Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Johnathan's Scene

So this time I'm going backwards in time. This is a partial scene from Johnathan's story before he met any of the others. (There was an assignment in my fiction course that Johnathan fit really well in).

“I don’t think you understand the situation, Johnny,” Aiden said seriously, but he could not mask his smirk.
“It’s Johnathan,” Johnathan responded through gritted teeth. He looked at his surroundings, noticing several pairs of eyes glowing at him through the darkness. He took a reluctant step back into the cement wall.
Aiden broke into a round of laughter, “You’re nowhere near as dangerous as you think you are.”
“Then kill me,” Johnathan said flatly, bracing himself against the wall.
Aiden contemplated his words, putting his hand under his chin in thought. “I think I have a better idea, I don’t want my new play thing to disappear just when we were getting started,” he mused. He jumped onto the cement wall to sit above Johnathan and to the left. “So young, so small, and so naïve. I’ll just let them play with you for a little while, leave you broken, and yet still alive.”
Johnathan didn’t respond. He would let Aiden believe what he wanted. In truth Johnathan was all of those things and he knew it. However, it was obvious that Aiden was underestimating him; all of them did—they always did, that is right before they lay dead on the ground. He clenched his hands into fists, his fingernails digging into his palms, drawing a modicum amount of blood. But it was just enough to make the spicy, sweet scent fill the air and make those surrounding him crazy to get a piece of him.
They charged, their barred fangs gleaming in the moonlight. Johnathan spared one quick glance at Aiden, who was smiling down at him maliciously, before drawing his dagger. This is for you brother, was his last thought before letting his body and reflexes completely take him over. The first vampire reached him a split-second later. But Johnathan didn’t give him a chance to attack; he kicked his leg out, landing it squarely into the vampire’s chest, forcing him to stumble backwards and into the others behind him. Johnathan then threw his dagger into one that was running at him full speed. The vampire disappeared into dust when the dagger connected with its heart.
There was no time to celebrate over killing the one; there were still plenty more to deal with before he could make his escape. He pulled a second dagger from his belt and barely ducked away from a set of claw-like fingernails that would have scratched out his eyes. He stabbed his dagger into the exposed chest of the vampire, sending ashes in every direction, momentarily blinding those close enough to touch him.
But one didn’t need the use of his eyes to attack. With awareness Johnathan wasn’t sure he had, he slipped through the ashes adding to their count with every vampire he killed. With a pang of regret he remembered smiling after his first kill, but now it just seemed foolish and heartless.
Aiden had stopped smiling at this point; instead he was speechless and captivated by Johnathan’s movements. He had even stood up to get a better view of the fight. Johnathan was good; Aiden had to give him that—very few grade schoolers would have been able to stand up to a vampire, let alone ten.
There were soon only two of Aiden’s vampires remaining. They stood just out of Johnathan’s reach, waiting for the dust to clear from the air before making their move; they wouldn’t make the same mistake as their brothers by getting to close to him. Their eyes appeared scared, but they would still attack him all the same because they knew if they didn’t Aiden would just make them suffer for weeks before finally killing them.
Johnathan surprised them by charging, before he had stuck close to the wall, making it impossible for any of them to sneak up behind him at attack his back. It was suddenly obvious that he had been already planning on his strategy before the fight had begun. But the realization had come too late; Johnathan drew another dagger hidden in his sock and threw the daggers at his last two opponents simultaneously. They were nothing more than a cloud of ashes a moment later.
He whirled back to face Aiden, looking at him wearily.

3 comments:

  1. Awesome! You're good at this, Amber. I like it. That goes for Rachel too, she's reading over my shoulder. :) Rachel says you write action pretty well. I agree. So Johnathan is a poor grade schooler in this one?! Sad day. But I guess it's good he can still defend himself!

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  2. Oh, btw, what was your assignment?

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  3. I think I already told you at the meeting, but the assignment was to write a two page scene (double-spaced) about a character who was either a child or an adult with contrasting traits (I at least consider anyone under thirteen to be a child). So basically his contrasting traits were his youth and his skill; hopefully that makes sense.

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