Thursday, August 16, 2007

Friday Snippet, August 17, 2007

And the rest of Chapter Two. Picks up where the last snippet left off. The story doesn't go much further after this. Can you tell I'm stalling until I get some new material down? (grin) I really am working on something. I'm feverishly putting together an outline on a novel. I plan to be a complete idiot and attempt to write a novel from September 1 through December 31. My version of 70 days of sweat?: "90 days of utter exhaustion"

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She rolled on the ground, holding her wrist with her good hand, screaming and sobbing. When she rolled too close to the campfire and burned her thigh, that smaller pain distracted her enough to surge to her feet and run to the stream. Shanda thrust her hand into the water and steam rushed into her face, smelling of burning flesh and metal. She left her hand submerged for a long time, the cold water numbing her wrist and leaching away some of the agony in her hand, bit by bit. Her tears fell into the water like drops of rain.

When dawnlight peered beneath the trees and the fire in her hand faded to only knife-blade sharpness, Shanda pulled her hand to just under the surface of the water. Something on her hand caught the glimmer of the faint morning light and threw it in her eyes.

She drew a breath, and lifted her hand from the water, palm up. Fused to her palm and fingers, drawing her hand into an immovable claw, the shape of a silver cross glittered back at her.

11 comments:

IanT said...

Heh. :-) Built-in protection - but at a cost. :-)

Unknown said...

Ooh, that's sneaky. Now I'm waiting to see how that affects her!

Kait Nolan said...

Very well done! Good description of pain.

Joely Sue Burkhart said...

Ha, a cross embedded in her body, that's great vampire protection!!

Susan Bischoff said...

Ouch. A cool idea!

Gabriele Campbell said...

Very interesting. And I agree, the pain is well described.

Crystal said...

Owwwwwwwww!

Ann said...

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. I hate it when that happens *g*.
my word verification= ibyow. appropriate don't ya think?

Joy Renee said...

i guess there is no way she could be tricked into releasing her protection now hmm? no matter how unworthy she is led to feel. though, in my book at least, the fact of her ability to feel unworthy makes her more worthy not less than someone who is filled with sense of worthiness.

i hope you do continue with this story. you have me caring about Shanda.

Zette said...

Great scene! And, like the others, I wonder how that cross is going to affect her future. This story has a lot of wonderful potentional!

Jean said...

I have to go with everyone else on this one. There's going to be some tough times, but, as someone already said, built in vampire protection. Could be important.

Oh, yes, and rolling toward the fire and burning her thigh -- nice touch. And a good use of that event to trigger her being able to refocus on getting to the stream.