Thursday 3 October 2013

500 Word Challenge: Twisted Vanity

Today's Challenge: The story ends on a boat. The story must have a witch-hunter/inquisitor at the end. The story must involve an earring in the beginning.

- - -

    Never let a vain witch rip your earring out. She’ll use your blood to cast a spell, and leech away your beauty. Along with your life force, if she’s feeling particularly nasty, which this one was. We stared at yacht at the dock. Liam frowned.
    “All this because the witch had one little wrinkle?” my brother asked.
    “Guess so. Let’s get the girl, get the witch, and get out.”
    “Who do you want?”
    I shrugged again. “You like pretty girls. I’ll take the witch.”
    We started walking to the yacht, loosening our hands and pulling on the magic in our souls.
    “Something tells me the witch will be prettier when we see her.”
    “But you’ll still be the hero.”   
    Liam grinned. “That’s the important thing, Derek.”
    The boat wasn’t warded, so we were able to step onto it without a spell triggering, and this witch was nobody special, so there weren’t any followers on guard.     I slipped below deck, Liam right behind me. We kept our footsteps as quiet as possible, but the stairs still creaked. There were muffled whimpers coming from the room ahead of us, so I peeked around the corner. A wrinkled husk was in a chair. The woman with the lost earring.
    The witch wasn’t in sight, and that bothered me. A quick trap might have been set when we were coming down, so I reached for my soulfire. Tingling heat flowed through me, forming in my hands. I sent a blast into the middle of the room.
    The beautiful witch screeched and exploded out of hiding, sending a powerful blast of energy at me. It slammed into my chest and forced me to brace myself on the walls, as Liam threw his own soulfire at her. She roared in fury, avoiding Liam’s spell. I shoved off the wall and tackled her. She screamed and beat at me with her fists, but I was built like a linebacker even without my reactive adaptation. She might as well have been hitting me with a pillow. A pillow that didn’t stop moving.
    “Reverse the spell, Liam!” I shouted as I tried to get my handcuffs from my belt.
    “No!” she screamed in anger.
    But Liam was already at the chair, freeing the withered woman from her restraints and reversing the spell. He’d always had more magic talent.
    I caught the witch’s wrists and snapped on an iron cuff. She howled again, but I slapped the other cuff on and muttered a silencing spell. Her mouth kept moving, but no sounds were getting past her lips. I got to my feet, pulling the witch up with me, confused when she started to shrivel up. I looked over to see that Liam had reversed the spell. The previously withered woman had returned to a full fledged beauty queen.
    She threw her arms around my little brother’s neck.
    “You saved me! You’re my hero!”
    He grinned and gave me a thumbs up. I shook my head, but I was grinning, too.

- - -

Since I've been thinking about Hollow Hill literally all day, I thought it would be prudent to do a quick short story to get introduced to Derek and Liam, and to further help my planning process. My last post has all the current information on Hollow Hill, my chosen NaNoWriMo project. More updates and another short to come later today!

Amy

No comments:

Post a Comment