Snippet Sunday: November 1, 2015

Welcome to Snippet Sunday on Darkling Dreams!

Where writers come together to share a few sentences (8-10) of their current project — whether it’s a recently released novel, a WIP (work in progress), or an older manuscript that’s being revived. Intended to hook readers, gather feedback and build an author’s fan base, Snippet Sunday is the FB group that does all three.

Welcome to November, everyone! My favorite day of the year — and month — has sadly come and gone. Now it’s on to complete madness through…January I’d say. The holiday season in retail, the holidays itself, plus inventory at the start of 2016 is not going to be kind to me. And I’m the doo-doo bird that just signed up for NaNoWriMo on top of that! I’m crazy, right?

Well, in honor of me taking a dive off the deep end into more insanity for the next month, I am switching my snippets back to the fantasy novel I am continuing to work on for NaNo, Darkness Becomes Her. Though I have just had a total author crisis and am realizing that title works so much better with a book down the line in the series. So guess what? That title is probably changing soon. To what though, I have not a clue yet. Let’s just say my snippets will be from Book 1 of the Dark Heir Chronicles now.

The last time I left a snippet from this baby of mine was back in June, the 28th to be precise. (Yes, I looked, mainly because I want to know where I should pick up from.) I left off ending with Chapter 1 months ago, now I am going to start with a few pages in on Chapter 2.

Previously on these snippets: My protagonist, Heather, a young four year old child was kidnapped from her home in the middle of the night by a woman clad in black. Whisked away from her home into another realm full of magic, she is now bound and being dragged through the dark halls of this woman’s manor towards the fate that is about to befall her.

If you wish to remember any of these snippets, I started the sharing of this story on this date here. And now, starting up with Chapter 2. (Some sentences may have been creatively punctuated to try to fit the ten sentence limit. I’m way over this week, I’ll admit that. I’ll try to be better next week.)

—-

The woman didn’t even pause for a second as she started to drag Heather down the hall the led further back into the manor. The hall steadily got darker, with more rooms branching off to the side, all with closed doors now. They rounded a corner before coming upon another stairwell that led down; this one was ominous, completely stone and somewhat damp smelling, walls on either side of it making it claustrophobic, torches lit the entrance of it on either side of the wall, and the air in front of stairs seemed to shimmer and flicker.

She stopped in front of it, dropping Heather to the ground in a heap where she continued to cry, too scared now to even think of running. The woman waved her hand in front of the stairwell and the with a soft crackle, the shimmering air suddenly dropped away like a waterfall and a cold rush of air greeted them from the stairs below.

Heather shivered and whimpered, glancing up fearfully at the entrance to the stairwell, it reminded her of all the bad guys in Disney movies that had a dungeon where they locked up the heroes.

But a sound soon caught her attention instead.

From behind them came a low, menacing growl and sharp nails clicked against the stone floor, coming closer. A moment later, two blood-red eyes appeared out of the darkened hallway as a beast rounded the corner and stepped into the torchlight.

Heather screamed against the gag as the huge wolf-like creature came into sight, her eyes as wide as saucers. The wolfhound snapped its jaws near Heather’s face, saliva dripping off its sharp teeth, and hackles raised. She screamed again, shaking violently and the woman merely chuckled.

“Cruor, stand down.”

The wolfhound obediently sat back on its haunches, its vicious eyes still locked on the terrified child though. It was bigger than her, much bigger than her, probably about the size of a young foal. A low snarl was emanating from its throat yet, a sound that made her cringe and want to scramble away.

Tears streaked down her face, soaking into the cloth over her mouth; her eyes were red and puffy, her face pale, and her entire body shaking in terror.

—-

This story is not yet on Wattpad because it is my baby that I hope to publish one day, and if no one will publish me, I am self publishing. But it’s also not on Wattpad because it’s in first draft phases yet. So there will be no “if you wish to read more…” And I do technically have a cover made but since my little crisis in changing the title…that’s going to change now, too.

However! If you wish to read anything else that I do have finished, you can hop on over to Wattpad and check out what I have to offer. I love to hear any and all feedback on my work as well. Comments are greatly appreciated, as are the reads.

And if you’re looking for some other great snippets of fellow authors,

hop on over to Facebook and check out Sunday Snippets!