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 58: She suspected that those left alive were attempting removal in shifts.
She suspected that those left alive were attempting removal in shifts. There were piles of yet to be burned furniture and when she looked, she could also see stacked sheet covered bodies waiting to go onto the next funeral pyre. Slipping back into the Sanctuary, Kasca followed the corridors near the fire pit. It took her a little while, but she finally managed to find the rooms of the living. There were two occupied zones. One was filled with people who were infected. The other held those who were not. The infected ones were preparing the dead, moving when their own weariness would allow them. The uninfected were hidden behind their shields. Given the state of the shields and the exhaustion she could see, she doubted those shields would last long.
There were only a handful of people still holding out against contamination. ‘But there is a window,’ Kasca old herself. She slipped outside and thought that she could get to the window in what would seem more like an obvious rather than invasive search. Deciding there was little time to waste, Kasca slipped back into her own body in the cottage.
As she thought through the necessary steps to create the ball of light for communication, Kasca ate some of the left over soup she made earlier. Thus fortified. She cast the spell.
It was similar to the scrying spell except that she could only see the area in front of the ball of glowing light. The sensation was slightly dizzying at first as the light zipped through the air, but she soon got the hang of it and sent the ball to the sanctuary. She allowed it to move around the outer walls as though searching for someone without coming in. She was spotted and Kasca saw someone step out onto a balcony outside one of the windows she knew led to the area with the uninfected. Kasca guided the ball of light forward.
It was the man she spoke with before. He looked tired and haggard. Given her own recent energy drains, Kasca was certain she didn’t look much better.
“Hello,” he called. He smiled slightly. “I would have updated you but we have been conserving energy and there isn’t much to say.”
“I understand,” Kasca told him. “I was able to find what information. It was the formula the Overlord worked out to stop the disease.”
Hope sparked in the man’s eyes and he called for parchment, pen and ink. Kasca relayed the formula for the cure and he wrote down what she told him.
“I don’t know how effective it will be but it was all I managed to learn,” she told him.
“It is more than we had and may help us,” he told her. “Thank you.”
Kasca nodded. “I’m afraid my energy is waning so I can’t stay longer. Hopefully it will be effective and you will let me know.”
“We will,” he said. “For now we will focus on this and if successful we will come to let you know.”
Kasca nodded and let the spell fade away. She sat in the cottage and thought about the short exchange.
Ten til Midnight 