DRAFTING FORUM!!!

OH MY GOSH YALL…… I TRIED IT….AND….I WROTE LIKE 1,000 WORDS…. I FINISHED THIS CHAPTER/SCENE! OH MY STINKING GOSH!!! SCREEEEEECH!!! YALL!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM LIKE SOOOOO HAPPY!!!!!

Also its a long one!! So buckle up!!!!! (BTW just so yall know! I am NOT looking for critiques or feedback necessarily OTHER THEN encouragement and GOOD feedback. this is because I am DRAFTING and if I get critiques it will make me go back and edit and that is not beneficial for me at this stage lol.)

ALSO I KNOW none of yall would do this. But I just realized im a bit nervous about submitted my stuff on here cuz I’ve heard stuff about ppl stealing things before…. ya know. BUT THE LORD WILL PROTECT IT IN JESUS NAME! lol!!!

“November!” Ara shifted as she fell, reaching to pull him down with her, but her fingers just brushed the edge of his shirt. Her back hit the floor and she gasped, the breath knocked from her lungs. Her body ached from the impact but she ignored it, scrambling to get to her feet.

Too late.

“No!” Ara reached for her friend, just as the bird’s long talon’s collided with his face. The impact sent him back and Ara screamed as he fell, dashing his head against one of the stone pillars. The raven swooped in the air, releasing a strained bellow before returning to it’s position in front of it’s army of shadows. Once again, the raven was the ebony-haired girl Ara now knew to be Corvina.

Ara’s hands shook.

N-November…

She crawled over and placed a gentle hand on his head. “N-November? November…” She whispered. “November, please…”

The boy didn’t move.

Ara bit her lip, panic gripping her chest. She scanned his face, immediately wincing at the sight. Three long gashes covered the left side of his face; the middle one cutting right over his eye.

Light One, she prayed, Please don’t let him go blind in that eye…please!

Her eyes blurred with tears as she hovered above her friend, unsure of what to do. The cuts were bleeding now; a deep, ink-like red. She tried to wipe it as best she could with her hands but this only smeared it.

“November!” She said, her shaking hands finding themselves now behind his head, taking root in his curls. “November, please!”

Why wasn’t he moving!?

Her fingers jerked as they were met with more of the sticky substance that came from his face. But this was coming from his head.

Oh…Oh, Light One…

She extracted her hand from his curls and found it to be covered in blood. She let out a strangled cry. Light One, no!

“November! Get up! Don’t do this to me…”

Wordlessly, Ara ripped a piece of fabric from the bottom of her dress, immediately placing it against the back of his skull. She held it tight, hoping to stem any blood flow. He was still breathing; his chest slowly rising and falling. But…but what if…

Ara squeezed her eyes shut, allowing the last of her tears to leave streaks on her face. At this point, she didn’t care how she looked.

She could lose her best friend.

And it would be all her fault.

All her fault…

All….

All….

Her…fault.

Ara’s lifted her head, eyes focusing on the ebony-haired girl.

She was busy rubbing her hand, staring at it with an expression on her face that Ara couldn’t quite place. Confusion? Pain? Fear?

It didn’t matter.

No. What mattered was the blood that dripped from her fingertips.

November’s blood.

Gently, Ara set down November’s head, making sure the piece of rolled fabric was still in place. She stood, never taking her eyes off Corvina. She clenched her fists, balling them until her knuckles turned white. Until her fingers were numb, and she couldn’t feel her nails biting into her skin.

Her muscles quivered as she breathed, her heart pounding like a drum.

“You-” Her voice shook and she hated the tightness in her chest. “H-How? Why? Why would you hurt him?”

Corvina’s eyes drew to meet Ara’s own. They were wide. Glassy. The dark-haired girl held her bloodied hand as if caressing a wound; rubbing her fingers and wrist.

Ara’s stomach heaved with emotion. It wasn’t even her blood!

“Why?!” Ara grit her teeth; hot, angry tears falling down her cheeks.

Corvina’s brows went wide before furrowing in, her eyes narrowing on the girl. She released her hand, standing straighter. The shadows that enveloped the room shrunk as she glowered. “It wasn’t supposed to be him.” Corvina leveled her gaze, the creeping dark of the catacombs returning. 

“It was supposed to be you.”

Ara stared, a sharp pain stabbing through her stomach. Her body went rigid, everything inside of her shutting down. She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think.

Had it always been this cold?

She shuddered, searching for something to pull her from the aching chill that threatened to take over. The fraying pieces of her mind grew dark, collapsing right in front of her. Dreams mixed with reality. Reality mixed with dreams….

What was even real anymore?

Her hand reached out, grasping at the edges of reality, looking for an anchor.

But no one was there.

“N-November?” She whispered. She turned.

Why…

Why was he bleeding?

Was this…another dream?

Another terrible nightmare?

Ara looked back at the girl standing in front of her. She seemed…smaller now.

Not so much in stature. Just…further away.

She stood, shrouded in her own shadows; her hood pulled back over her face. Still, Ara could make out those same dark eyes. The ones that had plagued her for years. With a raised hand, the girl, Corvina, drew the darkness ever closer, and with them, all the torch-light in the room.

“You really shouldn’t make deals with death.” 

And then.

She smirked.

Ara’s head snapped back, everything flooding back into place. She gasped, feeling the breath she’d been holding release. Her chest heaved as the air filled her lungs.

A shrill cry pierced her mind and she doubled over in pain, grasping her head. She looked up, only to find it was Corvina, circling above in her raven form. The shadows around writhed and moved in tandem with the bird, like a whirlwind around the room.

Thankfully, the lanterns and torches still flickered nearby; their being put out only an illusion of Ara’s own making. Ah, dreams were infuriating!

The catacombs, however, seemed to dislike the rumbling that the dark forces had caused, and Ara’s eyes grew wide as the first piece of granite and stone came crumbling down before her. She gripped her bodice, panic taking over every nerve as she looked back up at the raven encircling her.

Corvina hadn’t stopped, but instead flew all the more frantic. Whatever magic she had held fast, making the shadows spin in an uproar across the walls, creating a furious wind. It screamed in Ara’s ears and tore at her dress and hair.

Worse though, it continued to beat at the centuries old stone that encased them, causing it to crumble and decay. Ara’s heart dropped as she came to a horrid realization;

She’s trying to bring this place down on us!

Her body shook at the thought and she spun around, trying to shield her eyes from the sheer force of the tornado being created around her. She had to escape. Had to get out.

Had to get…

November.

Her pulse raced.

“November!” She cried, but the sound was taken by the wind.

How could she have been so foolish? How could she have brought him down here? She never should’ve gotten him involved!

She spun once more, praying to find him.

Please, Light One. Please, if you can just let me find him! If he can be okay…If he can just be okay!

Her eyes watered and she had to blink multiple times to get them to focus, but she refused to give up. She wasn’t going to leave without him.

After a third spin around, and a quick dodge from a falling pillar, Ara finally spotted him. Tucked behind a couple of broken, crumbling pieces of granite was her friend. She cried, running to reach him. She stumbled and, instead of trying to stand and fight the pressure that pushed her back, decided to crawl to him instead.

Thank the Light One, she found that he hadn’t been hit by anything, but he was still unconscious. She shook him by the shoulders and ran her hands through his hair. “November! November! We have to go!” The boy didn’t move.

Oh, Good Light….was he…?

No.

No, she couldn’t think that. She had to get him out. Had to get them both out.

After quickly tying another piece of torn dress fabric to his head, Ara lifted him to a sitting position. Carefully, she got behind his back and reached underneath his arms, wrapping her arms around as if she were hugging him.

At any other time, he would’ve probably laughed at her catching him off guard.

Would she ever hear that laugh again?

She shook her head. With a grunt and a bit of a strain, Ara clasped her hands together and began slowly pulling November backwards. She frowned as his head lolled back towards her and winced every time they scraped against the floor.

She could hardly hear now, her ears were whistling and her mind was filled with pressure. She wasn’t even sure how far she’d made it before everything turned upside down, and she found herself losing her grip.

All she knew was that the catacombs were collapsing.

A’Grend was in danger.

Her friend might be dead.

And it was all her fault.

 

@queen_of_alvastia AHHH THANK YOU!!! I actually didn’t think I was good at show don’t tell heh 😅 but I guess I am!

@freedomwriter76 here’s the rest of that injury scene!!

also I’m actually writing single scene beats right now so idk if I’ll get to the next part right after this chapter or not Queenie 👀 whoops?? XD u may have to wait a bit to see what happens.

maybe not. Depends on if I can wait to write it myself lol

@freedomwriter76 AWWWW I LUV THAT!!! NOVEMBER BOI FOREVER!!!

EEEEEK!! I am so glad you liked it!! I’m really happy with it too!! It was honestly just crazy how it flowed out of me!!! It just…seemed so much more freeing to write it on KP and on the forum, and it got me away from feeling trapped in my scrivener doc. I luv scrivener (don’t get me wrong lol) but writing that scene on here was just sooo freeing….

So my experiment definitely worked for that scene and I’m excited to see if it works again!

@freedomwriter76 @koshka @queen_of_alvastia @anyone-who-cares lol

HELLO EVERYONE!! I AM GOING TO ATTEMPT (emphasis on attempt XD) to write tonight….HEH.

ALSO! (don’t hold me to this as I may forget) But I might start putting whose POV the scene is from in Bold kinda like we do in the RPs, so yall know.

I write in 3rd person, but it is still from the POV from someone if that makes any sense?? Because I have multiple MCs, (and they grow throughout the series….help me XD)

And I may also let u know what scene beat I’m attempting to write/the number of that scene beat or whatever so…yea! I’m currently following save the cat writes a novel pretty much so when Is say Scene Beat that’s what I mean. (: Dunno if anyone’s on rn but…whateva XD