Carrie's Nano Board- I Won, Now I'm Doing Another!

[phoenixblessed]

Carrie, you are my inspiration.

What are you... four times winner?

I <3 Carrie-wa.

[Deleted]

Carrie, that beginning is incredible, as someone (Squish? Or Fj0rd? I'm too lazy to go back and look, hahaha) said, your first sentence is terrific, very engaging, had me completely drawn in from the start. I felt like I'd just cracked open a very good book that I've read a thousand times.

I look forward to following the rest of your novel! ^_^

[Avery]

Thanks guys! =D Decided I'll post an excerpt every day or so. Here's the entirety of chapter ten, which I rather like, even if it is a bit stilted and fast and confusing. xD Sorry for weird terminology, but a Bringer is pretty much a computer with the ability to send people to different places depending on what is selected.

SPOILER: Click to show

They took the elevator to the forty-sixth floor together, then each of them entered Elli’s workspace one at a time, about five minutes apart. By the time they were all in, Elli was nearly shaking from fear. She knew how crazy the idea was and how serious the repercussions could be if she got caught. But at the same time, what she had told before to Delilah and Genie was true: she didn’t want to spend the next hundred years here. The first few days alone had been unbearable. Doing this horrible work for so long-- she couldn’t even imagine it.

“I hope this works,” Genie hissed as Elli flicked on the Bringer. The strawberry-blonde girl darted her eyes frantically around the room, obviously on edge.

“Me too,” Elli whispered. As she spoke, the grey box prompting an access code appeared on the screen, and gingerly, she tapped in the letters that made up Nathan’s. Once she was done, the Bringer hummed for a few moments, then smoothly transitioned to a different page.

There were dozens of lists on it, and Elli scanned them all. The words were small and close together, and the entire thing was almost dizzying. She didn’t know how, or where, to begin.

“Click there,” Genie murmured suddenly, pointing towards the top of the page at a narrow toolbar.

Elli hovered the cursor over it, and grainy text appeared on the screen. She squinted her eyes and deciphered it to read ‘Find File.’

“File?” Delilah asked. “Is that what they call us? Files? If I didn’t know these people, I wouldn’t belive it.”

“Same,” Elli whispered, and then she clicked the button.

At once, the typical grey box popped onto the screen, with an empty line for text in the middle. Elli poised her fingers over the keyboard but didn’t type anything in, purely because she didn’t know what to say.

“Search my name,” Delilah suggested after a while. “Delilah Carey.”

“Okay,” Elli said, and she wrote it in. The screen flickered for a few moments before the search returned empty; ‘No File Found’, it said.

“Maybe it’s access codes,” Genie suggested then. She pushed Elli’s hands aside and took over the keyboard, tapping in a string of numbers and letters. After she was done, the Bringer hummed again before switching over to a profile page.

“Imogene MacLeod, age sixteen, died from influenza,” Elli rattled off. She glanced around the page, looking over all the options. Her assumptions had turned out to be correct; indeed, it was a possibility to send Genie to heaven or hell or have her reincarnated once again. But that wasn’t what caught her attention. Instead, it was a button at the bottom right corner of the screen, one dubbed ‘Helper Specific Options.’

“Click that,” Delilah said.

“Was already going to,” Elli replied, and with that, she did.

The screen immediately switched over to a white page with only two options. The one on the left would evidently send Genie to a place called ‘Afterlife Helper’, which Elli guessed was the dreaded limbo. The one on the right, however, was something of a much different class. When Elli read it, she almost thought it was a joke.

Earth.

“That can’t be right,” Delilah muttered. “We’re dead.”

“What else could it be, though?” Elli whispered, shivering.

“I-it could be a code name for something,” Genie suggested, but the tone of her voice suggested she didn’t believe herself.

“Click it,” Delilah said.

“No!” Genie hissed. “If you want so badly to go and test it out, you bring up your own profile page and click it yourself.”

“I’ll go there,” Delilah promised. “If you go there, I’ll go. And Elli will too, right?”

“I don’t want to go,” Genie protested.

“Fine,” Delilah said. “Elli, move over. Let me type in my access code. I’m sending myself there.”

Elli began to slide the cursor back to the top of the screen to bring back up the ‘Find File’ button, but Genie stopped her. Sharply, the girl said, “Wait, don’t. I’ll go. If you guys promise you’ll go, I’ll go.”

“Great!” Delilah said. “I promise I’ll go. And you, Elli?”

“I promise, too.”

“Good.” Delilah smiled, apparently even more eager than Elli to get out of the Corporation. She added, “Click it, Elli. And after you do, let’s get up our profiles quickly, before any board member gets a whiff of what’s going on in here and puts a damper on the festivities.” She let out a nearly giddy giggle.

“Okay,” Elli said, and with that, she pressed the button.

Genie disappeared from the room quickly, and literally the nanosecond after she was gone, Delilah took over the Bringer’s controls and got her own profile onto the screen. She clicked through the first page in the blink of an eye, and before Elli could even comprehend what had happened, Delilah was gone from the room, too, just like Genie before her.

All alone in the tiny workspace, sweat began dripping down Elli’s spine. She began manning the controls once again and rapidly typed in her access code, moving through the different pages at light speed. She hesitated before she clicked the final button, although only for a minute.

And then, she was gone.

[Deleted]

Ahhh! It's really good!

[Avery]

Excerpt from chapter twelve! =D I'm currently on seventeen or eighteen, but nothing that far in is decent enough to show. xD

SPOILER: Click to show

The man called Nathan Maddux learned of what Elli, Delilah, and Genie had done no less than ten seconds after the last girl disappeared. He’d been alerted to unusual activity the moment his access code was typed in, but at first, he’d assumed it was just another board member checking something out. Then, Genie was sent hurtling away from the Corporation, and that was when everything kicked into full gear. Another board member, Maggie, who was in charge of monitoring the helper files, charged up to him, spluttering almost nonsensically; when Nathan finally grasped at what she was saying, the two of them ran at light speed over to Elli’s workspace and flung open the door. But Elli was already gone, and obviously, so were Delilah and Genie.

When Nathan first realized what exactly had happened, he swore. Beside him, Maggie leaned down and began rapidly typing onto the Bringer’s keyboard, trying to bring the three runaway helpers back to the Corporation. Unfortunately, just as Nathan had failed with bringing back the two girls Elli had sent away, Maggie failed with retrieving Elli, Delilah, and Genie.

Soon, an entire congregation of board members was gathered in the minuscule workspace, squabbling over the course of action they should take next. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the history of the Corporation, and that was saying a lot, as the business had been around since the dawn of time. Nathan had personally never liked Elli, but even he would have never thought she would-- or could-- pull a stunt like this. It was mystifying and seemed downright impossible; the Earth button had only been on the Bringers as a safety, as an untold and untouched option. The fact that Elli and her friends had located it and then successfully transported themselves to Earth before any board member got into the room to stop them was absurd-- a one in a million shot. And yet it had happened, and there was no bulletproof way to bring the girls back.

Quickly, the Corporation board decided someone had to go and bring the trio back. There was no question about it. The knowledge they held had the power to forever warp Earth’s concept of life and death and was far too vast to let three angry teenagers run around with. That was decision was the easy part. The hard part, however, was deciding what unlucky soul would be chosen to go gallivanting around the living world. It had to be a board member-- someone trustworthy-- and someone who hadn’t died too long ago, so that they could still sort of blend in with the crowd. After the qualifications were laid out, there was only one reasonable choice.

It was Nathan Maddux.

Nathan had died not more than twenty-five years ago, making him the most recent inductee to the board. While times had changed quite a bit since then, he’d have much more intimate knowledge of modern society than say, Marigold, whose last breath on Earth had been in the 1700s. Add into the fact that he’d had personal contact with all of the runaways, and it had been his access code that had been swiped in the first place, and Nathan was a shoe-in.

The reigning leader of the board was a sour man called Ulysses, and during his life, he’d been somewhat of an inventor. Quickly, he cranked out two machines; one would ensure that Nathan would be transported to wherever Elli, Delilah, and Genie had gone instead of the place of his own death, and the other was a portable Bringer device that would allow Nathan to summon himself back to the Corporation after he caught the girls. Then, after everything was all said and done with, Ulysses sent his colleague on his way.

All in all, by the time Nathan arrived on Earth, Elli, Delilah, and Genie had been on the loose for nearly four hours. Still, despite their head start, Nathan was feeling confident. They were just three puny teenagers, one of them not even from the current millennium. How far could they get before they messed up and he found them? Not far at all, the man assumed.

But oh how wrong he was.

[Carrie]

Well... I'm kinda worried. I know I'm ahead now, but I really don't have a lot of writing time in the upcoming days, not until next Monday, really. I also wounded my finger and it hurts to type with it. D:

[Deleted]

You're such a good writerrrrr even in nano! XD

Being ahead is always good, and if you get behind in the next few days, I'm sure you can catch up alright. I say give your finger a little bit of rest--maybe it'll give you some HUGE awesome typing mojo once it's better.

[Avery]

Thanks, Echo. x3

Well, I'm about to hit 25k! =D At 24,840 currently. Wrote a bunch last night. ^^ My story is turning out way different than I thought it would. I'm currently having some major doubts about my antagonist's plotline and writing it realistically (I'm totally not xD), but ehh... I'll run with it. The entire thing is turning out quite odd, but that's not too bad a thing... right?

Excerpt! Really cheesy bit from chapter twenty five. Some background for this to make any sense... my antagonist (Nathan) came up with a ploy. He got some documents, pics, and a girl from the Corporation and reported one of the MCs, Genie, missing, and he said she's his daughter (the girl he took, Greta, is acting as an eyewitness/little sister). Basically, he's looping the unknowing public into the search by telling them Genie is his kidnapped daughter, and he needs help finding them. Out of fear, the MCs (Elli, Delilah, and Genie) go to Delilah's family, who thought she'd been dead for five years... and she was, I guess. xD They've had another kid since she's been gone. And this is Delilah meeting her. Cue sappiness! Horrible, I know, but eh. xD By the way, Alice is the sister and Celeste is the mother.

SPOILER: Click to show

“She’s so little,” Delilah said, looking at the baby resting in the crook of her mother’s arms.

The little girl, Alice, had seemed only to want attention; the moment Celeste had picked her up, the hysterics had stopped, and she’d settled down. Celeste had sat down in a rocking chair then-- the same one that had graced the corner of Delilah’s nursery when she’d been a baby-- and showed the little girl off to her older sister, introducing them for the first time.

“She looks like your dad,” Celeste said, and she jokingly added, “And she’s as loud as him, too.”

Delilah leaned down and waved her hand in front of Alice’s face, and the baby stared up in fascination at the blurry movement, her chocolate brown eyes distant yet locked in. Soon, however, she lost focus, opting instead to vacantly stare up Celeste’s face.

Downstairs then, Delilah and Celeste heard the front door open, but they paid it no attention. They simply remained in Alice’s nursery is perfect silence, savoring the moment. This was how it should be-- mother and children, in perfect bliss. After Alice’s birth, Celeste had imagined the scene; she and her girls, all together. Yet it had always been just a vague fantasy, a ridiculous tale of impossibility. And now, it had come true.

“I’d be nineteen now, you know,” Delilah whispered, gently wrapping her fingers around Alice’s tiny hand.

Celeste nodded, almost sadly. “You would’ve been off at college, Delly-- changing the world like you’d always wanted.”

“And instead, I’m still fourteen. I’ll always be fourteen.” A lump formed in Delilah’s throat, and tears welled in the back of her eyes, but she pushed both of these things away. It didn’t matter her age, that she’d never grow old. All that counted was that she was back here, with her mother, her father-- her sister.

“Hey, you could write a memoir about your life,” Celeste joked. “You could call it ‘I Won’t Grow Up: The Delilah Carey Story.’”

Delilah laughed, but it was insincere. She knew her mother was trying to be good-spirited, but really, it just made Delilah feel even worse. Letting go of Alice’s hand, she took a deep breath and said, “Do you think you would have ever had her if I hadn’t died?”

“Alice, you mean?” Celeste asked.

Delilah nodded. “Yeah.”

“I... I’m not sure, Delly. Probably not. We were so focused on you-- I don’t think it would have ever crossed our minds, love.”

“Then something good did come out my death,” Delilah said.

“Yeah, I guess you could look at it that way.” Celeste stroked her littlest daughter’s thin brown hair. “And now that you’re back, Delly, it’s perfect. I have you and her.”

“But it won’t always be perfect,” Delilah whispered.

“What do you mean?” Celeste asked.

“You’re going to grow older, Mom,” Delilah said. “So is Alice. I’m always going to be fourteen. It doesn’t matter if I stay forever. I’ll outlive you, Dad-- everyone. I’m never going to grow up.”

“We don’t have to worry about that for a long time, Delly,” Celeste said firmly. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s just focus on right now... with you being back.”

“But Mom--”

“Please,” Celeste whispered. She looked from Alice back to her older daughter as a tense silence settled over the room. Finally, she said, “Delly, when you died... I thought the world was over. But now I have you back. Let’s just focus on the positive, love. Okay?”

“Sure, Mom,” Delilah said.

But really, she didn’t mean it.

Whoot, sap! xD

[Avery]

Eh, not going well. I had an exhausting weekend. T_T I didn't write at all yesterday.

WC: 28,026

[Deleted]

tiscarrie said:

Eh, not going well. I had an exhausting weekend. T_T I didn't write at all yesterday.

WC: 28,026

Well, you're ahead.

[Avery]

Nano is going better today. I have 34,000 words to the dot. I hope to finish on or before the 16th to tie or beat my 2005 finish. <3

[Sirius]

I hate you, yo. xX Why you be gettin' ahead of me? -grumblegrumble-

[Avery]

I won. 50,115 words, according to the Nano counter, and my story is done, too! ^.^

[PFA]

tiscarrie said:

I won. 50,115 words, according to the Nano counter, and my story is done, too! ^.^

Carrieeee. You are so fast. YAY WIN! <3

[Avery]

petfriendamy said:

tiscarrie said:

I won. 50,115 words, according to the Nano counter, and my story is done, too! ^.^

Carrieeee. You are so fast. YAY WIN! <3

Also, I stayed up all night writing. =D <3