This excerpt comes from a crossover that I should be shot for making, but, it has garnered plenty of welcome attention on the one forum it was posted. This one was written during NaNo when another story I was working on finished a few thousand words too soon. This story did well in getting me to the end and well over the 50K mark. It is almost complete as far as the first draft writing. Already I have made some changes but only in a single character’s name. Other’s will appear later when I decide to work on it more.
This excerpt has what I think is my best attempt at showing. The main character, CloudBloom, is disoriented and trying to get to a place of safety before sie is knocked out the first time. I wanted to get across what sie was feeling in that moment and those few thoughts before assistance arrived.
A flurry of activity buzzed around the sensitive ears of CloudBloom while she lay fighting for consciousness. Something had happened. Something terrible but she could not recall what it was. An alarm was sounding off, the monotone voice crackling and barely discernible though the source could not be more than a few feet away. She heard voices. Voices filled with worry and excitement of some kind.
Though right in front of her, sie saw people moving about, shadows with color radiating around them. Sie was hot and there wasn’t a cool breeze or water anywhere to cool her off. Arms and legs felt too weak move and yet, sie felt hirself moving. Scraping metal then excruciating pain shot through hir midsection before all went blank. Only heat, intense heat, could be felt through the blackness that engulfed hir body.
For what seemed an eternity, the heat stayed with hir. Deep into hir darkest dreams, the heat followed hir. There was nowhere sie could go to escape it. Then, suddenly, she felt the cool touch of a spring breeze brush across her face. Pain still followed hir, but it seemed more of a numb reminder that something was not right. Little by little, sie felt the cool air touch the rest of her body. Relief was washing over hir and calming the already tensed and alert muscles.
Briefly, hir eyes cleared, the darkness parted to give hir a view of an angelic face of white fur, intense blue eyes, and wavy hair that swirled about something in the middle of the forehead before sie finally passed out. Only a few voices could get through the ringing in her ears. Who they belonged to, sie did not know, but sie felt safe and secure as sie faded out and that singular voice speaking to hir.
“Hang in there, miss. You’ll be in good hands. Just hang on. Help is here.” Then, a little more faintly, “I have one over here! She’s barely alive. Over here, quickly!”
“They’re coming, miss. Miss?”
It could have been minutes, hours, or days since sie closed hir eyes before CloudBloom awoke in a room lit by the afternoon sun. All was quiet. Only a songbird was twittering outside the window. Not a single sound of machinery could be heard; the beep of a monitor, or even the soft buzz of electricity waiting to be put to use in something. It was almost deafening with how quiet it was to hir.
Slowly, sie opened hir eyes and saw the sunlight reflecting off the cream colored wall across from hir bed. Then pictures came into focus, followed by the movement of drapes shifting with the breeze coming in from a window a short distance from hir bed. Things were still out of focus, but the longer sie remained awake, the better everything looked.
Sie was alive, and for some reason, this felt like a very good thing. Memories flitted across hir mind. There were others with hir before hir world took a decided turn for the worse. Others like hirself and worlds recently visited. There was a mission they were doing. But, sie couldn’t remember if sie was with the military or an outing with a nature group. Things didn’t seem to want to come together with the jumble in hir head.
What mattered is that sie was awake, no longer in that nightmare where it seemed like sie was being burned alive. Being so awake, sie took a long, shuddering, deep breath and let it out with a sigh. The soft sound brought attention to hir that sie wasn’t expecting.
“Well, good morning! Or should I say good afternoon, miss.” The lightly accented voice came with a face covered with pale pink fur and a bright cheerful smile. “You had everyone worried for a while there. We thought we had lost you a few times.”
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