what is this?

I don't know if it's been made clear enough, but I'm planning on participating in National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, I'm going to use you as my accountability crew. Whenever I write something more, I'll post at least a portion of it here for you to comment on. If ever you want me to add something in, just leave a comment for me.

Characters you want included, episodes you think would be interesting to read about...etc. I can't promise I'll use them, but I can promise I'll read them, and if you have a blog, I'll try to at least comment back.

I tried to do NaNoWriMo last year and didn't make it through, but I'm really excited about it this year and don't want to give up on it as quickly as I have before. So please! Please be with me on this one! Tell your friends! Get them in on it too! I want as much feedback as possible to keep me going!

Thanks, my faithful readers. You make my life a better place.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Chapter Two

“This…this thing,” Tamara yelled in disgust, pointing to the writhing creature on the bed, “is not, cannot be, and will never become my sister. My sister was a woman of poise and perfection and this thing is three parts animal.”

“I don’t understand,” the doctor called over the screams of the woman on the bed. “The baby is perfectly healthy. He was extremely large for a newborn—”

“She was in intense pain through labor,” the midwife offered.

“She has been degenerating into this mass of worthlessness for the past nine months,” Tamara yelled. “She started out the beaming lady she always was and slowly lost her mind to that vampiric demon-child—”

“You’re not suggesting the fetus did this,” the doctor said sternly.

“I know it did. It took until she had nothing left to give. It sucked her dry until she turned into this half-dead urchin…”

Suddenly the baby screamed. Not the regular cry of a needy child, but a shrill, hawk-like scream. Everyone in the room went silent, even its mother, who rolled to her side, laying her hair in the pool of sweat that had collected on the pillow.

The scream droned on, higher and longer that the baby’s tiny lungs should have been able to support it. The mother joined with a low, guttural moan, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

Tamara, who had been on the verge of angry, hot tears for the past several hours, now let go and wailed, running from the room.

The sterile white hallway outside was short for the number of strides it took Tamara to barrel down it. And then she was out into the brisk dawn, the sun sluggishly pulling itself over the distant hills of Medias. Looking into those hills, Tamara let out a scream of her own: frustrated, pining, and fearful.

The child must die, her first thoughts.

You could never kill a newborn baby, her second thoughts.

My sister will die soon, herself.

That child will be mine to care for.

Mond will be his sister and he will kill her.

He will do to me what he has done to my sister.

Someone has to take this child away from the world, strip him of any power, and keep us all safe.

The hills were scarcely more than knolls, especially from this distance, but Tamara knew the secrets of Medias, and it knew hers, so the size of those hills was something she felt and didn’t see.

She turned around to the midwife lodge and judged how much time she had to herself, then turned back and sprinted towards those hills. Someone had to do something, and it wouldn’t be her. She had done too many things in her lifetime. It was someone else’s turn now. Someone who couldn’t say no.

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