Monday, May 23, 2011

003 Light

Spoiler warning for my own novel? Yes. Nothing huge, but this scene would fit at the very end if it were part of it.
---

For a long while, nobody spoke. The survivors stood a safe distance away from the enormous hatch they had come through, as though something might rear up from it and drag them back down again. The sun beat down on them from above, warming their backs and surrounding them like a mother's arms. That was something they hadn't been able to get right in the biosphere, Aster realized. It had been a convincing display, of course- state of the art ASPEN would not have settled for an imperfect subterranean atmosphere-- but there was just something they hadn't been able to get right about the warmth. There wasn't that localized heat where the photons glanced off your skin, it was just... altogether hot, or warm, or cool, or chilly. It had been enough to convince them all that they were above ground for quite a while, but now that they stood in the midst of nowhere, in a real, wild forest, the differences were obvious. The sharp smell of pine trees mingled with a low rich note of mud and leaf decay from the forest floor, blowing in on a perfectly imperfect, unsteady breeze. Wildflowers poked up from the remnants of a fallen tree, nestled in its broken boughs and scarred trunk. Somewhere nearby, a river ran, just loud enough for them to hear. And still nobody spoke.

Aster sat down in the dirt before her knees gave out on her, suddenly very tired, very weak. It wasn't long before the others followed suit in relative silence. Anselm sat beside her, threading his fingers through hers, and she gripped the sleeve of his labcoat with her free hand, feeling like if she wasn't holding on to something then maybe she would drift away.

There was an obvious void in the group, their number was too small, the gathering too quiet and too solemn. Worse perhaps than their deaths were the memories of each one that ran through their minds, and the knowledge that it was all because of ASPEN. That organization that the rest of the world looked so highly upon, that held the world on the end of a string and toyed with it however they pleased in the name of science and progress. This modern god who took as it needed and gave back just enough to keep itself protected, leaving the small weak-minded world to revel in the new miracle it had granted them while it stole their children from beneath their noses and ignored all lines of ethics, morality, and even sanity in its pursuit of something greater. It was too much. Aster wanted to cry, but she didn't have the energy. Still the group sat in silence.

"Well then," Caden mumbled, followed by a long sigh, and then the silence returned.

The sun drifted higher in the sky, drenching the clearing in pure white light. The idea that the sun still dared to shine after all that had happened seemed baffling; below them, thousands of miles of subterranean complex slowly burned itself to ruins, what was once the root of the world, the lifeblood of their society, was now a skeleton. The rest of the world would take a long while to adjust as the source of everything they relied on was slowly destroyed underground, but the sun still shone. There was still light.

Humans were resourceful, and they would find a way to make it by without their false idol like they had a million times before.

Nature looks after its own, and it would in time cleanse the cavernous ruins of ASPEN of all the evil it held, and reclaim it.

And as for the survivors, time would fade the memories into peaceful homages to wonderful people, slowly ebb away at the pain until there was nothing left but love and happiness.

There was still light left in this world, still good things that could be had.

"Well," Aster said quietly, "Maybe we should get moving. Find a town. Figure out where we are." The gravity of their situation slowly settled into the minds of the group, and the irony that after all they had survived, they still had no idea where they were or how to find their way home, was not lost on them. They were still metaphorical lab rats scuttling about under observation, even after finding the cheese at the end of the maze and breaking out of their cage entirely.

"We should follow the river downstream; most towns are built near water sources. It's our best bet," Caden said.

A few nods and stretches, and the survivors got to their feet, brushing themselves off and ready to move again. The river was close, gurgling along and reflecting the sun between two borders of glowing green canopy. A single green leaf fell from one of the branches overhead and landed in the water, flowing along the ribbon of light far ahead of them. Anselm slipped Aster's hand in his and matched her pace. Despite everything that had happened and everything they had just been through, she couldn't help the smile that sprang to her lips. She felt undeniably light in that moment.

The sun would still rise again tomorrow, she realized, and there would still be light. Even after everything, this wasn't an end, this was merely a course of events, winding like a river. There was still much more to come, and while the shadows of leaves overhead cast a shadow on the river's glass surface on occasion, they would always emerge into the light.

---
want to be all "B'AWW IT'S TERRIBLE" but I really dunno. Light was sort of awkward to work with. And I wrote this earlier, and only just finished it now over twelve hours later. I went out today. I was going to write two today, but I probably won't seeing as how my day went.

Also; can you tell I haven't yet decided who will live or die? I tried to be vague about the numbers because most likely I'm going to change them, and I haven't even a full cast of characters to begin with.

002 Love

Caden took a deep drink from his brandy snifter, relishing in the burning trail it left down his throat. He needed this now more than he'd ever needed anything in his life. As the alcohol started to work its magic and take the edge off all the tension of the day, he raised the glass to the light and admired the refractions it made through the cut crystal and the way the amber fluid seemed to glow.

A shadow passed through the glass and he looked up, irritation blatant on his face. He'd come here to get away from the people who were making his life at present so difficult, and someone dared to come search him out? He set the glass down and watched the figure approach him, pull out the chair opposite and sit down. Vienna smiled at him from across the tabletop, setting down a wine glass whose stem was betwixt in her fingers like that of a rare, beautiful flower. She simply smiled at him, her expression plainly easy to read; there was no anger, or malice, or sadness, all things which Caden would have expected. In fact, if anything, she looked amused. She didn't say anything for a while, just sat and sipped her wine and watched him. Caden, not one to let others get the best of him, sat and stared back. Finally, she seemed to realize this was futile and set the glass down daintily with the faintest of noises.

"Do you want to talk about last night?" she asked, gently, staring, staring.

"Not particularly." he murmured, stubbornly keeping her gaze, even though she was most likely angry as hell inside.

"Well, maybe we could talk about something else, then." she said diplomatically, hoping to watch relief flicker across his face, but the stubborn physicist didn't react, and a moment too late she should have realized that he would never feel remorse for what he did.

"Mmm." he hummed. And then waited. Staring.

"You ever think about love, Caden?" she asked casually, reclining and taking the wineglass between her fingers again.

"How so?" he asked with a sigh, humoring her even though he was disappointed in the topic choice.
"Just... how you know you love someone. Anyone."

"Mmm..." he contemplated her revision for a moment. "No. My answer is definitely no, then."

Vienna's eyebrow quirked in frustration. "How can you say that?" she demanded, setting the glass down with a solid sound that reflected her anger. "Do you not love anyone? Your parents?"

Caden took a second to think about it before replying, "No."

"You're lying." Vienna spat.

"No, I'm not." Caden sighed and sat up straight, taking another gulp of brandy before mustering up the courage to talk about them. "My father was a bastard that cheated on my mom, smacked her around and finally left us when I was thirteen. And my mother, well, she resented me from that day forward. Because I was like him. I look more like him than I do her, I act like him and speak like him and that bothered her. She meant well, but she was never proud of me. Not on any of my graduations, not on my career or my prizes or even getting here." He took another drink, longer this time, and winced at the burn. "So I decided I don't need her approval."

Vienna sat silently, wide-eyed as she processed this bit of information, possibly the most she'd ever heard him say at one time before. "Wow. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Like I said, I don't need them." Caden could feel the warmth of the buzz starting to encroach on his senses, dampening the vividity of his world.

"Well," Vienna continued, undaunted. "What about that girl you have at home? I'm sure she's wonderful."
"She's alright." he murmured noncommittally.

"'Alright'? Really, Caden?!" Vienna snapped. "You must love her a little to be living with her! Tell me about her."

Caden sighed. More brandy. His glass was getting dangerously empty and the world wasn't fading into oblivion nearly as quickly as he would have liked. At least if he passed out he wouldn't have to keep up this conversation.

"Her name is Anna." he relented. "She's pretty. Average height, small build, long dirty blonde hair and legs that go on forever. Her eyes are green. She usually keeps her lips red, but I love them best when they're just pink and natural. She likes to laugh. She worries a lot, mostly about me. She looks after me like I'm her child or something. She's a great cook, and she reads a lot. She went to university with me, but she was an art major. At first I didn't understand why anyone would study art, it seemed like a waste of time. But when I see the way she smiles when she paints, or the way she hums to herself arranging flowers, the way her eyebrows knit a little when she admires artwork, her sigh while looking at trees, just... I understand. I see the world through how it works, physics. She sees in colour and movement and shape. She sees application." He smiled to himself, a little sheepish. "The apartment is always full of flowers and pictures and light."

Vienna didn't say anything for a long while, just sipping her wine and watching him with satisfaction. That was definitely the most she'd ever heard out of him at once. "She sounds lovely." she finally said.

"Yeah. I guess she is."

"Do you love her?" Vienna asked abruptly.

"Why does that matter?"

"It doesn't matter to me, Caden." Vienna said sharply, drinking the last of her wine. "I, quite honestly, don't give a damn about you, and I wasn't looking for anything more than you were last night. Usually it's pretty rude to not tell people you're already involved with someone, but I really don't care. I don't know her, and when we go home, I'll never see you again. This doesn't affect me, and quite honestly, I don't feel guilty about it. We can fuck all you want, Caden, but if you're not going to be honest for your partner, then maybe you should be honest for Anna." Vienna got to her feet, snatching up her wineglass from the table. "If she's as wonderful as you say, then I'm sure it'd be a shame to lose her."

And then she left, heels tapping out a brisk rhythm on the hardwood floors and leaving him utterly alone in the dark to think.

---
Prompt 2 complete. I like this one much better, and it came to me right away and isn't as much useless blathering as the last one is. I don't know why I enjoy writing so much more around 1-3 AM than, say, 3 in the afternoon or something reasonable. I have class tomorrow morning, dammit.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

001 Introduction

After the long plane ride, none of the new researchers felt like staying up to socialize, so the next morning, the common areas of every wing were buzzing with life, the new research teams acquainting themselves. After finding her way out of the spaciousness of her quarters that she hadn't had the opportunity to appreciate the night before, Aster found that she wasn't the first one up. The rest of the biology department was clustered together around some plush chairs and coffee tables, the new researchers talking eagerly with the older inhabitants, trying to calm their nerves about such a transition. Aster, minding her manners like any good Texan belle would, avoided those occupied in conversation and instead sidled up to a tall, well-kept man who stood alone against the wall.

"Hey there," she said, extending her hand. "M'name's Aster Bernard, Immunologist from Dallas," She offered the quiet man her widest smile, doing her best to make a good impression on the people here. The man hesitated, frowning before relenting and shaking her hand.

"I am Anselm Hartmann." His voice was smooth but obviously accented, falling harder over vowels than her own southern drawl would have. "I studied medicine at Greifswald, in Germany." Ah, so that was the accent. His s-sounds were sharp like z's, his w's turned into v's. Having never left her own state, his foreign vernacular was fascinating to her. He still remained cold to her and didn't offer a smile, instead pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Anselm." She pronounced it carefully, not wanting it to come out wrong on her own tongue, and seemed to do an okay job of it. "Medicine, huh? Did you work in a practice before?" she asked, curious about his field, even though it wasn't too far off from her own. Her work kept her confined to the lab most of the time, and she had little to go on in terms of how things went for med students beyond moving on from med school.

Anselm grinned now, a small grin but Aster was willing to count it. "Nein, I did my residence in an emergency room, actually. I could not imagine the monotony of a practice."

"Really?" she asked, genuinely interested. "What was it like? I've never met an ER doctor before. I can't imagine that kind of stress. Did you have to perform surgeries on the spot? Or... or autopsies?" Her voice dropped on the last note, remembering her own stay in med school and the way the work with real cadavers always made her uneasy. She was aware she was being overly chatty, a little bit from nerves, but she didn't particularly care, and it made him grin wider, exposing two rows of perfect white teeth framed by an elegant lip curvature.

"It was definitely stressful. But I did not mind it. The adrenaline rushes are like nothing I have ever felt." His smile seemed to relax, become more natural as he recalled night after night of his work. "And I did not perform many surgeries, the seasoned surgeons tended to take care of most of those, and it was too busy to argue over it for long, but I have been holding the scalpel on several occasions. As for the autopsies, the coroner in any hospital handles those." His tone was more than a little condescending, but Aster didn't mind; she should have known that. Before she could get another question in, he stopped her with a question of his own. "What is your work in immunology?"

"Research," she said gently, frowning gently. "Until now I've been assisting in research on tropical parasite illnesses. It's not that exciting. We've been trying to develop an effective agent to kill parasites in the host, but it's really very difficult." Despite not being demanding or exhausting or exhilarating in the way ER work was, she couldn't help the twinkle in her eye or the way she wanted to babble on about the fascinating little details of parasites that made them so resilient.

Anselm opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a woman of average height with enough presence and attitude to make up for whatever height she lacked. She summoned the new researchers with a few short words and a toss of her dark curls, and turned on her black pump heels without waiting for the group.
"I suppose we should follow her," Anselm said, pushing himself off the wall. "I hope breakfast is first; air travel makes me so hungry."

---
First one done. I feel horrible about it, it's terrible and flawed and I realized something huge about three paragraphs from where I ended it that might just break my entire plot so now I have some srs thinking to do. Still, it was nice to exercise my characters, feel them out and see how they work. Even though I've already written these two quite a bit, still...
Next prompt will have different ones, though, I promise.

Friday, May 20, 2011

100 Prompts - Beginning.

So I've decided I'm going to do a 100 prompts challenge sort of thing, using characters from my novel because writing with them helps me figure out who they really are. If that doesn't make me sound like a loon.
I might do more than one in a day, depending on how I'm feeling. Probably not, but I hate things that insist I only do one a day because then I hate the waiting, and I'm not likely to remember to do it the next day, and if I ever forget a day, it irritates me in ways that probably aren't necessarily healthy.
I put them on here because I'm not doing anything with this space, and I didn't want to bother Tumblr followers any more than I already am, or bombard my friends on DA with constant updates.

So, without further ado, here are the prompts I will be using. I haven't read them all, but I'm sure it'll go alright.


001. Introduction
002. Love
003. Light
004. Dark
005. Seeking Solace
006. Break Away
007. Heaven
008. Innocence
009. Drive
010. Breathe Again
011. Memory
012. Insanity
013. Misfortune
014. Smile
015. Silence
016. Questioning
017. Blood
018. Rainbow
019. Gray
020. Fortitude
021. Vacation
022. Mother Nature
023. Cat
024. No Time
025. Trouble Lurking
026. Tears
027. Foreign
028. Sorrow
029. Happiness
030. Under the Rain
031. Flowers
032. Night
033. Expectations
034. Stars
035. Hold My Hand
036. Precious Treasure
037. Eyes
038. Abandoned
039. Dreams
040. Rated
041. Teamwork
042. Standing Still
043. Dying
044. Two Roads
045. Illusion
046. Family
047. Creation
048. Childhood
049. Stripes
050. Breaking the Rules
051. Sport
052. Deep in Thought
053. Keeping a Secret
054. Tower
055. Waiting
056. Danger Ahead
057. Sacrifice
058. Kick in the Head
059. No Way Out
060. Rejection
061. Fairy Tale
062. Magic
063. Do Not Disturb
064. Multitasking
065. Horror
066. Traps
067. Playing the Melody
068. Hero
069. Annoyance
070. 67%
071. Obsession
072. Mischief Managed
073. I Can't
074. Are You Challenging Me?
075. Mirror
076. Broken Pieces
077. Test
078. Drink
079. Starvation
080. Words
081. Pen and Paper
082. Can You Hear Me?
083. Heal
084. Out Cold
085. Spiral
086. Seeing Red
087. Food
088. Pain
089. Through the Fire
090. Triangle
091. Drowning
092. All That I Have
093. Give Up
094. Last Hope
095. Advertisement
096. In the Storm
097. Safety First
098. Puzzle
099. Solitude
100. Relaxation