Give This A Read. Let Me Know What You Think.

[menace64]

This past year I have been focusing most of my creative energies on developing a solid backstory for my trilogy of books. It's been many long hours in libraries and brainstorming but this past week I finally felt that I'd come up with enough to finally start actually writing again.

So here's the first page and a 1/2. Don't bother asking too much into "who's who" or "what's going to happen" because I probably won't answer. Just let me know if it's got a hook to it that pulls you in and if there are any rough spots.

===

My first memory was of the countless refugees at the end of the War. And in months following, the stench of them was stifling – a reek of filthy rider and haggard beast. I cannot now look upon a horse without that deathly odor returning to me, making me sick as the day they first came into my home.

At some time during the next year we voted to erect the Wall. To keep out the others. It was taller than anything I'd ever seen, yet it seemed to go up with the passion and swiftness of those who build something to protect their lives and the lives of families.

Only one entrance was set into it. All I remember of it was that it was built shut and it was never opened.

Chapter One
"The time has come at last to draw up our bridge and to allow the World about us to die as earnestly as it was born. I have seen what has become of our Great Nation. What lay beyond to the East is fallen into ruin, delivered into the bosom of hellish futility by the War no nation could sustain. What lay beyond to the West may well be known ‘fore long as God's Greatest Jest: a quilt of unimaginable beauty and scope left to burn in the house of its making."
- George Hershey, 1888

Britt sat out in the yard – as she did most mornings – and watched the sun rise. It was a colder dawn than she'd expected; the dew seeping through her pants made it even worse. There was a chilly wind pushing on from the east. The smell of an early winter was thick. Not even the sun, now breaking high over the Wall, carried any warmth into the world.

   Regardless, she sat out longer today than she probably should have: while the sun marched into early morning she maintained her vigil. The, without putting much thought into it, she decided that she would wait for her brother to get up, and perhaps they would sit lazily in the yard for the rest of the day.

   "Well that's the dumbest thought you'll have today," she said to herself. "And it's not even breakfast yet." There was just too much to do. "And Victor hates sitting."

   But Victor got up early. Just as Britt decided it was time to get to work, he stumbled out through the back door of their wooden cottage. His arms immediately crossed his chest. His teeth began to clit-clatter in the cold. He looked at his sister – sitting frozen in the patchy field – and walked out to meet her. Victor and Britt exchanged glances but neither said a word.

Yet, there was something obviously different about him. Britt could feel the change. Her brother was less her brother today and more somebody else. She couldn't explain how she knew or put into words what she knew; it was just plain that a change had occurred. "What happened to you last night?" Britt asked.

Victor seemed not to hear her words at first, his senses locked into some distant thought. He murmured incoherently. After a few moments, he caught up with the question. "What was that?" he said as he shoved his cold hands into his pockets.

"Last night," Britt repeated, slipping fluster into her voice. "What happened?"

Victor didn't smile, but Britt knew that he was smiling in his mind. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Of course I can keep a secret." She paused. "I guess that means you did something stupid, doesn't it?"

Victor nodded slowly. "Yes, I did something stupid. But you'll be happy I did it." He didn't say anything else. Britt stared at him, plainly annoyed with her brother. "I quit," she exclaimed, throwing up her hands in defeat. "If I've got to ask this many questions to get you to say anything, then I don't care enough to hear what you've got to say."

She got up and walked away from him towards the cottage, pushing him and his annoyances out of her mind. She got to the back door when Victor finally answered her.

"I'm going to kill Dekan."

Britt stopped, swung about, opened her mouth to speak. No words came.

"I'm going to kill him," he said tonelessly. "And then we can leave Winterset."

[turin08]

I liked it a lot. Nice characterisation, good description and it was mysterious enough that it pulled me in making me want to know more by the time I finished.

[FM]

It's good, yes.

[sickofpalantirs]

it certainly drew in my interest, and I didn't see any bad writing no.

[Ulmo]

I like it.  I would like to read some more.

[Gate Troll]

It's really nice, though, darn you, right when I switched into 'reading mode' it stopped. You better post more.
It's too interesting for you not to.   

[menace64]

Here's the rest of that first scene.

---

Britt would have laughed, mistaking her brother's statement for another of his tasteless jokes, but the way he now looked on her illustrated the seriousness of his words. It was a rushing stare of desperation, the maddest yet most committed expression he'd ever worn. Whatever happened last night is what's turned my brother into a lunatic.

Britt's legs quivered as an image flashed before her mind: her brother with a tight rope around his neck. Terrified, she dipped back, putting herself against the door, and slid down to the ground. She looked to her brother once again, but a ray of chilling sunlight arched from the sky and blinded her, making him seem to her more a shadow and somehow less a man.

"If you tell me you're kidding," Britt said as she buried her head in her tucked-up knees, "I promise I won't say anything to dad." Victor smirked. "Go ahead and tell him. He'd probably agree with me."

This brought the tears from Britt. "How could you even think that? Dad's no murderer, and he sure won't let you turn into one." Britt could hear Victor approach her as she spoke. She kept her eyes shut, preferring the blindness over any sight of her transformed brother.

He sat down next to her. "Look, sis. We're hated here; it's a miracle I haven't got the rope yet, and the only reason you haven't is because you're too pretty for a noose. Dad knows that. And if the governor gets himself killed, then maybe they'll open the gate and we can leave."

Victor sighed. "This is no life. We've never had a real life here. We might find a better if we can get out of here."

There was another pause. Britt broke it, asking her question again. "What happened to you last night? You need to tell me."

When no answer came, Britt opened her eyes and turned to her brother. He appeared shrunken, less resolute now that the question had come to face him for a third time. "Tell me."

Victor spoke.

"His name is Oriel. He's going to help us find better lives, but only if we kill Dekan."