Novella Complete - kind of not really...

Dust of Danika is done with the hand written portion! Now I just have to type it up, double the length, then edit it a couple hundred times!

I LOVE finishing a manuscript. Even if it's just finishing the very shitty very first draft. I'm not sure how long it is yet. When I finish typing it up I'm sure I'll feel even more like I've finished it. Then it will be three novels under my belt. They all need so much work but I think they're all different and I'm feeling good!

Well! Back to typing it up!

--
Ashley

Dreaming of the End

For the first time, I had an apocalyptic dream that scared me. Usually I enjoy apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic dreams because it's one of my favorite genres to read/write/watch and I love getting new ideas or in the weird way that dreams allow you to, feel the emotions of what's happening.

But this one was different. There was a huge storm last night, we've been getting a lot of strange and crazy storms lately which is in itself a little disconcerting and concerning, and our power was having a hard time staying on - constant brown outs. We were in bed sleeping when  I woke up to constant lightning and then a roar of wind and rain. I told myself it was OK and slowly went back to sleep, asleep to a dream that was too similar to the half-awake state of what I was thinking.

The Dream:

My husband and I were in the car on our way to the store when suddenly the entire road in front of us dropped down and all the cars, trees, poles, buildings and people disappeared into the giant hole ahead. We frantically backed up and turned our car around and came home, but the thoughts flying through my head were why go home, what will be left of our home? This is something other than a horrible storm, this is more, we need to do something other than hide in a place we think is safe but will probably not last the next 24 hours. I don't know what to do. 
End.

Those thoughts and feelings are horrible. To know your pet is probably gone. Everything you own, gone. Everything you know gone. There is nothing and nowhere you can go for help. Cellphones and internet down-no way to find out what is happening and if there is anything or anywhere you can go for safety or where you know your loved ones will be. All you have is yourself, at that moment, and that is the only guarantee you will ever have again.

It wasn't a long dream, but it was potent. I woke up in the morning to find that some disaster had struck our town. A straight wind had uprooted immense trees and destroyed some roads, our power is still a little wonky and I don't know, nor really do I want to find out, if people's homes or lives were destroyed.

I wanted to write this down so I can go back to it and understand that feeling for a future story. I've had a lot of similar dreams but this one for some reason, I guess it was the timing, had me waking up with my mind racing.

One of my favorite apocalyptic dreams was where I was on my way to my parents, driving by myself, and the sky viciously and suddenly went a dark dark grey, not quite night, but more intense than a storm, and these flashes of light hotter and whiter than lightening blazed through the sky. Then trees fell everywhere and a huge fire started in a field to my left and without anything to really indicate it, I knew aliens had arrived and humanity was in the quick process of being taken over.

The one thing about most of my dreams where I come up with story ideas is how I just suddenly know what is going on or about to happen. There's no finding out, no proof or realization over time where evidence presented itself subtly. Just me thinking "Aha! I know!" And that's it. So every time I want to turn a dream into a story I have to figure out that HUGE major part, that is, essentially the whole manuscript - ha!

Dust of Danika - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

My hand stilled mid-stroke on the couch cushion, a dash of blue a shade darker than the rest where I smoothed the fabric in opposing directions. Holding my breath I waited for Brett to hold me still and allow the police to bust in to take me away. I would let it happen, I deserved to be taken away. When Brett didn't move I looked to the door in anticipation. 

Knock-knock-knock,  “Brett Anderson open the door or we will use force.” 

“Danika, go to my bedroom closet.” Brett hissed at me as he stood and looked around his apartment as if everything needed hiding. He brushed a hand through his hair and gave me an urgent look.

I jumped off the couch and shuffled to the larger of two bedrooms at the end of the hal . His bedroom was tidy with a black and grey striped rug stretching across the floor, a bed made in dark grey sheets and books scattered on a metal bedside table. I sighed with relief as the closet door opened quietly. I pushed the hanging clothes aside, closed the door, and sat on a pile of shoe boxes.

The wall of the closet shared the wall of Brett’s living room. I pressed my ear to the plaster and listened as Brett opened his apartment to the police. Mumbling and incoherent conversation, a pause, and then Brett’s raised voice, “Not without a warrant you're not." Then his door closed and I heard someone enter the bedroom. I held my breath and shrank back into the dark of Brett’s clothes. I tucked my feet up, making myself as small as possible.

When the closet door opened and Brett pushed aside the clothing, I couldn’t release my fetal position. I stared up at him, fear cascaded through my blood and my heart thumped loudly in my ears, I swear he could hear it too.

“They’re gone.” Brett turned and sat on his bed.

As I crawled out of the closet I realized how fast things seemed to be moving. Brett and I weren’t friends, he had no need to protect me and every reason to give me to the police. He should never have brought me to his home. He was caught up in some kind of romantic notion and must be regretting it by now. I needed to leave.

“They were looking for you.”

“I’m sorry.” I stood in front of him biting my lip.

“Apparently one of my neighbors saw us come in. The police are looking for a girl in a tattered blue dress who was seen fleeing a crime scene.” His green eyes were cold.

“I’ll leave.” I said.

“Where will you go?”

I shrugged, “I have nowhere to go but I can’t stay here. You have no obligation to help me or protect me from the cops. I shouldn’t have come here with you.” I remember how my head spun when police knocked on hid door a moment ago. My mind had flown into accusations that Brett had turned me in. I didn't trust him either.

“I can’t just throw you out.” Brett bit at his thumb nail.

“Listen Brett, thank you for trying. Thank you for giving me fresh clothes and pushing the police away. But I’m not your problem and we don’t know anything about one another. I don’t even know anything about myself, we can’t build trust let alone a friendship like that. I think we both feel weird and it would be best if I left.”

I left the bedroom and hurried toward his front door. I grabbed a pair of flip flops sitting with his other shoes on the way out, silently apologizing and thanking him. Before Brett could even leave hid bedroom, I was out the door and down the hallway of the apartment complex. In the elevator I put the large flip flops.

The elevator grunted its way to the ground floor. Something smasheed into my head. I yelled and fell into the metal side, images flashed before my eyes. A face peering into mine, a bright light ahead, my eyes squinted as I attempted to make out other blurry shapes. Then a sharp poke in my arm, I gasped and tried to struggled free but I’m paralyzed. The memory was gone. I’m leaning against the elevator wall, the door opening. No sign of anything having fallen and my head no longer hurt.

I cautiously stepped out into the lobby. I squelched the thudding of the pain and fear from my memory. Brett burst from a door marked STAIRS. He barreled at me, I took a step back wondering if he changed his mind and called the police to come back and get me.

“I thought about it and you should stay with me.” He’s out of breath and sweat glistened on his brow.

Biting my lip I nodded.

Back on his couch I confessed, “I know you shouldn’t trust me because who the hell knows, but, I’m having a hard time trusting you too. It seems awfully convenient that you were at the park right when I needed you, that the police showed up and that you keep offering me help.”

“There’s nothing I can say to make you trust me but I hope my actions, for a lack of a better term, speak louder than my words.” Brett gave me a small smile but the term meant nothing to me. His smile faltered as I my face remained still.

“I think I had a memory.”

Brett sat up straight, “What?”

“I was in the elevator and I swear something hit me in the head and then it was like I was there. I was lying down and a someone was above me, looking at me, with a bright light above them and I felt a poke in my arm but I couldn’t move.”

“hmmm.”

“What do you think?”

“I think it sounds clichéd but I believe you. It’s not any more bizarre than anything else you’ve said.”

“Don’t you think you should be more freaked out about everything? You found me in a park, brought me home, I told you I killed someone, the police show up, people are freaking out about aliens, and I don’t know who I am.”

“I think it’s kind of cool.” He shrugged.

“Well I’m freaking out.” Tears build again, my lip hurt from biting on it so hard and my leg began to throb from my constant jittering.

“We should go!” Brett stood up suddenly, excitement pouring off him. He grabbed his coat and sunglasses.

“Go?”

“To the site where the loons are camped out. To where the meteor supposedly landed. See if we can find anything or if anything else comes to you.”

Brett routed around in a closet by the door and pulled out a pair of grey converse with dirty laces, “Here, these were my sisters, I think they’ll fit you.”

“Were?” I go over to him and put them on. He was right, they do fit. He shook his head at my question, not meeting my gaze. I dropped the subject and stood back up, feeling exposed in the short shorts, baggy shirt and shoes. “Ok, let’s go.”

The parking lot crowd had tripled in size since I saw it on the news. Food trucks and merchandise, tents set up along the edges and police tape encircled the building. I began to feel queasy as we approached the crowd, wondering if somehow people would know.

No one did.

© Ash Huntley