The Silent Room continued... Part 3

From a writing prompt with Copper taken from the website writing prompts,  The Silent Room prompt series continues. (see the writing prompts page on the side or click the tag for the silent room if you would like to read earlier prompts in this story; and no, no idea where I'm going with this...)

Bailey

When he stepped through the doors Bailey found that The Silent Room was not in fact silent..  It had a thrum to it, a faint unstable hum that began to rattle his teeth the longer he paid attention to it.  While he was noticing this, his escorts- two guards dressed all in black protective gear- stepped back, leaving him standing frozen on a small hexagon plate set flush with the surrounding tile floor.  Frozen, because he had been immobilized by an unseen force field. Behind him he heard the doors swish shut, closing at the last with a sharp clang that then seemed to run on and on round the walls of the dimly lit white dome.

Round and round it went, as though slowly rising upward in a giant reverse marble roller of sound, until it at last ended in small series of tiny wobbly loops of dying sound at the very top of the dome.  Then it rose up and out, and left in its wake only a hollow empty space and the dull teeth rattling thrum.   A moment later a giant arm came rushing out of the wall directly in front of him and clapped a helmet on his head.

"This is it," he thought. "Goodbye, world."  And he remembered no more.


Across the country, several communities woke to find themselves stretched out on the hard lumpy ground of the open fields outside town. Along with all their neighbors.  Upon rubbing their eyes and fighting the adrenaline rush from waking up with a shocked start, they found that, no, they were not dreaming, and yes, they were actually still in a field. Dressed only in the light weight of their night shirts and patterned cotton pants, their sleep caps and eye masks. One woman noticed she was missing her eyeglasses; another noticed there were grass clippings mixed in with his hair; and they all noticed before too long that their feet were bare and cold in the early morning chill.  As though they had wondered here and then laid down to sleep some hours before. Hopping from foot to foot, confused, and facing a rather long trudge back home, they were not happy.

WNP: Bottle in the Ocean

WNP:  He stood and threw the bottle into the ocean. “All done,” he said.

(continuation from The Silent Room prompt per Lyn's suggestion)

Grenfelder

Far away, on the Eastern Shoreline, another man stood with a green bottle in his hand.  It was sunset, the sun having sunk down so low into horizon, that its light shimmered out from it like a great long highway paved across the choppy waters in gold and mauve and tangerine. The bottle held the last of the containment formula that was still free from the specialist forces that had been sent to track it down.  He had fought, thought Grenfelder, for as much of his life as he was able, to keep it free and safe. That time was over. He could only hope that someone else would pick it up and fight in his place.

With a flick of his wrist and the full force of his back and shoulder behind it, he tossed the bottle as far out to sea as his will was strong enough to send it.  It settled into the highway of light and bobbed there for moment as if waving goodbye.  Then the sun slid a little lower, pulling its highway in behind it, and the bottle disappeared from sight.  When they came him for him minutes or was it hours later, the specialist force that had been tracking him for five long years, they found him merely sitting in the sand, staring at the darkening sky with its first glimmering stars, as if he had been waiting for them all along, and they had simply been too slow to catch up.

Author Intisar Khanani: Cover Reveal and Giveaway!

One of my very dear friends happens to be an indie author in young adult fiction.  She published her first novel Thorn last year and has been hard at work writing her next works since then.  Today she sent out notice that the first book in her series The Sunbolt Chronicles would most likely be released sometime in early June. Having been a beta reader for one of her early drafts, I am very much looking forward to seeing the final story.  

Here is a look at the new cover (isn't it gorgeous?) and story blurb:

Sunbolt:

The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she conceals her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to bring down the powerful and corrupt Archmage Wilhelm Blackflame. 

When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her charges, it will take everything she has to escape with her life.


If you would like to read more about Intisar and her work, check out her website and spring newsletter, or if you would just like to participate in the giveaway competition for three free digital ARCs of Sunbolt and signed bookmarks go here for more details.  The giveaway is international, and the ARCs should be available mid-May.