literature

if we are to die tonight: Endgame quickwrite

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She sleeps with the gun in the crook of her arm, clutched as close as a lover. She wants to leave it but can't bear to, because the only thing she dreams about now is an attack in the night.

She can see it, almost taste it, with awful clarity. The way the night air feels on cold skin. The way the glow cubes have faded, casting shifting, obscuring shadows. The way his face looks when he hears their approach in the dark, too close and too fast for any escape.

She has memorized the sound of his voice as he shouts. "Get out," he says, leaping to his feet. "Go!" She sees him set his weapon to his shoulder as if time has slowed. The motion takes years.

She has exactly four seconds to stare at his back--the muscles under the jacket, the thick dark hair that curls just slightly at his neck, the way his knees bend and his arms tense as he braces himself for death.

She can name the moment she cries "No," like a fool, like a sentimental fool who has no place in this game. She can feel the twist of her body as she lunges to his side and raises her own rifle into the dark.

The thought is always the same: We are about to die.

It's here that he seizes her chin, nearly startling her into squeezing off a shot. He wrenches her wide-eyed face to his and says something vehement and probably profane and kisses her in the graying light. Rough enough, fierce enough, bruising enough to be hardly a kiss. Their teeth clash. On his lips she can taste sweat and terror and a hint of smoke.

He speaks her name. Eden, he says, guttural and caught in his throat, and she thinks suddenly of paradise. Green grass, blue skies. Fruits dripping from low branches. The slow murmur of water nearby. The image of herself under a tree: clean, and whole, and, for the first time in too long, with no weapon in her hands.

Him. Walking through the grass, soundlessly, but with the wary look she recognizes. He's covered in grime, unlike her, the accumulated marks of their trials and tribulations dark on his skin. In his hands is the gun.

She stands but doesn't speak; he stops. She walks toward him, and each step seems like a mile. He doesn't relinquish his hold on the weapon, not even when she reaches him and touches his arm. Her fingers move down to his wrist, to his fingers. She pulls them away one by one. She does not look into his face.

He opens his other hand, without her prompting, and the gun tumbles to the grass between them. She steps over it, and the motion brings her close enough that their chests brush. She lifts her hands to his face, pulls him down, presses her forehead to his. He trembles under her hands.

Minutes pass. In the sunlight they feel like ages. When she pulls away, she threads her fingers through his, and he follows her toward the sound of the water.

At the stream's side she kneels and puts her hands in the clear water, lets it run over her. She lifts her hands to his face, meaning to wash away the dirt, and she's surprised when she finds the light trails of tears on his cheeks. Her throat clutches, and she holds her hands against him and swallows against tears of her own.

"Eden," he murmurs, the first word ever spoken in this impossible paradise, and then she really does cry. She drags her sleeve across her eyes and brushes at his face ineffectually until he reaches up and pulls her arms down. He doesn't speak again as he puts her hands in the stream and then splashes his own face, letting the water sluice the grime away. She keeps her eyes on the stream, watches the water. The dirt spirals away in the current.
OH GOD HELP I'VE FORGOTTEN HOW TO WRITE.

Hi, everyone. In case you're wondering where I've been since September of 2011 (which is when I posted my last writing deviation), the answer is 'sinking slowly into a pit of fail and despair'. Luckily, I'm sort of starting to make my way out. Emphasis on sort of.

At any rate, I've dug out all my notes on Epic, and work on that is progressing. In the meantime, here's a very hurried short scene that I just dashed off!

Eden and this unnamed other person are from Endgame, my rather spectacularly failed NaNoWriMo 2011. Plot details are unnecessary since the plot is pretty crap. Just know that there's war and dying. Yep.

Back for real in a bit, hopefully with better stuff. :eager:
© 2012 - 2024 austheke
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mikeymouse513's avatar
I know you think that this is horrible. And maybe for you it is. But dont try to convince US it's horrible. I know that, personally, this is way better than anything I could manage. And that's more than slightly depressing since I've been attempting to co-write a book...
It's kinda sad that your "failure" is better than many people's best.

You don't have to get so frustrated. Even if you're not doing as well as you hoped, you know you're getting better! I know I'm in a creative rut too but I'm still trying!

Okay. Enough of my pathetic attempt at a pep talk. I thought it was amazing. Don't be so hard on yourself!


And YAAY! MORE EPIC!