Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

2089

Its 2089, the future. Where are the flying cars? Why aren’t there houses on the moon? Those are good questions, with one simply answer, because they were never invented. To give you a good picture of my world smash medieval times, with the twentieth century, with a five year olds coloring book. Then you get the massive mess of a system I’m living in. Let’s go over some of the biggest changes before I start my story. One thing is there are no more presidents, there is a king. They are not the typical England monarchy either, their not put in power by votes or royal blood no this time it’s by power. Not political power, not physical strength, no this power is what we call spark power.
Let me clarify back in 2036 the Health society came up with a pill, called lifespark that was supposed to make everyone immune to every disease. And it worked, but then there were the side effects. Everyone started to develop…special abilities. Think about all those movies people used to watch, x-men, teen titans, justice league exc. Those are the abilities I’m talking about. Controlling minds, water, fire you think of it, people can do it. It created Heroes but what do you get when you get super heroes? That’s rights! You get super villains. It didn’t take long for the government to ban the pill but it was too late everyone had taken it. Oh and guess what, the pill had created new genes in humans to give them these powers and it was passed on to all children. So banning it didn’t really do anything.
Back to my time, things are well half futuristic, half 16th century. Technology was worthless, health advances pointless and weaponry was useless. Everything got destroyed in the big power battle that put our present king on his throne. He was what you would call a super villain, no big surprise then that his first act as king was to execute all heroes. So there you have it a world full of super villains and I’m in the middle of it. Things aren’t quite as bad in the outskirts where I live, the city is a hundred times worse. The King takes any one who’s power is useful to him and gives them the choice to serve him or not, but like all good villains the choice is really to serve him or die. Resist him and die, annoy him and died. Those who serve him by choice are like his police, but they don’t stop violence or crime no there only there to make sure you’re not going against the king. So we fend for ourselves. We create groups or gangs, what ever you want to call them, to protect our selves and friends are more like alliances to not hurt each other. But even these can be unreliable.
My name is Vilynia, but I go by Vi. My spark or ability is pretty straight forward; I can control and create electricity. It comes out mainly in lighting form. I try not to use it though. The stronger power you have the more attention you get and in this world you do not want attention. I have a brother and he is…well he is going to save the world. That’s my mother told me anyway, before she died. To bad she forgot to mention how or why. His powers are not nearly as…explosive…as mine. He has a strong connection with nature and his surroundings; he knows what is around him even if he couldn’t see it. This proves pretty helpful considering he was blinded when he was a baby. He also has a fantastic memory. But we were never sure if this was part of his powers or part of his genius brain. I guess it’s important to mention that I’m sixteen and my brother, Kylin, is eleven. Parents are both dead, leaving me in charge.
Have you ever tried raising an eleven year old, at sixteen, in a normal world? If not I’ll tell you, even then it’s pretty hard, now imagine it in my world. Yeah that’s right pretty freakin scary if you ask me. My goal in life is to protect him. I don’t give a rats behind about anyone else, including myself. Let’s just say if it wasn’t for my brother I wouldn’t give this life another minute of my time. So moving on, Kylin knows about his ‘destiny’ but it means nothing to him. I love him for that. He doesn’t let it go to his head but he doesn’t completely blow it off as a lie either. He just wants to let everything happen as it will. Still, he never forgets to use that card when we have an argument. Life had its upsides though, not everything was doom and gloom. I have friends, allies, so does Kylin but no one knows about his future. Who would believe it anyway? He and I barely believe it ourselves.
This morning was no different then any other. I woke up around five from another sleepless night. As if the world isn’t bad enough already, I have my nightmares to torture me, just to make sure I had a full dose of horribleness. I would wake up in a cold sweat, wrapped up in my blanket and I always had to hold my hand in front of my face to make sure I was breathing. I had to feel the air on my hand to be sure. Then I would check my pulse and try to think of something calming to bring it down to a normal level. After a while I would fall back to sleep and back into the nightmares. This continued tell morning. Today I watched the sun turn the sky a light orange before I managed to pull myself out of bed.
I pulled on a black tank top and an old pair of jeans. The morning still had a chill to it so I also grabbed a thick jacket and dragged myself over to our little chicken coop. I grabbed a few eggs then found a slightly dirty but relatively okay pan to cook them on. The electricity we needed to make our stove work had long ago disappeared, which made things a little more difficult. I made sure Kylin hadn’t done one of his silent entrances before I gave the pan a little bolt of my power. It turned a light red color and took only a few minutes to cook. I hated using my power out all, but especially around Kylin. It was…a dangerous power and my control over it was limited. I logically didn’t like it, but mentally my senses went crazy. It was natural to use it, it was as natural as breathing. Now you try not breathing for a while and let me know how that goes. It actually hurt to keep it inside, but it could hurt someone else if I didn’t.
I slid the slightly crispy eggs onto a plate, sunny side up just like Kylin liked. I guess he heard the commotion or more likely had been awake the whole time but had waited for me to make breakfast before moving, because he came strolling into the room seconds later.
“Morning!” He yelled in a cheery mood. He held his hand out and I handed him his plate. “Eggs just like yesterday, yummy.” He stretched then pulled out a chair and sank into it. I sat down at our little wood table just across from him.
“Just like every morning Kylin.” I said with a sigh. He shrugged his shoulders and took a big bite out of it.
“I don’t mind” He smiled trying to make me feel better. He knew I was trying to be a good mom, but he also knew I could only do so much. “Are we meeting up with the group today?” We were actually rarely at home; normally we would go hunting with our alliance, kids that lived in the area that had agreed to…fight less. The alliances were there to protect from other people and from the kings ‘recruiters’. Alliances didn’t branch out or talk to other people in other groups. They were rivals, competing for land, shelter, food, everything. It was the only way to survive.
“Maybe. You know I don’t like that whole…situation. You and I will go see if you can sense anything near by, if we can’t find anything then we will meet up with the group.” With all this talk of hunting some people might be wondering, well where did you get the chickens? That’s a very good question, the answer is simple, you buy fertilized eggs and hatch them. This however involves going to the ‘market’ in the city walls which can often turn out very badly, so we stick to hunting.
“Sounds good to me” He answered, not bothering to argue, he didn’t care for the situation either. I looked him over. He was relatively tall for his age, with short brown hair and deep brown eyes. He normally had pale skin like me but it had been tanned to a light brown from the sun. Unlike me, who couldn’t tan for the life of me! I couldn’t see how he and I were related at all but I guess our differing looks came from our parents. He got his looks from our mother, mine from my dad. I had very straight, very jet black hair, I mean in the middle of the night in the center of the ocean black, with green eyes. We were both relatively skinny but fit, though it wouldn’t be too bad on me to go a few days hungry. Kylin paused, pushed his plate away and looked at me. “Stop staring.”
“I’m over here Kylin.” I said in a slightly mocking tone trying to throw my voice across the room. His eyes never moved. I rarely teased him about being blind but in the rare moments that I felt happy I would.
“Someone is feeling giddy today, I have a feeling I’m going to be miserable.” I rolled my eyes and patted his hand.
“Forgive me would yah? I couldn’t have you mad at me.” My tone was hardly pleading but he gave in. Kylin started to get up then froze. “Kylin?” I scanned the room searching for something that could have caused his sudden change.
“It’s nothing…I thought I felt someone but they must have just been passing by cause it’s gone.” I sighed, god we did not need to start today off with fight. Kylin picked up his plate, put it in the sink and walked over to me. By now I had taken off my jacket as the sun began to heat everything so Kylin was able to feel the long cut on my shoulder he had been looking for. “It feels better.”
“It feels like crap, but it’s healing and not as deep.” It was yet another prize I got from our daily battles. There was another smaller one on my other arm and a long but shallow one on my back. Not to mention the twenty or so bruises I had everywhere else. But I didn’t mention any of those to Kylin. I wouldn’t have told him about this one but he had caught a sense of pain coming from me so I gave him the lesser of the evils. I went to pull away from his touch, trying to keep the rest of my injuries a secret but he held me tight. His traced my arm down to my wrist and felt for what he hoped wasn’t there. I pulled hard and released myself from his grip.
“I didn’t, never do.” His face showed he didn’t believe me but he shrugged and nodded. Once, once a long time ago…I got fed up with things, with this life and I did something very stupid but I hadn’t even come close to doing it again. Still almost everyday Kylin would check my wrist; feel the old scars, just to make sure there weren’t any new ones. It had scared him so bad and he swore to that if I had to protect him from everything else, he would protect me from myself. I loved and hated him for it. Today was one day I hated it.
“Okay, then lets go.” I nodded forgetting he couldn’t see me and grabbed my bow and arrows. Hunting would probably be incredible easy if I used my powers but you already know how I feel about that. Plus I was a pretty good archer but I could still use the practice. I slipped a knife into my belt and another, smaller one, into my shoe. You can call me paranoid but seeing the hundreds of injuries already on me, I didn’t want to get anymore. “Promise not to get yourself in another fight today!” Kylin yelled from his room.
“Nope!” I yelled back not allowing myself to indulge the impossible.
“Half the time it’s not even your fight you just jump in…” Kylin knew it was a stupid argument to be having but he was getting sick of worrying about his sister, all the time!
“I jump in to help people.” I spat back in a venomous tone, I jump in to protect you all the time, so why shouldn’t I protect others? Just because they don’t have some great ‘destiny’ don’t mean…
“They wouldn’t do the same for you.” That was a valid point, even I would admit it, but not to him.
“So I can’t be a good person just because they aren’t good people? Come on Kylin let it alone.” And he did, so I was grateful. We walked out the door and into the fresh air and I watched as Kylin took it all in. So many senses came flooding into him and his amazing brain could process it all. He could sense the trees, the dirt, and the slight slope of the landscape, all of it. He would almost give up sight for this…almost. As we walked I let my mind drift. My thoughts instantly went to Kara. My only real friend in our alliance had gone missing a few days ago. There were two options, either she had been taking by recruiters, or she was dead. A tremor coursed through my body fueled by anger and fear. For those who haven’t guessed it by now recruiters are exactly what they sound like. They go and find people who would be useful for the king and bring them to him.
Every part of me wanted to go find Kara, but it was futile. I had no leads and she could be anywhere. Not to mention, me going into a city would be a death sentence. I had access to only a small amount of my power but I knew I had so much more. Not that I’m conceded or anything. Kylin always joked that our mother had been wrong, that I was going to save the world not him. Though I’m pretty sure she didn’t happen to just mix up out names. If the king found out my power, they wouldn’t hesitate to ‘recruit’ me.
“Thinking of Kara?” Kylin’s voice cut sharply into the silence that I’d become used to. Around Kylin I was loud and wasn’t afraid to express my opinion, around anyone else I was quiet. I didn’t let people walk all over me and I certainly wasn’t afraid to express my anger if necessary. I just rather be quiet and observe at first then being bubbly and loud like Kylin.
“Yeah and more…” I paused not sure if I wanted to continue or go back to being alone with my thoughts. “Anything around?” We had been walking a while, so I stopped and looked at the scenery in front of us. We hadn’t been following a path to being with and now we were just deeper into a sea of trees. Kylin could feel the animals if they were close enough, he could feel them and pin point there location.
“I…” Kylin paused “I’m sorry, there’s nothing here and nothing close.” He seemed upset that his power wasn’t strong enough to feel it. In all honesty he didn’t really even consider this a power; it was just something to make up for his loss of sight. Instead of reading peoples emotions from there face he could feel them, instead of seeing them he could sense them. But it was still all relative, he could only sense what was about a mile around them, maybe a little less. I patted his shoulder reassuringly, and thought for a moment. There were such scarce animals from hunting it would be pure luck for us to just stumble on to one of them. I wasn’t a great tracker either so our choices were to either wander around till Kylin picked up on an animal in the area or we go find the group. There were people in our alliances who were great trackers and that would probably be the most helpful right now.
“Alright we go and find Tyron, he can put us with one of the trackers, maybe Jak. They can put us in the general area, you can pin point it and I can take it down.” Kylin grimaced; both of us didn’t care much for Tyron. Another down side to hunting with the group was you had to split up the food. But, hey, it was better then not getting anything.
“Fine, but I don’t want to deal with that jerk, you can. Such a stuck up fool, and so full of himself to…” Kylin continued to mutter under his breath, using words a normal eleven year old really shouldn’t have known. I didn’t bother to stop him, he may have a lack of manners but it didn’t make him a liar. “Oh and did you know that creep has…” Kylin paused as he debated weather or not to tell me.
“What?” I asked with a little apprehension. I probably didn’t want to know but you know me, I just had to anyway. “Tell me.” I used my threatening voice and Kylin cracked.
“He has a major crush on you.” I choked on the air, yeah that’s right I have that kind of skill.
“OH PUKE!” I screamed then groaned. “So gross! But I guess that explains why he will never leave me alone.” You’d think he’d have gotten the hint when I told him to get lost the other day, but I guess some guys are just annoyingly persistent. After I got over my initial shock I remembered to pay attention to where we were going. We usually meet at Tyron’s house and that was about a day or so journey if we walked straight through the night. I had grabbed enough provisions for us and decided that, that was the best option. We usually would go there and meet the group and spend a week or so just being around them. We actually were rarely home. It would be faster if we cut across the main road. I made the executive decision to take the short route, for the good of Kylin and my feet. Yeah that’s me, totally selfless. Oh and if you are sarcastically challenged, as in you can never tell when someone is using it, you will probably be very confused through this whole thing.
Oh want to know another down side of having a brother who can ‘sense’ your emotions? It meant that he knew everything about your feelings and he was never wrong. So I knew he felt my nerves as we neared the main road. We would just travel about ten minutes in the woods next to the road then cross it, after that it was a long walk to his camp. I was beginning to calm down as we came close to the crossing point but that was until we heard the yelling. Kylin felt the people before we could even hear them so we were able to creep close enough to hear with out them noticing us. I sucked in my breathe feeling a tight knot form in my stomach, recruiters.

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