All the SEVENS!!! I’ve been tagged in one of those thingies where you post pieces of your works in progress from the past. So this is going to be 7 lines from page 7 and a tag of 7 more authors. Hence, 777.
Yes, I said, hence. I am old as Dickens.
From my ghosty manuscript of GOLDEN, which I’m still hoping may become a book someday. It’s in the same “world order” as The Dark Cycle, just set in the future. I’m going to break all the rules of the tag (because this is me here) and post all of page 7. Plus I’m only going to tag three writers. See what a rebel I am?
Here’s a quick frame of reference: Aryana is our point of view character. She is playing a Lunch Game; catch a crawler and kill it. Or die, whatevs. She’s a slave so no one really cares what happens to her.
GOLDEN page 7:
I twist out of the way and slice as it flies at me, catching its muscle. It doesn’t matter. I could carve it to bone and it would keep coming at me.
It lands beside me and turns in a flash. Bone-tipped fingers and sharp nails tear at my arm. The boys hoot at the drawing of blood and the crawler only gets more ravenous at the smell of it on its hand. It licks and pants and bites one of its own fingers off, retrieving the warm life.
I use the opportunity to lunge, feeling crazy, knowing I might get a claw through my gut if the thing isn’t caught off guard. I try to imagine the next move. The next slice. I get lucky and my dagger finds a home, just not the right home—it rams into the shoulder blade as the crawler moves to the side.
The beast surges up and knocks me off, the dagger still sticking from its back. I hit the pillar, then the ground with a thud, and it’s after me. I roll before it can pin me, but it crouches down and catches my ankle.
I kick hard with the other foot, while the head is low, steel-toed boot cracking into its jaw. The head flies to the side but snaps back in a split second, jawbone hanging limp, black blood oozing from its mouth, and its grip is still like iron on my leg.
I scream and kick again before it can hoist me up, denting the temple. It screeches back at me, really pissed off now, and yanks me toward it, sliding me across the floor. I try to grab hold of something, anything, but it’s too strong.
It hunches over me, catching me by the neck, lifting me up to face it.
*
You can read the full chapter here—> GOLDEN sample.
And I will tag the illustrious writers Kat Heckenbach, Jennifer Walkup, and Mirtika Schultz 🙂 Have at it ladies!
