Have fun with that.

So today I've pretty much done nothing except go on a two-hour writing block (and write 3000 words! :D) and sit around. I'm reading Beautiful Darkness in Barnes-and-Noble (by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl--the book, not the store) and it's, like, I don't want to put it down, but I have to because I don't get to go to B&N till late. I don't even know if the writing's good, but the storyline is so engaging and I really can't wait to see what happens. Yeah.

On the agenda (vocab word!) for tomorrow: write an essay. I've already pretty much mapped it out, and written down every single quote I could possibly use, so it'll probably take an hour if I'm focused or two hours if I'm not. So yay. It's better cuz I'm pretty much caught up in NaNoWriMo, because, as I previously mentioned, I spent two straight hours writing 3000 words, and am now clocking in at: 10,187. I was writing Emilia being crazy. That's always fun. Her sister and nephew are missing, and her brother-in-law is freaking out, and her niece is all like whaaaaa- and her BFFL4EVR John is bleeding to death. All in the first 15 pages! Hoo-rah!

So I like John. The character. That I made up, yes. He might actually be my second-favorite character, because no one will ever take the place of Aden, my bad-ass fairy with feelings. Yeah, he's not afraid to show his sensitive side. Are YOU? Haha, so John, yes. He's quite smart, and quite practical, and somewhat cold, but more in an impassive way than an outright mean way. I haven't decided if he should have a crush on Emilia or not, because he does try to protect her even though he doesn't really know her, and I feel like he would naturally like her, but at the same time I don't want to go to the typical route and make everything a love story. I know they won't end up together in the end. In fact Emilia really ends up nowhere in the end, although John takes over everything after Benjamin is dead. Everything sucks for her in the end, really. I think I'm going to make her spend her time taking care of Kaitlyn. And Tracy is going to die. Yeah, I just decided that. Not sure about Steven, though. I don't want to kill him, but I need to think of something to do with him. Haha, none of you have any idea what I'm talking about.

So I think I'll share an excerpt of Emilia being crazy. I'm not really sure how a crazy person thinks, but this might be close.

We had just gotten him situated when it started—the thing that arrested me in my place, because I instantly recognized it—because I had heard it before.

The marching.

Brandon glanced to the distance, while already starting to hobble John along. “What is that?”

Horror sunk through me, turning my legs to jelly. “Soldiers.”

John stopped immediately, eyes like planets. “Oh, God.”

“What? What does that mean?” Brandon was still moving at a snail’s pace, by this point trying to drag both of us along. It was not enough. I broke into the closest thing I could to a run, pulling both of them behind me till they managed to catch up.

Oh, God. I had been here before. I had smelled the fire and the blood. I had tried to run, but I couldn’t—I wasn’t fast enough—I was dying, dying; I was sinking; I was four feet tall; I was trying to run through honey, and with every step I became slower; I was seven years old; I was sobbing; I was screaming—the world was crashing around me, and I was dying, I knew I was dying, I collapsed into a puddle of blood; I drowned in it…

Blackness seemed to overtake me, but I had to run—if not to save myself, then to save John, to save Brandon. I knew I could not save myself, not anymore. Not this. There was a glow in the distance, but this time it was not a museum; it was a pack of wolves.

“Leave me!” A voice his voice John’s voice—“Sarah, you have to leave me!”

“NO!” I screamed with a force I no longer felt capable of; John broke into a run besides me, as did Brandon, and as did I. We ran. We ran into the night, ever forward, and I thought I might’ve been screaming—or I was in a dream, and the world around me was dead, and I was sinking into oblivion—along with them. Their eyes as my guide lights. They voices calling the way. I had to follow them this time, because I hadn’t followed them before.

“This way!” John was falling behind, panting, gasping—I grabbed him, some part of him, his hand—and I dragged him, forward, in some direction I thought would lead me somewhere I could see those eyes, and hear those voices—and there was a fence, and I dragged him over it—it left a trail of blood. A storm cellar, an old familiar scene; I fell into it again, and there was nothing but dirt and darkness. This was not their place, shining bliss—this was mine. Dirt and darkness.

Brandon—he was gone. He had followed them then, and gone into the light—done what I never could. But then he returned, holding a tiny child—Kaitlyn, Katie, my darling niece—and collapsed with her beside us.

“My wife and my son,” he cried, sobbing, convulsing with his daughter in his arms. “My wife and my son!”

I flew out of the cellar, and upstairs; I knew this house, I knew where the food and the medicine was; but that sound, it was getting closer; its fire was razing everything; we would be consumed. I felt the death toll number on my head—a million, a million dying souls—I heard them—boom boom boom boom—like a million sharp explosions, or like the ticking of a clock—a timer on our lives. I didn’t know what I grabbed, or if it would help John, or if it would matter in the end.

So, yay. Death and destruction. Basically this is what's happening: a riot broke out, and to get it under control a bunch of soldiers were sent in to march through the streets and set fire to everything. Not everything everything, but most things. Emilia is freaking out because that is the exact same thing that happened when she was seven and her parents died. Yeah, I don't love it, but you know, I guess the point here is just to write and to revise later. So, have fun with that.