The Scene That Ended It All

And that’s when a purple skinned elf randomly apparated into the scene, singing,

“This is the song that never ends,

Yes it goes on and on my friends.

Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,

And they’ll continue singing it forever just because

“This is the song that never ends,

Yes it goes on and on my friends.

Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was,

And they’ll continue singing it forever just because

This is the song that never ends –”

“Who the heck are you?” Ron asked, crossing his eyes in confusion.

“Dobby, sir! Dobby the house elf!”

“Okay… and why are you singing the song that never ends?”

“Because the author of this story couldn’t figure out how to break the awkward silence, and therefore threw Dobby in as a filler until her mind gets back on track!”

“Well, I guess that answers the question of whether or not you guys are also fictitious characters,” Kim said blandly.

“So the Fearsome Ferret IS a TV show within a TV show within a TV show!” Ron exclaimed.

“Actually, sir,” Dobby held up a finger, “It’s a TV show within a TV show within a Nanowrimo novel.”

“A what novel?”

“National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. It’s where people try to write fifty thousand words worth of a novel within the thirty days of November.”

“Does this novel have to make any sense?” Mr. Kovach asked with a raised eyebrow. “Is there any criteria for it at all?”

“Nope! Just to get as many words as possible! That’s why the author was having Dobby sing the song that never ends –”

“Because if you sing it long enough, you’ll eventually get fifty thousand words worth of it,” Bear deduced with a smirk.

“Not fifty thousand words worth of it,” Rainbow corrected him. “Just about twelve hundred or so, to get past the finish line.”

“And you know this because…?”

She shrugged. “Because the author wanted someone to say it, but she didn’t want to have Dobby monologue it all.”

Said house elf then returned to singing,

“I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves,

Everybody’s nerves, everybody’s nerves!

I know a song that gets on everybody’s nerves,

And this is how it goes!”

“Shut up!” snapped Raven. “You’re even annoying the author, and she’s the one writing it!”

“Then what should Dobby do to make more words?” The elf lowered his ears in shame.

“Try describing this carpet,” Branded told the little creature, making an ornate decorative rug appear in front of himself. It was mostly several different shades of blue and violet, with gold swirls and a pair of mirroring flame designs. It randomly whacked the lion boy upside the head with one of its corner tassels, and proceeded to fly away haughtily.

“Why are you purple?” Ron suddenly thought to ask Dobby. His naked mole rat nodded and let out a series of squeaks that could be translated as, “Yeah, why?”

“Dobby doesn’t have a clue, sir,” the little elf answered dutifully. “The author wanted an adjective, and used the first one that came to her mind, so she made Dobby’s skin purple. Dobby looks very pretty in purple,” he added, pointing to his mismatched socks. One sock was red and yellow striped, and the other was checkered with purple and green. He was also wearing a black top hat over a hunter’s orange beanie, and a blue sweater with a reindeer pattern on it.

“Wow. Just… wow,” Kim said, shaking her head.

“That’s… colorful,” Mr. Kovach said needlessly, scratching his head awkwardly.

“This is the weirdest scene you’ve written yet,” a cackly old man’s voice said from nowhere. It was the author’s Inner Editor. “Why are you still writing? You should totally give up right now. Or just backspace this whole part and write in something that at least makes sense!”

“NO!” another voice jumped in. This one sounded like a very young child, one young enough to remember the pride in a scribble that must be explained multiple times before anyone knows what it is. “Who care’s if it’s not perfect! This randomness if FUN! And you can go back and fix it later! Right now, you’re almost done! Only five hundred ish words to go!”

“Yeah!” Leroy the mountain duck put in. “Licker Goat Steve and I think this is great! Keep going! And at least it makes more sense than MY story!” Then he and the octopus started to sing,

“The wheels on the bus go round and round,

Round and round, round and round!

The wheels on the bus go round and round,

All through the town!”

Then Mr. Kovach joined in the chaos, singing,

“You better watch out, you better not cry,

You better not pout, I’m telling you why!

Santa Claus is coming to town!”

“Wrong!” Linus jumped in, holding his iconic blue baby blanket. “It’s not even December yet! Why has Christmas become so commercialized? The radio stations start playing Christmas carols in early November, and the stores start selling colorful lights and trees and decorations and wall paper and ornaments before Halloween is even over! People should be paying more respect to the Great Pumpkin!”

“Will this ever go back to making sense?” Raven asked, rubbing his temples.

“Probably not,” Bear replied. “She’s close enough now that it doesn’t have to anymore. It’s all downhill from now on, for us!”

“At least she hasn’t thrown in the werewolves yet,” Mr. Kovach pointed out. “We can be thankful for that!”

“Oh dear,” the white rabbit fretted, gripping his watch as he shook. “Now you’ve given her an idea, and I don’t have time to spend running away! I’m very very late!”

“You’re always late,” Danny Phantom reminded him. “Your watch is two weeks slow, remember? Taking five minutes to run from a random monster in the strangest crossover fanfiction story I’ve ever seen won’t make you any worse off than if you were still in your own story.”

“Will you ever get back to explaining how a pile of demonic looking skeletons got here?” Ron asked, trying to pull his short blonde hair out in frustration.

“Ooh, carrots! Skeletons?!” Mr. Kovach repeated anxiously, then bolted. He ran a good fifty feet down the hall before a big huge massive sign randomly came down and landed on his head, breaking his neck and killing him.

“What’s it say?” Ariel asked, completely ignoring the dead human. Yzma cackled maniacally, and ordered Kronk to pick the sign up and read it. The disproportionally shaped strong man shrugged and moved to lift the sign up so they could see.

“That’s grammatically incorrect!” The Inner Editor announced.

“Shut up!” The Human Torch shouted, lighting the Editor’s pants on fire. The Editor screamed and ran away, hopping wildly as he went. “I don’t think he’ll be coming back before December,” the flaming super hero said with a wink. Then he saluted sarcastically, and motioned for Kronk to read the big sign.

“It says in big red squiggly neon letters, THE END!” he exclaimed joyfully. “The author has finally reached fifty thousand words!”

There was a collective yell of, “HOORAY!” as the author thanked all of the characters and sent them back to their own worlds. And the lucky forty-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-ninth and fifty thousandth words very intentionally were,

THE END!

DrMI Mathias Backstory Monologue

Writing Challenge 2014, Days 1 & 2. This snippet: 2591 . Total word count: 2591. Total Goal: 1667/2222.

I was born in the mid-fourteenth century. The world has a word for people like me now: albino. But at the time, having silver eyes and skin white as marble that burned in sunlight meant only one thing. Vampire. A bastard child is always a slave to his circumstances, and more so when everyone around him assumes he has been cursed by a member of the undead.

My birth mother feared and hated me. Even as a toddler, I knew this. I forgave her for it, so many times. What child wouldn’t? Some of the other villagers felt pity rather than hate, but they feared me also. When the seemingly endless baptisms proved futile and the priests eventually gave up trying to “save” me, everyone looked the other way when my birth mother began trying to beat the supposed demons out of me.

The fear and hatred grew as I did. I learned to speak at a very young age, and I knew things no child should. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was sharing my mind with those who came near me. Feeling their fears, angers, griefs, and unconsciously forcing them to feel mine. I knew when men no longer loved their wives, when children lied to their parents, when people were hungry or in pain. Sometimes I carried memories not my own for weeks before my mind learned to separate them, and people knew because at that time, I didn’t know better than to speak of them. I believed them to be dreams or odd thoughts, nothing more. The ones who had experienced what I spoke of, knew better. It was yet another thing about me that no one understood, and it is in human nature to fear what one does not understand. Many explanations were offered up for my strange magics, most of which involved demons, witch curses, or holy punishment. The beatings got worse.

Eventually, things reached a peak. I don’t know if it was just a normal beating that went wrong, or if she intended to kill me with that knife. It doesn’t matter, really, anyway. Regardless, I was bleeding badly, in too much pain to sort through everything I was feeling, and the woman who bore me was standing over me with the blade that cut me. I don’t know who was more afraid, myself or her; I was only aware of one great mass of mixed fear and anger, clouded by anguish.

She came to a decision, after a short eternity. She picked me up and carried me out of the house, ignoring the blood on her clothes. Most people ignored the sight as she strode through the village toward the outskirts. When a priest finally stopped her to ask what she was doing, she gave an answer that I didn’t understand at the time. I understand now.

With the priest’s approval and suggestion, she took me out into the jungle wilderness. She set me down and told me to stay put, that she would come get me in a short while. I knew she was lying, but I believed her anyway. I cried for as long as I had the energy to, waiting for her.

Her plan was thus: If a wild creature came for me, the demons would pass on to it as it fed, thus releasing my soul. If the possessed animal came to the village, they could kill it and burn the body, sending the demons back from whence they came. No one wanted the blame for killing me outright themselves, but if a predator did so, it would be acting within its own nature, and the gods could not smite them for it. She left me to die out there, to either bleed out, or have the blood attract something to kill me for her.

A predator did find me, but not to eat me. The white and blue tiger shifted from one false form to another, taking the guise of a silver haired human woman in a pinstripe Victorian dress. Even in her disguise, her eyes burned with crystal light as she picked me up and stared in the direction my mother had gone. Pale blue light that shifted in brightness and color, like the inside of a sea shell that had been cleaned out for jewelry, poured from her hands into my skin. The ache became far more intense, unbearable I thought, but it did not last forever. The bleeding stopped, the wound squeezed shut and scabbed over. I didn’t count the time it took for her to heal me then, but my now I can guess she made it take about ten minutes. I was underfed, so anything faster or more complete than that might have killed me. As it was, I was too exhausted to move when she was done. She quickly tore off a piece from the hem of her fancy dress, and fashioned a bandage to wrap around me until I was finished healing naturally.

Once I was no longer in danger of bleeding out, she bit her hand until it bled, and held the injury over a round grey stone set in a leather bracelet on her other wrist. I later learned that this is how her people, now mine, communicate over long distances. The blood bond prevents anyone else from using her stone without her permission.

When she finished her call, she shifted into her true form. A few inches shy of ten feet at the shoulder, and at least twenty feet from nose to rear hip, with another eighteen feet of tail. Her bat-like wings were folded, but massive; they began just behind the shoulders of her front legs, and ended halfway down her tail. Her head was reminiscent of a pony, but with sharp forward facing eyes. It was almost as long as I was tall, at about three feet. Her scales were smooth, and patterned like a leopard python, pale blue and silver splotches over a pearly white base. She had two small horns at the crown of her head, and a short, fine mane that went all the way down her tail and ended in a tuft that was fluffy and soft like puppy down.

Her name was Naemeŝsu’ukovu, Diamondeyes, and I felt safe with her. It was a strange feeling; I had never experienced it, for myself or from the people around me. She held me and comforted me, but I could also feel a boiling rage inside her. Safe, but afraid. I didn’t understand.

Something that anyone living in a dragon’s territory must be aware of: To such people, there is no crime more abhorrent than the intentional, willing harm of a child, whether one’s own or someone else’s. And to a dragon, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander.

My protector picked me up in the crook of one arm and tucked me to her chest, then took off. It hadn’t taken long for her family to receive her message and take action. From above the trees, the distance to my village seemed a short one, and I could see what was happening. Five winged creatures, in various sizes and colors, stormed through the village, smashing buildings and setting them on fire, and slaughtering the adults as they ran about in a panic. The children were being separated from their parents and herded into a group, which was guarded and protected by two more dragons.

As we passed over on the way to where Diamoneyes was taking me, I looked down at the place where I had been born, and felt the fear and excruciating pain. I saw what looked to me like fire with legs, sometimes running, sometimes rolling around on the ground. Always screaming. I didn’t understand what was happening. I started screaming from the pain and panic, tearing at my hair, digging my fingernails into my skin until I bled. It wasn’t helping, but I didn’t know what to do. I was more afraid and hurt than any one of the villagers, because I was feeling everything from all of the villagers.

Eventually, I just passed out in the dragon’s arms. I didn’t have the energy left to do anything else. When I awoke, I found myself in a nest of glowing moss in a cave of black stone and dirt, with a relatively small dragon curled up around me. Unlike Diamondeyes, this one was not patterned like a snake; she simply blended from red at her back, to purple at her belly. Her mane was a dark purple in contrast to her bright scales in that area, and her legs were a deep red all the down. Her wings blended to purple toward the tips, as well. Her mane was wider at her head, but the hairs shorter and more fine. It grew in a thin line where her head met her neck, and remained thin all the way down her spine. It thinned even more as it traveled down her back, disappearing altogether before it reached the tip of her tail; she had no tuft. Her scales had a tiny layer of peach fuzz that made her soft to the touch.

Silkscale nuzzled me when she noticed I had stirred, and spoke gently in a language I didn’t recognize. Her voice had the sound of one who was barely an adult. She was sad, lonely, and a little afraid, but not afraid of me.. Her presence was comforting. I went back to sleep.

I stayed in the cave for what I estimate to be about two months, as my injuries healed and the dragons made sure I was well fed. My temporary bandages were removed immediately and replaced with real ones after a dragon medic applied medicine to the wound. Smaller amounts of medicine were smeared over the scratches and cuts I had given myself, and I was made to drink a potion every day to build my strength and keep my malnourished stomach from refusing the food I was given. I was surprised my stomach did not refuse the potion itself; my throat did, every time. It’s a general rule that the more useful a dragon potion is, the more foul it tastes. It took me a week before I gave up trying to get my caretakers to stop making me drink it. It did help, though.

When I was healthy and brave enough to venture outside the caverns, I discovered that I was much farther from home than I had first imagined. Diamondeyes had not taken me to her lair in the jungle; she had taken me to a kin lair far from the warmth and wetness of my home. Here, the mountains were tall and black, the plants sparse and coarse and dully colored almost entirely in shades of brown and green. I didn’t recognize any of the animals that roamed the mountainside. Big furry brown bears, pale horned balls of wool called mountain goats, bald headed condor birds, and strange creatures call llamas that resembled shaggy haired goats mixed with fanged donkeys. The frost that formed on the grass in the mornings, the winds that was dry and cold and bit my skin if I didn’t wear the right clothes. A place so open and clear of large trees and bushes. Everything was strange to me.

The mountain dragons of this lair were different than the jungle dragons who had saved me. Whereas Diamondeyes and Silkscale were colorful and had hair, the mountain dragons were mostly black mottled with dull, dark colors, and had no fur at all. They were much bigger and bulkier, with thicker, rougher scales and much more prominent horns. I learned later that mountain dragons are masters of disguise, with the ability to change their colors to make the forms they take more realistic and even match their surroundings; a mountain dragon hunts by disguising himself as a boulder and waiting for prey to come along that he can ambush. Jungle dragons are limited to what forms that can take that still utilize their natural coloring.

The Blackstone Mountain kin had turned their valley kin Lair into a refuge; while the dragons kept mostly to the caverns and the outer rim, the valley floor was dotted with small villages. Every human there had either been removed from human custody due to child abuse, or was descended from others who had. It was intended that I would be adopted by a family in one of the villages, but we quickly found a problem with that. I was still sharing my mind without control; it was not only my memories I was suffering from. I could not be in the presence of so many fosterlings for long without breaking down. The dragons could teach me control, but I couldn’t be “fixed” without much time and study. As I couldn’t adjust to a life in that valley until I had spent so many years learning to deal with my natural magics, it was decided I would not remain there.

The Jungle of Colors kin took me home with them. Others questioned if Silkscale was mature enough to raise a kit, but she was determined, and so they allowed her to adopt me. I was raised as a dragon, spoke the dragon language, lived under dragon law, and learned not only my own magics but the science behind the dragon magics as well. I learned to heal, to make things grow, to send pieces of my spirit outside of my physical body to travel where I could not. I learned to make fire, in so many different ways. I learned to expand my own life by slowing down my aging process. I learned enough shifting to gain wings. I learned to move and fight as a dragon. I covered my pale skin with markings of dragon scales, in a snake pattern of blue and green, and wove magic into the ink too protect myself from sunburn. And when Silkscale eventually took a mate and gave me a younger sister, I cherished Gracewing the way any big brother would.

When I was almost an adult, but still young and foolish, I became curious about my human roots, and ventured out into the human world. I did not ask permission to do so, nor did I ask advice on how to survive and hide myself from those who would be considered “normal”. I was stupid. The tattoos hide my skin color, but not my culture. The way I speak, the way I think… The fact I had forgotten that humans see magic as evil and dangerous, so I did not consider it necessary to hide it, at first. The first time I was accused of witchcraft and demon worship, I fought off my attackers. The second time, they used the first as evidence against me. Even when I hid my magic, I was strange enough that people feared me, and soon accused me of it anyway. And so began a long life of people trying to kill me, because I am different.

Soon enough, I grew tired of fighting the angry mobs, and instead chose to run and hide. Caught on a dock once, I stowed away on a ship. It left harbor before it was safe for me to come out of hiding, and when I was discovered on board a week later, I was simply chained up and added to the merchandise. I had found myself on a slave ship.

 

Red Shoes Blurb — The Interrogation

“Okay, so we’re going to start with a few basic diagnostic questions, just to ensure the equipment is working properly. The answer is obvious, so don’t bother lying. Again, this is just for testing purposes.”

“Understood.”

“Good. First question: Is my hair brown?”

“Technically speaking, yes. The biological pigment responsible for body coloration is only capable of creating shades of a limited number of hues in mammals, which combined create the overall color of your skin and hair. We simply lack the full range of colors necessary to create true black, for the same reason we can’t have naturally green or blue hair. So, really, your hair is just a very dark brown.”

The detective running the investigation gave the teenager hooked up to the machine in front of him a suitably scathing look, which she acknowledged with a careless shrug. She absentmindedly picked at the blood underneath her fingernails; there was only so much that could be scrubbed off in a public restroom sink. Her fingerless gloves and signature red shoes had been confiscated for evidence, but she had been left with her own black clothes for the moment. She had refused to change with a female officer in the room, and none of the authorities were particularly keen on leaving her alone for any period of time. The social worker shivered unconsciously, but was ignored by both parties.

“Fine, then. We’ll start with something less ambiguous. Have you been attending classes at Robert P. Jameson High School in recent months?”

“Yes.” The machine continued its calm workings, as it should.

“Thank you. Assuming the label on this can is accurate,” he sent her a warning glance, “does it contain store-brand orange soda?”

“No.”

“Good. Now, I want you to lie for these next couple questions. Is my watch on my right wrist?”

“No.” The machine twitched violently, scribbled madly for a quick second, and then faded back into calmness.

“Okay. Assuming I am neither ambidextrous nor using my off-hand, am I left-handed?”

“Yes.” Again, the machine indicated a deception before quickly reverting to its calm state.

“Good. That concludes the preliminary questions. Now on to the real thing.” He leaned forward, his expression stern as he made direct eye contact. “Is your name Aod Sophee Pern?”

A nod. “Yes.” The machine made no change in its course, but he narrowed his eyes anyway.

“Yet there are no records anywhere of anyone under that name ever existing. Care to tell me how that’s possible, if you haven’t managed to trick the machine?”

Another shrug. “A polygraph is not technically an accurate lie detector test. It doesn’t measure whether I am speaking the truth; it only measures whether I am exhibiting stress in relation to a given question. In some cases, stress may be an indication that the subject is lying, but it may be the result of something else entirely, such as might be felt by a person who has no memory of an incident trying to describe it. It also cannot tell whether a response is truthful in the mind of the subject alone versus your pithy standards of law and fact. As far as I am concerned, that is my name. I do not perceive myself as lying, nor do I feel stress in relation to the question, therefore the machine detects it as a truth.”

He sighed heavily, straightening up in his chair again. “Fine, then. Is your legal name, according to your birth certificate, and as by my definitions of fact, Aod Sophee Pern?”

“No.”

“What is your name, under those same definitions?”

“Under your definitions? I don’t have a name. Which is why I ignore said definitions when I say, this is my name.” No change in the reading.

He raised his eyebrows. “Interesting. Care to tell me why you wouldn’t have a legal name?”

“No.”

“Fine. Where is your family, Ms. Pern?”

The machine hissed as it immediately picked up speed and intensity. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. The machine gradually slowed back down again. When it had finally returned to its normal course, she opened her eyes and met his gaze squarely. “I assume they are underground, somewhere. They died a long time ago.”

“You assume?”

“Yes, I assume. I have no memories of them after their deaths; if there were funerals, I was not in attendance.”

“I see. I am sorry. When did this occur?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t exactly counting the days, Detective Hammond. I saw my family die, I went through Tough Shit, I went through some other tough shit, and then I found myself enrolling at Jameson High School. I have no idea how long either of the particularly shitty portions of my existence lasted, so I can’t tell you exactly how long ago my life before ended.” Her grey eyes flashed, and the machine jumped, but no significant amount of stress or deception was indicated.

“I… see. I suppose I shouldn’t even bother trying to convince you to tell me what sort of ‘tough shit’ you experienced.”

“Correct.”

He sighed again. “I’m going to have to ask eventually, you know.”

“I know. And every time you do, I will refuse to give you an answer.”

The social worker finally decided to speak up. Softly, “You know, you can tell us anything. We’re here to help you.”

A snort. “You may think you are, but here’s the truth of the matter. The detective is here to figure out how I managed to take down a school shooter and why I am not as traumatized by that event as standard definitions of sanity dictate I should be. He’s here to make sure I am not a danger to myself or those around me. You’re here because I am an unregistered minor, and the law dictates that I may not be alone while I am being questioned.”

She tucked a strand of hair that had fallen from ponytail behind her ear. “When this is over, assuming I am not sent to prison or a psych ward for the dangerously insane, you are going to ship me off to a government facility for lost children or to some foster family, either of which I will promptly disappear from with what you will surely find to be a surprising amount of ease. If I get sent to a psych ward, disappearing will be only slightly more difficult. If I get sent to prison, I will wait to escape until I can find a way to do so without killing anyone who still has a conscience, but I will eventually disappear. No matter how this ends, you will not have helped me in the slightest. As for my being able to tell you anything, you are dead wrong. And no, nothing you can say to me will convince me otherwise. As Forty-seven said, this situation is fixed; I know all possible outcomes.”

Both of the adults blinked, struggling to absorb everything the girl had just said. She leaned casually against the backrest, waiting patiently. The machine continued its normal course.

It was the detective who finally broke the silence. “Ahh… Forty-seven?”

A flippant hand wave. “Hitman, a 2007 action movie based off a video game. Bit bland, with a weak plot and flat characters, but it’s a decent watch and the quote fit, anyway. Moving on.”

He cleared his throat. “Right. Let’s… get to it, then. How did you manage to take down the shooter?”

“The shooter in question was running on unchecked anger and grief. Anyone with any basic combat training will tell you that when you get angry, you make stupid mistakes. He was firing wildly; I just made myself a difficult target until I was close enough to relieve him of his weapon.”

“You cut his hand off and slit his throat! That’s– That is far beyond just disarming him!” The machine twitched but did not indicate any significant reaction.

She responded quietly, without vehemence but with conviction. “He had killed defenseless people, and was going to try to kill more. He needed to be stopped, quickly. I was capable of stopping him, and I did what was necessary. If I had focused on just disarming him, I would not have survived long enough to do so. Had I waited in the classroom with my peers until the police arrived, he would have had time to kill more, and your people would have shot him dead anyway. The only difference between that scenario and what occurred, is that he was killed by a student instead of a law enforcer, and the deed was not done at a distance using bullets. That is all.” The machine remained steady.

“You– You can’t know that! He could– He could have been talked down! He could have been saved–”

“Sure. He might have been saved. But how many more people were saved in his death?”

“You– What kind of child are you?”

“My childhood ended a long time ago, Detective. I told you, I’ve been through Tough Shit. It changed me, in ways you cannot comprehend. I enrolled at Jameson High School to try and remember what it felt like to be ‘normal’. Not to change back; that’s impossible. Just to remember. I did not harm anyone in that school in the months leading up to this incident, nor did I harm anyone during the incident aside from the shooter, whom I harmed to prevent further harm. Whether or not I took it too far is beside the point. You are questioning me to figure out if I am dangerous. Here is the truth of the matter.”

She leaned forward as he had at the beginning, making eye contact and mentally forcing him to hold it. “Yes, I am dangerous. But I am only dangerous in the presence of other dangers.” She released him from whatever spell she had cast, and settled back into her chair again.

He shuddered and clutched his pen tightly. After several false starts, he managed to choke out a question. “When… was the last time you… harmed someone?” Not if; everyone in the room knew he needn’t bother with that.

The corners of her mouth tugged downward for a moment as her chin rose. “Spring, the year before. Can’t tell you what day, or even what month. He tried to attack a woman. I castrated him. He might have died from blood loss, or he might have made it to a hospital. I didn’t stay to watch.” The words slipped forth with an unsettling ease. The machine continued its normal course.

He swallowed. Years of experience, hundreds of remembered criminals passed through his mind. He had questioned plenty of types; common thugs, vengeful lovers, vigilantes, people who were high or drunk or crazy. But none who completely wrote them off as she did. Not like this. Not someone apparently sane, who fully understood the depths of her actions, yet could easily shrug when forced to look directly at them. Never a child. He rose unsteadily from his chair and turned his back to her. In a burst of pent up energy, he kicked his chair over. He stumbled over to the mirror window and rested his forehead against the glass, gripping the frame with white knuckles. She waited.

Finally, “How many?”

“How many what?”

“How many people have you harmed?”

“Harmed? I don’t know. A lot. In almost every case, someone’s survival depended on it.”

“And… How many have you killed?”

“A lot. Not everyone I harm ends up dead, but most of them do. I don’t enjoy killing, but I am much better at it than I am at causing limited damage.”

“You said… ‘in almost every case’. What were the cases where it wasn’t for the sake of protecting someone?”

“It was one instance, though a lot of people were involved. Probably about a quarter of my total kill count is from that alone. In that instance, I ended my Tough Shit, and the Tough Shit of all the other children who were being subjected to it. When I killed those people, even then, I saved more lives than I took. But in that instance, I wasn’t actually thinking about protecting anyone; it was purely based on vengeance. And I still believe they deserved it.” The machine increased intensity, but remained at a slow, constant speed.

“What–” He hitched, but steadied himself and continued. “What did they do to deserve it?”

“Tough Shit.”

“What is Tough Shit?” He spun around to face her again.

The machine went haywire. She curled her hands into fists and started shaking. When she opened them and began tearing off the straps and cords, her fingertips were bloody again. She dropped the machine’s connections as soon as they were removed, leaving them hanging off the edge of the table, and rose to her feet. The detective and the social worker both flinched, though it was not the detective who backed nervously against a wall.

Her voice wavered for the first time since she had been brought in, a hint of sorrow showing in her eyes. “I told you, Detective. I can’t answer that question.”

She stepped over to the corner behind the door and slid down the wall to a sitting position. She closed her eyes, breathing tremulously. When she opened them, her face was blank again. She rubbed one of her wrists absentmindedly, smearing a wet red cuff into existence. The hazy words that came forth next weren’t directed at anyone in particular. “Did you know that the best way to test a child’s obedience is to light him on fire and order him not to scream?”

The Boy

“How can you– What are you?”

“I am a child. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The man snorted. “Oh, really? Well, then you’re like no kid I’ve ever met!”

“I’m not like anyone you’ve ever met, child or otherwise.”

“Care to tell me what makes you so different?”

“No.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

The boy said nothing. He stared forward dispassionately, blood dripping from the gashes on his face and body. His arms hung limply at his sides, and it was a miracle his legs were managing to hold him up; a few of the slivers from the shattered femurs were actually extending through the skin.

“Fine, then. We’ll skip the how, and move on to the why. I am quite positive I have broken every bone in your body at least once, now. Ignoring the fact that it should be physically impossible for you to stand, the pain should have at least broken your will and kept you from trying, by now.” The man narrowed his eyes at the boy, clenching his fists around the whip and the club.

“Why do you keep getting up, kid? There’s a whole room full of people waiting to be sent into my chamber. You’re just a slave; I believed them when they said you have nothing to tell me. But I meant what I said about beating you until you couldn’t stand.

“You volunteered to take their place,” the man continued wonderingly. “No slaves are that loyal to their masters. And even if you were ordered to take the first hit, you could make it end whenever you wanted to. You’ve been in here long enough! Just stay down, and let someone else come to me!”

The man struck again without warning. Bones cracked loudly as the boy was flung against the wall. He lay there for a moment, a bloody crumpled heap on the mucky stone floor. Then he moved.

Slowly, the boy put his hands under his chest. Tears streamed down his dirty face, and his bones let out a series of audible complaints as he heaved himself onto his knees, and then onto his feet. He straightened clumsily, using the wall for support.

“Why?” the man demanded. “Why get up? Your master isn’t in here! You have a choice!”

“I know.” The boy pushed himself away from the wall carefully. He took a step forward, grimaced, and then took another. Gradually, haltingly, he stumbled on, until he was back in front of the torture master. With a lot of effort, and not a small amount of pain, he lifted his head and met the man’s gaze.

What the man saw in those clear blue eyes sent shivers down his spine, and he knew what was going to be said before the boy even opened his mouth:

“I choose to keep going.”

Learning to do “Normal”

Today, while avoiding my main WIP (again) I was attempting to write a story about a perfectly normal main character. If you have read any of my fun little rides of insanity, then you should be well aware just how abnormal and difficult that is for me. If you haven’t, then simply suffice it to say I have never before written a lead that was entirely human, didn’t have at least one bizarre power or ability, and didn’t have an extremely traumatizing past. I have written many characters whose families had been mercilessly slaughtered before them when they were children, many many characters with wings or telepathy or who could turn into lions (in one case, I made one with all three) and quite a few humans who… weren’t really human, or at least not for long. So, when I say I tried to make a story with a main character who was completely human, lived with her parents, was an only child, went to high school, and was not known for beating the living daylights out of anybody… Yeah, you can probably picture how well that went!

I did manage to get a good bit of character development for my lead and her two best friends, mostly just by running through some dialogue about gym class:

Pat is quiet and reserved around anyone who is not especially close to her. Physically, she is weak and slow, but can walk for hours without getting tired. She participates in gym class, doesn’t put any real effort into it. In classes she doesn’t care about, she’s perfectly happy with simply passing; with classes she enjoys or is good at, she strives to at least get B’s in. She loves to climb, but has a minor irrational fear of falling. She likes to read, and is known personally by at least one librarian at the school. She’s a decent artist, and enjoys art class, but doesn’t have a strong enough interest in it to make it a hobby. She’s short, but not terribly so, and on the lighter side for her height. She dresses comfortably, with no real attention to fashion or style; she prefers blue jeans, simple tee-shirts, and owns only one pair of well-worn sneakers. She has a single pair of simple pin earrings, which she wears for no reason other than because she can.

Tasha is energetic, outgoing, and optimistic. She does her own thing, without worrying about what other people will think. She’s intelligent, but finds puzzles of logic, math, and science tedious and boring. She’s very creative, and dabbles in various artistic pursuits. She’s flighty, jumping from one great idea to the next, and not dismayed by thoughts of all her failed or unfinished projects. She is constantly thinking of how great she could be, and often tries to push her friends to think of their own possibilities. She is the sort of person to have a great number of misadventures, and drags her friends along for the ride. She dresses wildly, proud to be different. She wears many vibrant colors, and most of her clothes she has modified from their original forms to fit her personal style. She has a wide and varied collection of footwear, and a large number of big, dangly earrings.

Nat has a strong “attitude” and a surprisingly stubborn side, but she’s generally very cool and collected; she is nearly always in control of herself. Her temper is long, but once she’s lost it, all heck breaks loose. When she is not serious, she tends to be sarcastic, though it’s often not meant to be hurtful. She is not a genius or child prodigy, but she likes to put her mind to work. She excels at math and science, because she motivates herself to keep going at it when it becomes difficult. She is stronger than average, though she doesn’t show any enthusiasm in her gym class activities. She has a job which keeps her in shape, so unless she cares overmuch for her grade (which she doesn’t) she doesn’t really need to do the exercises assigned. Her clothes are comfortable and follow her own style, which is not as plain as Pat’s or as eccentric as Tasha’s. She prefers dark colors, especially forest green and dark purple, patterned with or alongside black. She has almost as many earrings as Tasha, but hers are smaller and more spunky.

Now, here’s my problem: I created three normal characters, but now I have no idea what to do with them. What happens to normal people that makes a good story, that normal people are capable of dealing with? I read and write way too many tales involving dragons and wizards and superheroes and spaceships and genetic experimentation and post apocalyptic mayhem… What kind of story doesn’t involve magic, monsters, or phaser weapons?

GAAH!