1 - Revolution

The following is a book I started just a little while ago (last week as a matter of fact). Let me know what you think. Where do you see it set? When? What does Ellie look like? What about him? More detail or less? What was she reading? What lullabies did she hum? What is going to happen next?

I have no name for this book yet, (what do you think of Catalyst?) but I do have a rough outline. I'll hopefully get to write more soon, but this week is midterms, so I'm a bit busy. Enjoy.

Jesse

___________

There was nothing about the dull gray sky that spoke of revolution. There was nothing about the sentinel-like red brick buildings that spoke of change. But there was the stillness in the air, the hush of the graveyard, and the smell of decay that spoke of death.

-

Ellie dog eared the page of the tattered book. She swiped a hand over the white, embossed cover as she closed it. The book was slid into her shoulder bag with little attention, and little fanfare.

The scene that greeted her eyes was the same it had been as long as she could remember. Crumpled piles of red. Towers of gray. Blue skies. But the green came more and more.

She was alone as always, as she wanted. Ellie hadn’t spoken with anyone for three years, not since she’d been freed. To her speaking wasn’t necessary. The world she inhabited lived within herself, not outside of herself in the crumbling remains of a world that only succeeded in creating its own gravediggers. On good days she hummed old lullabies to herself, the ones she remembered from before she was taken away.

Ellie scraped her worn boots on the gravelly ground and pushed off of the building ledge she had been sitting on. The cool air rushed around her. She noted blonde tendrils of hair whipping around her face in the wind and made a mental note to redo the braids her once she got home.

The world was eerily quite as Ellie walked home. The only sounds were the scrape of her boots and the whistling of wind through the corridors of the dilapidated high rises. She rounded the corner and walked into the old library.

The doors hung askew. There was glass shattered on the ground. Paper littered the interior floor. Tiles were cracked and buckled. But it was home.

Ellie made her way up the once grand central staircase. She jumped over the gaping hole that spanned two stairs and hopped up the rest, excited and hoping to find another book in the archives of the library.

Grinning at the thought of a new discovery, Ellie rounded the corner to her home. It was an interior office with an old, drafty fireplace that came in very useful in the cold winter months. All of her books were piled in one corner, a cushy green winged armchair was in another corner, and pushed between the chair and pile of books was a majestic desk that was piled with remnants of cloth, her bed.

She opened the door, a grin on her face, hoping whatever she found today would be worth reading. She enjoyed the 19th century scientists most, but fiction was not unwelcome. It just wasn’t useful.

With one foot halfway over the threshold her grin froze on her face. Her eyes widened in shock and recognition. Pulling the door shut Ellie turned and ran.

It was him. She was free of him. Warren made sure of that before he died. But he’d had another with him. The little boy must have been another, like her.

Ellie’s feet pounded on the broken marble floors as she ran. The best way of escape eluded her. If he had someone like her he’d be able to find her wherever she ran, wherever she hid, anywhere. She would never be safe again. She would never wear that collar again. She would never willingly be anything for anyone ever again.

It was the look on his face that made the tears spill down as she fumbled with the  door handle that led to the attic. She was a prize. Ellie vaguely wondered what the bounty on her head was. What would make him come back to get her? It had to be the money, right? She pushed through doors and ran blindly, guided by practice, by routine.

Ellie toppled stacks of chairs, of bricks, of anything she could get her hands on as she ran up the corridor. Planning an escape route and exit strategy had been her first mission she’d given herself upon setting up a home in the library. She was grateful for that now. The cords were strategically placed. The piles of detritus were meant to do as much damage as possible. Her plan was almost foolproof. Almost.

Reaching the apex of the building Ellie began her climb up the ladder to the vents in the metal roof. She kicked the vent out and began pushing herself out.

A large hand knotted in her hair and lifted her up by the roots of her hair.

Ellie muffled a scream and twisted to spit at her captor.
He wiped his face and glared at her. “That’s no way to say hello to your master.”

Ellie’s jaw clenched. She hoped he could see the hate radiating from her being. She punched and flailed, scratching at his hands and arms, anything she could reach to get away.

Then Ellie stilled, stared him in the eyes, and something she hadn’t done in years. Her voice was broken and cracked as she spoke. “I have no master.”