EQUILIBRIUM : An original "novel"

[SlayerCommaThe]

Hey guys!

So, I'm, like, really into writing and stuff, and I've been working on a "novel" (not quite yet a novel, but I am on the 12th chapter. Yay. lOl) called Equilibrium (thanks so much to BadPuppy for the name suggestion!).

It's about a high school girl who runs across a secret school hidden in the forests just outside of Seattle, and, after trespassing to see what was beyond the high, cobbled walls, gets enrolled. But the school's students arent exactly normal. Each is aspiring to become a full-fledged Witch, but to do so they must conquer 3 Levels (which would, I guess, be like "grades") that lead them to the final stage of becoming a Witch.

But Alicia Greene (who is soon-after nicknamed "Salem") finds herself having to restore the equilibrium of good (Order) and evil (Chaos), or face the wrath of evil's strengthening reign.

How can she do this? Especially considering she was just enrolled hours before given this duty and that she has acquired her powers against school rules with the help of one of her rivals, plus the fact that she finds herself with a shocking connection to the long-since-dead, once-was student of the Witch School, Bloody Mary (who is connected to Chaos)...


Here's the prologue I've had written for quite a while. If you like it I'll post the chapters that come after.






She didn’t know from what she was running.

The only thing she was focused on was pushing her legs fast enough to get to a safe area. She really wished she knew what was happening. All she recalled was waking up outside in the wet grass in the wee hours of the morning with a badass headache. What had happened last night? She remembered screaming…and blood. Not her blood though, despite the fact that her white blouse was drenched in the foul liquid.

It was bad enough that Sierra was running in the woods alone at what she guessed was no more than four o’clock in the morning, but she also had nothing but an oversized blouse on. She was barefoot, she had no clothing on her legs, and she swore she was dying. The temperature couldn’t be any more than freezing. Of course the falling snow said it was thirty-two degrees or lower.

Sierra tripped only once, but she regained her balance soon.

Her feet, stamping on the moist twigs and rocks, never bled or ached. It may have been because something paranormal was happening to her, or it may have been because she was so focused on running away from something she wasn’t even sure was real that she didn’t notice much else.

Tapping deep into her own memory, Sierra recalled blackness. That may have been because she was unconscious, but she was so sure this wasn’t her imagination. She distinctly remembered thinking to herself that she was going to die tonight if she didn’t run.

And then, suddenly, she came to an opening in the trees.

She was in a meadow. But it wasn’t vacant. It wasn’t like she saw in pictures or in magazines and whatnot; it was surely and quite obviously occupied. The medieval-looking castle seemed endlessly tall but also seemed to remain beneath the surrounding trees’ canopy. She could only make out a mere silhouette against the moon’s silver illumination.

Then she saw it again, the blackness, the deep and endless nothingness. It seemed to swallow her whole, eat her alive. She started to run again, rounding a corner of the very high walls surrounding the castle.

Somebody was there. She ran right into them but only she fell back and stumbled to get away once she saw the man’s glowing forehead. He was illuminated, but somehow he was illuminated by darkness. The black snaked outward from his body and morphed into a fiery red as it progressed.

He hissed something.

Suddenly he grabbed for her. He snagged her shirt with his inhumanly claws and held her in the moonlight to see her face. She couldn’t breathe. She thought she was going to pass out when he dropped her down on the frozen ground and stood over her. She opened her eyes one last time to catch a glimpse of his beastly face.

“Ga’f gallang e’,” he said.

After that, she felt her body being drug on the ground, knowing that she was bleeding, but also not feeling the slightest bit of pain.






Tell me what you think.



GaGa~Vampyr

[Billie Erin]

This is really good, I love the original concept- you're very talented, and your writing styles ver captivating.

If you wanted just a tiny hint of criticism I'd say that maybe the names "Bloody Mary" and "Salem" could be changed to something a little less traditional, because you've got a really good, unique concept there and you want to have names that reflect that.

I really like it though, *karmas* and keep up the good work

[SlayerCommaThe]

All right, here's the first chapter :




THE COVER OF NIGHT

I knew tonight was another night that could possibly be my last as a legible human. The shape of the taunting full moon just outside of my window reminded me that any time now one of the Panthers (my grandmother had told me about those) could come up to my house and Mark me, changing my life for what may be forever (the only reason it wouldn’t be forever is because of the very discreet possibility of my death in my morphing process).

I thought about what my life would be like if I was actually enrolled in the secret school that I had heard of several times but had only seen once. I wondered how scared I would be…or if I would be scared at all. The one time I had seen the school it was mainly because of the cover of night that I didn’t get caught by the Guards that protected the high, cobbled protecting the castle-like structure. I remember the night clearly, and I also remembered the necklace I had left in a small bush on one of the outside corners of the high-risen walls so it would mark the place I had once been, so if I happened to meander over there again I could continue the digging job I had done at the base of the wall.

I looked at my digital clock on the side of my bed; It was almost four in the morning. I wasn’t the slightest bit tired. I had stayed up all night watching old horror films and eating Halloween candy my sister had gotten a few nights prior. Dracula still flashed rapidly across the screen in black and white. I suddenly felt the weight of the hardcover book in my lap that would normally seem very lightweight.

Fortunately it was Friday, and I didn’t have to be up for school in two hours and I didn’t have to worry about my parents coming in my room, therefore I didn’t have to worry about acting like I had fallen asleep if they had. My parents were out of town for some business crap they claimed they “had” to do, but I knew they were probably in Havana by now, knowing them. I wasn’t sure why my parents trusted me with my little sister so much, but they did. I didn’t see what all the hubbub was about, what about me having to watch her every move and all. She was fourteen, for crying out loud! When I was fourteen I would be out at this time of morning (but only if it was the weekend…) and my parents wouldn’t know, and if I had had an older sister I wouldn’t be surprised if my parents hired her to watch my every move. I was glad she was younger, I was older, and that it wasn’t the other way around.

I looked at the book. It, as well, was Dracula. I hadn’t been reading it, and I wasn’t sure why it was in my blanketed lap. The small bag of candy corn sat on top of it as I ate the small cobs one by one.

And then the thought suddenly hit me like a truck.
I wanted to go outside. Go back to the school, maybe. After all, it was only a small walk out into the trees. I wanted to continue digging and, hopefully, get to the other side of the wall.

I smiled to myself and slung my feet over the side of the bed, ignoring the candy corn spilling from the bag as I did so (my dog would probably eat it all while I was gone).

I opened my double-door’ed closet and slipped on my shoes (that I had just found out recently people called “potato” shoes) and my jacket (which was a creamy-colored suede). I had been wearing my small gym shorts and just an old spaghetti-strap tee, so I didn’t actually notice how warm the comforter kept me as I reached for the jacket, on the verge of shivering.

I switched off my lamp that was still lit on my bedside table, grabbed a flashlight (from a drawer also on the bedside table), and walked down the stairs and slipped out the back door. From there, I worked my way into the woods (which were luckily just behind our house).

Once I got into the complete blackness of the autumn trees, I flicked on my flashlight and shone it in my path. For some reason I felt like I didn’t need it, like I had a good enough sense of where everything from last time was, though I had only been here once: not enough to memorize the path I had taken.

Just a couple of strides into the woods, I felt the air get denser and dim light spilled through the trees’ naked branches.

And there it was: right in front of me.
Even though the school was supposed to be hidden (I use the term lightly), I felt that it should be more hidden, considering I had found my way to it (twice).

I aimed my flashlight to one of the small, scenic bushes that lined the entire base of the large wall. The glimmering reflection of my locket let me know that that was where my digging had taken place. I quickly turned off my flashlight when I thought I heard somebody close by and then hurriedly stealth-walked my way over to the tree, trying (unsuccessfully) not to step on the leaves so loudly. Reaching the tree, I plucked my locket from its menacingly ivy-like vines. My jacket got caught only once.

Once I heard silence again, I flicked the switch back and pointed the light toward the bottom of the wall. My dirt hole was very obvious but somehow discreet, hidden by the bush’s leaves.

As I got closer I could tell that there was chicken wire nailed over the top of it. I assumed that the Guards thought that a raccoon or a fox had dug it and this small fence-like barrier was going to keep them from coming back and doing it again.

With ease, I yanked the wire from the wall and small portion of the Earth that secured it and tossed it behind me. Suddenly I noticed that I could probably squeeze myself through the hole as it was and then I would be on the school’s secret campus.

I wasn’t sure if there were Guards inside, but I was willing to take my chances. And I didn’t know why I was so curious about this place…I just was. And I also wasn’t so certain why this place was so top-secret. I had heard a lot of myths about it. I say myths because I’m fairly certain that the school isn’t “inhabited by monsters and witches” like great grandparents of mine had told me. One of my grandmothers said she had once gone to the school but escaped because they killed people openly and ate them. I wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not, but I was fifty percent sure she was just continuing the myth that had been in my distant family for years. Even reminding myself of the historic legend that they killed and ate humans, that didn’t stop me from crawling through the tight opening.

Jerking my remaining foot inside the wall, I kicked some leaves over the hole to make it look a little less noticeable.

I was in.

Unfortunately, now I was a little bit scared.

The campus was flourishing with student life. People of very different ages walked along the flower-lined gravel paths and one actually tripped. Unlike my school, where people would point and laugh and would just step on you, several students (I assumed they were students) stopped and helped the girl up. Everybody wore a dark wooly-looking sweater. The boys that I saw wore khaki colored pants and the girls wore dark colored plaid skirts and knee-high socks (very drama-at-the-private-school-in-Upper-Manhattan-uniform cliché).

Though they did look a horrible mess in the ugly-colored clothes, they looked kind of cute and friendly.

What was wrong with this school? Was it private for a reason? And was it a major problem that I was here? Because, clearly, the students were very different-looking than I was.

As far as I could tell, the kids had high cheekbones and their complexions were light. Their bodies were slim and they looked kind of tall. But the feature on them that stood out the most was the dimly glowing tattoo-looking designs (very intricate) that were etched on each and everyone’s forehead. And, as if that wasn’t odd enough, it seemed that recurring colors on peoples’ tattoos was very uncommon. The colors reminded me of fireworks. The glow from the designs on their foreheads illuminated their faces, making their cheekbones stand out that much more and leaving their eyes in shadow.

It seemed that there was some sort of assembly taking place. All of the students, all looking like one another, gathered around one side of the building that was built perfectly in harmony and contrast and perfect symmetry to the surrounding walls. On the wall was nailed (or cemented, I didn’t know) a crucifix-like image on the wall. I wasn’t even sure if it was an actual object, it kind of looked like a projector had been generating the picture. But on the stone wall were a cross (except on this one it was more of a sharpened lowercase T than a cross) and a small image in each window of it.

I think, in one of them, I saw a tiger or something. Some feral and feline-like creature. But this one had horns and long, accentuated fangs and a crown-like object on its head. Its arm was outstretched as if it was swatting at its prey. In the next one (to the right of it) was something that looked like a puddle of blood and over it hung a symbol that I recognized as a Claddagh emblem. I had a ring with the same monogram. In the third window of the cross, directly under the first one, were two interlocking circles with a fish-like creature between them holding a crown similar to the one on the Claddagh above its head, victoriously. In the fourth and final window was a crescent moon that appeared to be bleeding on the bottom. Atop of it, as well, was a crown.

I wondered why the crown was so repetitive in the insignias, but I assumed it had something to do with why the school was so private.

Soft music started playing, suddenly. Just trumpets and violins or something. As students and teachers passed the giant crucifix, they bowed their heads. The group that had gathered looked as if they were praying. They probably were. But praying for what? And to whom…?

I scurried behind one of the large trees on the inside of the wall and continued to watch the ceremonial act. Suddenly it seemed as if thunder had struck and a full moon-shaped object appeared in the center of the cross and illuminated the fronts of the people. The blinding light made me shudder behind the tree’s trunk, as did the sound of it.

I opened my eyes. There was something obscuring my vision of the ceremony. A woman. Dressed in all black. She wore a black, body-length dress, a corset-shaped portion that stopped just under her breasts a lacy black fabric, and the rest was sort of velvet-looking.

I looked up into her face. She had a tattoo on her forehead that dimly illuminated a deep blue. But, slowly, it morphed to red, like a chameleon.

Though I thought that the red meant the woman was angry, she smiled down at me as something escaped her mouth:

“Ga’f, gallang e’,”





Hope you like it.


GaGa~Vampyr

[SlayerCommaThe]

I'm on chapter 14 on my Word document: Does anyone want to read chapter 2?

GaGa~Vampyr