Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Inferno

Master Class is back!!  I actually missed the first one.  I'll admit that.  But I had enough time to squeak in a response this week.  We were given "Never name the well from which you will not drink." from Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon.  We had to use it as the first or last line.  I chose to use the line to start off the next piece of a short story that was actually started from a Master Class prompt last fall.  Hopefully I can get it finished sometime soon so I can aim to get it published somewhere.  As always, concrit is most welcome.  Here it is:

Never name the well from which you will not drink, he thought to himself as he came to.  The last thing he remembered was breaking through the hole to see what was beyond the cracks.  All he got was a glimpse of flame and hands.  He hated flames.  Too many of the scars he had were from flames.
Now he had a real dilemma.  They wanted him to give the spirit up.  Give it to them.  He’d told himself he’d never betray his word again.  He’d done that too many times.  He couldn’t do it again.
But, if he didn’t give up the spirit, they would keep him.  Forever.
His one chance at having his life back was slipping away.  He finally understood what the priestess meant.  Did the others give up the spirits they carried or did they refuse and were stuck somewhere in this hell?
The only upside to the situation was that he got away from the desert emptiness.  Not that this was much better.  At least it was different, though.
Focus! he snapped at himself.  He needed to figure out how to get out of this.  There had to be another way out.  He just needed to figure out what it was.  He strained at the chains around his arms and legs again.  They tightened again.  It was almost to the point he was losing circulation.
He slumped, dangling like a broken puppet in a demented version of Dante’s Inferno.  It was futile.  The chains wouldn’t give.  The ideas were gone.  He was no different than the others.  He’d be stuck here just like the others.
“Hey,” a soft whisper came from the flickering shadows.



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4 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry I'm late getting to this!! I find it wonderful. His decisions are palpable, you share them well. I'm left wondering what's going to happen, so you hooked me too. The downside is that I don't really remember the former piece, so sharing a teensy bit of backstory would have helped me understand why his choices are so dour. I forget that sometimes people are only reading a piece for teh first time, too, when I post excerpts from The Elven Games. It's so easy to do. Other than that, it's a well-written piece. You could probably flesh this out a little more by showing us the scene where they asked him to give his spirit up (unless you already did, but it doesn't read that way.) I'm glad to see you back in class!

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    1. Oh! Don't worry about getting to this late. Life happens. I'm just glad you stopped by with your concrit. Good point about struggling to understand as this is missing the story up this point. I'll remember that for next time. And I like the suggestion about adding that scene. I'll look into that.

      And I am glad to be back in class, at least for now. Hopefully my son and grad school will continue to cooperate!

      Thanks!

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  2. Sometimes I enjoy just being dropped in the middle of something. It gets my mind wandering and helps get my creative juices flowing. This piece builds up equal amounts of suspense and curiosity and I look forward to reading more.

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    1. Thank you! I am hoping to have this story finished some time soon and, *crossing my fingers*, have it published somewhere...

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