Untitled Novel

Today’s post will most likely not have a “lesson” because I am going to write a story.  I have a little bit of an idea of what the story will be about, but it’s not going to be a short story.  Just to warn you, it’ll most likely be a cliff hanger.  Sorry.  (Not sorry).  But don’t worry!  I’ll probably continue it on this blog later.  Or maybe I won’t and it’ll stay a cliff hanger 🙂

Or maybe the story will be boring and you won’t care anyway.  (Hopefully not!!!)

Also…DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT about weird little voices in your mind that you can’t control, or about anything really weird like that.  I’m not that creepy.

Well, with that, here it goes…

It was dark.  The darkness spread throughout her brain and into her thoughts.  She couldn’t see anything because her eyes were squeezed shut.  Her head was pounding and she cringed harder to bear the pain, curling up into a tiny ball on the ground.  She knew she was in a forest – that much she could tell from all the leaves and twigs that kept poking into her side as she pulled her legs closer to her body.  She felt like her body was locked in this fetal position and that the searing pain in her mind and heart would never go away.  

Suddenly, she realized that she couldn’t open her eyes, and she kept hearing the voices in her head:

“You can’t do anything.  Who are you to think you’re worth anything?  They don’t care about you.  Nothing was fair there.  It was for your own good.  We’ve got you now.  It’s okay.  You’ll like security.  You can’t go back now.  The choice is permanent.  Soon you will-“

“STOP IT!” She screamed, clamping her hands on her ears.  The voices stopped, and the forest turned deathly silent.  

Trembling, she tried once more to open her eyes, keeping her hands firmly planted on her ears.  Her vision was extremely blurry at first, but eventually she could see the details of a forest.  She was surrounded on all sides by huge oak trees, lush bushes, and sticks, leaves, rocks, and other forest debris all over the ground.  To her right lay some boulders about 3-6 feet in diameter.  Finally, she cautiously took her hands off of her ears one by one.  Still no voices.  Good.  Then, very slowly, she unlocked each of her muscles to allow herself to sit with her back to a nearby tree.  She leaned her pounding head on the tree and closed her eyes briefly again.  

“Where am I?”  She whispered the question for the hundredth time in who knows how long.  The horrible migraine in her temples was intensifying and she knew she might lose consciousness again in a matter of minutes.  But the voices had stopped, and whenever the voices stopped, the pain left too.  She knew this, and she was greatly relieved.  The voices were only in her head, the replay of words that had been spoken to her, but that’s all she could remember.  They always said the same thing because it was just a replay of something someone had said to her.  She couldn’t remember who had spoken them to her or how long ago, nor how she had ended up in the forest.  The only things she knew where that when the voices came into her thoughts, she locked herself up mentally and physically to fight them, and doing so made her extremely vulnerable to whatever lived in this forest.  She couldn’t remember if this had been going on for a week or longer, but it was getting extremely tiring.  Another thing she knew-her name was Katrina, but she only knew this from the pendant that hung around her neck and bore her name.

Every time Katrina tried to organize her thoughts and figure out who exactly the voices were referring to, she felt the headache come back and then she was unconscious again.  Finally, the pain subsided and Katrina realized how exhausted she really was.  It would feel so good to just go to sleep.  A peaceful sleep with no pain in her head, and no voices screaming at her in her dreams.  But restful sleep didn’t exist anymore.

A rustle in the bushes to her left shot terror through Katrina’s heart and every muscle in her body tensed.  She was on her feet in an instant, her knife in her hand and breathing hard.  That was another thing Katrina couldn’t piece together…she was so proficient with a knife but she didn’t remember learning how to use one.  The rustling stopped, but Katrina stayed alert.  The pounding in her heart and mind were constant.  She was scared and she hoped whatever was behind the rustling couldn’t tell.

Slowly, she approached the bushes, knife extended, and surprisingly focused.  Katrina felt like she had a huntress’ instinct, and she was highly certain she had been one at one time.  But if she had, the memories had completely left her.  

Now she was now only a yard from the bush.  She steeled her courage, and parted the branches with her knife.  Nothing.  Confusingly, Katrina’s fear only intensified.  Something told her that there was still a need to be scared.  Still a need to stay alert.  She silently cursed the headache that was starting to come back.  She needed all her senses fully functioning in order to stay alive.

A slight sound of a rock being disturbed behind her had Katrina whirling around and crouching down.  A shadow on the boulder gave her attacker away, and Katrina relaxed slightly at the advantage.  Slowly, she crept up on the shadow, keeping her knife up and ready in her left hand.  

Katrina was just about to spring, when a stabbing pain in her neck sent her sprawling to the ground.  Her hand lost grip of the knife as she brought her hand up to find out the cause of the pain.  She suddenly felt extremely nauseous, her vision started slowly fading to black, and she panicked.  Quickly, Katrina yanked a small sharp object from her neck and held it in front of her nose.  It appeared to be a small needle, but that was all she could see before her vision went totally black and the slight pain in her head increased to a full on migraine again.  

“Do not resist.  We have come for you.  The time of waiting is over.  You are ours now.”

The voices were back.

“STOP IT!”  Katrina yelled, locking her hands onto her ears again.  But they didn’t stop, and this time there were more of them.

“You belong to the Collective.  The Collective.  The Collective.  The Collective.”  They chanted, over and over.  Horrified, Katrina realized that the voices weren’t just replaying in her head again.  They were real, and they were all around her.  She screamed and pushed harder on her ears. 

The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness were two iron hands clamped around her wrists.

 

Well, hopefully you enjoyed that….I kind of just thought of the basic plot line for the rest of the story as I wrote this first “chapter.”  Who knows?  Maybe it’ll be the first book/novel I finish.

Until next time,

Hope Frances