For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 85: Penelope supposed that as long as he was on her side then she would be fine with him investigating.
Penelope supposed that as long as he was on her side then she would be fine with him investigating. Penelope wondered if he was truly on her side. ‘After all he could be nice to me to gain my trust and then attack.’
She shut her eyes a her thoughts began to spin in a suspicion spiral.
‘No,’ she decided opening her eyes again. ‘I am going to believe he is at least working for the emperor and as I don’t think the Emperor has anything against me he isn’t trying to kill me.’ Thinking of Michaelson simply as a government representative was far better for her sanity.
‘I may have to be suspicious and wary but I have to dray the line somewhere, at least for now,’ She decided. ‘I can always put him on the suspicious list later if something changes.’
Penelope rubbed her eyes. They felt tired and gritty.
“Feeling tired,” Michaelson asked.
“A bit,” she admitted.
“Well I’m not sure of the expanding plat ration to energy output but I know magic takes energy and you did a pretty spectacular bit.”
“I suppose I did,” Penelope replied. She wondered if she needed to keep more snacks on hand if she started practicing. Then she thought of the roof top garden growing dense enough to collapse the building and thought practice might wait for a bit.
“Plus there is the emotional fatigue,” Michaelson added.
“You think I traumatized myself by almost skewering an imperial agent with a succulent?” she asked.
Michaelson smiled and chuckled to a himself. “No,” he said. “That would be my emotional trauma. Yours would be the cause of the anger you felt going through the records.”
Penelope frowned. She suddenly felt a lot more tired. “I suppose so.”
“I don’t suppose you’d like to share particulars?” He asked. “I will be looking into the details anyway.”
“So I should tell you my side of the story?”
He shrugged. “If you’d like to think of it that way. I was mostly thinking that you might want to get it out and since I am already looking…”
“You’ll soon know,” she concluded. Penelope nodded. “The trust fund was left for my education and while it paid for my tuition I was told there wasn’t enough for anything else. So to pay for books and well everything else I took extra classes while in Highschool so I could knock out some of my prerequisites and thus some time I needed to be in university. I managed to shave off nearly two years. While I don’t regret that, I did it because I was warned there might not even be enough to cover full tuition. And then when in school I always worked at least one job, often two.”
Penelope leaned back in her seat. “I don’t really regret the jobs,” she said. “In many cases I learned a lot,” she said. “And met many of my friends there. But there were things I put off because of it, extra classes I wanted to take but didn’t because I needed to focus and get through quickly.” Penelope shook her head. “Its not even that, not really.”
“Its that you were lied to,” Michaelson said. His voice was calm and even.
Ten til Midnight 