The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is a attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 9: Eventually, she reached the top of the rock pile.
Eventually, she reached the top of the rock pile. Her muscles were shaking and she ached in places she had not known it was possible to ache. While she once climbed trees with her brothers and scampered over the boulders with the rest of the children in the ruins outside the village, it had been years since she played such games. While those sorts of activities were indulged in the small, she was far too old for them and young ladies did not do such things. While her body forgot the movements, her brain remembered.
Finding herself on a relatively flat space, Anya took a moment to rest. The stars were still overhead, but they looked faded as though dawn was soon to approach. She was always called from her bed early and was no stranger to seeing the dawn approach but this was still too early for even her to rise.
‘So there is still time,’ Anya thought. She didn’t know if there was anyone watching, but she thought that darkness might be an aid in her escape. Surely anyone watching would be less likely to see her then. The problem was when to chance a run out of the safety of her current shelter. Right now she was safely out of the tower and hidden and no one was in pursuit. She knew once her absence was missed then her captors would seek for the way she escaped. Even if it took them a while to find the tunnel, she didn’t think it would take them too long to travel it’s length and figure out where it let out. She needed to be gone from here.
As she let her body recover from the climb, Anya debated whether to stay in the collapsed building for the upcoming day and to leave the following night or to chance leaving as soon as she could and get to shelter elsewhere before someone could think to search.
In the end, the thought of being caught in a hole in the ground was too fearful to contemplate and Anya made her way cautiously to the edge of the rubble. The sky was lighter now, but there were plenty of concealing shadows. Anya cautiously looked around and saw that where she was emerging from the ruins was nearer to the forest than her tower. She didn’t know the forest, and didn’t know where the ruins were even located in relation to Tyrin, but she knew the trees would help conceal her presence even in day light.
Anya looked over her shoulder and was able to see the tower in the distance. There was a road nearest it and while she wasn’t sure where it lead, she did know that it was the road her guard took and that it led off in the opposite direction.
‘I can make it to the trees before full light,’ Anya decided. She eased herself out of the mouth of the stone lined hole and slid down the still relatively smooth face of a collapsed wall. There was no outcry from her movements. No calls of alar,. She edged forward and kept moving. Even though the ground was strewn with rubble the stones were large enough and widely spaced enough to allow her relatively easy passage.
Anya felt as if she held her breath as she picked her way around the fallen buildings. She felt like she was only inching along but the forest was coming ever closer. The sky was growing lighter every second and as Anya finally reached the thick shadows of the forest, the rosy glow of dawn was starting to paint the fallen stones crimson. As the forest was still an obvious destination, Anya kept moving as she entered the trees. The thick boles were wide enough to allow easy passage.
Ten til Midnight 