Morning all and welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Here I take the start of a story idea and work on it for fifteen minutes a day. I started with an old writing prompt that interested me, cleaned it up a bit to fit the basic outline of the story I want to write and then set aside fifteen minutes each week day to see it grow. Each morning’s writing starts with the last sentence of the day before. And so now we have the story of Kasca…
Day 27: Kasca nodded.
Kasca nodded. “I appreciate that,” she told him. He smiled and the globe of light faded away, taking his image with it. Kasca sighed feeling a bit tired. The contagion reached the stronghold.
‘At least I am not the one who brought it,’ she thought. Kasca went to the fire and stirred the soup she was making.
She didn’t know much about the contagion. She knew it appeared to be quite virulent as she saw no survivors on her way to the Sanctuary. She didn’t know the population of the sanctuary or how quickly they caught the contagion and quarantined those contaminated. She also knew there was nothing she could do for them. She could only wait and see what happened.
“At least I’ll have time to get through more of the books,” she told herself.
She let the soup simmer and moved to the table to take a little bread and cheese for her breakfast. The soup would be ready around mid day and she had no desire to add a second pot of porridge to the fire.
She sat at the table with the portion she allowed herself, her thoughts more on the new information than the food. If the Overlord did flee the contagion he would have taken his beasts with him. There was anger that sparked within her at the thought of him leaving them to deal with things on their own. It was a small spark that quickly died. The Overlord was bleeding the people and killing them long before the contagion. His demands for more trade goods and increasing shares of their crops kept them on the brink of starvation.
Many felt that the Overlord believed if they were half starved then they were less likely to rebel. ‘Admittedly he was pushing us past half starved with the last quotas.’
It was what pushed her people towards the alliance and rebellion.
‘Apparently there is a balancing act to keeping people hungry. On one side is compliance and on the other rebellion.’
Kasca frowned as she thought of the last quota. They were noticeably higher than before. It wasn’t a minor increase. This past autumn when the collectors came the quotas were nearly doubled. While the collectors hadn’t arrived before Kasca left everyone was expecting the same if not more. The Overlord increased the quotas, he did not lower them.
‘What if he was stockpiling,’ Kasca thought. She didn’t know when the disease started, but she knew that the Overlord was already extending his reach. His creatures and their arrival with trade negotiations were partially what caused the alliance. “He could have been stockpiling food for war,” she told herself as she paused to take a drink of sweet water.
It made sense.
Again, she wondered about the timeline. When did the disease first appear and where did it come from? A thought occurred to her leaving Kasca blinking. ‘If the Overlord fled the disease he wouldn’t have simply gone alone, he would have brought his creatures and possibly those who served him with him.’ Kasca took a slow and steady breath. She wondered if he knew they were free of contamination or if they took the disease with them.’
It was a chilling thought and Kasca did her best to set it to the side.
Ten til Midnight 