Bad Lights, Good Lights [A Fantasy Novel]

Okay! So we come to the finishing part of Azhar's story. I've enjoyed writing his character - his gawky, cowardice personality is the thing I need to showcase different kind of people. In this recent subchapter, I've the lights explained how they carried Azhar away from his bed to the living room.

While writing the explanation, I have to admit I had no clue how Flaxen (a light) fit in. His ability was to move faster than normal light could, so how was that helping in moving Azhar to the living room? In the end, I made a convenient decision which was letting him to make the guard's movement faster, thus making the guard's second check shorter than before. If that part was to be cut, the scheme was still perfect.

Then came Emerald. I intended this light to be wiser than most lights - a brilliant one, if you may. I thought making him put his opinion on the situation would do just that, although I was curious on how people would think about him. I hadn't have a fleshed-out thought about him, but I hoped he would continue to develop as a character.

His ability was to possess anything alive. I wanted to make him control anyone alive at first, but it seemed (or sounded) to similar with Scarlet's ability,which was telekinesis. So possession was in. He possessed Azhar while the latter was sleeping and went to the living room. He went out and kept watch. Lights didn't sleep.

Then came Azure. I intended to make this light a playful, impatient one. His ability to turn invisible and phase through objects indicated just that. Writing him made me relax because I could throw out anything humorous through him. Unlike Emerald, I had a clear vision of him, and I hoped it would show through in the next intermission chapter.

In the scheme, his role was to make Azhar invisible each time someone passed through the living room to go to the toilet so that said someone wouldn't notice him and screwed the plan - making Azhar slept longer there would multiply the impact it would later bring. Since he didn't sleep, he had no trouble to switch Azhar on Invisible Mode when it was necessary.

Okay, so that's it for this subchapter! I've put some hints in there about someone, if keen readers can notice. On to the next subchapter, and to Merah and Co. What would they do to find the bad lights' base? Stay tune!

Man, that was intense! After Imran and Merah arrived home, Father was waiting for her. I didn't intend it to be this way, but I thought about it at the last minute, and it might be a good strategy to show more about Father and why Merah didn't like him. They both had a short argument in which Father wanted Imran and Merah to help him wash the cars (Father had one car, but I made it plural for a reason later told ) tomorrow, the day they were going to search for the bad lights' base.

The argument was a bit silly now that I thought about it, but it showed how Merah didn't obey Father easily if she thought there was a better thing to do, which was finding the enemies of humankind right now. Father didn't know that, though, so it was understandable how he frowned up her attitude to him.

And this was when Imran played his role as her brother, by asking Father's permission (which Merah refused to do since she thought it would give power of decision to Father) to go out tomorrow. With his gentle voice, Father relented, but not without a snort and more rants about Malaysian kids these days (his words had some truth to them).

The drama was slight, and when Father left after giving his permission, I thought the mood should be lighter, so I brought up Merah's worries over Imran and Sarah searching for the lights together. Sarah was her best friend, so the thought of Sarah flirting with Imran (which Sarah always did) troubled her. Not to mention, Imran seemed to get used to it. In here I tried to show the relationship of Merah and Imran, albeit not much.

The subchapter ended up with Sarah leaving the living room and Imran watching the television. She had some training to do with Scarlet about her ability, and they only had the night for it. He told her how to train (something I should think more later).

And that's it! The next subchapter would show us Merah's training and all. I would need time to think of some way of training she would go through. Regardless, she would be able to do cool stuffs at last, after Damon and Azhar showing of theirs. Oh, and Sarah too, and Imran too two years ago! It was time for our protagonist to be superhero! xD

So, starting off, Scarlet explained to Merah about the telekinesis ability. This explanation was brief because I only had a rough idea of what telekinesis was about. I needed more research on it (yep, last-minute planning), so I skipped some parts of his explanation. From this explanation, Merah noted how Scarlet talked more as someone who was expert in war. He was a warrior, after all, according to Sunglow.

Merah asked about his position in war. Here, I wanted to give some tidbits about his life in the lights (which I named as aseal, based on their language that I made up last-minute too) world. He explained about Scarlet clan being potential generals, and how he became a general because of his ability to observe the surrounding. This observation was a trait for all Scarlets as they controlled the surrounding’s objects and therefore needed to know about their surrounding.

We also knew a bit about the bad lights (which I named as axors - last-minute made up) and how they were aseal tainted by the shadows (which I named as areym - last-minute made up). From there, we knew the status of the war in the aseal’s world, and how it was because of axors allying with areym that the war was evened out since aseal was winning. The axors’s plan to come to Earth was to do something with humans that would give them power to ensure their victory in the aseal’s world.

Lastly, we also knew about aseal’s mission in their world. This was a last-minute made up too since I was planning for the simple war of good versus evil. The aseal’s mission made the war more complicated and while aseal like Scarlet believed areym were evil creatures who wanted to stop aseal from fulfilling their mission, Merah felt something was off with the mission, and she couldn’t figure out why because mysteries and cliffhangers sell.

I’m pretty pumped up for the next subchapter - the last one that would conclude chapter seven. Right now, I’m pretty conflicted with the length of my chapters - 3000+ words for each chapter - which I feel too long. #needhelp from @Meandbooks

I won't lie--this chapter challenged me. It was not my attention to introduce the light's world this fast, but the idea just came to me. Showing it was the perfect way to convince Merah to help the aseal (good lights) against the axors (bad lights) and areym (shadows).

This is where my new idea was woven in.

See, it was true that the whole idea was to make Merah sure what she was doing. She had an unexplainable tingling that seemed to say something was off with the aseal's missions to get rid of the areym. But this was where the readers should decide whether they could rely to the situation in the aseal's world alone, or that they should see the opposing perspective.

However, the evidence was clear--the axors, who were allies to the areym, did kill a student for having a seal with her. They tried to kill the aseal at the portal location. One of them tried to kill Sarah, who had a royal seal in her. These evidences, added with the fact that the areym spread literal darkness and could harm those creatures coexisting with the aseal that couldn't survive in darkness made Merah confident of helping the aseal with their mission.

But who knows. Maybe things aren't what they seem to be... To be continued.