Title: Beansidhe Warming
Genre: Fantasy
Alyssa frowned over her shoulder at the empty space where her friend had been. Better hurry up and keep Gladys under control. Boiling a pot of frog eyes on the stove in preparation for the spirit summoning ritual was going way too far.
She sighed and dropped to a knee, reaching for a handful of towels at once.The instant her hand touched the towels, bile rose to her throat burning and bitter and she saw glowing red spots before her eyes.
Just her anemia problem - that was all. She had low sugar and needed something to eat. That's what she tried telling herself when she looked at the towels in her hands.They had turned dark – almost black. The air in the laundry room grew heavy and smelled funny, almost metallic.
Alyssa sat back on her heels and raised a handful of towels closer for inspection.
Not black, but dark red… like blood.
Like blood…
Oh God! She flung the towels away and scrambled out of the laundry room, running into walls on her way out. It wasn’t the sight of the blood; it was the smell and the knowledge that she had somebody else’s blood all over her hands. Or something else's.
Alyssa lunged for the bathroom and crouched in front of the toilet; her throat and chest burned with dry heaves. She stuffed her hands against her mouth and throat, trying to claw the metallic taste of death out of her mouth. Before her eyes, she couldn’t see anything but a mixture of red spots and those blood stained towels. So much blood
Emotion: Revulsion
Miss Snark's First Victim
She's freaking out quite well. I'm not sure what's going on or how I should feel about all this but I can tell the character is sick and repulsed.
ReplyDeleteAt first she seemed a bit flaky, distant. Then it turned to fear, I thought. Her frenetic reaction came through wuite strong at the end. Good job.
ReplyDeleteI'd read on.
Yes, I got the revulsion. This was a particularly hard place to "jump in" to the story, but the emotion, when it came, jumped right out.
ReplyDeleteVery nicely done. The revulsion came through very well.
ReplyDeleteThe emotion was portrayed alright. The only part where I felt connected to the character was in the middle when she realizes it's blood.
ReplyDeleteI found this a little confusing between the red spots on her eyes and then the redness of the towel. You got to the revulsion quite well, though, with the dry heaves and the thoughts of her having blood on her.
ReplyDeleteStrong revulsion. And you gave us enough description to understand what was causing it.
ReplyDeleteI was confused as to what was going on at first but halfway through, her revulsion became clear.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who doesn't mind blood, I had a hard time getting into this, though that's probably just me :-) I know plenty of people that can't handle it. Though one thing came to mind--when she touches the towels, wouldn't they feel different if they had blood on them? If the blood was wet, she'd know in an instant something was wrong, and if the blood had dried, they'd probably be crusty (sorry, gross, but this was just what went through my head). Maybe this is described in the context, but I was curious. Altogether, with the line about boiling frog eyes, I'd totally read on!
ReplyDeleteRevulsion came thru. I love your description of getting away from them. There were few words, but I could imagine her stumbling against the wall, staggering and heading toward the bathroom. Good job.
ReplyDeleteOh, definitely getting the horror here. Well written and the actions and thoughts definitely support the emotional thrust of the scene. Good job!
ReplyDeleteYup. Definately got a feeling of revulsion here. The bit about the towels was unclear, but hard to expect perfect clarity with 250 words.
ReplyDeleteHehe, I said 'revulsion' to myself even before I read what you were aiming for :D
ReplyDeleteI'm a bit confused by the opening half of the scene, but suspect that's the drop the needle nature more than anything. Well done :)
Revulsion works, but this really looks like a first draft. Must edit!
ReplyDelete