NaNo-Nights: Night 2
During our NaNo-Nights group this evening, our writers took a creative break. Today we used story cubes and online generators to create a couple of working titles and some characters to write the beginning of a short story. Each writer took turns writing up to three or four sentences, and it was up to the next writer to continue the story. What we ended up with was a Sci-Fi story about an incarcerated angel, falsely accused of masterminding a bank heist. We ran out of time and didn’t get very far, but we’re hoping to continue it at our next meet up. Who knows, we might end up with a really great short story!
Here’s what we have so far, with edits to grammar and format only. What do you think? Notice any interesting things we had to find a way to work into the story?
The Remains of Tomorrow or The Heirs of Men
“Letter for Josiah Coleman,” the guard called out.
“Here,” Josiah raised his hand as high as he could being changed to the table. He had been imprisoned for two months and this was the first time any one had tried to get in contact with him. The guard walked up to his table, and with a smirk, tossed the letter down just out of reach. Josiah glared at the guard as he walked away. He sighed, and managed to pull the letter in by his fingertips. It was heavier than he expected.
Squinting, Josiah tried to determine what the envelope may contain. Carefully, he broke the tracking seal and an electronic tablet the size of a playing card slid out and clattered onto the table. He clicked the pad on and a series of images flashed by quickly, the last of which was a rat. He tried to hide a smile from the camera and slid the pad off the table. He tried his best to hunker down as he pretended to grab it.
He opened the pad’s media player, clicking on the videos stored on the hard drive. One of the screenshots made Josiah’s eyes bug out. He clicked play, and a brontosaurus popped onto the screen, roaring. Josiah scrambled to turn the volume down. The video showed alternating images of the roaring brontosaurus and a scarab climbing over a desert rock. Josiah stared at the images, trying to make sense of them. Seeing the scarab triggered a memory; the scarab as an insignia on a jacket.
It was the night he was arrested along with his partner, Sam Griffen. It wasn’t as if they were fully innocent. They had been caught setting a fire in the Third District, but they were picked up for a bank heist they weren’t behind.
It was enough to help him shake the sedatives and he knew he could act fast enough. He popped the back off the pad and removed two small items. One was a chrome rectangle he shook vigorously before sliding it to a far wall, the other looked like wire which he wrapped around his chain. The wire sparked and burned through the metal while the rectangle beeped a warning of the impending explosion.
The bank and flash dazed him, time seemed to slow as he struggled to crawl across the floor to the now missing wall panel. Taking a deep breath, Josiah ducked through the hole praying the “security stingers,” didn’t get him. As he approached the extraction point, the tell-tale buzz of mechanical wings became a deafening roar. Like a light bulb, the memory that Sam was still inside flashed into Josiah’s brain. He climbed into the escape shuttle, then tapped the pilot, Quinn Jackson, on the shoulder.
“We can’t leave Sam behind,” Josiah said grimly. Quinn ran a hand through his messy hair.
“We can’t wait long,” he snapped. Another explosion rocked their shuttle. Josiah’ s head slammed against Quinn’s seat, and he had to shake his head to clear it. His vision blurred.
It wasn’t until his trial that he found out that Sam never made it out. Quinn, turns out he was the one that set them up. Josiah cursed himself for not seeing the irritable teenager for what he was, a government plant.
There was no choice, no more letters allowed in, he had to take a deal. He agreed to life in containment for scientific study and testing. He would get better food, a comfortable bed, and possible rehabilitation and reintroduction to society if he survived. Josiah vowed that if he survived he’d go straight. No more shady jobs, he’d live his life, keep his head down; however that was not in the cards for Josiah.