In November I decided to try and do Nanowrimo - National Novel Writing Month. Basically, it starts on the 1st and you write 50,000 words in the month (about 100 pages I think). It's a lot harder than you would think. I did no planning and actually had to restart with something completely different four days into it. I ended up giving up on it on the 17th because I found that I wasn't at home long enough to write it.
I managed to get just over 22,000 words written (40 pages) in the 17 days that I was writing. Now that I think about it, that is actually a lot. After the 17th I never went back and added to it, I figure I shouldn't let all of that writing go to waste. I've decided to edit what I've written and try to finish it, posting it here as it comes.
This is the first original (non-fanfiction) piece that I've ever written and it's pretty rough. It has a fairly unoriginal fantasy/vampire plotline.
Interestingly enough, looking back at it I realized that I had forgotten what the title was - Clear Vision. I named my blog after it and then I never even finished it. I think this story at least deserves to be put out there and I am going to try my hardest to finish.
Here is chapter one, please read it if you have the time. :)
Clear Vision - Chapter 1
Faye walked out the front doors of her high school. She had never been so happy to leave a place in her life. It had been a long four years, but she had done it, she had graduated. Never again would she have to walk through those doors. Never again would she have to spend a day being a nobody. Many people think of high school as the best years of their life. Faye just wanted to forget them.
High school was only fun when you had friends. No one liked school. No one wanted to go somewhere to sit, learn and do schoolwork. They liked going to school because they liked to spend time with their friends. Faye didn’t have any friends. It was difficult to have fun in a place where you had no one.
Faye had never had friends, not even as a child. All of the other children had always thought she was strange, that she was a freak. As she left the school she recalled the dream that she had had the night before.
She was walking through a thick, dark forest. She knew it was a dream because there was nothing like this place near where she lived. All of the forests near her city were new. They didn’t have the ancient, magical feel of this forest. Looking at the trees here, you could almost hear them whispering. Almost see the things that these trees had seen over the many years that they had been there.
As she walked she felt as if she was walking towards something, but didn’t know what. She was compelled in one direction and if she tried to steer away from its path she found that she couldn’t move. She kept on and felt the air growing cooler. The wind blew her straight, dark hair around her face.
She felt her feet pick up speed and knew that she must be nearing her final destination. She looked down and noticed the tangled roots on the ground around her. She hadn’t tripped once; it was almost as if she knew the path. Finally she reached a clearing and came to a sudden stop. She knew she had reached her destination.
She looked around her. Again, she found nothing familiar about this place. She knew she had never been here before, but something in her subconscious had brought her there. She heard a rustling behind her and snapped her head around to look behind her. She caught a brief glimpse of someone running away into the forest, back the way that she had come. She was about to chase after them when she noticed a piece of paper floating to the ground.
The sun falls in the sky,
Day fades to night,
Whispers bring fear,
Tear down the light.
When sorrow claims thee,
He’ll come to your side.
What you need most,
He will provide. As soon as she had read the words she had woken up. She had learned at a young age that ignoring her dreams could have serious consequences. But how could she do anything about this one when she had no idea what it meant. The dreams before had always been warnings about something bad that was going to happen. This one seemed to be offering help. She had never read much poetry, but this poem seemed to be the key to the dream.
But who was the dream talking about? Someone was going to come in the night and give her something? It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t have any friends, she didn’t know anyone…How could someone possibly know what she needed? She had been so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn’t been paying any attention to where she was going. Suddenly she smacked right into someone. She dropped all of her books on the ground and so did he.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, but he was already gone. Just another proof of how invisible she was. She picked up her things and headed home. When she got there her dad wasn’t home, as usual. He was never home. She was invisible at school and in her house. She dropped her things onto the couch and went into the kitchen.
After making herself a quick dinner she hurried up to her room. Her father would be home eventually and she didn’t want to be around when he did. She picked up her sketch pad and flipped to the first blank page. She opened her desk drawer and slid out her box of pastels. She had had to save her money for weeks to buy them and they were one of her prized possessions.
She selected the light green first and started to brush long strokes along the bottom of the page. Brown was her second colour of choice and then a darker green. Finally she was placing her black pastel back into the box, the picture was finished. She looked down at the picture. It was identical to the clearing that she had stood in the night before in her dream. Right down to the number of trees. She was still staring at the picture when she heard the front door slam.
She quickly shoved her things back into her drawer and shut off the light. She crawled under her covers and hoped that her father would see that she was asleep and go to bed himself. At first she thought she was safe, all was silent in the house below her. She had almost drifted off to sleep when she heard the first creak on the stairs.
Her eyes flew open and she rushed to her bedroom door. She planted herself on the floor in front of it, holding it closed. As the steps on the stairs became closer and closer her heart began beating faster and faster. Faye pressed her eyes closed and was taken back to the first time this had happened.
*
She was fourteen years old. She had been sitting on her bed reading when she heard her father stumble in. He was out late every night so she didn’t think much of it when she heard him come in. But that night was different. His footsteps seemed heavier and she could have sworn she could hear him breathing. She heard voices and wondered who had come in with him. She soon realized that there was no one there, he was talking to himself.
“Can’t stop…Won’t stop…Go…Just go away!” Faye heard him yell.
By the time she heard his footsteps on the stairs, she was frightened. By the time he was outside her bedroom door, she was terrified. She huddled under her covers as his hand turned the knob. He staggered into the room and over to her bed. She felt the cold air hit her shoulders and he threw back her covers.
“Go away and leave me alone!” he shouted in her face.
“Dad…what’s wrong?” Faye started to ask.
She looked in his eyes to find them glossy, unseeing. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and threw her to the floor. She screamed as he kicked her all the while yelling in her face. He was incoherent as she begged him to stop. She felt her head hit the corner of her bed and then it was over. She turned to see him kneeling in the corner. His eyes flashed to her face and she caught a glimpse of something in them. She didn’t dare move in case he came at her again.
Finally he got to his feet and pulled himself from her room closing the door behind him. She sat huddled on the floor for a long while before crawling back into her bed. The next morning he was back to his usual, distant self.
*
They never spoke of that night or any of the similar nights that followed it for the next four years. On this night Faye was once again shocked by the inhuman strength of her father as he pushed open her door and came at her once again.
*
Faye woke in the morning feeling sore. She tiptoed downstairs to find that her father had already left for work. She was safe for now, for another day. She headed outside in the summer sun to see a moving truck positioned in front of the house next door. It appeared that the movers were moving things into the house. When had her neighbours moved out? It seemed that going unnoticed for so long had left her not paying attention to the world around her.
She sat on her porch with a book and watched them awhile. She realized that she didn’t want to feel disconnected from the rest of the world. She saw a sleek red car pull up the road and park behind the truck. She pretended to look down at her book as she observed the figure emerging from the car.
He was dressed in black from head to toe, despite the scorching July heat. He appeared to be a few years older than she was. He had a dark layer of soft brown hair on his head. Suddenly he turned to look her in the face and she was shocked at the startling flashes of green that were his eyes. He smiled at her and she quickly looked back down at her book. She didn’t lift her eyes from it until the moving van had left.
*
That night Faye lay in bed thinking about her dream and waiting for her father to come home. She had been pondering her latest dream most of the day and was no closer to figuring out what it meant. What if she was just wasting her time? What if her dream was not a vision? What if it was nothing more than a dream?
She was still lost in thought when her dad got home. As she leaned in front of the door she noticed the pitch blackness of the sky outside. There were no stars tonight, no light from the moon. For some reason she was reminded of the words of the poem in her dream. She remembered them perfectly even though she hadn’t written them down.
The sun falls in the sky,
Day fades to night,
Whispers bring fear,
Tear down the light.
When sorrow claims thee,
He’ll come to your side.
What you need most,
He will provide. As she murmured the words under her breath to herself she felt a shiver travel up her spine. As soon as she finished reciting the words she noticed that she could no longer hear her father’s footsteps. She braced herself for him to open the door. All of her muscles were tense when she heard his movement. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth…and then realized that his footsteps were fading. She opened her eyes in disbelief as she heard her father’s bedroom door slam.
She sat on the floor that way for a long time. She didn’t want to let herself believe that he wasn’t coming back. Finally she stood up, tiptoed across the room and climbed into bed. Just as she was drifting off to sleep she thought she heard a whisper in her ear.
“You are safe.”
*
The next morning it was foggy and grey outside. Faye stayed in bed late, not daring to get up. She knew that her father was gone but she still wondered about what had happened the night before. Because of her own visions, she believed somewhat in the supernatural, but she had never experienced anything like that before. How could the poem have changed anything? A magic spell? She laughed at the thought of it. It could be nothing more than a coincidence. Her father had simply decided to go to bed; the poem had had nothing to do with this.
She had herself completely convinced of this when she finally got out of bed. She stepped out onto the misty porch to read as she did everyday. As a child, books had provided an escape to the strange girl. With no friends and no parents to speak of, a child didn’t have much. But Faye had her books.
She could spend hours reading about someone else’s life and imagining herself in their situations. Sometimes it almost seemed like the books were what was real and she herself didn’t exist. She was currently in the middle of a horror and fantasy phase. She spent hours everyday reading about monsters and magic. She laughed again thinking about last night. All of these books must be making her imagination run wild.
She took one look at the clouds and went back into her room to get a sweater. She dug through her closet until she found her favourite black fleece. She grabbed her book off the bed and ran back down the stairs. It was so dark on the deck that she didn’t notice the dark figure sitting on the swinging bench until he spoke.
“Hello,” he said.
Faye let out a small yelp and pressed her book to her chest. She squinted at the figure but could see nothing more than a dark blob in front of her.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you, I just wanted to come by and say hello,” he said.
“Who are you?” Faye asked, still unable to see the source of the soft, deep voice.
“I’m Damien,” he laughed. “I just moved in next door.”
“Oh,” she said embarrassed.
“Anyway, I saw you watching me yesterday and I wanted to come by and say hi to the pretty girl next door.”
Faye felt herself blushing from his compliment. She wasn’t used to even talking to guys, let alone getting compliments from them.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. Did you want to come inside?” Faye asked him.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your reading,” he was eying her novel. The cover had a boy with fangs on the front. Faye was suddenly embarrassed. She felt like a child standing in front of him, holding a vampire book to her chest.
“No really, I haven’t been enjoying this book very much anyway,” she lied.
“Well alright then,” he smirked as he stood up to follow her into the house.
In the light of her living room, Faye saw him truly for the first time. He was beautiful. His hair was brown and fell perfectly onto his forehead, he was much, much taller than her (which wasn’t saying too much) and his green eyes that had shocked her yesterday were staring straight into her own brown eyes. She immediately dropped her eyes to the floor when she realized that he had seen her staring. He chuckled to himself and looked around the room.
“Nice house,” he said politely.
“Right,” she said sarcastically. Her house was dingy and she knew it. Her father was never home to do anything around the house and she didn’t bother.
“No really, it has a story to it,” he said distantly.
“If you really think so,” she said. “So where did you come from anyway?” she said abruptly, trying to change the subject.
“I moved here from Australia. Before that it was Turkey and before that it was Russia…or was it China? I’m from everywhere really. I like to travel a lot. I never stay in one place for long,” he said.
“Wow…What about your parents? Don’t they live with you?”
Damien actually laughed out loud about this. “Not remotely. My parents fucked off years ago; they left me enough money to last a lifetime and never looked back. I’ve been traveling the world ever since, never finding a place I liked enough to settle down.”
“Well…do you want me…to show you around town or something? I don’t think there will be many people out today with the weather the way it is.”
“That sounds…great,” Damien said hesitantly.
“If you don’t want to, we don’t have to. It was just an idea,” Faye said quickly, feeling embarrassed again.
“No, really I want to. Let’s go.”
Faye wasn’t really sure why she had offered. The town of Havenbrooke was small and there wasn’t really much in it. She didn’t know anyone and didn’t go out very often either. As the walked down the main street she began to wish more and more that she hadn’t offered to show him around town. She found herself alone in the dark streets with a strange man that she didn’t know. This couldn’t be a good decision.
“That’s the grocery store,” she pointed absent-mindedly. She turned to point out the graveyard when she saw something strange out of the corner of her eye. A flicker of light in the darkness. She spun so quickly that she lost her footing and began to tumble to the ground. Just as she was about to fall she felt strong arms around her waist.
“Careful there pretty girl, I can’t have my tour guide getting hurt,” Damien smiled down at her.
Faye blushed and continued walking down the street. After a while she realized that she was actually having fun. She had spent so long having no contact or conversation with anyone that she found herself relishing in every word he said. She realized that he too seemed captivated whenever she spoke. Finally they had walked all the way to the end of town.
“That’s the highway, you have to drive for three miles before you even reach the next town,” she explained. “We’re kind of out in the middle of no where.”
She explained to him the funny thing about Havenbrooke.
“This whole area used to be forests, thick and full of trees as far as you could see. The government decided to come out and cut it all down and put all these little towns in instead. For a while no one wanted to move out here because it was all so suspicious. There was never a reason given for why the forests were cut down. The government preyed on the larger towns where jobs were hard to come by because of the huge populations. People who had no jobs, money or experience were offered schooling and a good position in a company to move out into one of these new towns.
“Thousands of people agreed to it and now they have all these little towns with only a few hundred people living in each all spread miles apart all across the country side. My grandfather was one of those people. He met his wife in this town and both of my parents were born in this town. I’ve never even been into the next town over,” she explained.
“How interesting,” he mused. “So everyone must really know each other around here then,” he said, cocking an eyebrow at her.
“Pretty much everyone,” except me, she added to herself.
Hours later the two of them made their way down the block towards their respective houses. They had stopped for dinner in one of the town’s small family-owned restaurants. Faye was surprised when Damien didn’t turn up his own driveway, but followed her up hers. He couldn’t really like spending time with her, could he? She thought about it, the people in her town stayed away from her because they knew she was strange and, she suspected, they knew her father was strange. But Damien had just moved here. She was the only person that he knew. He hadn’t met anyone else to tell him what she was like.
They sat together on the front porch as the sky got dark. He told her a little more about the different places that he had lived. He talked about the art, the food and the culture. He didn’t say anything more about his parents or mention any friends. When she asked him about it, he thought hard before replying.
“When you move around as much as I do, it’s hard to get to know people. I never stay in one place long enough to get to know people very much. I regret that at times, but it’s the way I live,” he explained.
She was about to say something to him when she realized that the sun had been down for a very long time. She started to panic, looking around wildly.
“What? What is it?” Damien asked, concerned.
“My father…My father will be home any minute.”
“Another time then,” and he was gone.
No sooner had she noticed this when her father’s car pulled into the driveway. He walked past her as if she wasn’t even there. His eyes had their usual glossed over look about them as he wandered in the front door. She sat paralyzed on the porch now. She didn’t know what to do. She was always in her room by the time her father got home. She was scared to enter the house in case tonight was going to be one of those nights.
Finally, she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. Her sweater that had provided warmth in the morning fog was not thick enough to fend off the nighttime chill. She silently pushed open the door and slipped quietly inside. She looked into the living room and then into the kitchen, she didn’t see her father. She ran towards the stairs hoping to get to her room without being seen.
She had reached the third step when she felt herself yanked back by her hair. There was a loud yell, a thump and then he was on top of her. She struggled to get away from his flailing arms, but it was no use. She lay back and braced herself for the next blow. She started whispering the poem to herself again. She knew it held no magic, but it comforted her either way. The poem seemed to infuriate her father further, but she felt compelled to finish it after she had started.
When she completed it she heard her father give one final yell. He had his fist pulled back in front of her neck. She cringed and shut her eyes to fend off what she knew was coming. But it never did. She opened her eyes to see something holding her father back. As soon as she had noticed this, her father was thrown off of her. She backed away into the corner, trying to get out of the way.
She looked up to catch a glimpse of her savior, but all she saw was black. Her rescuer was clothed in a black cloak and had a deep hood up, covering the back of his head. He had his back to her so she couldn’t see his face. He was now speaking in low tones to her father in a language that she could not understand. After what seemed like hours her father slumped down onto the floor.
The cloaked figure turned to her. She looked up to see his face and saw that it was covered. He leaned down towards her and whispered in her ear.
“You are safe child, go to sleep.”
Faye immediately rose from the floor and ran up to her room. She was sure that she would never be able to sleep after that, but she was wrong. She was out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow.
