Chatterbox: Inkwell
Ok, so, this is the prologue of the story I've been working on for NaNoWriMo. Comments (be they friendly or not) are welcome. Enjoy! :)
P.S: Admins, please keep the fonts different from each other if you can. Thanks!
Prologue
F.Y.I: If you put this journal down now, you will have the chance to live a long, happy, relatively safe life, but if you keep reading, you will probably be hunted down and tortured. Me, (Tala) and my pack have done a lot to keep this out of the hands of the Interfectores. We’re constantly on the run, and just to stop and make a copy of our collaborative journal (which you are currently reading) cost us a lot of time. Neoma, Halia, Marus, Leo, Richie, me, and a few others, are as far as we know, the last of our species. Wow, now I know how those “living fossil” fish must feel. Oh, wait, Neoma wants the pen.
Hi, I’m Neoma. I’m part of our little pack of survivors, numbering around 30. We have been running from this insane organization of murderers, and our families, well.... They’re missing. Most of them are, anyway. Some are here, and the others, I’m just gonna give the journal to Halia now.
Halia Here! I’m trying to be cheerful, but it’s definitely easier to be cheery when NOT being followed by over a dozen homicidal maniacs. Out of all of our families and Tala’s old pack, our small band of humans and Lyca (numbering 43, not 30, as Neoma said,) is all that’s left. We have to fight for our lives almost every day.
I guess the upside is that we’re alive, and haven’t been captured by the Interfectores yet. It may not sound like much, but to us, it’s everything. At least, it’s better than what happened to everyone else, the ones that aren’t here with us.
I’d give anything to know that my family won’t get hurt, that they won’t be caught by the Interfectores. Hey, I just realized that we’re kind of rambling.
I agree with Neoma. We should get on with what this journal is actually supposed to be for: Writing down what happened to all of us, and hoping that whoever you are, reader, you are one of us, or willing to help us, or at least that you don’t think we’re insane.
Let’s get going, then. Tala can start, since Halia is obviously tired (she’s been yawning every few seconds) and it’s almost my turn to be lookout.
Alright, I’ll start. But I don’t want to do this whole thing in our messy handwritings. I think we should “borrow” Sophie’s laptop and type it up on there.
Agreed.
Good idea.
Alright, It’s been precisely we-have-no-idea-how-many-because-none-of-us-has-any-kind-of-time-keeping-device minutes since Neoma wrote “Good idea.” We stole, excuse me, borrowed, Sophie’s laptop, and I am about to start writing our journal.
This journal will almost certainly place you in danger,
it will most definitely surprise and probably scare you.
And though it might seem crazy,
we promise that
every word of what we say here
Is the complete
truth.
Signed Neoma, Tala, and Halia.
(November 9, 2011 - 6:19 pm)
Cool and interesting. The plot (what I can figure out of it) kind of reminds me of Maximum Ride. If you continue this, I'd try not to have all the characters interrupting so much, because it would be kind of confusing. Other than that, it sounds awesome!
(November 10, 2011 - 12:24 am)
TOP
(November 11, 2011 - 10:26 pm)
Well, the prologue was originally in handwriting-looking fonts, like a letter. The chapters go between the 3 girls like in the Heroes of Olympus books, like one chapter from so-and-so's point of view, then the next chapter...well, you get it. :)
The way Chatterbox is set up, all posts automatically go into a uniform font and size. We Admins have no control over that.
Admin
(November 11, 2011 - 10:44 pm)
That's ok, Admin. :)
(November 12, 2011 - 2:46 pm)
Ooh, interesting. I like it!
(November 13, 2011 - 12:45 pm)
Is there a reason for every single name being like the ones in the werewolf RP on Inkwell that died. Halia was I, and Kim A. played Tala...
(November 14, 2011 - 12:02 pm)
Well, you did give me permission to use your name/profile for a novel. ;)
(November 14, 2011 - 6:25 pm)
The only thing I feel needs to be pointed out is how the characters keep interrupting each other and restating information. But other than that, I wants to read now!
(November 16, 2011 - 4:31 pm)
Oh, sorry, Kim A.! Sorry, that sounded rude. :) I did give you permission. Oh, yes, I did. :) Firget what I said. This is cool, though I still need a slight back-round story. And Halia is slightly less cheerful than you're making her sound. She has a hard past, but of course this is a totally different plot. Forgive me.
(November 18, 2011 - 12:19 pm)
I actually kind of mixed it up, (hope this is ok, since it's your charrie) I had Halia be kind of optomistic, and she hasn't had too hard a time, then I did another charrie name Chaney (after my best friend at school) and gave her the past and personality that the Halia from the RP had.
And I don't think you sounded rude. :)
(November 18, 2011 - 8:57 pm)
Ah, I understand. Okay, I'm totally fine with that. Sorry for the mix-up. :) And post more of the story as soon as possible PLEASE!
(November 21, 2011 - 10:49 am)
ok, so, I'm not sure how the paragraphs are going to be, because a few were messed up when I copied/pasted. I fixed the ones I saw but there may be more that I missed.
Chapter One
Marus, Leo, and Sylvia all ran beside me through the streets, the wind hitting our faces as we went. We ran faster than was humanly possible, only slowing when a hominem (that means human, by the way) turned our way. Our run took us around the small town, down main street, and back to the manor. I grinned when the gate to our property came into view, and with a quick glance around to make sure no hominems were watching, me and the others leapt up over the tall gate. Our jumps were easily higher than 15 feet. We literally hit the ground running, then sped off across the courtyard and toward the mansion.
We stopped at the giant double doors, opened them, and were greeted by an angry-looking Uncle Richie walking toward us. He scowled at us, fangs bared, and stepped aside so we could enter the house. I noticed that his hands were clenched into fists, and when he opened his hands a bit, I could see that his fingernails had grown into long, sharp claws.
“I saw you out of the study window,” he said, sounding disappointed and angry at the same time. “You shouldn’t be running above hominem speeds in town, and especially not in broad daylight. What if someone saw you just now; jumping over the fence like that? Especially you, Tala, your jump nearly cleared 20 feet!”
“Richie, no one saw us.” Leo said dismissively, acting like Richie’s anger and the fact that we could have been seen was nothing. Richie just glowered harder at Leo instead of at me.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Richie.” I said slowly and quietly. “No one saw us out there.” I laid my hand lightly on my Uncle’s arm. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but he just grumbled something under his breath and turned to return to his study.
My cousins and I ran through the house and into the backyard, away from our uncle. Yes, our uncle, not their dad. None of us are Richie’s children. My father, (whose name was Fredrick) and his older brother, Helios, used to run the pack. Richie is the youngest brother of the three. Marus, Leo and Sylvia (the twins) and Danielle are all Helios’s children. Or were, in Danielle’s case. Danielle, Helios and my Dad, as well as mine and my cousin’s moms, Richie’s family, and dozens of others, were killed by Interfectores when our pack was discovered six years ago. Some of their bodies were never even found. Those of us who survived ran and regrouped, and Richie took all of us– his nieces and nephews– in.
We ran out into the large backyard, and a slight breeze ruffled my hair as we sat down on the grass. The full moon (or Purnima) was already starting to rise over the tops of the trees, and wolf howls echoed through the afternoon air. It was only about four thirty in the afternoon, but it was already starting to get dark. It was also starting to get colder. I shivered.
“The pack is coming.” Sylvia said quietly. The rest of us simply nodded. We could all feel the presence of our pack nearby. We could also feel Purnima’s calling, and come around midnight it would become too strong to ignore; our whole species (or at least those of us on Eastern time) would transfigure into our graceful wolf forms.
Just then a movement in the forest to my left caught my attention, and my gaze was drawn to where I had seen motion in the leaves. I squinted into the underbrush for a moment, but then went back to staring at the moon.
Richie’s property went all the way from the edge of town to the large stream in the center of the woods. The backyard of the manor borders the forest, and all our land is surrounded by a ten-foot iron fence, one of those “fancy ones with spikes on top” as I used to call it when I was younger.
No one– except the pack– gets onto or off of our land without our permission. Only insects, squirrels, rabbits, rodents, birds, and the occasional small fox inhabits our forest. Nothing large, like deer or bears, or natural (natural here meaning the kind that can’t change into humans at will) wolves. That’s why when I saw the leaves rustle a second time, I got suspicious, thinking it was one of the pack playing tricks. Or maybe worse.
I turned my head towards where the rustling had come from, and my hunter instincts kicked in a little. I blinked, switching from hominem vision to my sharper, clearer Lyca (or “werewolf”) vision. The black void beyond the first line of trees was suddenly lightened, and I saw a figure silhouetted in the darkness. A tall, hominem figure. Not one of our pack; the pack shows themselves first as wolves, so we know it’s them.
“Someone’s out there,” I said quietly, so that only my cousins could hear me. I could sense my jet-black fur starting to sprout on my arms and legs, and my nails grew into claws. My fangs (which when I’m in human form can pass for unusually-long-but-not-freakily-long canines) elongated and nearly sliced open my tongue. I nearly jumped out of my skin when Marus placed his hand on my shoulder.
“What are you doing, Tala?” Marus asked nervously. “There’s no one out there.”
I looked back out into the woods. He was right, there was no one in the trees. I reverted back to hominem form, realizing that whoever it was must have ran away while I was focused on transforming. I growled.
Just then the last of the late autumn sunlight disappeared, and a loud, keening howl started from in the woods somewhere. More joined in from all directions. Marus joined in, changing from human form to wolf form as he did, his body changing from hominem boy to dark brown wolf. Sylvia and Leo did the same, their sandy brown hair spreading over their bodies until they were encased in dark golden fur. I copied them, my black fur thickening by the second. Richie came out of the house and changed to wolf form, dark brown fur with grey streaks covered him. All our eyes changed from their original colors to pure black.
Right as the howl stopped, the first of our pack emerged from the trees, all in wolf form. The full moon hadn’t reached its high point yet, but we stayed wolves anyway, enjoying the freedom of being dogs, or in the girls’ cases… well, a word that’s beeped out on TV shows.
Though we had a wonderful time, we didn’t know how bad things were going to get.
That was the beginning of the nightmare that is now my life.
(November 21, 2011 - 5:47 pm)
Thats really good! Please post more! And Top!
(June 8, 2016 - 7:57 am)