had somehow managed to gather weapons, but despite that advantage they still faced one major disadvantage – they lacked their magical abilities. I gaped as I watched the strange abilities of the tripod-things as they cast their spells – they shifted through space, turned invisible, and easily deflected projectiles by redirecting them through small holes in space. As a result, the entire room was a chaos of unpredictable weapons fire and screaming.

I paused outside the doorway as everyone else charged into the fray, watching as the new group of prisoners that could use magic began to channel their own strange abilities. It was obvious that magic was going to be a deciding factor in this fight. I leaned against the wall outside the door, my brow furrowing as I considered what I could do. I needed to remove all the magic dampeners in the other prisoners… after having removed so many individually, could I sense them without placing hands on each individual?

I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing hard, pushing out with my magic searchingly. I focused first on finding the small pieces of metal but couldn’t seem to focus on something so small across so many different bodies.

I took three deep breaths and reoriented myself. I focused on the room, on all the life forms in the room. I could sense them. I instantly got a sense for how many people were in the room fighting. I could feel their injuries, their illnesses, the strains on their bodies. I frowned hard, realizing some of them were human even, but then forced myself to focus past that…

I couldn’t focus on finding the little pieces of metal that I had hoped to find. But I realized that so many people on our side were injured… perhaps I could at least get them back in the fight.

I cast a healing spell across the entire room.

For a brief moment, everything got louder as those that were on the brink of death launched themselves back into the fight. But casting so much and so continuously since I had arrived finally wore me out. I slumped against the wall, my head pounding and the world spinning as I got alarmingly close to passing out.

A blurry figure knelt in front of me. I blinked to clear my vision, and remembered that without glasses, it would never be fully clear. I squinted. “Cassandra,” a familiar voice said, the tone a cross between gently maternal and sternly cross.

“Mom?” I said, feeling so confused I was certain that maybe I had passed out and started dreaming. She repeated my name again, telling me to get up. “What are you doing here?” I mumbled. She stared at me for a long moment and then hugged me. I hugged her back, still confused. “What’s going on?” I wondered out loud, not really sure what to think anymore.

“We’re going to blow up the ship,” she announced.

I stared at her in confusion. “What?!”

She pulled me along behind her, gripping my arm tight. I was still dizzy from expending so much power. “The aliens you freed were the last of the prisoners from the other prison wing. The ones I was working with know what the plan is – they’ll get them out,” she reassured me as we walked. “On our way up to the deck, we found the fuel system for the ship, and the energy source and be overloaded.”

“Mom, wait. I don’t even know why you’re here.”

She flashed me a mildly annoyed look. “I came out of retirement after you disappeared and the Stream started?”

“Stream?” I mumbled.

Ignoring my question, she said, “Once we overload the system, we’re going to have to make a quick escape. So stay close to me.”

“Why are we doing this exactly?” I asked as I finally pulled my arm out of her grip. I kept pace with her as she continued to half-jog down the hall.

“The aliens that run this ship are starting their invasion of Earth. From the various aliens I’ve talked to, they apparently stage everything from this ship. Even if the invasion is already underway, if we destroy their base, they won’t have anywhere to return and regroup.” I nodded like I understood, but I was tired. I was homesick for Earth, but also homesick for Lyre, and a part of me wanted to find a dark and quiet room to curl up and cry in undisturbed until the cancer killed me.

A very short and stupid scene

On By MaryIn Prompts, WritingLeave a comment

The prompt cards were “owner of a hot-air balloon” and “first day of school.” I didn’t really work out an entire story from it, it’s more just a short scene, and mainly because the only thing that really crossed my mind was how Mendo from Urusei Yatsura arrives to school.

So, short and stupid and not really story.

          “You want to… what?”

          The teenager drew himself up to his full height, attempting to loom over the old man. If his height impressed or intimidated the man was hard to say. The old man continued to stare at him impassively, his bright blue eyes revealing nothing. “I want to rent your hot air balloon for a few hours Friday morning,” the teenager started again.

          “To arrive at your first day of school.” The old man finished the request he had heard earlier. The teenager nodded, his face lighting up with enthusiasm. “Fuck off.”

          The teenager deflated for a moment, and then scowled. “If it’s a matter of money, I’ve researched the cost and I can afford it.”

          “I’d charge double. It’s a dumbass fee.” Before the teen could respond, the old man held up a finger. “Have someone fly you and parachute in if you’re that eager to show up from the sky.”

          The teen pouted momentarily and said, “My mom said I can’t.”

          The old man narrowed his eyes at the teen momentarily and then slammed the door in his face.

Sidequests Week 8

On By MaryIn SidequestsLeave a comment

The sidequests for this week were a strange cross between simple and hard. One was to pause and take 10 deep breaths, the other was to write down 3 things I like about myself, and the last was to do a brain dump by making a list, journaling, or mind-mapping.

Okay. 10 deep breaths is simple enough. Done. But I always find it weird to do 10 – it’s an unreasonable amount if you need a short pause to re-orient your mind, especially if you are really focusing on the inhale and exhale. It feels like you may as well sit down and start a meditation session and let it lead from there. Although maybe some people need a little more time to re-set their brain if they’re really stressed.

The brain dump one is also pretty simple – I already keep a journal! I’ve written in it a few times this week. I’ve actually kept a journal sporadically since I was a teenager. Originally I wrote in a notebook to a friend I rode the bus with, and we would pass it back and forth, but at one point I decided to just do the same process in private for myself. That friend’s name was Melissa, so my journal entries used to start with “Dear Missa” because that’s what she wanted to be called for short.

…I haven’t honestly thought of her in years, until just now recalling that. I can’t remember anything else about her. It was maybe about 6th grade? Anyway, I kept journals in tiny notebooks for the next few years, writing nearly daily about all the little trivial concerns and dramas that middle school girls experience. When I moved to Oklahoma, I continued to write, but had a period of depression. I remember we had a computer for the first time, and I had initially worked to type out my old journal entries, then thought that the stupid trivial thoughts of a teenager were pointless, and I threw away all of my journals. I considered it, in part, a way to let go of the past.

Sometimes I regret it a little, but also… kind of not? I’ve done similar purges over the years. When livejournal and the deardiary website were things, I kept extensive diaries online, but then deleted and purged all of those as well. Those were likely more interesting than my middle school ones, because they took me through my older teen/young adult years when I did a lot of base philosophizing and really ironed out my personality and personal ideologies.

After that, there were a lot of false starts. I would start to keep a paper journal, but maybe only get three pages in and then wouldn’t write again in forever, so those pages got ripped out. I would use software like Advanced Diary to write for awhile here and there too. Did finally get back into the habit of journaling, and actually do keep it in smaller notebooks again. But as an adult, it’s less drama and philosophy and more of a rambling on tasks I need to complete in the next week and the occasional rant when I do need to vent. I also keep a weekly planner and try to write one sentence about each day on it.

I don’t know if at some point I will decide to toss or destroy or delete any of these current records as well. We’ll see. Sometimes I hang on to things longer than I should, but I usually do hit a point where I decide to let go.

(All of that was a little like journaling, no? So second task – done!)

The hardest one thought! I do like writing, but writing three things I like about myself is a bit hard. What do I like about myself? Let’s see…

  1. (Proceeds to sit for 10 minutes staring at the screen and contemplating what I like about myself)
  2. (Fuck)
  3. (Man like, seriously though. FUCK.)

I feel like anything I could list is too inconsistent. I think of myself as a hard worker, but I also know how lazy and apathetic I get about a lot of things. I think I’m funny, but I’m kind of an asshole to achieve that. I’m not completely ugly? But I’m only like… average? I’m smart, but it’s the kind of above-average-below-notice that a lot of people fall into smart, nothing impressive. I don’t dislike myself, but it’s hard to think of something that I can positively say where I can’t immediately guiltily think of all of the “buts” to it.

Fuck! Let’s try again.

  1. I like my imagination. I feel like I’ve used it to perhaps indulge in escapism too much most of the time, but it’s still been a lot of fun.
  2. I like the fact that I can be comfortable being alone. I feel like too many people aren’t comfortable enough being by themselves and in their own head.
  3. I like that I rarely feel anxious. It makes it easier to deal with certain situations.

Does that kind of work? I guess. We’ll call it works.