Went to the meetup and WOW I didn’t do any writing for a while today. I really did wait until late in the evening to get started. I’m currently debating whether or not to keep going as I haven’t found a good BSB song to kill to just yet. A couple checks, then we shall see if I continue tonight.

Current Word Count: 44388

From Chapter 9

“No!” Lira yelled back. “God damn it, get me out of here. I don’t want it to happen again. It was so bad before, please not again.” Her voice started getting a little quieter at the end and she could feel the tears of fear in her eyes as she started to heave, the air coming into her a little easier now, but leaving her just as quickly as she struggled. Even her struggles were starting to die against the feeling of desperation.

“It’s not going to happen again,” Shane said, though he wasn’t sounding all that confident about that, like trying to tell a girlfriend who had just informed him that she was pregnant that everything was going to be all right. It wasn’t, but he needed to say something to calm her down.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Calvin demanded, sounding a little frantic now himself.

“Oh god, the first time,” Jayde said, suddenly remembering. “From the first time.”

Morgan was the one to finally illuminate Calvin to the situation. “She disconnected from he drip the first time around,” he said, more serious than his previous snapping anger. “It didn’t sound pleasant. And I think we’re all going to understand soon just why she’s not all that happy about what’s happening.”

His voice fell near the end, the end of it just barely sounding out as Shane tried to hold something it. It was obvious from the low growl emanating from his own block that silenced them all. He tried to hold it in and it was obvious, but there was no need to.

“Here we go,” Morgan said darkly.

[Header image by Shaz]

With the evil scene behind me and the sickness over I’ve come to a stunning realization. I have no idea who these characters are. They all have no personality. This is what happens when I write while sick. All tell, no show, no character development. I’m going by the old versions of them now, from back when I was planning because that’s all I know. It’s okay, I can fix everything on the rewrite.

Current Word Count: 39767

From Chapter 8

“I feel bad for all of us,” Morgan said. “We’ve all had to deal with this crap for far too long. Tonight, we’re going to start making sure we don’t have to deal with it anymore. We’re going to go in and finally start taking our lives back from these assholes and we are going to be free of whatever the crap they think they’re doing. And we’ll steal their wallets while we’re at it.”

“Really?” Jayde asked, eyebrow raised. “Steal their wallets?”

“Are you saying they don’t deserve to get their wallets stolen? After everything they’ve done to us and everything we’ve been put through, don’t you think we deserve a little something back for all of our suffering and misery?”

“Um… okay,” Jayde said, shrugging. She really didn’t have much else to say to it. “You’re the one going in there. Just don’t get caught.”

[Header image by Shaz]

I suck so much today, but I know why. Back story! I have tried and failed to write this story before and failed. Why? THIS SCENE. It has to happen, but dammit, I get so stuck here and don’t know what to do next or how to move on from it, so now I have it plotted, change the situation and am doing it with an all new cast, but all those previous insecurities are still slowing me down. Also, I slept through most of the day. I suck.

Current Word Count: 31824

From Chapter 7

“Over here,” Morgan said, his voice carrying from the first row of computers. Jayde walked over, Lira hanging back to watch her reaction. Jayde went carefully over and immediately snapped back, hand over her mouth and the colour draining from her face. Lira was worried, but also very curious as to what would have created that kind of a reaction from her.

Lira went around too, but couldn’t quite see what was going on over the desk. Morgan was there looking downtrodden and worried, but that was about it. She went around one side and found out what had Jayde so pale. There was a lot of blood there. It wasn’t everywhere, only on Morgan’s hands and clothes and soaking under Calvin’s head. He was pretty pale himself and Morgan had put his hoodie under Calvin’s head catching most of the blood.

She reached carefully over, checking Calvin for a pulse on his neck. She wasn’t actually sure how she was supposed to do it, so she just put a couple fingers on his neck and pretended to search it out, then nodded. He felt warm still, so he was probably still alive. At least, she really hoped so because she couldn’t handle being near a dead body.

She went around him and over to Morgan. “It’s okay. He’s still alive.”

[Header image by Shaz]

I think I’m almost better! Everything is saying that you should isolate yourself for the full 7 days, though, regardless of whether you thin you’re over it or not, though, so I guess I’m stuck not doing a heck of a lot for the next few days. With any luck, that might mean a boost to the word count.

Current Word Count: 20211

From Chapter 4

“Okay,” Lira said finally. “So when my parents get home, we can’t exactly tell them what’s going on so you-”

“You aren’t going to have to worry about that tonight,” she said matter of factually. “Your parents are on a date night. They went into Vancouver for it tonight, nice place and everything, so they’re going to be gone until fairly late. In the morning, they both have fairly early shifts so they’ll be out before they even realize you have anyone here.”

“How did you know all that?”

“It’s amazing the things they keep track of,” she said, though her eyes stayed on the television, watching the channels as they passed her by.

[Header image by Shaz]

I have learned today that when I drink orange juice all day, the symptoms of the sick go away mostly. At least, the cough stops. The hot flashes and the dizzy not so much, but the cough stops.

Current Word Count: 10647

From Chapter 2

It wasn’t until after the cries of injustice and demands to their invisible captors, yells at the screen of static for mocking them and obscenities began in full force that she felt that maybe getting off the table was the worst decision she had ever made in her life.

There was something odd happening to her back. Whatever was pooling between her shoulder blades was starting to do something. What, she didn’t know and her eyes flew wide and stared at the static for some explanation for it before it started to happen.

She dipped forward, then ended up on the floor as she felt something break through the skin of her back and out. There was the sound of it scraping against the concrete floor, getting larger and skittering further and further until after several minutes it had stopped doing anything at all. She didn’t feel any pain from it, only a little pressure and a deep sense of fear over what was happening to her.

What came next, however, was deeply painful, so much so that she would probably awaken screaming for years to come.

Something more came out of her back, this time flesh complete with nerve endings that stretched, expanded and separated rapidly. Lira let out a scream of pain, feeling it as it brushed against the concrete floor completely unprotected and fastened itself to the structure that was already there. It was like a completely new set of arms being formed, but she could feel these ones like they had been set on fire. They wrapped around and stretched themselves out thinly, then the pain began to subside as they started to develop a new layer over them to protect them.

Skin. She knew enough to know that skin covered nerve endings and that was what was happening. Or so she might have thought if her mind wasn’t going white from the sheer pain of growing the new appendages. It was infinitely worse than ever getting a limb broken and she didn’t know what else to do, tears streaming down her face as something formed to keep the muscle from directly touching the ground, air and the other one that was resting on top of it.

Yes, there were two of them, as she realized now that she could breathe again. They were cushioned and they felt weird. It was all she could feel right now, those things sticking out of her back that she didn’t know how to control. She could feel the pair of them rubbing against each other and she didn’t know what to do now.

Her ears were still dim and dizzy, unable to really make anything out besides her heavy breathing. Her throat felt raw and she was exhausted. Whatever had just happened, it felt like she had spent an eternity in a hellish pain that was never going to stop. And now that it had, she tried very hard to catch her breath.

It was too soon, however, to celebrate. Below her newly formed skin, something was brewing, waiting anxiously for the right moment to strike. Lira thought it was probably just discomfort from the newly formed limbs. Instead, it was something very different and, while better than the pain, was by no means pleasant. In what felt like hundreds of needles poking out of her flesh, something grew out of her ski all at once, coarse and like they were made of steel, the itch driving her near insane while they continued to grow. Her mind went white again, trying to deal with the sheer itch of it all and desire to just rip the new limbs off for that would probably bother her less. They continued on and on, growing for yet another eternity until finally, even that stopped.

And when it did, Lira’s throat felt even more raw. She didn’t even notice herself saying anything that time, though it was probably for the best. Her head was swimming and she was barely holding on to consciousness after it all. Whatever had happened, maybe she was better off not moving. There was something attached to her before, right? Something that would have kept her from feeling a thing. Why didn’t she just take that out? She still couldn’t feel a thing besides her head and the new arms growing out of her back.

Weakly, she looked back and saw a blanket behind her in the pale glow of the static. A rather fluffy blanket. And was that a pattern on it, or maybe just the way it was folded? It was black, whatever it was. Maybe her new arms could bring them over her because she was feeling like she should probably feel quite cold about now.

[Header image by Shaz]

The flu has struck me on day 1. I have spent most of today sleeping instead of writing. This makes me sad and my lungs feel in pain. Also, I started off with a character description, which is weird for me but look at all that padding!

Current Word Count: 4548

From Chapter 1

It was like the first day of high school all over again, or so the morning preparation had made her think. Lira had done her best to make her up nice and presentable in the morning, tried to put on a good pair of heels to add an inch or two to her height to make her look taller than the four feet that she was. She had tried to groom herself in the way of an adult. She had tried several things to make her look like she was actually old enough to attend university.

And in the end, she still went right back to an old long sleeved shirt, a pair of jeans and a pair of flats. If she was going to struggle against a whole new environment and meet a lot of new people, she would want to be comfortable. So what if they thought she was probably about twelve.

She’d played with her hair even that morning before deciding to do nothing with it. In the end, she left her sandy blond hair down, falling straight on either side and falling just above her shoulders, framing her mature, yet still circular face, hiding some of her wide forehead and not getting in the way of her green eyes.

She’d wiped off the makeup even, the last resort to making her look older. It never worked anyway, instead looking almost unnatural. It was more like a kid had gotten into mommy’s makeup bag than anything else. And that was not the first impression she wanted to make.

[Header image by Shaz]