Okay, so i have been trying out a few different beginnings to my book, since i have had writers block for the past few weeks. Hopefully this will get me out of it, but i really need to make sure it's something people will actually want to read before i continue with it. So any feedback is appreciated! thanks! Also, i don't know if this is going to be all of chapter one, but this is what i have right now.
Chapter One:
Fire roared passed where seconds ago, my head had been. I rolled in the grass to put out my shirt, and immediately jumped to my feet, taking off towards something that could provide cover.
Figures, I get close to finding something, and a dragon appears.
A roar shook the ground as I scrambled forward, gasping for air. This was not going to end well.
There was a pile of rocks up ahead and I dashed behind them, momentarily confusing the beast. I tried to catch my breath, not knowing when I’d get another chance.
The dragon stormed by me, snarling in frustration, and I took off for a better place to hide.
This time, there was a small maintenance building within sprinting distance. I hadn’t spotted it before because it was surrounded by a cluster of trees. They would be a problem later, but I could cross that bridge when I came to it.
I shut the door as quietly as I could, knowing that the winged creatures hearing was much better than mine. It would probably sense me eventually, but hopefully I could bide myself a few minutes more to come up with the solution.
The fates said I’d know what to do. I had to look into my past…
So I sat down to think. Back to the beginning. All the way back.
The day Samantha Grim became my best friend was the day I was slated to death.
We sat on my front porch eating Popsicle after finishing a school project, and she suddenly announced, “You and I are friends.”
“Yeah…” I agreed, giving her a strange look.
“Good. Remember that, cause it’s going to be important later.”
I ignored her, thinking it was just another one of her crazy quirks to randomly spurt out nonsense. Why not? She already had plenty of others.
Like the fact that she randomly disappeared and came back looking much worse than she had before, like all cut up and stuff.
It was odd.
But since we were only 10 or so, I didn’t really think much of it. People got hurt all the time in 5th grade. It was a constant battle ground. Only, I didn’t realize how dangerous it really was for Sam.
Six years later, she was still as strange as ever, but I began to notice it more and more.
“Where are you always disappearing off to?” I asked her one afternoon, when she mysteriously turned up in my living room sporting a black eye.
“I like to walk,” she said stubbornly. She had a different answer ready every time I questioned her.
“Whatever Sam, I know your lying.”
“Just drop it okay? It’s really none of your business.”
I must have looked hurt at her remark, because her face softened a bit.
“I’m sorry… It’s just… I really can’t tell you. You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” she said with a small humorless laugh.
I could tell I was causing her anxiety by bringing up the subject, so I silently handed her the bag of peas. I felt like after the beating she’d just received, she deserved my cooperation at least.
But I still wanted to know what was going on in her secret little world.
It wasn’t just curiosity either. It was the fact that I wanted a part of it. My life was perfectly boring, and perfectly textbook normal.
And I hated it. I wanted to be special, to be something else, even at sixteen years of age. Usually that feeling would disappear around sixth grade, and everyone would resign themselves to the existence of a typical teenager, then an adult.
Not me. I just couldn’t face eighty years of monotony. I wanted more.
To achieve that, I thought I had to worm my way into Sam’s business.
She sure taught me.
I tried following her one time. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call successful.
She’d crossed the street, and I made sure to say well behind her. But it began to get more and more difficult to keep up when she began to jump over fences.
We must have leapt through twenty yards before I paused for a second, trying to catch my breath. Alarmingly though, whatever air I managed to suck in was immediately forced out again when something slammed me to the ground and put a knife to my throat.
“Why are you following me?” The person who’d knocked me over snarled.
I realized then who it was and tried to wiggle out from under the blade, “Sam, it’s me!”
“Iris?” She pulled away from me, and brushed her jet black hair away from her eyes.
“Yes!” I scooted away from her, no doubt getting grass stains on my new jeans.
“Go home. And don’t ever try to find out what I’m doing again.”
I shakily got to my feet and vaulted over each fence with increasing speed, until I was running towards my house.
After that incident, Sam didn’t talk to me for a month. My life was depressingly boring for that period of time. My detective instincts itched for more clues, but there was none.
All because one girl was ignoring me. It was sad how much my existence depended on so much.
Finally, she showed up on my porch, pale and holding her ankle.
“I need your help,” she whispered, and leaned against the door frame, closing her eyes in pain.
“Holy- dude what did you do?!” I said as I helped her into a chair.
“I think I broke my ankle.”
“Then you need to go to the hospital. I can’t to anything for you.”
Her ankle was swollen and red. It was very obviously past the point where I could stick a bag of ice on it and call it good.
Something was different about this injury though. Normally she came in with a cut, or a sore wrist, but this was major. She’d done something really dumb this time. Either that, or what ever she had been fighting against was bigger and stronger than usual.
“Sam… I-”
“Just shut up and open my bag. In the side pocket there’s some golden liquid stuff in a water bottle. Give it to me, and then open the container labeled ‘ambrosia’. Put some of it on my ankle.”
I did as she said, but with a lot of questions. Did she mean like… the actual food of the gods?
The paste like stuff that I plastered on Sam’s leg didn’t do anything for a second, and I chided myself on thinking it could be real. I mean, there was no such thing as fairy tales, as I had been told over and over again.
But then it started to shimmer silver and sink into her skin. Within a minute, the swelling went down and she looked back to normal.
“Mmm… a little sore, but it will do,” she said as she rolled her ankle a few times.
My mouth fell open and I stumbled away from her, “What the hell was that?!”
“Calm down Iris. It’s all right. I can’t explain what it is, but just know its really advanced medicine, okay? So it’s not really out of the ordinary,” Sam’s voice was smooth and silky, like she was trying to force me to believe with just her words.
“If its so advanced, then how do you have it?” I said shakily.
“I-er… rich people can order it,” she paused for a second, “offline. And you have to have a password to get into the website. It’s a really weird page.”
“Oh right, and I’m Cinderella.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to protect you, so give me a break.”
“I don’t want- wait, protect me? From what?” I narrowed my eyes, making sure she realized I was serious about this.
“I-Uh… Nothing,” she hurriedly got up, wincing at the pressure on her foot, before leaving out my front door and slamming it shut behind her.
“YOU KNOW, SOMETIMES I REALLY REALLY DON’T LIKE YOU!” I shouted out the window at her retreating form.
That got a few stares from the neighbors, but I just violently stormed up to my room where I vowed I would get some answers from Sam the next time I saw her.
