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 69: Her friends and neighbors were all gone.
Her friends and neighbors were all gone. Nothing but the wind moved in Deva. There was no home to go back to. Desperate to see people, Kasca shifted her mnd south and back to the Sanctuary. Having been there it was easy to slip into the cottage without the use of the talisman.
She scanned the cottage and saw it was as she left it. The cottage was settled. When she slipped into the yard she could see the new growth of spring and the still barred gates to the palisades. It was bolted on the inside as she worried that others might come in when she didn’t want them to, even when she first arrived. The thought shifted something in her, but it was something she would think about after she searched.
The outer brace was still in place proving that those from the Sanctuary had not tried to get in. She let her sight continue up to the Sanctuary.
It was recovering from the disease. Sort of. The population seemed reduced, but given the number of empty spaces in the sanctuary she saw before, she thought their size had not been that great before. Kasca skirted around the building. The communal living spaces they used during quarantine were gone and each of the inhabitants returned to their own quarters. She saw their rooms were cleansed and looked in on some of the empty rooms. There were two kinds of empty rooms. Those that looked recently lived in but were now abandoned and those where it was clear no one lived in quite some time. She kept a count in her head and went out searching for Jascon.
She found him, sitting behind a large desk in his study. Standing in front of him and looking concerned were three of the other members of the community. She didn’t know their names but recognized them as among the elite who sheltered successfully away from the others.
“She could be a spy,” one of them said.
“She is a traveler we offered guest right,” said another.
“She could still be the Overlord’s spy,” the third added. “She could have just fed us that story about coming from the north.”
“He could have given her the antidote and then sent her here to find out what we knew.”
“He had to know we created the disease,” one chimed in. “With magic mixed in who else could have done it?”
“You should have made the antidote,” one complained.
“I told you I wasn’t ready to release it,” the one who reminded them of guest right said. “I didn’t want to release it until I had the antidote. It should only have killed the abominations; we would have saved the people.”
“You were taking too long.”
“We were running out of time.”
They bickered over timing and Jascon sat patiently waiting. There was a break in the argument, all three parties looking huffy and ready to resume at any moment. Jascon held up a hand.
“What is done is done and we offered the girl quarantine, not guest right,” he corrected. “It was an emergency not a welcome.” The others nodded, looking relieved by the distinction.
Ten til Midnight 