WINNAR!!

I DID IT! I DID IT! MY EYES BURN AND MY ARMS HURT BUT I DID IT!! 50,200 WORDS!!! HOLLAA!!! WHAT WHAT!!!!!

Seven years of participating in this, first time win! I didn't think I would make it and I wanted to do murders, but I got it done! <3 YAY.

Putting My Defenses Up

I'm really trying to move on. I'm really trying to be a better person, a better me.

I've been very depressed lately. I don't have any medication for mood swings, so I've been dealing with my ups and downs on my own. I'm okay with that, but I've been incredibly weepy these past few days. I've had a lot on my mind and it's so exhausting just trying to function.

Everyone keeps asking me what I want to do with my life or what direction I'm headed in. To be honest, I don't know. I just don't fucking know, and I wish everyone would stop asking me. I've only been divorced three-and-a-half months. My last stint in the hospital was only 7 months ago. I have no idea what I'm doing.

I sat and talked to J tonight. It was his birthday, so he spent it with family, but when he got home I came over and kissed the kids goodnight and we sat and talked for a bit about plans for Thanksgiving. We had an argument, like always, but it was based on miscommunication, like always. Anyway, talking about our miscommunication led off to other topics and I finally shared all of my fears, my anger, my pain with him. I sat and cried for about an hour while I told him everything that keeps me up at night.

For once he didn't interrupt me, he didn't argue, he didn't say anything, really. The thing that struck a chord with me, though, was how he explained his alcoholism and how I bailed when things became unsafe. (I don't mean 'bail' in a bad sense; it was something that needed to be done at that time.) When he became a threat to not only himself but to everyone around him, I had to leave, because if I hadn't, I either would have miscarried Lily or died. I was gone for a year. He told me that it was the hardest and most loneliest year of his life, but he got through it. He didn't push it, he didn't chase me, he let me go, and he worked on himself. It was emotionally draining, but he did it, and became better because of it.

At first I thought this was a terrible example considering alcoholism isn't schizophrenia, but then I pondered a bit and started comparing apples to apples. Yes, they are two different diseases, but they are both a battle of your mind, of your will. J will always be an alcoholic. Even if he has been sober for X amount of years, if he slips up, he'll end up back to where he started. It's ingrained into his brain, will always be there, and all he can do is take the steps to stay clean. It's not as simple as just saying no to alcohol, it's a battle of will. It's a responsibility. In way, I'm the same. I will always be a schizophrenic. I'll never escape it; it will always be there. Sure, I can be symptom free for X amount of years, but if I slip up and not take my medication, I'll end up back to where I started. It's part of my chemistry, ingrained into my DNA, and all I can do is take the steps to stay healthy.

I've been so wrapped up in the negative, I forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I'm giving myself time for me. I'm going to stop listening to everyone around me about what they think I should be doing, and follow my heart on what I know I need to do.

Ugh. This will either make or break me.

You Cannot Edit

My room is a godawful mess of clothing, books, paper, and dishes.
I'm out of cigarettes.
I'm out of tea.
Thank God for coffee, even if it's a day old.
I am in desperate need of a shower. I smell and my hair is gross.
Word count is stressing me out.

22K and still trucking along.

NaNoWriMo Is Eating My Soul

I am a shell of a person.
I've barely eaten.
I've barely slept.
I smoke too much.
My vision is fucked.
My back hurts like hell.
I have to wear braces on my wrists.
I'm 20K in and I have no idea where I'm going with this story.


...


help?

No, I Can't Take One More Step Towards You

I'm in tears.
I'm sitting in my bed, typing out my story for NaNoWriMo, and I am literally in tears.
Is it because the story sucks tremendously? No. Not that at all. I'd actually be okay with that. It's because the scene I'm writing has moved me so much I'm crying! What the fuck? you say? Yes, my thoughts exactly.

I'm in the middle of my sixth chapter, and a little behind on my personal word count goals, but I'm trucking along. However, this chapter has really gotten to me. I wrote the first two chapters without a hitch, even though they were morbid and heart-wrenching in many ways. This one, though, I don't know. My main character is upset, because she has to defend herself, and she tells the boys off by listing what she's gone through. As I type it, I can't help but feel connected to my character. How would I feel if this happened to me? I once had a husband. I *have* four kids. What if they were suddenly gone? Then it hits me, like a fucking tidal wave, and I'm sobbing so hard I can't see what I'm typing.

I'm taking a break. This shit is crazy.

NaNo13: The Fourth Wall

Was working on my NaNo project when this happened:

"'Lo!" pipes a little voice from the table. Terra, Sun's almost two-year-old daughter, sits in a chair next to her father, swinging her legs.

"Hey, cubby," Kaya says sweetly, and gives the little girl a hug and a kiss on the top of her head. Kaya turns to see Sun's mother, Miss Luna, sitting on Terra's other side. Luna is deaf and signals to Kaya a hello. Kaya waves and gives Miss Luna a squeeze before sitting down across from Terra, inbetween [sic] Johnny and Miss Luna. Kaya realizes that Mr. Redundancy is being redundant.

...well, there goes the fourth wall.

NaNoWriMo13

So, I've decided I won't be posting anymore parts of my NaNo13 novel for now. I may post a few excerpts here and there every now and then, but for now, not whole chapters. I need to focus on writing and less on trying to share it while in progress. :) For now, just know it's day 3 of NaNo and I'm at 11k already. WOOT! One of my fellow WriMos in my region hit 50K yesterday. All I could think was "Does this guy NOT have a life?!" Of course, it was word count envy.


Wake me up when November ends....

NaNo13: Part Three

Words: 3636


NOVEMBER 1, 3017
SEASON: rudens

Kaya stares at herself in the mirror, remembering that fateful afternoon so many years ago. She lay in her son's bed for a year, barely eating or drinking, taken care of by Sun. While in her state, she had managed to ask Sun to get rid of all the food and appliances. They had been dropped off at a donation center for those who had survived the disaster. She hadn't kept any of her pots and pans and most of her dishes were gone. The stove was still in place, but never used, and the dishwasher had been removed, leaving a giant gaping hole in the cabinetry. All the bathroom doors were shut, as she had no running water, and the only time she actually went in any of them was to make sure nothing had crawled in there and made itself a den or to use a mirror like she was doing now. The pictures had been tidied from broken glass and frames and placed in a box. Anything that had been in the storage closet under the stairs had been removed. Even most of her clothes had been removed. The books and the bookcases had been left untouched, along with the children's room.

Clicking back to reality, Kaya grabs her comb and runs it through her long curls, her hair almost reaching her knees. Reaching behind her, she grabs her black hair and braids it over her left shoulder. Almost five winters, five ziemas, have passed since then. Five years she has been alone. She leaves the bathroom and sliding her feet into her boots, Kaya grabs her bow and quiver of arrows resting on her bed and straps them to her back. The sun has fallen beneath the horizon and it is time to hunt. Leaving her bedroom she stops in front of her children's room. She hasn't been inside for years. Resting her hand on the closed door, she recites a soft prayer for their souls. Every night she says this prayer right before a hunt. Every night for almost four years now.

Locking the door behind her, Kaya walks the perimeter of her house. After she had finally returned to her senses, she had found planks of wood from collapsed houses and nails and had boarded all of her windows. Now that the glass had shattered, she needed all of these opened areas closed so no one would come inside. It had been a large pain in the ass, but she had managed it. When she had run out of the nails she had in her toolbox, she took the ones holding the frames on the walls and used those. When those had run out, she had scavenged foundered homes and buildings for building materials. The fence around her house had been fixed and expanded. She had dug a well in her backyard and kept it safe with a car door she had garnered from an abandoned vehicle on the street. A garden was created and grew alongside the house, using her own urine as a way to fertilize and make the herbs, fruits, and vegetables flourish. Even her peach tree had begun bearing fruit last year.

All seemed quiet around her home. No one dared mess with her well or her garden, not since the last person who did ended up with an arrow in the butt. Satisfied with her surroundings, Kaya grabs a satchel left leaning against the garden fence. Inside are nuts and dried herbs in small little velvet bags, and weapons of various styles. The sky is dark now and Kaya knows no one is watching. Pulling out a belt from the bag, she grabs a machete and a dagger with a blade about fifteen centimeters in length. The belt holds a sheath for each blade and she buckles it into place around her waist. She sifts through the bag, making sure all of her tools are in order; a compass, rope, bandages, and an ointment she made out of herbs she found in the woods. Pulling out a small canteen, she walks to the well and moves the car door aside just enough to expose the opening. Grabbing the bucket whose chain has been bricked into the well, she lowers it down to fill with ground water and pours the cool liquid inside the canteen. Standing up, Kaya places the canteen into a pocket latched to her belt. Grabbing her satchel, she climbs the inside of the fence and launches herself to the ground, heading north into the woods.

Up in the lower branches of a tree, Kaya nocks an arrow in preparation for her hunt. Her breathing is calm, paced, and shallow, so as not to make too much noise and scare away the small animals she hopes to make her dinner. Spying a delphi, a marsupial animal resembling Earth's opossum, Kaya raises her bow and arrow, stretching out her left arm and pulling back the string until her right hand is level with her chin. "What are you doing up there?" she hears below her. Startled, Kaya turns, almost loosening her arrow.

"Damn it, Sun. I almost shot you in the face."

"Sorry. I thought you were food and was about to come after you. I was startled when I found you in a tree."

"Sun, you know how I smell. You know I'm not food."

"I know, but you know my sense of smell is a bit off until both moons are on top of each other." Kaya looks up at the sky. Both moons are visible now that it's dark, sitting side by side, but the only way the zoanthropes know when their abilities are at their peak is when the red moon is above the yellow moon.

"Every twenty-nine and a half days, am I right?"

"Yep, and that doesn't happen for another three days. It's even worse now that I'm pregnant again."

"Shouldn't you be home with Johnny and Terra?"

"My mom's with them. Johnny injured himself in the last hunt, and my mom being human makes it difficult to hunt as well as we do. I have to make it home soon, anyway. My breasts are already beginning to swell, so Terra's bound to be hungry soon." At this, Sun adjusts her breasts inside her shirt, wincing slightly at her own touch. "So what are you doing in that tree?"

"The same reason you are out and about. I was about to shoot a delphi when your dumb ass ruined it. Now I'll have to wait even longer for something else to come along. Maybe I'll be able to find another delphi, or even a rocyon."

"Sorry about that. I seriously thought you were a bigger animal. I must have confused your scent with the delphi's. I did find a nest of sleeping sciuros if you want one," Sun says, holding up a satchel toward Kaya. "I know it's no delphi, but it's something. There are, like, seven of them in there so you can take two if you want." Kaya jumps down from the tree landing inches away from Sun. Opening the satchel, she grabs one and shoves it into her own bag.

"Thanks, but one is enough. You have a husband and a child to feed." Kaya's heart aches saying these words. Damn it, it's been five years. Get over yourself. "Besides, I'll be hunting for a little while longer. I'm sure I'll find something." Hugging Sun, she adds, "I'll see you tomorrow, and hopefully, you won't confuse me with food again." Laughing, Sun parts, and heads home. Kaya smiles at her friend and once again climbs the tree in anticipation for another critter to come out into her line of vision.

If it were safe to hunt during the day, she would. In the light, her vision is clearer, being able to see the magnetic energy fields everything emits. In the darkness, the colors are dim and she has to concentrate much harder to see them. Her sense of feeling them doesn't change, but the colors they emit are what she needs to see. But if she hunts during the day, she becomes the hunted. So many of her people, the new people, like her and Sun, the Chaoziran, are being hunted, disappearing to Jove knows where. She can't take the chance of being captured. At night her only worry is finding food, but during the day, she has to be extra careful in hopes that none of the humans find her out.
________

Karl sets his beer down on the table. The pub is noisy and full of hunters. The stench of man sweat assaults his nostrils and he's sure that someone has vomited somewhere. "So why are we here in Summer Tree? Couldn't you find a city in Saxet that wasn't hit by an asteroid? There are plenty of states here in Haven, hell, in the entire continent of Ironside, that aren't crawling with crazy people around a large crater. It's hard to find a place here with electricity."

Michael looks up from his notes at his older brother. "Seriously, how many times must I remind you that the Chaoziran are more powerful and more common around the site of a meteorite? The radiation helps heighten their abilities."

Karl snorts and takes another swig of his beer. "Calm your panties, man. You don't have to get all snippy."

"I'm not snippy. If you would do your research ahead of time I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself. It's incredibly vexing and it makes me want to punch you in the face."

"Blah, blah, blah, I don't care. I repeat, why are we here?"

Michael grows in frustration. "How old are you? Thirty-five? Why must you act like a child?"

"Why must you act like an old fart?"

"Karl, shut up. I have not had enough beer for this shit."

"Quit being such a whiney bitch. Why. Are. We. Here?"

Growling louder, Michael balls his hands into fists and takes a few calming deep breaths. He does not want a fight with his brother. He doesn't care that Karl is the older of the two. He's taller and less drunk. He could easily lay Karl down flat, but now is not the time. "We are here for the same reason we were in Morning Star last week. We have a bounty to collect."

"What kind? Lycan? Ailuran?"

"No. No zoanthropes."

"Blood suckers, then."

"No. No vampires or zombi, either." Michael leans in closer to his brother. "We're hunting a nahualli."

"A witch?" Karl's voice drops down to a whisper. The last thing he needs is for one of the other hunters to overhear. "That is the rarest form of Chao there is. They can easily manipulate people into thinking they are human; they blend in with everyone else. Are you sure there's one here?"

"Yes," Michael says, pushing his notes around toward his brother. "The Ironside Disease Control Center specifically hired us to find this witch. They're willing to pay us 1,500 each if we bring her in unharmed. Only 1,000 each if she's hurt but brought back alive, and 500 if we bring back her body. Her name is Kaya Miller, formerly Blackthorne. Her parents were Peter and Zinnia Blackthorne. Five years ago she was married to a Jason Miller and had four children. All of them, including her in-laws and three siblings she had, died in the asteroid crashes. Up until recently, it was thought that she had died in the disaster as well. When the DCC came to sweep the area last month, someone reported seeing a woman exiting out of the house listed under Jason's name. She's rarely seen during the day, and rumor has it she is never found around any of the zoanthropes or dhampirs. There's no evidence to show she's a regenerate, either. The picture on file is from about fifteen years ago when she was still a teenager, so I'm sure she's changed, but probably not by much. I'm told that nahuallis, along with the dhampirs, age slowly." Leaning back against his seat, Michael waits until Karl lets everything sink in.

"So all we have to do is bring her to the Capital alive and we end up with three grand?"

"That's pretty much it."

Karl studies the picture still on the table. "How old was she here?"

"Seventeen."

"She looks twelve. So you're saying she still looks like this?"

"Pretty much. The only thing that she could have changed is her hair, unless she's ended up with some disfiguring scar across her face or something." Karl continues to stare at the picture. "What is it?"

"You say this was taken almost fifteen years ago?"

Michael nods. "Yeah. It's the only picture they had on file, the one she took when she received her driving certificate on her identification card. Why?"

"It's just that she looks so tiny, like a child."

"Technically she is tiny. She's only about 15 decimeters high." Michael watches as Karl traces his fingers over Kaya's features. Her dark curls are short and frame her face, her brown eyes large and innocent. Her lips are full and her light brown skin seems flawless, with only a few freckles scattered across her round cheeks and button nose. A look of confusion crosses Karl's face. "Whatever it is, don't worry about it. She's thirty-one right now, not much younger than I am."

Karl sighs and pushes the papers back at his brother. "You're right. It just makes me feel weird. We're in our thirties, just like she is, but we look like we're in our thirties, you know? Here I am, I've got crow's feet at my eyes, and grey hair sprinkled on the sides of my head, and there she is looking twelve. That's not natural."

"That's not the only thing unnatural about her, and that's why we have to find her and take her to the DCC."

"I need another beer," says Karl and raises his right hand to flag down a waitress.

Michael quickly scoops up his papers and slides them neatly into a folder before shoving them into the bag draped on the back of his chair. I don't know what's gotten into him, he muses. Since when does Karl care what our subject looks like? We've bagged dhampirs who've looked just as young. Maybe not quite so young, but young nonetheless. Not to mention the zoans we've captured that were only children. It's a good thing her children died in that asteroid crash, though, or else we would be hunting them as well.
________

Kaya sighs. After an extra hour in the woods, she was unable to find a larger animal to eat. The delphi never returned after being scared off by Sun. She had seen a mus, a rodent even smaller than the sciuro, but it had been snatched up by a strigi bird almost immediately after Kaya had taken aim for it. Now she stands in her backyard in front of her grill, poking the firewood and frowning at her partially-cooked sciuro. "This is some bullshit," she mutters, turning over the skinned animal on the rack. "I would have settled for a lepus, but no, even that was asleep and hiding somewhere." A sudden cracking noise startles Kaya out of her foul mood. Moving quickly and silently, Kaya grabs the lid of the grill and sets it gently on top, closing the vent and extinguishing the flame. Crouching low, she walks the perimeter of the garden and squeezes into a corner by the gate, making sure she is hidden by shadows. She hears voices, men's voices, none of which she recognizes.

"Is this it?" asks Karl, taking in the view of the house. Michael nods. "Are you sure? It looks abandoned."

"It's the address on the paper the DCC gave me. It has to be."

"Mikey, this shit looks like no one has lived in here for the past five years. I mean, look at this. All the windows are busted and boarded up, the fence is a hot mess, though still in one piece, and there are fucking coppe webs everywhere. Sure, the grass is much lower than it should be, but it's still too tall for anyone who would want to live in this place."

"True, but isn't that what you would want people to think if you were trying to lay low? She can't possibly live like a normal human when people believe she's dead."

"Nobody can live like a normal human in this place. There's no electricity, no water, no nothing. Hell, the only people who could survive in a place like this would be Chaoziran. This area must be crawling with them."

"You're probably right, Karl, but that's not what we're looking for here. Let's go check shit out."

Shrinking further into the shadows, Kaya holds her breath in anticipation. So the bounty hunters (Karl and, was it Michael?) are finally after me, she reflects. She presses her ear harder against the fence post in hopes of better hearing the conversation.

"I can't see anything through the boards on the windows, it's too dark inside." says Mike. "Have you tried the door?"

"Yeah, it's locked."

"And? When has that ever stopped you?"

"Listen, genius, we came here straight from the pub. I am most likely drunk and all of my shit is in our room back at the motel by said pub. Excuse me for not thinking we were going to go hunting immediately after drinking, because, you know, that makes sense."

"SH!" Mike hisses. "Shut up, Karl. A simple 'I left it behind' would have sufficed. Geez. Now be quiet, you're getting too loud." He signals at his brother for silence. Grimacing, Karl throws up his hand in a rude gesture toward his brother. "Oh, real classy, Karl. Quit being a child."

"Stop being such a pansy. There's nobody here."

"You know, sometimes you are the worst bounty hunter ever." Sighing, Mike walks over to the gate and attempts to peer over it; he's just tall enough that the tip of his nose touches the top. Now paralyzed with fear, Kaya sends a silent prayer out into the ether in hopes no one notices her as she squishes further into the corner where the fence meets the brick of the house.

"Anything?" pipes Karl when he notices Mike standing on tip-toe against the gate.

"Not really. Even though there is plenty of light from the moons, there are too many shadows cast from the plants. All I can see is what looks like a car door on the ground."

"Why the hell would someone leave a car door in the middle of their backyard?"

Incredibly frustrated with his brother, Mike sighs and reaches for the gate's handle. "Man, I don't know." The gate gives a little but doesn't open.

Kaya closes her eyes, curling into a ball. Please let it still be locked. I went to hunt by jumping over the fence. I came back by jumping it again. I never used the gate. Please let it still be locked. Please, please, please.

Mike pulls on the handle again, harder this time, hearing metal against metal. Looking down, he finally notices the small padlock looped through the gate's latch. "It's locked. Doesn't miss a single one, does she?"

"You could jump the fence."

"You jump the fence."

"Dude, I'm drunk. I could break something."

"Yeah, well you're also short, useless." Quickly ducking, Mike narrowly misses a punch thrown directly at his face. Kaya relaxes at the sounds of the boys' scuffle. The two of them can be heard rolling in the grass, grunting and cursing, spitting out bits of grass and dirt. "Knock it off, Karl!" Mike seethes. Karl is pinned to the ground, his face in the dirt and arms behind his back while Mike sits on him. "We don't have time for this."

"Fine!" Karl spits, dirt still stuck on his lips. "I'm fine. Now, get off me." Rising to his feet, Mike lets go of Karl's hands. "Are we done here?" Karl asks, dusting the dirt off his hands and clothing. Kaya stiffens. "I'm tired, drunk, and now bruised and probably bleeding." He taps a spot on his bottom lip, checking the tips of his fingers. "Yep, I'm bleeding. I am fucking bleeding. Way to go, Mikey."

Mike shrugs. "You took a swing at me, remember? You deserved it. As to whether or not we're done here, yeah, we're done. Without any of our supplies, we can't get much done, now can we? Especially with her having locked everything. I could jump the fence, but I'm too tired myself to exert that much energy. We'll call it a night and head back to the hotel. We'll come back tomorrow."

"Good, because I am done." With a spit of blood, Karl punctuates his sentence.

Keeping her ear pressed to the fence, Kaya waits until the boys' receding footsteps are no longer heard. Slowly letting out the breathe she had forgotten she was holding, Kaya lifts herself up and stretches her now stiffened joints. The temperature outside has dropped since she started cooking the sciuro and she's lost her appetite. Quietly climbing the fence, she peers over it to make sure the men are gone. Seeing no one, she drops back down and walks to the grill, opening its lid. The sciuro is still only partially cooked, but still warm. Not wanting it to go to waste she grabs it, walks in the house through the back door, locks it behind her, and sits on the couch in the living room. Taking a bite of meat, she considers her new situation. Well, she concludes. I'm fucked.


Total: 8257/50000

Discover nine novel English neologisms now

nerd:
The slang term nerd means an intelligent but single-minded person, obsessed with a certain hobby or pursuit, e.g. a computer nerd. But the word that has been the bane of so many elementary schoolers' existence was actually invented by their king: none other than Dr. Seuss himself! The word first appeared in print in Seuss' 1950 picture book, If I Ran the Zoo, though Seuss' 'nerd' is a small animal from the land of Ka-Troo, not a pale kid with glasses taped together.

yahoo:
The origin of this word may add some unexpected irony to the well-known internet browser. Originally coined by Jonathan Swift in his 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels, Yahoo refers to the brutish race of homo sapiens ruled by the Houyhnhnm, a noble race of speaking horses. Swift's Yahoos display all of the vices of humanity with none of the virtues, thus it makes sense that the word has come to mean 'a course or brutish person.' If you say 'yahoo' loud enough you might be moved to experience our next neologism.

chortle:
Lewis Carroll coined this funny term for a gleeful chuckle in his 1872 novel, Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In the novel, the word appears in a verse poem titled "The Jabberwocky," in which Alice finds a book that can only be read using a mirror. The old man in the poem "chortles in his joy" when his son beheads the terrible monster. Today the word is widely thought to be a combination of 'chuckle' and 'snort.'

quark:
A quark can be any group of elementary particles that combine to become a subatomic particle such a neutron or proton. In other words, quarks are some of the smallest building blocks of an atom. In 1964 the U.S. physicist Murray Gell-Mann named the particle after a word he found in James Joyce's novel, Finnegan's Wake. Joyce's quotation reads, "Three quarks for Muster Mark," with 'quark' referring to the cry of the seagull.

utopia:
Utopia is the title of Sir Thomas More's whimsical and satirical book written in 1516. More envisions a perfect society situated on an island that he names Utopia. Developing the word from the Greek topos for 'place,' More choose the prefix ou- or u- meaning 'not' or 'no.' Thus the name Utopia quite literally means no place at all. Even though More might have his reservations about the achievability of a perfect world, our next neologism might be the closest thing to a perfect sound.

tintinnabulation:
The American poet and author Edgar Allen Poe coined this onomatopoetic word in his 1849 poem "The Bells." The poem was published shortly after Poe's death, and though the four sections of the piece become progressively darker as Poe describes four different types of bells, tintinnabulation characterizes the joyous sound of silver sleigh bells, foretelling "a world of merriment." The word is derived from the Latin tinnire meaning 'to ring' combined with the instrumental suffix 'bulum.'

grok:
Do you feel like nobody groks you? Don't worry, Robert A. Heinlein does. In his 1961 best-selling science fiction novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein coined the term to mean an understanding so thorough that "the observer becomes a part of the observed--to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience." But in common usage the term means to communicate sympathetically or to 'drink in' understanding. If you're reading this off a screen, you'll definitely grok our next neologism.

cyberspace:
Though you might not want to build a house there, anyone with a computer has a stake in cyberspace. Coined by the science fiction writer William Gibson, cyberspace first appeared in a 1982 short story. The word combines the terms 'cybernetics' (the use of mechanical and electronic systems to replace human function) and 'space' (an area or realm). Together they form 'cyberspace,' the realm of electronic communication or virtual reality. If you've ever thought 'virtual reality' was a bit of an oxymoron, you might be familiar with our final neologism.

catch-22:
"The deal sounds great, but what's the catch?" Have you heard something like this? Then you'd better hope the catch isn't a Catch-22. The phrase represents a frustrating situation in which one is trapped by contradictory regulations or conditions. Catch-22 is the title and central problem of Joseph Heller's 1961 novel, and in Heller's context the catch represents a simultaneously dangerous and idiotic military regulation that maddens the poor characters tangled in his Catch-22.

provided to you by Dictionary.com

NaNo13: [2]

(I realized much later that I had titled the first post as "prologue" when I had decided not to do a prologue and just have a continuous story throughout with some needed time gaps in between. My bad. Also, sorry about the format. I type this shit up when I'm tired....which, to be honest, I'm always tired. NOTE: The original is posted on my blogger http://vonnieness.blogspot.com )


****PaRt TwO****
Words: 1608

DECEMBER 25, 3012
SEASON: zeima

In the darkness, Kaya lays under a stack of boxes, not knowing how many days have passed, waking up to a completely new world. Opening her eyes she sees how bright the colors are, everything in a new focus. Someone has come in the house, calling out to her, hoping that someone is alive. "Jason? Kaya? Jasmine? Anybody?" asks the voice. A woman's voice, Kaya realizes. It's the neighbor, Sun. She has now called out all of their names, but Kaya is the only one who can answer.

"I'm in here!" Kaya cries out from underneath the boxes. Her voice is weak and her entire body hurts. How long have I been here? she asks herself. How many others have survived? Sun opens the door to the storage closet, temporarily blinding Kaya.

"Oh, honey! Are you okay?" Sun cries, rushing to her friend and squatting down to be near Kaya's head. Kaya makes a noise in reply. She doesn't know how to answer. Her body hurts, but nothing feels broken, just sore. The boxes are heavy, but not so heavy that serious damage has been done. However, Kaya's heart is broken. Physically, she's okay. Emotionally, she's breaking.

Sun assesses the situation. Carefully grabbing the boxes, Sun lifts them and somehow manages to remove them all off of Kaya. It was interesting, considering that she and Sun were both small and frail-looking. "How'd you find me?" Kaya asks as she and Sun clasp arms and she is gently helped into a standing position.

"I knew you were here," Sun says. "I could smell you. Does that sound weird?"

Kaya looks up at her friend, seeing an aura of color around Sun. Looking around, Kaya notices she could see colors everywhere, halos of energy around everything. "No," she said. "You have no idea how normal that sounds right now."

"Where is everybody?" asks Sun as she guides Kaya out of the storage closet and onto the couch against the south wall of the living room. The floor is still littered with glass, the television no longer attached to its cord and in complete disarray on the floor. They both sit on the couch, Sun looking concerned for Kaya, and Kaya looking straight ahead, facing the television cabinet, yet not really seeing.

"They were in the city," she says, not looking at Sun.

"Oh, honey bunches. I'm so sorry." Sun wraps her arms around Kaya. Kaya winces at the sudden touch, causing her to cry out in pain. "Do you need me to get you anything?" Sun asks, quickly letting go.

"No. There's nothing I want and need that you can get me."

"Have you been under those boxes since it happened?" Sun continues.

"Yes. I've been out the whole time. Your voice was what woke me. If I hadn't heard you, who knows how long I would have stayed under? Hell, if you hadn't come, who knows how long I'd still be there?"

"Like I said, I smelled you out. I could hear your heartbeat. It's been four days, and they have been the strangest four days of my life. I went into some kind of shock that left me incapacitated for a day or two, like I was dying. Then out of nowhere, I'm okay, and I feel different. New. My sense of hearing is off the charts and so is my sense of smell. That's not all if it, either. The way I walk and run and jump; all of that has changed. And you want to hear the strangest part?" Kaya stares and nods. "I can talk to lykoi. All of them. I went out into the woods just yesterday to try and find something to eat, when a lykos came sniffing around the same area. I originally guessed that she was hunting like I was, until she spoke to me."

Kaya's eyes widened. Sun spoke to a lykos? They were feral beasts, four-legged and full of fur with sharp canines that could tear meat to shreds. They also liked the taste of human if you were alone, wandering around the woods, and the lykoi hadn't eaten in days. The domesticated kynesi were descendants of the original lykoi, and now a distant cousin. Kaya had had a kyon as a child, and her parents eventually ended up with two kynesi later, but she couldn't imagine ever talking to any of them.

"She didn't actually speak," Sun continued, snapping Kaya back to the conversation. "It was weird, actually. Lykoi don't have cheeks, so it's not like they can actually talk, other than their barks and howls, but I could hear her so clearly. And it wasn't really in words. You see, I could hear her in my mind, but it was more like it was all in pictures. Am I making any sense?"

Kaya shook her head. She was sore and confused, and, now, a little scared. What if Sun was losing sanity? What if Kaya herself was losing sanity? What if this entire conversation was all in Kaya's mind and she was actually still unconscious under a pile of boxes?

Sighing, Sun frowns and looks down at her hands. "I don't know what's happening, Kai. It's really freaking me out, and I can't explain it properly. All I know is that I'm somehow connected to lykoi. Whenever I'm out in those woods, they find me and follow me. I'm okay with it because I know, and I do mean know, that they aren't going to hurt me. It's like, they see me as their own; we're family." With another exasperated sigh, Sun flops against the back of the couch and looks up at the ceiling. "All of this sounds completely insane," she says to herself.

Kaya stares at her friend and really looks at her. A halo of colorful energy surrounds Sun in various shades. Shades of yellow and orange play around the edges of Sun's body with wisps of grey suddenly forming throughout. Kaya doesn't fully understand what she's seeing, but upon looking down at her own hands, she realizes the colors surrounding her own body. Shades of red and tendrils of black play around her, swirling, vibrating, pulsing.

"Sun," she starts. "It's not crazy. If you could see what I see right now, you'd know that what you've experienced is just the tip of the iceberg." Kaya and Sun gaze at each other. Tentatively, Sun reaches out for her friend; Kaya responds slowly, measuredly, and hugs Sun in return.

In their embrace, Kaya realizes how nice Sun smells. She smells clean, washed. Pulling away, she is aware of how she must smell. She's been in a storage closet for four days.. Her clothes are dry, but they smell, and she realizes she must have expressed herself unknowingly because of the large stain along the lap of her jeans. "I need to change," she says to Sun, and instinctively stands and heads up the stairs, Sun closely behind.

Kaya heads into the first bathroom directly at the top of the stairs. The lights don't work. Of course, nothing would work at this point. Wait, where is all the light coming from? She leaves and heads down the hall into her own bedroom. Of course, the windows. The curtains hadn't been drawn, and light spills through the pane-less frames, glass still scattered underneath and stuck within the carpet.

In her closet, Kaya moves mechanically and unseeing, undresses, and grabs a dress, long at the skirt and sleeves to keep away the cold of the season. She it dawns on her that if the electricity is not working, than the plumbing probably isn't either. She's not even going to take the chance. Dressed in clean clothes, flattens her curls to the best of her abilities and walks out into the hallway, all the while being carefully watched by Sun.

At the end of the hallway, opposite to the stairs' landing, is the children's room. Kaya slowly walks in, hypnotic and dazed. She takes in the room. The frames on the walls have all fallen, sitting broken either on the floor or on the top bunks. The striped curtain sways in the breeze against the windowless frame. Other than the remnants of having the entire house shaken from an asteroid hit, the whole room has been left untouched. Kaya sits on her son's bed and grabs the one stuffed animal he left on top after the room had been initially cleaned. It's an old thing, originally hers as a child, and had been passed generation to generation for only Jove knows how long. It is tattered and patched, and none of the original fabric has survived. A small, soft elephant, an ancient animal from earth that resembles their pelefante, sits cradled in Kaya's hands as they rest in her lap.

Kaya lets out a strangled sob and collapses on the bed, her cries being smothered by the pillow. She wails and lets her tears be absorbed by the fabric. Everything hurts. Everything. If only I had gone out with them. If only they had stayed. If only that fucking washing machine hadn't busted. I would still have them; I would still have my babies.

Sun, who has been patiently waiting at the doorway, now walks up to the bed. Reaching above her,she grabs a quilt and gently wraps it around Kaya. Crawling into the bed, she lays behind Kaya, who cried uncontrollably still clutching the elephant, and wraps her own arm around her friend. Sun stays quiet and just holds Kaya, until the sobs and wails quiet down, and Kaya eventually falls asleep.

Total: 4621/50000

I Came In Like a Wrecking Ball

( NOTE: if you are reading this in LiveJournal and wish to see the photos I posted, the original post is at http://vonnieness.blogspot.com/ )

OCT 30: So, my date went well. I had a great time with Mike. He took me out to dinner and a movie. We got lost at one point, couldn't see due to rain "Turn off the windshield wipers; the don't work, they're just making it worse!", hit a concrete island, and talked... a lot. :) AND I didn't act like a tramp! Good job, me! We saw the newest rendition of Carrie, which I enjoyed, and I laughed a bunched. It will seriously be a night I won't forget any time soon and I'm glad I had fun even though I was running on only about 3 hours of sleep. Thankfully, though, I got home, passed out around midnight, and slept like a champ. I didn't take any pictures other than this one that I took for my sister to look at my make up:

"Oh, Wanda! You sure is pretty in them
tight clothes, all painted up like trash!

OCT 31: I spent most of the day sleeping, not because I was exhausted, but because I had many plans that were going to go into the wee hours of the morning. I had already participated in a Samhain ritual on Sunday, so I did nothing, spiritually speaking, this day. When I went to J's, the kids had Sonic for dinner and then we headed over to his mom's house where Joe and Lauren are house-sitting while Deb and Steve are away visiting Steve's family, did some face-painting, played video games, and handed out candy. Iris was giving out free hugs to random children as well. We stayed there for about an hour or two and then headed back to J's and put the kids to bed. They had fun. :) Pictures below:

Lily arranged her own black cat costume.
She had socks on her hands as paws at one point

Iris as Hello Kitty

She kept looking above my head for some reason.
There was nothing there.

Rose was a grape, hence the leaves on her face.
She was dressed in purple from head to toe.

Dorian: Toddler Wolf

"This is my costume.
I'm a homicidal maniac -
they look just like everyone else."

Lauren looking for pans; cooking

Joey the hot dog,
though he would confuse kids and say he was:
a taco, lasagna, a hamburger

Iris took this picture.
I was a witch.

mah socks and sexay shoes

Playing Lego Marvel

Joey as Capt. America

Lily as...catdog?

Afterward I headed over to Dragon's Lair for the NaNoWriMo kick-off party. I was much later than I expected, mostly because I passed the damn place three times before finally figuring out where the shit it was. I missed the guest speaker, but I did get free stickers, free food, and made new friends. :) Not to mention I got two hours of typing in as soon as midnight hit. Plus, the bag of apples I had brought were gone...so yay! Also, thank you to the people who brought soup and veggies to this shindig. The not-sugar was highly appreciated. More pitchars!:

Getting ready to type

so many WriMos...
we had originally all been squished in a tiny room

One of two "buffet" tables

FREE STUFF

Discussing plot lines

My work station
 

My table of peers.
I can't remember any of their real names.

This is Jason.
He's my new buddy. :)

NOV 1: I'm now home, it's 4 in the morning, and I'm hyped up on sugar and caffeine. I have my knitting group at 1030am, that I am considering bailing on. Though I also considered showing up, taking a nap on the couch, and just covering myself with yarn and pretending I'm my knitting project. I have the kids tonight for the weekend, so I know I will nap eventually or driving is going to suck.

Here's to my busy November. I hope I don't contract the plague.

NaNo13 - Prologue

Words: 3041

DECEMBER 21, 3012
SEASON: ziema

Kaya murmurs and rolls over, shoving her cold toes under her husband's knees. Jason flinches in his sleep from the sudden freezing touch, but sighs and continues to dream. Sensing someone watching her, Kaya slowly opens her eyes, her vision blurred from sleep and the painful morning light. Her senses are startled awake when she realizes a figure at the side of her bed and she bolts upright in alarm. "Morning, Mami."

Kaya sighs and relaxes. It's only one of the children. "Morning, baby," Kaya says, her voice raspy at its first use of the day. "You scared me. What time is it?" she asks, clearing her throat.

Her daughter shrugs. Rubbing her eyes, Kaya wipes the sleep away and glances at the clock on her bedside table. It's a little after six in the morning. Sighing again, Kaya looks at her daughter, Violet, her second born. "What are your sisters doing? Is anyone still asleep?" As if on cue, Kaya hears her son's battle cry from the other side of the wall.

"No." Violet shakes her head. "Jasmine is being bossy, so Daisy keeps hitting her, and Vince keeps attacking everyone with the squishy hammer." Kaya groans internally. From the noises coming from the other side of the wall it sounds as if a war is carrying on. Great, Kaya thinks. Not only did they probably wake up at dawn, they are in a 'search and destroy' mindset. "Mami, I'm hungry." Violet interrupts Kaya's reverie. Sighing for the third time in just a few short minutes, Kaya stretches and slides out of bed. "Come on," she says, ushering Violet out of the room and leaving the door open. "Let's go see what your siblings are up to."

Opening the door to the children's bedroom feels like a mistake. Kaya's ears are immediately assaulted by the three children arguing for various reasons. Even Violet chimes in upon entering. Jasmine is scolding Daisy for not following her instructions while Daisy yells back that Jasmine is not the boss of her. Violet yells about something that she has noticed has gone awry while she was away. And Vince, being only a year old and unable to articulate his feelings, is just yelling over his sisters. Shaking her head at the scene, Kaya puts a baby gate in place at the doorway to barricade the smallest into the room. The last thing she needs is for him to notice the open doorway, escape, and catapult himself down the stairs while she tries to calm the situation. "Guys!" Kaya yells, trying to overpower the four screaming children. "It is way too early for this mess!"

"But, Mami!" Jasmine starts.

"But, Mami, nothing. Stop yelling and stop being such a butt." Kaya takes in the room. Across from her, the set of bunk beds on the south wall is neatly made, being the ones the older two sleep in. The set of bunk beds on the west wall, not so much. Vince has taken every toy imaginable and placed them all on his mattress in the bottom bunk. Daisy didn't even attempt to tidy up her blankets on the top and the area looks like an attempt at a pillow fort gone wrong. Toys are scattered everywhere, and a toy box seems to have toppled over. Vince is standing in the middle of the mess, dressed in nothing but his diaper, holding a plastic shield in one hand, a foam hammer in the other, and wearing a tiara. Kaya realizes that while Jasmine and Violet, the oldest two, are fully dressed for the day, Daisy is standing in her underwear wearing nothing other than a set of pastel-colored fairy wings. "Okay, girls, help me out. I'm going to go downstairs and make breakfast. Your father is probably awake by now from all the commotion, but is still in bed. If you need anything while I'm busy, go to him first. Jasmine, could you do me a favor and get a shirt and pants for your brother and help him get dressed? If he needs a diaper change, go tell your dad. Violet, could you pull something out for Daisy to wear? When the two of you are done with that I need all of you to clean up this mess, please and thank you. I'll be back to let you know when breakfast is ready." After climbing over the gate and walking away from the chaos, Kaya pokes her head into her bedroom. Jason, now awake, is still laying in bed. "Did you hear everything?" she asks. Jason nods, his eyes still closed. "Do you want coffee?" Another nod. "Okay. Love you" she adds and heads down the stairs.

In the kitchen, Kaya sighs and shakes her head. Every morning seems to be pandemonium in her house. Sometimes she wishes she could wake up one morning to the sound of birds chirping instead of children bellowing at each other, but she knows that is near impossible at the moment. She smiles. Though her children are always full of more energy than she can sometimes handle, she knows she wouldn't change it for the world. Sure, she's young, only twenty-six-years-old, and sure, she has a hoard of children that are only two years apart each, give or take a couple of months, but she loves it. It's a lot of hard work, she knows this, but it's totally worth the smiles she sees on her children's faces every day. Not to mention the cuddles and kisses she gets as a bonus.

After breakfast, the entire family is downstairs. Vince sits on the carpeted floor of the living room, stacking large interlocking building bricks into towers before laughing maniacally and knocking them down. The girls, oblivious to the noises made by their brother, are sprawled throughout the furniture, their eyes glued on the television set, watching an animated program about science. In the dining room, Jason sits at the table holding an electronic computing tablet inches away from his face. His fingers lightly brush or tap the screen, his eyes darting over it. "My mom wants to see the kids," he says, not looking away from the game he is playing. "She wants to take the entire family out to lunch and probably a movie."

Kaya is standing in the doorway of the laundry room and looks behind her to speak to her husband. "I won't be able to go," she says. Turning back to face the inside of the laundry room, Kaya lets out a low growl of frustration. "The washing machine is busted. I clogged the entire machine yesterday when washing the giant pillow the girls like to lay on when they watch a movie. It got caught between the frame and the drum, ripping a seam, and exploding pillow stuffing all over the place. When you open the machine, you can't tell it's inside. The inside of the drum has been cleared out. I attempted to wash a load of laundry after the pillow incident, but nothing is draining properly, and if it does, the suction is poor. I'll have to drain everything out myself and clean out the entire machine before I can do the laundry again." Jason looks up from the tablet and stares at his wife.

"You did what to the machine? How many pillows have to die before you stop shoving them in that thing?"

"Shut up," says Kaya, making a face at her husband. "Either go to your mom's without me or stay at home and help me fix this damn thing while the children wreak havoc."

"Not going to happen. You are on your own." He goes back to his game.

"That's what I thought," she says, throwing an evil glare at the washing machine. Closing the laundry room door, Kaya heads over to the storage closet under the stairs to find the screwdriver she needs from the toolbox. Vince notices the open door and goes in to investigate. "Nice try, buddy," Kaya says as she stops her little man with her thighs. "You know this place is a no-go zone." Vince continues to attempt to get in, struggling to pry his mother's thighs apart with his face. Digging in the toolbox and finding the screwdriver she needs, Kaya shoves it into the right back pocket in her jeans, turns around and picks up her son, placing him on her left hip as she closes the closet door. "You, sir, need to play with your own toys, not Mami's, okay? Now give me a kiss." Grabbing her face between his chubby hands, Vince puts his open mouth on one of Kaya's cheeks and licks it in an aim to please his mother. "Close enough," she laughs and places him back on the floor where he waddles happily back to his building bricks. Grunting, Kaya heads back into the laundry room to face her enemy.

Kaya's sitting on the floor of the laundry room, in front of the washing machine, the machine's insides exposed to her. She looks up to find Jason standing next to her. "You weren't kidding," he says, looking at the washing machine with a mixture of dismay and disgust. Green pillow stuffing is indeed everywhere. The only visible element that you can see is the drum of the machine. Next to Kaya sits a bucket of wet laundry along with the empty bucket she used to dump out the excess water from the drum. After opening the frame, Kaya has no idea what she did with the screwdriver. "We're about to head out. Do you want me to get anything while we're away?"

"No, that's fine," Kaya says, getting up off the floor and dusting her hands off on the thighs of her jeans. "We're okay on groceries and such, but if you happen to have any leftovers from lunch, feel free to bring me some."

"Okay. Give me a call if you think of something, or send me a message. I'll have the tablet with me just in case," says Jason, and plants a soft kiss on Kaya's lips.

"Sure. Will do." Kaya smiles. Giving her husband a quick squeeze around the middle, she returns his kiss with a gentle one at the base of his neck.

"Mami, we're going now," says Jasmine. "Are you coming?"

"No. I have to fix the blasted washing machine. I already let your dad know, and he already let your grandma know that it will just be him and you guys at this shindig. So behave and have fun. Don't give your father too much grief, okay?"

"Mami, you know I behave."

"Not so much when you start arguing with your sisters." Kaya grabs Jasmine by the shoulder and brings her in for a hug. She can't believe how big Jasmine has gotten this year, already resting at about chest-height. Granted, Kaya isn't very tall, only about a meter and a half, but still, Jasmine is growing fast. Kaya quickly kisses Jasmine on the top of her head, kissing Violet, Daisy, and Vince somewhere on their faces in succession. "You all be good," she says, waving to them as they walk to the car.

As she closes the front door, she hears Daisy's tiny little voice through the window. "Honey, be nice!" Kaya laughs. Jason will definitely have his hands full today.

Back in front of the washing machine, Kaya pulls out all of the pillow stuffing from inside the machine and shoves it into the nearest trash bin. Stuffing is entangled in the pump's rotor and she has to use a pair of scissors to remove most of it. When she unhooks the draining hose from the drain, a gush of water departs from the drum and spills all over the floor, soaking Kaya's socks and cooling her feet. Being careful not to slip, Kaya grabs as many towels as she can carry from the set of shelves above the drying machine and drops them onto the floor in hopes of soaking up the watery mess. Squatting down in an attempt to keep her legs dry, Kaya pulls out a thick ball of stuffing the size of her first out of the drain. Sighing with relief, she drops it in the trash bin and begins to piece the washing machine back together. She reconnects the draining hose and pops the front panel back into place.

After cleaning up the mess in the laundry room and finally being able to wash a load of dirty clothes, Kaya catches up on other chores, such as washing the dishes and mopping the floors. She goes upstairs to inspect the job done by the children and pulls the toys that were shoved under the beds out and into the toy boxes. Trying to be sneaky, I see, she laughs to herself. Making sure that all beds are made and the rooms are tidy, Kaya heads back downstairs and sets herself on the couch. She grabs an abandoned stuffed animal, places it on her lap, and grabs the book that she keeps under the coffee table for a nice and very welcomed reading break. It's a sappy romance she can't seem to get out of her head. No matter how terrible and irrational the storyline is, she can't help but enjoy it. Who would have thought she would enjoy a book about a man falling in love with his operating system? Computer Love, yeah, because that's totally something sane, she says to herself. She finds her bookmark and continues the story, enjoying her guilty pleasure.

Kaya looks up and checks the time on the clock on top of a bookshelf against the north wall of the living room. It's almost one in the afternoon; at least an hour has passed since she started her book. Bookmarking the pages, she stretches and stops in mid-stretch when she hears the screams from outside. What the hell? Getting up, Kaya peeks through the curtains of her south-facing windows. She lives on a main street, where it can get busy, but right now, the cars are completely stopped. What is going on? she muses. Surely this isn't lunchtime traffic, that was almost two hours ago. Even at its busiest, the street's traffic is pretty fluid. She notices that people are beginning to get out of their cars, looking up at the sky in absolute horror. Some people, of all shapes and sizes, are running down the street in a panic. Others are simply stopped, gawking, transfixed on some unseen event in the sky. Kaya's window panes begin to rattle. Quickly, she backs away from the windows and opens the front door. She grabs a thick sweater from the coat rack attached to the wall next to the door and walks up to the sidewalk and turns to the west to look up into the sky. Her ears are ringing. She can't comprehend what she's seeing. What looks like a giant ball of fire is coming straight at the city of Summer Tree. Kaya is paralyzed. She had heard of stories like this. It happened on Earth, the planet where the people came from over 3000 years ago. It was the reason why the people of Earth had colonized this planet after they found it could sustain human life. She never thought that it would happen here, on this planet, on Yeni Dunya. Even though the asteroid seemed to be at least 30 kilometers away, she knew it was going to cause a great deal of damage. Shit, she begins. My children are out there! My entire family is out there! As the asteroid whistles through the air, the roof of a distant building collapses. Windows of neighboring cars and houses implode. A building just five blocks in front of her has somehow caught fire. More and more people begin to panic and run, heading east, away from the horrifying sight in front of them. Parked cars around her neighborhood are sounding off their alarms. Kaya has become numb, the scene in front of her rendering her incapacitated. There is a roaring in her ears that drowns out the chaos surrounding her. Her eyes are blinded by the fire in the sky. Her mouth is dry, parched, unable to make even the smallest scream of terror. Nothing is making sense. Her whole life is ending. A small child rams into her abdomen in his small quest to flee, snapping her back to reality.

All hell has broken loose around her. Dodging people as best as she can, Kaya runs across her lawn and back into her house. Shards of glass litter the carpet in the living room, the window panes gone and shattered. The television hangs out of it's cabinet, the screen busted through from the vibrations of the asteroid's irritation through the atmosphere. Moving as if in a trance, Kaya opens the door to the closet under the stairs, the only place with no windows, and the only place she feels safe. She knows that the building could collapse at any moment, but she is dazed with fear. Shutting the door behind her she sits on a box in the darkness, places her face in her hands and begins to cry. Once that asteroid hits they will all be dead, she thinks. It may not hit here in this part of the city, but it will hit where my babies are. Everyone, my husband, my children, my parents, they will all be gone. Why is this happening? Why am I the only one allowed to survive? In a sudden panic, Kaya stands up and searches for the toolbox. She doesn't want to survive. She doesn't want to know that she'll be alone. Finding the box in the darkness and opening it, Kaya searches for something sharp, something she can gouge her heart out with. It feels as if my heart has been ripped out already. But she can't find anything. Collapsing to the floor, Kaya sobs uncontrollably. The asteroid hits, shaking the planet's crust and destroying the city around her. Boxes in the closet under the stairs topple over, burying and knocking Kaya unconscious, leaving her in a temporary state of peace.

3041/50000

(if you are seeing this in LiveJournal, the text can be found on my blogger [http://vonnieness.blogspot.com] with all it's italics, etc.)