Almost Got It

"Hurry up!" Joe urged, almost hopping up and down with impatience.

"You're not helping," Bryan replied as he wiped a sheen of sweat from his face.

"You realize that we could all die?" Joe said.

"Gee, I didn't know that Joe!" Bryan said, laying the sarcasm on thick, "it's not like I can't see the timer. This isn't as easy as it looks."

Joe started pacing back and forth as Bryan continued to work, literally humming with anxiety.

"I've almost got it," Bryan mumbled more to himself than to Joe.

Joe stopped pacing to watch his friend intently, "ten seconds he warned."

Bryan could hear the beeping of the timer and held his breath as it read 3...2...1

He let out and explosive breath and let his head drop into his hands, frustrated with his failure. "I can't believe I have to start the level all over again," he moaned and picked up the controller

Almost finished

"Don't you ever worry about deadlines?" Ariana asked as she filled in yet another line on yet another college application. She not only needed to finish fulling out the applications but also write up the required essays. She and David were applying for all the same schools and hoping that they were accepted to the same ones. She was holding out for an East coast school.

"Not really," David said. His own papers were all neatly filled out and sitting in a pile along with the essays; he was intent on addressing envelopes. "If you are prepared and start early then there is really no need to panic over deadlines."

Ariana knew that he was right and that she should get batter at prioritizing. She knew that she was smart; she just didn't like to think about deadlines. Didn't like to feel pressured. She laughed to herself, her lips twitching into a small grin, "you would think that as much as I don't like pressure that I would have had these done a while ago like you did."

David shrugged and leaned back, "everyone deals with stuff like this differently," he said and leaned over to give his girl a quick hug. "Are you almost finished?" he asked.

"Yeah. Almost finished," Ariana said and turned back to her forms.

You Need to Know

James could see around the edges of the blindfold, and he knew he was somewhere dim, dim enough that he couldn’t tell the color of the floors but light enough that he could sense shadows - people - moving around him. They spoke a flurry of foreign languages, jumping from one to the next that James was beginning to suspect, over the pounding of his heart, that they couldn’t understand each other at all.

He’d just been walking along the Thames, admiring the London Eye and the lights along the South Bank, and then it had been just like in the films, a black van, masked men with guns, a black bag over his head. James had kicked and fought for all he was worth, but then someone jabbed him in the neck and his world went white.

And now he was kneeling on the damp cement floor of some dimly lit room while his captors argued furiously. James caught snatches of Russian, French, and German, and maybe something else European - Norwegian? - but there were other languages in there that sounded almost completely made up.

And then a man spoke, in perfectly crisp Queen’s English, like the type MPs and the Etonian-Oxbridge elite spoke, and he said,

“Time’s up.”

Someone yanked the blindfold off, and James had to blink at the cliché, the single lightbulb swinging from overhead.

“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked, keeping his voice level.

“He really doesn’t look all that afraid,” one man said, and he had a bland accent, as if English weren’t his first language but he’d learnt it well.

“He’s an actor,” another man said, and he had an American accent, a strangely familiar voice. “He’s terrified, but he thinks he’s not going to give us the satisfaction.”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” a fourth man said, and James counted six in all.

“That’s what they all say, before they chop a man’s hand off,” James said.

A fifth man started to laugh, turned it into a cough. “He thinks we’re terrorists.” And he reached up, pulled off his mask. “Hello, James.”

James blinked. “You’re –”

“Not actually in a boyband,” Christian said. “We’re here to protect you, actually. You’re lucky it was us and not someone else who grabbed you.”

“Why did you bring me here?” James asked. If Christian was one of his kidnappers, that meant the others were...

One by one, Asia’s brothers tugged off their masks. That familiar voice had been Tobias, then, and of course the Queen’s English was Angel.

“We need a place to hold you until we can arrange for a safehouse,” DJ said, and it was strange, seeing someone James knew as artistic and dreamy and model-vapid speaking with all the efficiency of a seasoned soldier.

“Why?” James asked.

“Like Christian said, to protect you,” Gabriel said.

“From whom?”

“Everyone,” Tobias said. He offered a hand. “Now come on - there are some things you need to know.”

(495 words)

Your Time is Up

Joe was ecstatic. Time had run out and he was ready to leave. He smiled to himself, Not only was he leaving behind this nightmare of a foster home but he had somewhere to go. Joe grabbed a few more things and placed them in a box.

As if sensing the end was near, Hal came bursting into the room. Joe could smell the booze on him and he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the putrid scent.

"Where do you think you're going?" the drunkard slurred in Joe's general direction, his eyes unable to focus very well.

"Shouldn't matter to you," Joe said. He could hardly stand the sight of the man let alone the smell.

"You don't turn eighteen until next week," Hal said as he approached Joe, his hand curling onto a fist, "until then, you stay."

Joe laughed, tears coming to his eyes at the ridiculousness of the situation, "you think you can make me stay? You think you can tell me what to do anymore? You think I'm going to stick around and let you try to ruin my life further? Though, heaven knows, the only think that you could do is make me sick from looking at you," Joe said in derision.

"I'll teach you a thing or two before you go," Hal threatened as he moved forward. He didn't see how Joe shifted his weight, hands held loosely by his side.

Before Hal could raise his fist Joe had struck quick as lighting, his own blow landing in Hal's spongy midsection, followed quickly by a vicious right cross to the face.

Hal stumbled backwards and fell to the ground, gripping his stomach in obvious agony. He looked up to see Joe standing over him and flinched back from the rage in his face.

"Your time is up Hal," Joe said and stepped over the prone man on the ground.

Hurry

“Would it be annoying of me to ask you to hurry?” Cody asked, his tone tight and more than a little sarcastic.

Kyle knelt at the base of the wall, scribbling Hebrew letters as fast as he could, murmuring the ward incantations under his breath. Elise was curled around her guitar in the other corner; she was too tense to even play. Marsh was watching the entire proceedings, mouth set in a thin line. He had a pair of dice in one hand and was rattling them, but he hadn’t thrown them yet.

All four of their angels were wheeling high overhead in the beams and buttresses of the cathedral like so many carrion birds.

“Hurry up, please,” Cody said.

“I’m almost there.”

Cody watched the seconds tick by on the face of his very expensive wristwatch. “Yes, well, the Choir of the Fallen gave us a deadline, and we have eighty-seven more seconds to meet it.”

“If you’d let me work, I could get this done,” Kyle said, “and then we’ll meet it.”

Cody forced himself to take a deep breath and step away from the wall. The government was insane if it thought it could control the fallen. The geological record was scarred with ice ages and volcanoes, earth-shattering cataclysms because more than on idiot had thought he could control the powers of darkness.

Then Kyle said, “There,” and sat back, wiped his hand theatrically across his brow. He grinned up at Cody. “That should keep them out.”

Marsh and Elise wilted in relief.

And then there came a pounding at the double doors, like someone had taken a battering ram to them, and Agent Samuels said,

“Open up! This is the FBI!”

“So much for those wards,” Cody muttered.

The four angels came swooping down to the ground.

(303 words)

Simply Ask

"Time's getting short," Bryan taunted his brother, his tone almost sing-song in quality.

"Don't you think I know that!" Mark snarled back. His hands clenched and unclenched unconsciously as he paced back and forth in the room that they shared.

Bryan stood off to one side of the room and watched his twins restless pacing. "Seriously," he asked after a few minutes of the one man parade, "what is the big deal about this? It's not like it's the end of the world or anything."

"Easy for you to say," Mark muttered.

"What was that?" Bryan asked leaning forward.

"I said, that it's easy for you to say that. You've never had troubles with this sort of thing. It just comes easily for you," Mark said.

"Okay, seriously," Bryan said, "just go and ask her. I know you like her and she likes you, and the dance is in three days. And," Bryan stressed, "if you don't ask Katie now then somebody else might and then you lose out."

"You're right," Mark said and sat down on the edge of the bed, "but I just don't know what to say." He had heard all of the various girls around the school gushing about who had been asked and how and all the creativity that seemed to be an intrinsic part of the biggest dance of the year.

"How about, would you like to go to the dance with me?" Bryan suggested simply. He reclined on the bed with his hands crossed behind his head.

"I guess I should go and ask her then," Mark said.

"Now is as good a time as any," Bryan replied sagely and tossed his brother his cell phone.

Mark caught the phone and heard a quiet ringing coming from it followed by a faint, "hello?"

Mark raised the phone to his ear and swallowed hard, "Hi Katie, it's Mark...."

Best Muse Ever

“Are you all right?” Israfel was tucked into a corner, a lap harp perched on his knees while he plucked desultory minor chords.

“No,” Elise said. She reached up to run a hand through her hair again and had to consciously force herself to stop, because she’d been doing that for the last hour and turned her hair into a rat’s nest. She sat on her free hand and continued twirling her pencil with her right hand. The staff paper remained stubbornly blank, and she couldn’t hear anything but those stupid minor chords. She twisted around and said, “Could you knock it off for just a little bit?”

Israfel obediently lifted his hands off the strings, and the instrument dissolved into thin air.

Elise narrowed her eyes, untrusting of the blank guilelessness on Israfel’s face, but she said, “Thanks,” and resumed staring at the empty staff paper. It was taunting her.

“The song is due at noon,” Israfel said. “It’s almost one a.m. now.”

“I know that,” Elise said between gritted teeth. She hummed under her breath, and the tune was catchy. Maybe she could work with it. But then she realized it was just the melody to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. Crap. She needed something original.

“Tick tock,” Israfel sing-songed, and he was grinning, that winged nuisance.

Tick tock, Elise thought glumly, and then it struck her. She yanked a blank piece of paper out of her math notebook and began scratching out lyrics.

Tick tock
It’s the running of the clock
The countdown
To the meltdown
And the end of
Time

Then she abandoned the lyrics and scooped up her guitar, and now she could hear it, her song, her one song glory. She tried chord after chord until she found the one that matched the beauty in her mind, and as she played it came to her, the slide of notes, the shift of chords, the pattern and the rhythm.

When she stopped to look at the clock again, it was almost five a.m. and Israfel was singing a countermelody for the chorus.

Deadlines were the best muse ever.

(355 words)

Know What it Takes?

"Come on Steve!" Bryan called down the hall, "are you ready to hit the club?"

"I can't come," Steve called back, adjusting his glasses with one hand while his other hand kept his place in the shuffle of papers on the desk.

"What!? Why not?" Bryan asked as he entered the room. He was dressed to go out. A slightly iridescent black shirt was paired with comfortable jeans.

Steven looked up from his paperwork, "because I have reports and paperwork to finish that are due next week. And they won't do themselves," he said calmly.

"Aw man, take the night off," Bryan wheedled, "you can get it done tomorrow."

"If I do that then I will get behind," Steve said as he turned back to his papers, "do you know what it takes to keep this unit running smoothly?"

Bryan thought about that for a moment, realizing that he didn't know exactly how everything got to where it needed to be and how they got their money, or paid their bills or received their supplies. He always assumed that some clerk in the military handled the logistics of the team.

"I guess not," Bryan finally said.

Steve nodded, more to himself than to Bryan and returned to his paperwork as Bryan left the room.

"I should be free on Friday night though!" he called to Bryan. He couldn't see Bryan's grin as he walked out the front door.

Loaded Dice

“Why aren’t you doing your homework?” Tabris asked.

Marsh was buried in a gaming manual, scribbling notes about storylines, NPCs, and possible adventures. “Because it’s not due for another couple of days. I can do it tomorrow night.”

“But what if you’re distracted tomorrow night?” Tabris leaned his chin on his hand and blinked at Marsh with wide gray eyes.

Marsh didn’t look up. “That’s a chance I’ll have to take, isn’t it? Life’s a game of chance. Homework is chance – either I’ll get it done, or I won’t, and in the end if I’m not supposed to get it done it won’t get it done, no matter how hard I work.”

Tabris hummed thoughtfully, tunelessly, and his eyes gleamed red briefly. “Perhaps. Or maybe you misunderstand your place in the universe – and mine.” He reached out and scooped up a handful of Marsh’s dice, cast them across the carpet.

“Don’t ruin my dice mojo,” Marsh said.

Tabris prodded him in the arm. “Look.”

Marsh huffed, annoyed, and rolled his eyes, lifted his head to look. And stared. All five dice had come up twenty. Marsh turned to Tabris and gaped.

Tabris fluttered his fingertips and said, “Just because life is a game of chance doesn’t mean you can’t take action to tip the scales in your favor. If you do your homework now, there’s a greater chance that it’ll get done and you’ll face no repercussion. But if you wait till tomorrow...”

Marsh set aside his manual and reached for his backpack. “It’s creepy, you know,” he said. “You’re a worse nag than my mum, and you’re a dude.”

Tabris arched an eyebrow.

“Well,” Marsh amended, “you’re sort of a dude.”

Tabris threw his head back and laughed, shook out his massive gold-tipped wings. “I’m an angel, and there’s nothing else like me on earth.”

“Except Israfel, Asrael, and Gabriel,” Marsh said.

Tabris swiped at him, and Marsh dodged, laughing.

At the foot of the stairs, Marsh’s mother stared at her son’s madness and shook her head. The doctors had told them it was hereditary; she should have known it would fall on her shoulders, one way or another. In her family, the dice were always loaded.

(369 words)

Overview #83: Raise a character

So...I spent a bit too much time on his childhood and then skipped straight to his death. I guess, in my head, the full novel would cover his adolescence, which is pretty much why I skipped it. I hadn't intended to make Cody a super-genius (in my head he was always smart, but Kyle was meant to be the special one) and I really didn't intend for Cody to die (but it looks like Elise died too), but in the end it worked, and I'm okay with it. So...now I at least have the hang of Cody.

Poor Cody.

I killed him.

Project Assignment #84 - Deadlines

This week is about deadlines! Deadlines for work, applications to school, projects...

Do your characters crack under pressure? Do they carefully plan out everything so there is hardly any stress involved? Do they perform best when time is short? Are they procrastinators or the type that is right on top of things? Do they abhor deadlines with a passion or work best when they have one?

500 words max

Have Fun!!

It All Went Wrong

Maybe Cody had been listening to Elise’s music too much, because as he stood facing down Agent Samuels and a dozen other armed agents, all he could think of were song lyrics.

Six feet under by age twenty-five.

It was a sad, sad day when his life could be summed up by the lyrics to song by a band called Venus in Furs. Somewhere, while she plucked playfully at Israfel’s wings, Elise was laughing.

“Stand down, Cohen,” Agent Samuels said. Her voice shook, but her hands on the gun were firm.

Cody knew why her voice was shaking. Even though she couldn’t see them, she could feel them, the Fallen who’d accompanied the choirboys the government had rounded up, had foolishly thought were prizes. Samael, Abbadon, Malpas and Zagan. They hovered on the edges of the crowd, black eyes glittering with malicious glee, and their choirboys stared past Cody, eyes devoid of human soul.

“I have nowhere to go but down,” Cody said. “Six feet under, from the looks of it.”

“You don’t have to die today, Cohen,” Agent Samuels said. “What do you say? Will you come with me?”

Samael was the first to move, had always been the first to move, from the war in heaven to the war on earth, and he was grinning.

Cody felt afraid and tired, but mostly tired, because he’d spent the last ten years being afraid, and he was tired of it.

“Can you hear me? Cohen? Don’t listen to your angel. Listen to me. Cohen!” Agent Samuels said.

She didn’t know Asrael was gone and, for the first time in a long time, Cody was alone.

Agent Samuels shouted again, “Cohen!”

And Cody remembered lyrics to a song half-forgotten.

And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but...

“Hallelujah,” Cody whispered, and stepped back over the edge of the cliff.

(322 words)

Welcome to Growing Up

“Well this is an unfortunate turn of events,” Cody said, staring at himself in the mirror.

Behind him, Asrael spread his wings, and for a moment it looked like Cody had two heads and a pair of massive feathered wings. “How so?”

Cody poked at his jaw. “I have a zit.”

“Aren’t blemishes a common occurrence for all adolescents?” Asrael said. He tilted his head to one side quizzically.

“I’ve never had one before, and school pictures are today,” Cody said. He sighed. It didn’t really matter what he looked like for school pictures since people only really saw Jonathan’s pictures anyway, but he shuddered to think about what Sterling Shepard’s friends would do if they saw.

“As you always say, there’s a first time for everything.” That Asrael could smile and make a joke like that was disturbing, seeing how he was the angel of death. Or maybe he’d just been around Cody for too long.

Cody sighed and reached for his toothbrush. He’d heard his mother nag Jonathan plenty of times – if he didn’t pick at it, it wouldn’t scar.

Asrael studied Cody’s reflection some more. “After school, if you like, I can help you practice your piece for your bar mitzvah.”

Cody blinked, surprised. “Really?”

Asrael nodded. “I’m nowhere near as talented as Israfel, but –”

“Thank you,” Cody said. “I’d really like that.”

Jonathan banged on the door. “Cody, stop talking to yourself in there. It’s creepy.”

“I have a zit,” Cody called back.

Jonathan laughed. “Welcome to growing up, little brother. Now hurry up and get out of there – my study group will be here any moment now.”

Cody rolled his eyes. Jonathan just wanted to impress the pretty girls in his college classes.

Asrael started to fade from visibility. “You don’t want to be late for school,” he said.

Cody rolled his eyes again. The angel of death was starting to sound like his most annoying nanny.

(322 words)

The Voice

It was the night after Grandma Bernstein’s funeral that Cody first heard the voice. He was almost seven and Jonathan was supposed to be preparing for his bar mitzvah, so Cody thought Jonathan was practicing what the cantor had given him to sing, but after he opened his eyes and listened, he realized it was neither Hebrew nor Jonathan’s voice.

Except Jonathan was the only one in the house who called him Cody.

Can you hear me, Cody? Will you listen?

Cody said, “I’m listening.”

Will you follow my voice?

Cody kicked the covers aside. It sounded like the voice was whispering over near the door, so he followed it.

Come along, the voice whispered, so softly Cody couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The door creaked open. Cody tip-toed down the hall, tracking the soft whispers. Was it just his imagination, or were the shadows moving? He thought he felt something slither against his ankle as he turned into the drawing room.

As he moved across the carpet, he realized the voice was leading him toward Grandma Bernstein’s favorite chair.

Well done, sweet singer, the voice said.

Cody blinked at the empty chair, confused. “I’m not a sweet singer,” he said. “That’s Jonathan. I can’t sing at all.”

The susurration that followed could only have been called laughter. But you will speak for a member of a choir, and through you my sword will sing.

Cody had read about swords in books. They sounded fun, but people usually ended up getting hurt. “I don’t want a sword.”

Worry not, the voice said, for this sword is not of steel and shine but of silence and chaos, and it will show you the edge of the world.

“What’s at the edge of the world?” Cody asked.

Death, the voice said.

“Like where Grandma Bernstein went?”

There was no answer.

Cody peered at the chair. “Hello? Is that where she went?”

A hand came down on his shoulder, and he yelped.

“Nicodemus,” Mr. Cohen said. He looked annoyed and half-awake. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

Cody immediately ducked his head. “Sorry. I thought I heard something.”

Mr. Cohen said, “Go back to bed.”

Cody obeyed. As he tugged the covers up to his chin, the voice whispered, right next to his ear, Good night.


(389 words)

Reading and Writing

“What was that?” Mr. Cohen glanced up briefly from his newspaper.

“Nicodemus,” he said.

“Yes, that’s your name.” Mr. Cohen returned to his perusal of the Wall Street Journal.

“That paper over the fireplace,” Nicodemus said. “It says Nicodemus.”

“Yes it does,” Mr. Cohen said.

Jonathan blinked and paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. “You can read?”

Nicodemus nodded. “Yes. That paper – it says Nicodemus Matthias Cohen. Nicodemus is a very long word. I don’t like it.”

“It’s your name,” Mr. Cohen said. “Whether or not you like it is irrelevant.”

Jonathan goggled at his father, then at his little brother. “Nicodemus, how old are you?”

Nicodemus blinked and looked down at his hand, then held up four fingers.

“Say it,” Jonathan said, because for the first three years of his life, Nicodemus had been reluctant to say anything at all.

“Four,” Nicodemus said.

“How do you spell it?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m not sure,” Nicodemus said. “It could be f-o-r, f-o-r-e, or f-o-u-r.”

“Dad,” Jonathan said. “Nicodemus can read.”

“As can you and I and the maid and the miscreant who washes our windows,” Mr. Cohen said.

Jonathan reached into his pocket for a pen and notebook, and he scribbled out four letters. “Can you read this?”

Nicodemus leaned forward in his high chair and peered, nose scrunched up in concentration. “Um...does it say yahweh?”

“Where did you learn to read Hebrew?” Jonathan’s eyes were wide with excitement and awe.

“You have a book,” Nicodemus said. “Beginner’s Guide to Hebrew. You left it in the toy room.”

Jonathan twisted around in his chair. “Mama, Nicodemus knows how to read!”

Mrs. Cohen glanced up from her folder full of complicated papers about a party she was planning for some of the other wives in the neighborhood. “Really, Nicodemus?”

Nicodemus said, “I don’t like my name. Too long. I want to be...Cody. It’s short.”

Mr. Cohen said, “Absolutely not. It’s a terribly plebeian name after a charlatan who made a living off of racism and genocide.”

Mrs. Cohen raised and eyebrow at Jonathan and said, “What have I told you about telling tales? Now eat your breakfast. The driver’s already got the car warming. You don’t want to be late for school.”

Jonathan tried to protest, tried to explain that Nicodemus could read, but then Nicodemus got his pen, and his pen met the fine white tablecloth.

(400 words)

And a Spare

Mr. and Mrs. Cohen stood over the bassinet and gazed down at their son.

“Nicodemus is a noble name,” Mr. Cohen said.

“Compared to Jonathan, you don’t think it’s a bit...austere?” Mrs. Cohen asked.

“He’s a Cohen,” Mr. Cohen said. The baby boy in the bassinet blinked big, dark eyes up at his father and pressed his tiny chubby fist to his mouth. “He will adjust as is necessary. Children are more resilient than we give them credit for.”

Mrs. Cohen eyed the blue romper suit the nanny had chosen; she didn’t like the color, but the baby seemed comfortable. “I really liked David, though. It would be poetic, don’t you think? Jonathan and David.”

Mr. Cohen shot her a withering look. “You know what people today say about Jonathan and David. Besides, Jonathan was prince, but it was David who became king. That’s not how things will be in this house.”

Mrs. Cohen nodded and stepped back from the bassinet. “I know. Heir and a spare. Jonathan already takes after his father.”

Mr. Cohen cast the baby one last look before turning and heading for the door. “I’d prefer it if we didn’t need a spare, but life never gives us the guarantees we want. Now come along – I want to hear from the tutors how Jonathan is doing.”

The door swung shut, and the baby was left staring up at the ceiling and wondering when a pleasant face would come back.

(244 words)

Project #83: Raise a character

We've done this before, and we're going it again, but this time with a longer word count and one day less. You have 100-400 words to raise a character, from birth to death (because everyone is born/created, and everyone ends, even vampires and gods). You can choose your moments from societally acknowledged rites of passage, like learning to walk, learning to ride a bike, learning to read, learning to drive, going on a first date, getting married, becoming a parent – whatever you choose. You can choose a character you've been working on or try a brand new one. It's up to you!

Happy writing.

Overview #82: Books

I started out this week all right, except I totally bailed on feedback, for which I apologize. I was excited about this challenge, because I hadn't really thought about the literariness of my characters. It would be stereotypical to have Cody be really well-read, and obviously Angel and Asia would be incredibly well-read. As DJ is an artist, surely he would read graphic novels. I tried to shake it up a bit, pick books that made sense but were also a twist, and I think I did the best with Angel, but everyone else...yeah. I was pretty proud of what I did with Marsh, because he's the seraph-verse character I know the least, and I liked what happened with him.

In the end, I've been watching too much MI-5 and I picked too many books that I like (although it would be difficult for me to pick books I don't like, as I don't remember them and can't give them to characters as a result), and I welched on feedback, so this week was a posting success but otherwise kind of a bust.

Also, it feels like I still have writer's block.

Holy Books

“I don’t know why more people don’t read the Bible,” Angel said. “It’s very comforting, no matter your religion.”

Asia tipped her head back against the coolness of the cement wall. “It’s only comforting if you believe its words. Otherwise it’s just...Early Modern English poetry, and not great poetry, for that matter.”

Angel smiled faintly. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil –”

“Because I am the God of Death, and this is my valley, baby,” Christian said, and he grinned.

Jo Seung peered up at them from the opposite corner. “They’re gonna torture us, aren’t they?”

Asia glanced toward the door. On the other side, they could hear the faint rattlings and mumblings of their captors. “Probably,” she said.

Christian shot her a look.

Asia arched an eyebrow and continued blithely. “Not just them, though. They’ve been paid, so they’ll pass us on to whoever wants us next.”

“You sound remarkably calm,” Jo Seung said.

Angel leaned in to her and said, too low for human ears to hear, “Just because we don’t die doesn’t mean we don’t feel pain.”

“Did you really think this was the first time I’d been captured?” Asia asked.

“I’ve been captured before too, obviously,” Angel said. “Usually I escaped – or died temporarily.”

Asia said flatly, “They don’t treat men and women the same in captivity.”

Angel’s mouth closed so fast his teeth clicked.

Outside the door, someone began to scream. Jo Seung flinched.

Angel said, “Ignore it – it’s just a recording.”

Jo Seung shook his head. “No – it’s Jamal. I know his voice!” His face was pale, his eyes wide.

“It’s a recording,” Angel said again.

Jo Seung began to shake.

Angel slid closer to him, wrapped an arm around his shoulders, began to murmur softly.

“That’s from the Qu’ran,” Asia said. “He’s Korean. Try something – Buddhist.”

“That’s stereotyping,” Jo Seung. “I’m Christian.”

Christian said, “Forget religion.” He shuffled closer to Jo Seung, nudged the boy’s shoulder with his. “Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once.”

“I’ve been valiant,” Jo Seung said. “I’ve served The Change. But I’m pretty sure I will die a thousand times before these people are done with me.”

“If you like,” Asia said, “you only need die the one.”

Angel blinked. “What?”

But Jo Seung nodded. “Please.”

Asia turned to Angel and said, “What other holy books have you read?”

Angel began to recite from the Rig Vedas, and Asia closed her hands around Jo Seung’s neck. He was smiling as he listened, and then he closed his eyes, and Asia twisted.

(442 words)

Any Other Twenty-somethings

“Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly –”

“That’s pretty morbid,” Serena said.

James sighed. “I was trying to read.”

“Yes, aloud,” Katie said, and rolled her eyes.

“It’s actually not that morbid,” Riley said without looking up from his copy of Love in a Time of Cholera. “It’s about the Lady of Shallott.”

“There was a lady of wild garlic?” Serena wrinkled her nose. “Sounds like she’s totally your style, James.”

“She’s from Arthurian legend,” Riley said. “She was in love with Sir Lancelot.”

“I thought that was Queen Guinevere,” Serena said.

“She was in love with Lancelot too, but...well, lots of ladies fancied him,” Riley said. “That’s not the point. Keep reading, James.”

Katie arched an eyebrow. “He was reading for you?”

Serena hummed. “James does have a pleasant speaking voice.”

Riley turned a page in his book. “Read, minion.”

Soon the power would be back on and they could resume shooting. Till then, they were sprawled on the grass in the sun, pretending they were any other twenty-somethings, dressed in medieval gear and sitting in the lee of a fourteenth century castle.

(194 words)