It’s time to SHARE what you’re working on!
The rules are pretty simple, if you want to play along.
Just share up to 500 words in the comments from something you’ve been working on.
Its hard to share what I’ve been working on this week when all the stories have been sent out pending publication. To either be accepted or rejected.
So, instead, I’m sharing a snippet from the same universe as the one I shared last week. This takes place during Dragonsblood. Just prior to Queen Mab being killed.
*The asylum is modelled off Kew Asylum in Melbourne, Australia.
Ash put the key into the lock and turned the key. The locking mechanism turned with an audible click and the door was opened. Twisting the doorknob Ash throws open the main doors.
I step over the threshold and shove my emotions aside. Being back at Wellesmere wasn’t my idea of fun and if there had been any other alternative I would have gladly taken it, but Wellesmere was the only place with enough rooms and living space to house everyone.
“Ever think in a million years we’d see the inside of this place again Scarlett?” Ava asked.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
Walking inside, I can’t help but notice the fine layer of dust which coats the wooden floor boards, my shoe prints can be seen making a trail behind me. “Welcome to Wellesmere. Originally home to the mentally insane, it once moonlighted as a juvenile detention centre in lieu of a mystical holding cell for yours truly. I’d give you the history of the building as Sister Bernadette told it to me but frankly, I tuned her out within the first five minutes.”
“You lived here?” Ella asked stepping across the threshold.
I shrugged. “Three years off and on.”
“And you’re sure they won’t think to look for us here?” Mordecai asked.
“I can’t say for certain what they’ll do,” I said. “But, this place is a far better alternative than Cornwall.”
“Is it?” Emrys asked. “Because Tintagel seems really good right about now. The place is legendary.”
“And old, really old,” Robin put in. “No offence Sorcha.”
Sorcha Donovan snorted, clearly displeased. Tintagel, according to Zooey, was her grandmother’s ancestral home.
So, what are you waiting for? Bring out your WIP for WIP Wednesday!
Dr. Lina Nobles loped gracefully in the low-gravity along the domed passage that led from researchers’ dormitory to their labs. Outside the clear aluminum windows, the lunar surface is harsh and unforgiving as it ever was. Even with her thick Lunarian skin exposure to it would be a quick painful death.
All around her other researchers and support staff made their way toward the Project Fast-Adapt research center. They were almost all her fellow Lunarians. They all possessed her long graceful form that low gravity allowed and dark skin that protected from the solar radiation that the moon’s tiny atmosphere could not. A few human staff members slowly made their way down the corridor. They bounced awkwardly along, trying to stay upright. Their bodies were squat and short, with over-muscled limbs evolved in earth’s stronger gravity.
At both ends of the passage were biometric scanners. People would pause briefly in front of the entry hatch and be scanned by a quick microburst, then let in. Today there were security guards checking Identification Implants and talking to everyone, causing a large crowd to form at the far end of the tunnel. This made Lina extremely anxious. There was a test scheduled for today. Their most important yet. Any disruption could ruin everything.
As she approached the crowd she looked out through the tinted windows again. This time not at the lunar surface, but up at the earth, hanging above them. There were billions of people there counting on their research. If she and her colleagues failed for any reason, countless Terrans would die.
She looked at the crowd milling about, collectively wondering what was happening as they waited to be let into their jobs. Most people bounced on the balls of their feet. The crowd undulating gentle like a gentle sea. She saw several faces she recognized. They were too far away to speak to, but they all had the same puzzled expression she was sure she was wearing. Between all the tall dark figures a shorter lighter skinned individual caught her eye. His eyes were larger and less deeply sunk then the other Lunarians around him.
Lina thought he must be a first generation Lunarian. Not many Terrans moved to the moon and settled down and had families anymore. So she saw very few first and second generation Lunarians. Everyone she knew was at least the third generation, and they looked like regular Lunarians. She was the eighth generation. While this young man looked nothing like a Terran, his arms were too short and his eyes too large to be a full Lunarian. His grandchildren, on the other hand, would blend right in.
The lunar transformation changed Terran lifeforms into one’s better-adapted life for on the moon. It took only three generations, faster than any evolution by natural selection. Some other force was at work. Molding and changing anything born or sprouted on the moon. The exact reason was still a mystery.
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Interesting look into the story.
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