Post by Tam on Oct 2, 2009 0:25:22 GMT -5
Introverted 18-year-old Sketch, like the nine other young people in her project group, knows KanataQuest is not the public-spirited miracle program for teens that it claimed to be in the brochures. In fact, she is quite sure that the program is trying to brainwash her. She doesn't know why, yet, but she's working on it.
And in the meantime, things in the Kanatahouse just keep getting weirder and weirder. There's a war raging between the Francophones and the Anglophones, and her project leader changes personalities on an almost daily basis. Her fellow participants regularly wake up drenched in a cold sweat, unable to remember where they were the night before. There doesn't seem to be any clear way to actually leave the program.
But one way or another, their sister groups are vanishing without a trace, one by one. Sketch's group will be next, unless they can get to the bottom of this conspiracy before things fall apart completely.
In this coming-of-age story, Sketch will meet powerful friends and terrifying enemies. She will plant trees and break into government laboratories. She will learn more about the mentality of her own generation than she ever wanted to know, and she will discover a purpose so profound that even if she knew how to leave the program, she would see it through to its end -- whatever that may be.
I stepped off the escalator and was immediately assaulted by an overwhelming surge of sensory details. The crowd was seething, trying to move in all directions at once. Heckled travellers swept by, dragging suitcases or screaming children behind them, leaving the smells of coffee and sweat and rapidly disintegrating hair products in their wake. There was some kind of announcement buzzing overhead, but I couldn't hear it. I don't think I would have heard it even if I had been the only one in the terminal. I was only semi-conscious. I hadn't eaten or slept in 24 hours, and I didn't know how much more my nerves could take.
I ducked and sidestepped my way through the throng of people, the two backpacks I had somehow managed to sling over my shoulders weighing so much that it was all I could do to keep them off the ground. Eventually, whether by my own vague comprehension of my surroundings or by pure luck, I arrived at the luggage carousel, where I looked so pathetic trying to haul my last suitcase off the conveyor that a grey old gentleman hurried over to give me a hand. I thanked him and looked around.
When I spotted my group near the exit, I admit that the cluster of disgustingly bright and happy faces peering out from behind the large laminated sign, white with a picture of a red maple leaf that appeared to be smiling benignly at me, did very little to put me at ease.
"Hi," I managed when I had reached them. A boy with curly dark hair and black-rimmed glasses seized my suitcase from me, and I was so grateful that I didn't even bother protesting.
"Heeeeey!" They seemed to chorus. Looking back on this event, I think they each must have greeted me in a different, interesting way, but at the time it had all just blurred together into one overenthusiastic and highly repulsive mass of happy.
"Thanks for taking that, " I said dully to the boy with the glasses.
"Hey, no probz," he said amiably. "So you made it to the City, eh? How are you liking the language?"
"I haven't noticed," I said truthfully.
"No worries. You'll get used to it. I'm Ink, by the way."
I realized that he certainly was -- both of his forearms, from what I could see of them, sported complex black tattoos. I thought I could make out a sword in one of them.
"Nice to meetcha." I tried a feeble smile. "I'm--"
To my astonishment, they all seemed to recoil. "Don't," said Ink quickly. "You can't use your name here."
I stared stupidly at him. "Why not?"
At this, a look of resentfulness spread over Ink's face, but before he could open his mouth, a petite and extremely pretty girl leapt in, "It's jus' de way de program works, la. Dey tell us to leave behind who we are, and concentrate on who we can become, you know...?"
"Careful," said Ink, giving a humourless laugh. "They want in our heads."
The girl must have seen the expression on my face, because she said reassuringly, "Doon't worry. I tink you'll find your name soon, la."
Ink had already set off for the doors, pulling my oversized suitcase behind him. The third member of their party introduced herself as Soleil and all but wrestled my backpacks away from me, while the first girl, who I learned was called Crevette, pushed the sign with the logo into my hands and explained that I should keep it, "for remember."
We caught up with Ink, who had apparently recovered from whatever stormcloud had passed over his mood just minutes earlier. He clapped me on the shoulder. "So!" He gestured broadly to the sign in my hands. "Welcome to KanataQuest."
As we passed through the glass doors and were met with the cool night breeze, I found myself staring at the sign in the surprisingly strong street light. The maple leaf, reflecting the fire from a million lamps and a million distant windows, smiled innocuously back up at me.
I ducked and sidestepped my way through the throng of people, the two backpacks I had somehow managed to sling over my shoulders weighing so much that it was all I could do to keep them off the ground. Eventually, whether by my own vague comprehension of my surroundings or by pure luck, I arrived at the luggage carousel, where I looked so pathetic trying to haul my last suitcase off the conveyor that a grey old gentleman hurried over to give me a hand. I thanked him and looked around.
When I spotted my group near the exit, I admit that the cluster of disgustingly bright and happy faces peering out from behind the large laminated sign, white with a picture of a red maple leaf that appeared to be smiling benignly at me, did very little to put me at ease.
"Hi," I managed when I had reached them. A boy with curly dark hair and black-rimmed glasses seized my suitcase from me, and I was so grateful that I didn't even bother protesting.
"Heeeeey!" They seemed to chorus. Looking back on this event, I think they each must have greeted me in a different, interesting way, but at the time it had all just blurred together into one overenthusiastic and highly repulsive mass of happy.
"Thanks for taking that, " I said dully to the boy with the glasses.
"Hey, no probz," he said amiably. "So you made it to the City, eh? How are you liking the language?"
"I haven't noticed," I said truthfully.
"No worries. You'll get used to it. I'm Ink, by the way."
I realized that he certainly was -- both of his forearms, from what I could see of them, sported complex black tattoos. I thought I could make out a sword in one of them.
"Nice to meetcha." I tried a feeble smile. "I'm--"
To my astonishment, they all seemed to recoil. "Don't," said Ink quickly. "You can't use your name here."
I stared stupidly at him. "Why not?"
At this, a look of resentfulness spread over Ink's face, but before he could open his mouth, a petite and extremely pretty girl leapt in, "It's jus' de way de program works, la. Dey tell us to leave behind who we are, and concentrate on who we can become, you know...?"
"Careful," said Ink, giving a humourless laugh. "They want in our heads."
The girl must have seen the expression on my face, because she said reassuringly, "Doon't worry. I tink you'll find your name soon, la."
Ink had already set off for the doors, pulling my oversized suitcase behind him. The third member of their party introduced herself as Soleil and all but wrestled my backpacks away from me, while the first girl, who I learned was called Crevette, pushed the sign with the logo into my hands and explained that I should keep it, "for remember."
We caught up with Ink, who had apparently recovered from whatever stormcloud had passed over his mood just minutes earlier. He clapped me on the shoulder. "So!" He gestured broadly to the sign in my hands. "Welcome to KanataQuest."
As we passed through the glass doors and were met with the cool night breeze, I found myself staring at the sign in the surprisingly strong street light. The maple leaf, reflecting the fire from a million lamps and a million distant windows, smiled innocuously back up at me.
-----
...I really, really do not have time to do NaNo this year, much less to attempt my first NaNo. But I need the practice, and I want to do it. I'll make a 2000 word short story if it comes to that. xP
I also, alarmingly enough, have more than one idea. Both of these just came to me as random thoughts over the last year, things that I decided I would like to write about someday but probably would never summon the motivation to turn into a proper story. So good NaNo material. =D
I might come up with something new entirely, mind you, because both of these stories utilize a certain kind of complicated cannonicity that I'll have to watch while I'm writing so that I don't contradict myself.
And they're both... er... odd. And my descriptions are going to be terrible, because there's a bit of a suspense aspect to both that I don't want to spoil here. Do either of them sound... well... remotely interesting enough to push you past the "why the fail" stage? >.>
My first idea is probably not a good choice for a NaNo story, actually, seeing as I have reservations about actually writing it down. It's a little personal. It's a lot fictional. And I guess it would be up to the reader to distinguish between the two, but all the same. It's a little awkward.
It's about a girl named Sketch and her year-long tour of Canada. It's about an organization that isn't everything it seems, and it's about secrecy, corruption, and lies. It's about names. It's about mad science and the discovery of awesome superpowers. It's about coming-of-age. It's about the line between defiance and insolence. It's about shrimp. And it's about friendship and the hope that seals it.
...But mostly it's about meddling kids. It's an urban fantasy, I suppose, with a lot of good ol' fashioned espionage and brainwashing sequences.
It's about a girl named Sketch and her year-long tour of Canada. It's about an organization that isn't everything it seems, and it's about secrecy, corruption, and lies. It's about names. It's about mad science and the discovery of awesome superpowers. It's about coming-of-age. It's about the line between defiance and insolence. It's about shrimp. And it's about friendship and the hope that seals it.
...But mostly it's about meddling kids. It's an urban fantasy, I suppose, with a lot of good ol' fashioned espionage and brainwashing sequences.
My second idea comes from a planet called Encore, and it would document the adventures of one blissfully naïve and distressingly cheerful young ex-carpenter and his tomb-plundering, pirate-loving companion as they sail north of the island of Astraleya to a land where, rumour has it, it is always Christmas.
No, I'm not joking.
It's actually set to be a darn creepy story, but I don't want to spoil it. xD I think one too many Doctor Who specials have gone to my head.
It's pretty much a heroic/low fantasy type setup, containing a rather disproportionate amount of nightmare fuel, or at the very least, disconcerting daydream fuel.
No, I'm not joking.
It's actually set to be a darn creepy story, but I don't want to spoil it. xD I think one too many Doctor Who specials have gone to my head.
It's pretty much a heroic/low fantasy type setup, containing a rather disproportionate amount of nightmare fuel, or at the very least, disconcerting daydream fuel.
...Dang I'm tired. And I feel not only like I wrote this post half-asleep, but that I came up with these ideas half-asleep too, despite the fact that I've been carrying them around for months.
