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 39: Grim faced men moved into positions of defense.
Grim faced men moved into positions of defense. They looked both determined and resigned, as if they knew they had to fight but also knew they wouldn’t win.
Anya turned in her bed and moaned, the dream slipping away. She woke a moment as pain flashed though her arm. She grabbed her arm feeling as though someone shoved a red hot poker into hit. She gasped at the pain, sitting up in bed, eyes wide as she searched the darkened room for the source of her pain.
There was no one there.
Anya blinked. The sharp pain in her arm faded to a dull throbbing ached. The pain was in her left arm and she instinctively grabbed the spot of pain with her right hand. She shifted her hand back. In the darkness, the crescent shaped birthmark that had always been with her seemed to glow as though it was made of liquid metal. She blinked and the glow was gone. In the shadowed room she could barely see the birthmark. It was the brown of a freckle and no longer easily visible.
She traced a finger over it, expecting to feel the mark raised, but it was not. It was just as flat and smooth as any other part of her skin, the same way it always was. Anya lay back down, pulling the blankets up to her chin as though they could ward off evil and future pain. Even though she doubted their efficacy against an actual foe, having her arm once again hidden beneath the blankets made her feel marginally better. Anya lay back against the pillow, knowing it was too early to get up but still wide awake. She supposed she could get the book out and read some more, possibly sending herself back to sleep, but Anya styed where she was under the blankets, not wanting to move, not wanting to draw attention.
Slowly her heart rate returned to normal and as no pain returned Anya was able to relax. She drifted in and out of sleep, the slightest creak of the building around her startling her awake and making her search the darkest corners with her eyes while still huddled in bed.
By the time light started to creep in around the edges of the window, Anya felt more exhausted than if she had stayed up all night. Slowly she uncurled herself from her tightly wound position. She felt safer stretching and moving about now that there was light edging in. There was still no sound of the others nearest her, but she felt it was time to get up anyway. Anya moved quietly, not wanting to disturb those still sleeping in the rooms beside hers. As she brushed out the night tangles from her hair and braided it to wind around her head for the day, Anya replayed her night.
The dreams she could put down to the book. She was reading about an ancient empire before falling asleep it seemed only natural that she dream about it. The pain in her arm was something else.
‘And I know I didn’t imagine the glow.’ She told herself. She knew she was wide awake at that point and that the pain was too vivid to be a nightmare. Anya tried to recall a time before when her birthmark hurt. She searched her memory as she shed her night dress and began to dress for the day ahead. She could not come up with a single instance where her birthmark was anything but a funny shaped freckle on her arm. It never hurt. ‘And it certainly never glowed before.’
Ten til Midnight 