True Conversations

Finished the first draft of Phoenix last night, though it's really more like an extended outline than a draft. It's only six chapters, so it's going to need a LOT of filling out, but it has all the major points I wanted to get in there, so that's good.

I forget exactly when I started, but I think it took me a little less than a week to get it all out. I'm going to try and sit on it for a couple days before I think about rewriting it. So now I have to putter around a bit and try not to think about it >_>

A couple of pieces of writing. The first is from a prompt given to me at Creative Writing Club, because I didn't bring anything with me. The other is a little something that I wanted to get down.

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Blaine was confused, but she didn't entire entirely uncomfortable. Yes, there was a strange man laying in the bed next to her and, yes, she was quite certain he had not been there when she went to sleep, but she wasn't entirely disturbed by the situation.

He was stunningly gorgeous with dark hair and fair skin. She squinted in the dark and thought she saw a thin scar running his cheek. She had to fight the urge to trace her finger down the jaggid line. As she was taking him in, his eyes twitched and fluttered open.

Blaine jumped, drawing back into herself as the man's eyes focused on her. He smiled.

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It would be a lie to say that Red was not surprised to see himself on the video that the detectives put up on the holo-screen. In fact, he was very surprised and disturbed as he watched himself begin to violently attack the people around him, spilling their blood on the dirty streets.

The detectives stopped the recording. They stood there for a moment, looking at him silently. Then:

"Well?" one of them, a white-haired woman, asked, crossing her arms, "What do you say to that?"

Red blinked, looking at the frozen imagine. The brown hair that faded to black at the tips, the tired gray bags under his eyes, the cocky grin that graced his lips. Yes, this was a spitting image of himself.

Without looking away from the freeze frame, Red replied simply,

"It's not me."

The detectives let out exasperated sighs.

"How can you sit there, looking at yourself," the other detective, a young man with black hair, pointed at the screen for emphasis, "and tell me that's not you?"

"But..." Red couldn't look away from that face, "It's not me."

The white-haired woman looked ready to punch him. Noticing this, her partner placed himself between here and the suspect.

"All right," he tried to calm himself as well, "All right then, prove it."

"Huh?" Red finally looked away. He looked the man in the eyes, as if he suddenly remembered where he was."

"Prove it," the man repeated, "Prove that it's not you."

Red sat there a moment, contemplating the reason they had detectives if he had to make the case for them. But, he rose from his seat. The two detectives watched cautiously as he walked up to the screen.

The restraints around his wrists hindered his movements slightly, but he was still able to touch the screen and zoom in on the angry blue eyes that looked back at him.

The detectives came closer, leaning into the screen.

Blue eyes.

"Son of a bitch," the woman muttered.

The two looked toward the suspect. His eyes were possibly the most startling feature about him -- they were an unnatural red color.

The female detective cursed and kicked a nearby desk while her partner stood quietly, apparently stunned.

Red should have felt happy at that moment, but he didn't. Blue eyes -- ones he hadn't seen since--

"Wait!" the woman turned back to him suddenly, almost violently, "You're a shifter! How do we know you didn't just change your eye color?"

Both Red and the young detective next to him looked at her strangely, knowing that she was grasping at straws.

"Then why didn't I just change my whole appearance?" Red reasoned, "besides, I can't change my eye color,"

Red demonstrated to prove his point. He changed into a replica of the female detective. The duplicate was perfect, save for the eyes, still an unworldly crimson.

"I don't really know why," Red commented, changing back to his normal form, "I guess it's like a fingerprint or something."

The female detective cursed again and wandered off in the direction of the break room. Her partner sighed and turned back to Red.

"In that case," he pointed to the screen again, "Who is that?"

Red hesitated. His stomach began to churn with confusion, hatred, and pure fear. He looked into those hateful eyes and felt sick.

And then, a name that hadn't passed over his lips in many years:

"Jake."