Chapter Five
I would love to have feedback from anyone whose got me friended on this piece, as it is my primary literary endeavor for now and the rest of this year. Please be as thorough as you are willing; I'm aware that you all have busy, productive, satisfying lives to attend to.
Things that you should probably know:
Grey is a name, so I may spell it however I like.
This is the fifth chapter of a novel in progress. I've written much more, but this is the part of it I would like you to consider, so there will be no satisfying conclusion. Earlier chapters can be found here:
The First
The Second
The Third
The Fourth
I shamelessly copied and pasted this introduction from the first chapter.
The Fifth: Luminescent
The icy water has forced strength into my body, and painful clarity into my mind.
I don’t know myself well. I don’t know my mind or body or past. I can’t speak or write or lift heavy objects. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. What do I want? A jacket or sweater or long sleeve shirt to cover my arms and keep them warm. A book to read. I’m feeling greedy. I can’t do much. I can’t ask for much. But if this is a dream…I want to know someone who won’t pick me up with one hand. I want someone to ask me if I like their shoes. And… what monopoly piece do I want? Only I can’t pick the dog because that’s theirs. Red hotels and green houses. I see myself moving the thimble past boardwalk, past Go. Dizziness swirls around me, and I have to put a hand against the side of the tub to keep from losing my balance. I’m not there. I’m here.
Soaked and shivering in the shower, I resolve that I do not want to be here any longer. This is an Important Mental Step. I frown at the thought, unsure of where it came from.
I shut off the shower. I climb from the tub, puddles of water forming on the floor. As I peel off my wet shirt, curiosity cements. I want to look at myself while I’m naked. Maybe I will realize I am beautiful, or that my eyes aren’t so different. I leave clothes in a heap on the floor, and climb on top of the sink, to look in the mirror there.
The tattoo is so dark, it makes my skin seem to shine white. I try to be nice and call myself slender in my head, instead of skinny.
I look nineteen, or twenty. I…I think maybe I’m pretty. I don’t think I was given an ounce of testosterone. I have nothing but curves.
I don’t want to meet my eyes. I’m afraid I’ll see my own secrets in them.
Since Alice has not left me any dry clothes, I wring out my wet ones as best as I can, and try ineffectively to dry my hair with a towel. The only door out of the room is locked, with a keypad. The only window has the same lock and keypad.
The numbers on the keypad seem sized right for my fingers. I press “A”, and see I have space for ten letters. I finish “Alice”, and press “enter”. The words “Invalid password” scroll across the screen. I try “Penelope.” Invalid password. I try “Grey”. I try “Red”, “Purple”, “Hate”, “Love”, and “Anger.”
The window lock pops. Her password was “Anger”. Knowing that, I pray I will never face her again.
The window is heavy. I push against it in vain. I readjust my handhold, and press upwards, straining until I’m afraid my arms will pop. It lifts enough for me to slide a shoe under. After panting on the windowsill for a moment, I hook my fingers into the crack held open by my shoe at the bottom of the frame, and heave the window up enough for me to slide through.
I land on hard dirt, jarring my knee, and run. It’s a moonless night. I push through tall grass, leap rocks, and scale tree stumps before reaching a fence of iron bars. It takes me only seconds to squeeze through the gap between two of the bars.
I reach pavement. A road. The yellow dividing stripes of paint are faded and erratic. The trees lining the road feel possessive. I can’t run anymore. The pain in my side is a roar. I’ve got no stamina. I’ve got no strength. I won’t make it far before Alice finds the bathroom empty. The trees watch. They don’t want me to get far.
Alice has murdered your friends, trees! I’ve seen the stumps! Let me go, so I can bring Laurel a friend, so I can grow strong like you, so Alice won’t have me.
A mist, and then drops of rain descend from the sky. The water on the road doesn’t sink in or trickle away. It thickens, clumping together, rising like bread. A bubble, and then a sphere rises from it. It’s transparent, with a purple center.
A screeching flash punches through the sphere. It takes a few seconds for the fireworks in my eyes to die off. A soft chiming reaches my ears.
A car has pulled off the side of the road, ahead of me. I make out two silhouettes against the car lights. I’ve taken a step backwards, when a man’s voice reaches my ears.
“-saying anything if you were hit.”
A female voice answers. Her words snap together like puzzle pieces, but she puts no pride in them. She is like a talented sculptor who daydreams of being an ice skater as she half-heartedly chips rocks into wonders.
“I saw nothing. There would be blood and dents and screaming.”
“Not if…”
They’ve seen me. I shield my eyes against the light. The man is tall…or maybe he isn’t. Anyone I meet towers above me, on a separate plane I cannot reach.
He wears a leather jacket. He’s clean-shaven, and all hard lines.
Around the woman, light seems dimmer. The way she moves is not natural, not the way people are supposed to move. It’s like she has read the instruction manual that came with her body, but never used it before. She’s got dark hair, but not much of it, and her skin is nearly as white as mine.
“Are you alright? What are you doing out here?” asks the man. The woman is still studying me.
They’ve got a car. Please, let them take me away from here. I pull my hand from my pocket, to show I’m not hiding a gun or knife. My hand comes out holding a shred of paper.
The paper disappears, and it’s several seconds before I realize the woman has snatched it from my hand.
“Grey,” she reads aloud. Hurriedly, I point to myself.
“Can you speak?” asks the man. I shake my head, and point to myself again.
“It’s her name,” the woman announces. “If I told you my name was miss White and he was Mr. Black, we could rob a bank and if you were caught you wouldn’t be able to reveal my true identity.”
“I’m Randy,” says the man.
“I’m Lume,” says the woman, handing me the back the paper. I fold it away nicely, because it’s my name, and I can’t write it or say it. “We didn’t hit you with the car like Randy thought, but-“
I catch Lume’s hand, and wrap her arm around me. Her nails are painted black.
“Little one found by the side of the road in the dark of the night, I am not about to abandon you to the wolves, or whatever predators might stalk you. Cars, from the look of things.”
If another person had said the same words, it would have been a speech. Coming from Lume, it’s no different, except everything Lume says sounds like the start of speech.
“Your hair is wet. Your clothes are damp. Randy, it hasn’t been raining.”
“She’s not bleeding is she?”
“Not unless water runs through her veins.”
I pull Lume towards the car. She lets me drag her into the back seat with me. Randy climbs in front, and when I point out at the road, he starts driving. Heated air hums from the air conditioning vents. Lume snaps on a light.
Her eyes are like mine.
They’re grey and soft and a watery like she might start crying any moment now and they’re just like mine.
“The time you ate last is long past, yes?” I…I suppose it is. I cannot remember when I ate last. I’m handed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of water.
“We are in a horror movie,” announces Lume.
“We are not,” says Randy.
“A girl stumbles from the woods, wet and starving, unable to speak of the atrocities she has witnessed.”
“I don’t know where I’m driving.”
“I do. She has my eyes.”
I watch Lume’s eyes over the top of my sandwich. There is something savage in her, something Alice had that Penelope didn’t. She moves like her body is just a tool or a puppet, not herself. Her eyes are always laughing, like life is a joke to her, even when the rest of her face is serious.
Randy hands back a pen and pad of paper. Lume sets them on my lap, and asks, “Did you recently witness a terrible atrocity, such as one might see in a Hollywood horror movie, and are now rendered mute from the trauma?”
I start the line for N, but keep going, unsure of when to stop it. Panicked, I wrench the line off course, and swoop around back to enclose the polygon. I add some adjustment lines to the top to clarify, and balance it with a series of zizags.
This isn’t the letter N. I scribble it out. Lume takes the pad from me, and sets it on her lap. I’m never given enough time.
With her own pen, Lume writes the letter “N” on the page. I duck under her arm, and try to copy her “N”. As I focus on her letter though, my pen drifts straight through it, slicing it in half with my line. I’ve ruined her letter. Her pen descends again, and adjusts the impaling line so that it curves back around. The letter looks like the start of jagged monster teeth to me, so I add a few more, completing a mouth of menacing fangs. Lume’s pen continues in an arc, showing me that this is going to be a sea serpent, so I start drawing in the scales.
When it’s time to work on the ocean, I climb into Lume’s lap and hold the paper steady for us. I feel the vibrations of her voice when she speaks.
“The serpent is old, and tired of chewing on shark skin. The oceans are overrun with human ships and he no longer has the strength to sink them. Bitter and alone, he hides in a storm.”
A ship appears under our pens.
“The captain is old, and tired of pulling in crab traps. The oceans are crowded, competition is fierce, and he doesn’t care to race against the fiery young captains and their freshly painted boats. Bitter and alone, he hunts in a storm.”
A spear appears in the serpent’s side. The captain’s boat comes into focus, shattered and broken from the serpent’s tail.
I finish drawing the last bubble in a turbulent ocean.
Continued in Chapter Six
Things that you should probably know:
Grey is a name, so I may spell it however I like.
This is the fifth chapter of a novel in progress. I've written much more, but this is the part of it I would like you to consider, so there will be no satisfying conclusion. Earlier chapters can be found here:
The First
The Second
The Third
The Fourth
I shamelessly copied and pasted this introduction from the first chapter.
The Fifth: Luminescent
The icy water has forced strength into my body, and painful clarity into my mind.
I don’t know myself well. I don’t know my mind or body or past. I can’t speak or write or lift heavy objects. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. What do I want? A jacket or sweater or long sleeve shirt to cover my arms and keep them warm. A book to read. I’m feeling greedy. I can’t do much. I can’t ask for much. But if this is a dream…I want to know someone who won’t pick me up with one hand. I want someone to ask me if I like their shoes. And… what monopoly piece do I want? Only I can’t pick the dog because that’s theirs. Red hotels and green houses. I see myself moving the thimble past boardwalk, past Go. Dizziness swirls around me, and I have to put a hand against the side of the tub to keep from losing my balance. I’m not there. I’m here.
Soaked and shivering in the shower, I resolve that I do not want to be here any longer. This is an Important Mental Step. I frown at the thought, unsure of where it came from.
I shut off the shower. I climb from the tub, puddles of water forming on the floor. As I peel off my wet shirt, curiosity cements. I want to look at myself while I’m naked. Maybe I will realize I am beautiful, or that my eyes aren’t so different. I leave clothes in a heap on the floor, and climb on top of the sink, to look in the mirror there.
The tattoo is so dark, it makes my skin seem to shine white. I try to be nice and call myself slender in my head, instead of skinny.
I look nineteen, or twenty. I…I think maybe I’m pretty. I don’t think I was given an ounce of testosterone. I have nothing but curves.
I don’t want to meet my eyes. I’m afraid I’ll see my own secrets in them.
Since Alice has not left me any dry clothes, I wring out my wet ones as best as I can, and try ineffectively to dry my hair with a towel. The only door out of the room is locked, with a keypad. The only window has the same lock and keypad.
The numbers on the keypad seem sized right for my fingers. I press “A”, and see I have space for ten letters. I finish “Alice”, and press “enter”. The words “Invalid password” scroll across the screen. I try “Penelope.” Invalid password. I try “Grey”. I try “Red”, “Purple”, “Hate”, “Love”, and “Anger.”
The window lock pops. Her password was “Anger”. Knowing that, I pray I will never face her again.
The window is heavy. I push against it in vain. I readjust my handhold, and press upwards, straining until I’m afraid my arms will pop. It lifts enough for me to slide a shoe under. After panting on the windowsill for a moment, I hook my fingers into the crack held open by my shoe at the bottom of the frame, and heave the window up enough for me to slide through.
I land on hard dirt, jarring my knee, and run. It’s a moonless night. I push through tall grass, leap rocks, and scale tree stumps before reaching a fence of iron bars. It takes me only seconds to squeeze through the gap between two of the bars.
I reach pavement. A road. The yellow dividing stripes of paint are faded and erratic. The trees lining the road feel possessive. I can’t run anymore. The pain in my side is a roar. I’ve got no stamina. I’ve got no strength. I won’t make it far before Alice finds the bathroom empty. The trees watch. They don’t want me to get far.
Alice has murdered your friends, trees! I’ve seen the stumps! Let me go, so I can bring Laurel a friend, so I can grow strong like you, so Alice won’t have me.
A mist, and then drops of rain descend from the sky. The water on the road doesn’t sink in or trickle away. It thickens, clumping together, rising like bread. A bubble, and then a sphere rises from it. It’s transparent, with a purple center.
A screeching flash punches through the sphere. It takes a few seconds for the fireworks in my eyes to die off. A soft chiming reaches my ears.
A car has pulled off the side of the road, ahead of me. I make out two silhouettes against the car lights. I’ve taken a step backwards, when a man’s voice reaches my ears.
“-saying anything if you were hit.”
A female voice answers. Her words snap together like puzzle pieces, but she puts no pride in them. She is like a talented sculptor who daydreams of being an ice skater as she half-heartedly chips rocks into wonders.
“I saw nothing. There would be blood and dents and screaming.”
“Not if…”
They’ve seen me. I shield my eyes against the light. The man is tall…or maybe he isn’t. Anyone I meet towers above me, on a separate plane I cannot reach.
He wears a leather jacket. He’s clean-shaven, and all hard lines.
Around the woman, light seems dimmer. The way she moves is not natural, not the way people are supposed to move. It’s like she has read the instruction manual that came with her body, but never used it before. She’s got dark hair, but not much of it, and her skin is nearly as white as mine.
“Are you alright? What are you doing out here?” asks the man. The woman is still studying me.
They’ve got a car. Please, let them take me away from here. I pull my hand from my pocket, to show I’m not hiding a gun or knife. My hand comes out holding a shred of paper.
The paper disappears, and it’s several seconds before I realize the woman has snatched it from my hand.
“Grey,” she reads aloud. Hurriedly, I point to myself.
“Can you speak?” asks the man. I shake my head, and point to myself again.
“It’s her name,” the woman announces. “If I told you my name was miss White and he was Mr. Black, we could rob a bank and if you were caught you wouldn’t be able to reveal my true identity.”
“I’m Randy,” says the man.
“I’m Lume,” says the woman, handing me the back the paper. I fold it away nicely, because it’s my name, and I can’t write it or say it. “We didn’t hit you with the car like Randy thought, but-“
I catch Lume’s hand, and wrap her arm around me. Her nails are painted black.
“Little one found by the side of the road in the dark of the night, I am not about to abandon you to the wolves, or whatever predators might stalk you. Cars, from the look of things.”
If another person had said the same words, it would have been a speech. Coming from Lume, it’s no different, except everything Lume says sounds like the start of speech.
“Your hair is wet. Your clothes are damp. Randy, it hasn’t been raining.”
“She’s not bleeding is she?”
“Not unless water runs through her veins.”
I pull Lume towards the car. She lets me drag her into the back seat with me. Randy climbs in front, and when I point out at the road, he starts driving. Heated air hums from the air conditioning vents. Lume snaps on a light.
Her eyes are like mine.
They’re grey and soft and a watery like she might start crying any moment now and they’re just like mine.
“The time you ate last is long past, yes?” I…I suppose it is. I cannot remember when I ate last. I’m handed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of water.
“We are in a horror movie,” announces Lume.
“We are not,” says Randy.
“A girl stumbles from the woods, wet and starving, unable to speak of the atrocities she has witnessed.”
“I don’t know where I’m driving.”
“I do. She has my eyes.”
I watch Lume’s eyes over the top of my sandwich. There is something savage in her, something Alice had that Penelope didn’t. She moves like her body is just a tool or a puppet, not herself. Her eyes are always laughing, like life is a joke to her, even when the rest of her face is serious.
Randy hands back a pen and pad of paper. Lume sets them on my lap, and asks, “Did you recently witness a terrible atrocity, such as one might see in a Hollywood horror movie, and are now rendered mute from the trauma?”
I start the line for N, but keep going, unsure of when to stop it. Panicked, I wrench the line off course, and swoop around back to enclose the polygon. I add some adjustment lines to the top to clarify, and balance it with a series of zizags.
This isn’t the letter N. I scribble it out. Lume takes the pad from me, and sets it on her lap. I’m never given enough time.
With her own pen, Lume writes the letter “N” on the page. I duck under her arm, and try to copy her “N”. As I focus on her letter though, my pen drifts straight through it, slicing it in half with my line. I’ve ruined her letter. Her pen descends again, and adjusts the impaling line so that it curves back around. The letter looks like the start of jagged monster teeth to me, so I add a few more, completing a mouth of menacing fangs. Lume’s pen continues in an arc, showing me that this is going to be a sea serpent, so I start drawing in the scales.
When it’s time to work on the ocean, I climb into Lume’s lap and hold the paper steady for us. I feel the vibrations of her voice when she speaks.
“The serpent is old, and tired of chewing on shark skin. The oceans are overrun with human ships and he no longer has the strength to sink them. Bitter and alone, he hides in a storm.”
A ship appears under our pens.
“The captain is old, and tired of pulling in crab traps. The oceans are crowded, competition is fierce, and he doesn’t care to race against the fiery young captains and their freshly painted boats. Bitter and alone, he hunts in a storm.”
A spear appears in the serpent’s side. The captain’s boat comes into focus, shattered and broken from the serpent’s tail.
I finish drawing the last bubble in a turbulent ocean.
Continued in Chapter Six