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sickle_storiesDay 1 - A main protagonist, their bio.
Life is made up of a Before and an After. Or at least that's how it is in stories.
In reality, things are not that simple. There's not just one Before, one after, one single defining moment when the stone is thrown into the water and after that it's nothing but ripples. Instead, there are many moments, little bends in the road, sharp twists and even sharper turns. Although numerous, these moments of change are not, of course, all equal in size.
Like everyone else, Chip had small Befores and Afters. Before he lost a tooth at age seven with his legs hanging in the air high up in the ferris wheel. After he punched Ryan in the stomach for all the times he didn't.
There were bigger ones. After he got his first job selling soft ice cream at the mall. Before he decided to go to college. After he kissed Jake.
Then there were the really big ones, those deserving the capital letters. After Mom died. Before he told his father. After he met Steve.
Then there were the Befores and Afters that split his life into pieces. Before the world ended. After Steve died. Before the angel.
Day 2 - A Main protagonist’s love interest(s), their bio(s).
You wouldn't think it to look at them, but Steve and Icarus had their similarities.
Down on paper, they couldn't be more different. When Steve had been a cheeky boy from Bowen Island, skinning his knee in the woods and hopping over fishing lines, Icarus was a multidimensional wavelength humming hosannas in one corner of Heaven. When Steve went to college across the border and discovered economics and weed and the big city of Seattle, Icarus was praising his Father, ever unseen. When Steve reveled in a new relationship he could see being new forever, Icarus was watching his brothers and sisters whisper around him and without him. When Steve struggled with the distance and the absence, Icarus fought in a war and saw his kin fall. Steve lay in bed with Chip when Icarus chose man over God. Steve waited by the luggage belt when Icarus paid for that choice.
But life isn't lived on paper.
The world ended as Steve found himself fighting against a world gone mad, the man he would always choose fighting alongside him. Miles away, Icarus was doing the same. The war was hard on both of them, and seeing their chosen companion become brittle under the pressure made it harder still. One of them was taken, one of them fell. Neither of them would ever take to the sky and reach home.
When Icarus bled himself half to death in the back of Chip's car, it was over Steve's weathered bloodstain. When Icarus stumbled down worn dirt paths to a cabin, Chip's muscle memory knew what to do. And when Icarus molded himself against Chip's side, his heart remembered what to do, too.
Day 3 - A main protagonist’s best friend(s), their bio(s).
When he was young, Clarence always wondered whether he would make a good father, the kind who took their kid to the park on weekends for a round of catch, who clapped and cheered misty-eyed at the end of ever school play, who sat by their bedside and told them fanciful stories. He'd read about that kind of father in books when he himself was just a boy and, while he loved his Pop, he knew he didn't want there to be that distance between him and his future child.
When it turned out that Cedric had hayfever and stagefright and read under the covers by the glow of a flashlight, Clarence took it in stride. He was older now and what he wanted from himself as a father was harder to gasp and even harder to describe, but seeing Cedric grow up was evidence enough that he was getting close.
Close enough was probably as far as he would ever get. He had alsmost come to terms with the fact that he would never see Cedric grow old - never see him again, in fact. Almost, of course, because a father always hoped.
Sometimes, with Chip, he felt the old paternal echo, felt it in his bones and chest, the hollow curve of a bell still faintly humming with vibration.
Close enough.
Day 4 - A main antagonist, their bio.
When the Lord claimed vengeance as his own, he forged a sword, and named it Kezef.
He had siblings - brothers and sisters who shared some corner of Heaven with him. He would watch and judge and wait, keeping himself separate of them save for his closest kin, his fellow Swords of God.
When Lucifer fell, he forged a lock and hid the key. When his kin plotted for the End, he gathered his strength. When the fighting began, he watched, judged, and exacted vengeance.
Now he fought alone and there were still many left wanting in the eyes of his father.
He would bring them all down.
Day 5 - The place a character sleeps.
It was cold. There was a thin breeze trailing in through the crack Chip left in the window, more so he could hear if anything came close than for ventilation. It was early June but he was still far enough north that the nights were still more spring than summer. He shifted uncomfortably - the seatbelt buckle digging into his side - and tugged the blanket further up his shoulders. He tried not to think about the stain on the upholstery.
He was lying in the back seat of his worn-out Alfa in the middle of a highway. He'd lost track of which highway, exactly. He would have to squint at his map in the morning and try to remember what kinds of turns he took. He stopped caring for a while - a few days, a week maybe - not paying any attention to where he was going or what he was doing, just keeping his foot on the accelerator and trying not to remember. Once his fuel gauge started blinking at him and his jerry cans sloshed emptily more than was wise, though, he had to drag himself back into some semblance of action.
He tilted his head back and looked up at the sky through the window. It wasn't the clearest of views - the clouds covered what the grime on the glass didn't - but there was enough moonlight that he didn't get a sense of there being nothing out there.
He clung to that idea.
Because he was sleeping in the back seat of his car in the middle of the highway in the middle of nowhere and he was alone.
Day 6 - The place a character works/goes to school/hangs out whatever.
Chip fiddled with his empty coffee cup. He was early - he was always early, sometimes even sneaking out of work so he could drive to the airport early and sit on the edge of the hard plastic seats in the domestic flight's arrival lounge and drink over-priced coffee and stare at the screens, checking and rechecking flight numbers and times and praying the words delayed or worse, cancelled, never showed up by his own personal lottery number. He always sat in the same seat, or tried to. Always drank the same coffee - a latte with two sugars, unstirred - downing it in erratic, impatient gulps, leaving two inches to cool at the bottom so he would have something to do with his hands while he waited. He always ended up mouthing along to the overhead announcements despite himself, hating how they hammered into his head over and over again about gate openings and changes and how not to leave one's luggage unattended.
Chip didn't mind being a regular at the airport's arrivals, having an almost intimate knowledge of the tiny details of what made the lounge tick, spending whole evenings just waiting. Because the wait, the back-aching chair and the last dregs of cold coffee were all worth it once that one magical word - arrived - flashed by Steve's flight number.
Day 7 - A major story location.
Chip walked around their bedroom - because it was, irrevocably, "theirs". He ran a hand down the empty bookshelf where Icarus put his clothes every night. (Chip dropped his on the floor by the bed more times than not.) He straightened the green blanket on the bed and dug his thumbnail into the broken bedpost. He wondered whatever had happened to the top bed - the other half of the mutilated bunk bed he and the angel slept in. He imagined bodies up on the top bed - naked and tangled, or maybe clothed and reaching for the roof through the window. Either could have broken the bed, although he doubted there were all that many orgies going around, end of the world and all.
Chip sat down on the edge of the bed, shoving the single lumpy pillow to the side, and opened the drawer of the bedside table. Most of the time - whenever Chip wasn't in the room - it was empty. At night, before crawling in to bed, he would slip his Sigma out from under his shirt, the small of his back instantly feeling cold and exposed, and store the gun there until morning. The extra case of ammunition he carried in his pocket - the right one, not the left, where he kept his keys and lighter - went in after.
Chip toed his duffel bag out from under the bed, snagging the crowbar along with it. He stared at the sad bundle for a moment, looked at the empty drawer and shelves, and started to unpack. It was the first time in almost half a year that he did so, never really stopping long enough to warrant unpacking. No. Never feeling he'd stay long enough. But now he had a bedroom and was part of a "we", an slap-dash little family, and he wasn't going anywhere. Not in a hurry, and not without them.
Day 8 - A character’s parent(s) or guardian
Saunders almost spilt his coffee down his front when he heard a soft knock at his door.
"Excuse me? Exucse me, hello?"
Saunders held his dripping mug over the coffee table but didn't set it down, afraid to make a noise. The knocking came again followed by what he realized now was a child's voice.
"Is anybody home?" More knocking, but softer. "Hello?" The voice was almost a whisper now, and sounded as if it did not expect an answer anymore.
Saunders closed his eyes. His ears rang in the silence of his apartment. A soft shuffling in the hallway brought him to his feet.
Opening the door a crack, Saunders saw the back of a young girl - somewhere in her pre-teens - walking away with a pair of keychains in her hand. Her hair was wild, a mess of curls that had disentangled from each other and wafted around her head like a halo, making her seem even smaller, swimming as she was already in an oversized sweater.
Saunders gripped his Winchester tight, then took a breath.
"Little girl?"
She twirled around instantly and took a few stops towards him, but then stopped short, her hands clasped under her chip. She bit her lip.
"Do you have anyone with you?"
She shook her head.
Memories of the days before flooded Saunders - the weight of his rifle, the growls and screams coming in from the streets and through is locked door. He didn't really have a choice.
He opened his door wide. "Come in," he said.
The girl broke into a run halfway towards him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Saunders patted her hair and closed the door behind them.
Day 9 - A minor antagonist.
They were sleeping in his cabin, for once. They'd been planning a search mission, working out the final kinks, and then Risa stayed so they could work out some kinks of their own. That had been a few hours ago, somewhere around the start of second shift. Dean figured it was getting close to third shift now, the air around the camp taking on that heavy blanket of silence that came with the tail end of the witching hour.
Neither of the two had dozed off afterwards, hadn't even disentangled their limbs from each other, but that didn't mean they were lying in the bed together. Dean was lost in his head, running through memories and plans and could-have-beens. Making contingency plans for events that would never happen and for events he knew, given their luck with worst-case-scenarios, would undoubtedly come to pass. He didn't care what Rissa was doing, as long as she eventually pulled herself together enough to go back to her cabin.
"It's too cold here," she said once, zipping up her jeans and buckling her bra. But the way she'd looked down at the last minute, eyes running away from his face to land at her feet, betrayed her meaning.
Day 10 - Your character when they were young(er)
Chip stood on his tip toes to slip the quarters into the slot and hestitated, not sure what he wanted. He stared into the vending machine, his nose pressed up against the glass, until the machine gave a beep and dropped his quarters back out through the change slot. He reached up again, fed the coins back into the machine, and pressed two buttons at random.
Dad had told him to go get something from the machine, after all. Chip didn't know why - he wasn't hungry or thirsty or anything. What he was was tired and homesick. He didn't like this place - the sharp too-clean smell that never faded, the strange people waiting in the hard, bright orange chairs or rushing down the halls lined with door upon door, the fact that no matter how late it was the flourescent lights were always on, always bright and humming.
Chip reached into the vending machine for his purchase - it was rootbeer, which he hated - and pressed the cold metal can against his cheek. The clock on the wall said it was almost eleven-thirty at night. Chip wondered what happened at midnight - he'd never been allowed to stay up so late.
Picking a chair - hard, orange, ugly - that faced the clock, Chip settled down cross-legged and opened the can. He didn't drink any, just sat there playing with the tab until it snapped off, and sloshing the liquid around to hear it fizz.
At a quarter to midnight, almost the witching hour and almost tomorrow and way past Chip's bedtime, Dad came to get him.
"Hey there, buddy," he said, trying to smile. "How are you holding up?"
"'M sleepy," mumbled Chip, rubbing his eyes with heel of his hand.
"Come on," said Dad, scooping his son in his arms, mindful of the open can of rootbeer, "Mom wants to talk to her little Chip'n'Dale chipmunk."
He didn't add that it was to say goodbye.
Day 11 - What kind of people show up in the background in your world?
"Hey, Chuck, what brings you into my little corner this late at night?" Harper swiveled her chair from side to side behind her desk, its rusty creak filling the tiny office.
Chuck shrugged, hugging his clipboard to his chest. "Couldn't sleep," he said, walking towards a chair topped with folders and notebooks. He pushed it around with his knee so it faced Harper and sat down on top of the paperwork. "Wanted to make some coffee-" Harper snorted. "Alright, Irish coffee," Chuck admitted. "Or, well, coffee-plus, but there were no clean mugs, so I washed some, and we're low on detergent, so I made a note of that, and then I checked the pantry and..."
"And bye-bye sleepy-time," finished Harper with a soft smile. Chuck shrugged again and lay his clipboard carefully on his lap. "And the coffee?"
Chuck looked confused for a moment, then threw his head back. "Crap," he sighed, obviously having forgotten in in the midst of his pantry checking.
"Here," said Harper, "have some of mine. It's gone cold, but it's still got a bit of a kick to it." She set a badly chipped mug on the notebook in front of Chuck.
"Thanks," he said, taking a sip, then, with an appreciative sound, taking a larger gulp. He pointed at the notebook. "We get any newcomers?"
Harper leaned back in her chair and fiddled with her hair, threading it between her fingers. "Yeah, three guys and a kid."
"Family?" asked Chuck, flipping through the notebook.
"Nah, just after the fact. I put them in Elk with the redheads."
"Two guns, not bad," said Chuck, reading down a list. "No shells, but then you can't have everything. A working car - obviously - and blunt weapons. Nice."
"Nice folks," said Harper, reaching back across the desk for her mug. "Came in from Kansas City."
Chuck, who was jotting down a few notes on his clipboard, nodded absently. "Poor fucks."
"Ain't we all," murmured Harper, taking another swig of her spiked coffee.
Abruptly, Chuck edged forward on his chair and held the notebook open with both hands. He stared at the page, one index finger tapping lightly at an entry in the left-hand column. "That's an odd name," he whispered. "Icarus."
Day 12 - How does a character comfort themself?
Chip woke with a start in the middle of the night, muscles along his arms and legs twitching erratically in a panic that hadn't yet reached his sleep-befuddled mind. Some noise must have woken him up.
He tried to sit up, squinting in the darkness and trying to reach down for his crowbar, but a hand on his chest kept him down. It wasn't a forceful gesture - just a light, reassuring touch that had obviously anticipated his reaction. It was Icarus, who must have woken up moments before him. The fallen angel was looking at the bedroom door. Chip craned his neck to look over the foot of the bed and made out a small figure huging the side of the door.
It was Agatha standing in the doorway, her hair a wild bed-rumpled mess and the corner of her pijama - an oversized shirt inherited from some poor soul in Kansas - in her hands.
"Hey, Aggie," whispered Chip. "What's wrong?"
Agatha twisted the cloth in her hands and focused her eyes on her feet. Beside him, Chip felt Icarus move away from him, his hand slipping off his chest. It wasn't until Agatha was climbing over the end of the bed and slipping in between them that Chip figured it out.
He dragged the covers up over Agatha's shoulders, giving her arm a reasurring squeeze before dropping his hand down between them. Agatha curled herfingers around his and closed her eyes. From the other side of the single bed, he heard Icarus whisper a gentle, "Sleep well."
Day 13 - What kind of foods are popular in the setting?
Chip poked his head around the kitchen door. "Whatcha cooking there, Harper?"
"Stew," she said, bending over the bubbling pot. "Would you just smell that? Fresh herbs!"
"The guys found some, huh?"
"Yeah, they had a good run in a little town up west. They left you and the angel a few bags - y'know, from the list."
Chip shuffled uncomfortably at the reminder. "Oh, yeah. We'll get to it." He turned to leave.
"Hey, don't you want a taste? It's got real meat and everything!" She proffered him the full wooden spoon, a small brown hunk sitting in a little clear pool of broth.
Chip hesitated. "Real meat?" He bent closer towards the spoon. It smelled good. "What kind of meat?"
"A bit of a few things, really," said Harper, moving the spoon insistantly towards Chip. He could do nothing else but obligingly open his mouth.
"That's good," he said, mildly surprised. "Kinda chewy."
"That'd be the squirrel, then."
Day 14 - What is a character's biggest regret?
He won't let himself think that it should have been him. It shouldn't have been either of them, and he wouldn't wish his pain on Steve, wouldn't wish Steve in his place, this grieving, lost, lonesome place. He wouldn't want Steve to hurt like that.
He didn't want Steve to hurt at all, for all the good that wishing did. Because it shouldn't have been Steve; that much he knew, and that much he could shoulder. Not Steve.
He won't let himself think about what he could have - should have - done, either. All the little things that might have - would have - saved Steve. If only he'd been faster. Or stronger. Or better.
If only.
Day 15 - What are a character's bad habits?
Chip was a social smoker for a few years in college - Fridays and parties, noisey bars and cold mindnight streets. He never really liked smoking all that much and needed it less, just liked how it gave him something to do, something to hold, let him stand and watch and think without questioned by others.
When the apocalypse started and he saw a pack lying on the asphalt, crushed under a bootmark, cigarettes strewn on the ground like they'd seen a party and not a masacre, he thought, Why the hell not?, and scooped them up. He smoked on the road, alone, with no pattern or ritual. It gave him something to do.
Chip played with the cigarette, flipping it over and between his fingers like he would a pen. It didn't matter that he bent it, the ciggarette was already all bend to hell and off-white, little tuffs of tobacco floating out of the end on the occassional twirl. He had four more in the equally tattered box squeezed into his back pocket but thought maybe this one will be the last one. For now.
He stopped fidgetting - at least his hands stopped, his right leg was still twitching a rhythm into the dry leaves littering the ground - and pinched the end of the cigarette closed, twisting it around to keep the tobacco in. He reached into his pocket for his lighter and flipped it on, then off again. *click* *snap* It was an oddly satisfying sound, so definite and solid - a closing door, a twisting key, the end - so he did it again, and again, watching the flame shiver in the cool air.
Chip looked out across the empty field and into the woods, and beyond that, the lake. He got the feeling - slowly, creeping up and over him like a heat wave - that one day he would have to run down that small dirt path, down to the trees, over roots and branches, until he reached the water or his lungs burst. It was a strange feeling, inevitable as a dream and just as tangible.
He lit the cigarette, cupping it gently in his hands pressed against the cold wire mesh fence, and took in a deep drag.
Day 16 - What was a character's first romantic and/or sexual encounter like?
Steve knew this sort of thing couldn't have happened back home, on the island. The intoxication of freedom and discovery, of being in the big city of Vancouver, wandering the streets and prowling the nigthclubs, made them reckless and impulsive - made things possible.
He and the guys had barely landed when they ran off the ferry and into the streets, whooping like the small-town boys they were, feet pounding asphalt instead of beach, lungs taking in air that smelled nothing like kelp and fish and salt. They flew around corners, hooking their hands on every pole - street lamp, sign or stop light - and each of them laughing because they were in the city, just the four of them, with money lining their pockets and shoes, time on their side.
Anything could happen. Everything could happen. They would chase down every adventure, every whim, every story, and place themselves front and center.
One of those things that happened was Justin. He happened to Steve, sudden and bright, like a thousand other things that happened to them that day. They were in a shop, the four of them giggling in the aisles, losing and finding each other, drunk from the ferry and the run and the city. Steve turned a corner, one hand trailing over packets of hard candies, looking for a jawbreaker, when fingers hooked themselves on the edge of his shirt. He turned and Justin kissed him. He kissed Steve full on the lips, quick and sharp, teeth clicking against his.
Then just as suddenly Justin ran off, back the way he had come, and seconds later the little bell over the shop's door rang twice - open, close.
Steve forgot about the jawbreaker.
A few minutes later, following Frankie and "Limpet" Luke out of the shop, the other boys arms full of sweets, Steve found Justin. He kicking at a fire hydrant, his sneakers giving a short-living squeak with each jolt against the metal. Justin didn't look up when the boys reached him, so he missed the medley of emotions that flickered over Steve's face.
He got it later, though: Steve had turned a corner.
Day 17 - What are popular sports and hobbies in your setting?
Chip glanced down at his hands and felt his heart jump. He couldn't be that lucky. Chip shifted in his seat and glanced at the other people sitting around the table, wondering if any had been watching him, if they'd caught something in his face that would give him away. He saw Rissa's eyes flicker away from him and settle on her hands resting folded on the table. Chuck poured himself a drink, sliding the bottle to the right where it bumped against Steve's huge hand.
Chip took another glance at his cards. It looked good. Really good. He might be able to go somewhere with these. He didn't have much in the way of bottle caps to back him up, but maybe he could squeeze past Rissa's keen eyes this time and get some of his earnings back. He didn't want to have to do anyone's chores if he could help it.
Icarus leaned into his shoulder and Chip lifted the corners of his cards to let him have a look. Icarus had played been kicked off the poker team after the first time and his caps redistributed. No one, not even Rissa, could decipher a single thing from the angel's face, so he'd invariably beat them all. (For much the same reason, nobody looked forward to playing poker with Dean.) Had it been strip poker, the whole gang would have been stark naked and Icarus wouldn't have even taken off his shoes.
Day 18 - What would your protagonist do if they saw your antagonist on the street?
The little things he could fix, mused Chip. The broken headlights and the rust were nothing he hadn't dealt with before. Hell, even the chipped paint could be fixed after a word with Chuck and the restocking crew. The tires were trickier: the treds looked pretty worn out and they probably had more punctures than were worth fixing. It wasn't that replacement tires were hard to find, it was just that they took time to extract and that time was spent in areas where any time spent was too much.
Those things Chip could fix. It was the bigger things - the caved-in roof, the trunk so warped it barely closed, the side-view mirror hanging down like a bloodhound's ear - that were out of his league. He wondered if they weren't out of Thomas' league as well. The camp's mechanic could probably resurrect the Imapal's engine, but Chip doubted either of them could get the car looking halfway decent again. Someone - Dean - had put their back into putting her out of commission.
Chip pressed a hand to the hot metal, running his fingers along a crease in the hood, brushing off paint chips and dust. These mental exercises - tallying up the hurt and how to fix it - were pointless, he knew. He had no doubt Dean would rip him a new one if he took so much as a screwdriver to the car. Chip patted the car gently in appology. Well, maybe one day, he half-promised, like he promised himself a hundred little things. Things he was saving for later, for after, although he didn't know when that would come. But one day, he'd get that car running again.
Chip ran his hand along the Imapala's side, leaving a clean streak amidst the dirt that no one would notice because no one ever went close to the car. He walked down to the next row of cars, dusting his hands and trying to pick out a small red pick-up he was working on. Working on a particularly stubborn grease stain on his palm, he almost bumped into Dean. Chip took a step back and half-raised his hands apologetically.
One look at Dean's face and Chip raised them in earnest. He took another step back and felt a side-view mirror dig into his back. "Hey man, sorry," he said, while inside he was thinking a panicked guilty mix of shit, he saw me with his car and oh God, he's going to punch me.
Dean glared at him, his jaw clenched and shoulders tense. For a moment he looked about ready to snarl and Chip seriously considered either dropping to his knees or reaching for his iron wrench. Then Dean licked his lips, chewed on the bottom one for a moment, and his face went blank like a windshield wiper in a storm. "Forget it," he said, pushing past Chip and walking down between the broken cars.
When Chip looked back, his heart thumping so hard it choked him, he saw Dean press his hand to the Impala for one split second, his unreadable face hidden by the upturned collar of his jacket. I'll fix it, Chip thought, and this time it was a promise, one that counted, one made of iron and engine grease and now.
Day 19 - What would your antagonist do if they saw your protagonist on the street?
He heard the drumming through others' ears, the steady four-beat of flesh on metal that called to his creations. Kezef slipped into body after body, cascading down alleyways and sidestreets along with the running bodies answering the pounding that echoed through city. His latest vessel reached the mess of limbs and reaching hands that was the flock of infected bodies running towards a fading angel and Kezef let it go.
Back in his own version of a body, Kezef smiled. His brother was alive. More than that: his brother was on the move, or would be, once the infected reached his latest hole. Kezef could take his time preparing things now that the most important ingredient had been located. He could let his brother run for a little while yet: he knew the little angel would inevitably fly back to Dean like a moth to a flame.
Day 20 - Demonstrate a character and their best friend and/or love interest interacting as they most commonly do.
Chip looked down at the mess in front of him, his oil-slick fingers just itching to start. He felt Icarus's hot breath on his neck as the angel pressed up against his back. A shiver ran up Chip's spine.
"Dean won't like it," said Icarus, looking over Chip's shoulder at the engine below.
"Dean won't notice," countered Chip. This was probably true. Despite Dean's initial outburst at Chip when he first went within five feet of the Impala with a wrench, Chip knew the car was a blindspot for their leader. Dean would never look at the car long enough - would never even think of cracking the hood - to see that anyone had worked on it. At least, not until Chip started fixing the frame.
"Alright," breathed Chip, "let's start with a little recon first." He wiped what looked like a year's worth of dirt, grease and all-around neglect away with a rag and flexed his fingers.
"Here," said Icarus, right by his ear as he pressed close against Chip's back and took the rag from his hand, slipping a wrench in its place. Chip waited a moment as the angel carefully pushed the cloth into Chip's back pocket, Chip's fingers flexing hard around the wrench an instant. The moment over, Chip turned his attention to the Impala, keeping up a running commentary as he inspected the engine and fixed the smaller problems, and every so often the angel at his back would nod into his shoulder, absorbing the information like a sponge.
It never occurred to Chip to question having Icarus literally at his back throughout the whole process. The angel never hindered his movements and would instead hand him tools at just the right moment - without Chip even needing to ask for them, once the morning wore on and Icarus learned the basics of car repair. Sometimes when his head was deep inside the engine and his hands were struggling with some damn piece or other so he couldn't see or hear anything other than the car, it calmed Chip down to feel the warm of Icarus legs against the back of his own, the gentle weight of a hand at his hip. The angel had his back. He was safe.
Day 21 - What is a character's deepest desire?
Chuck chewed steadily on the pencil clenched between his teeth while he tap-tap-tapped at the table with another sorely chewed pencil. He missed his computer. He missed the keyboard especially, how his fingers would fly from one button to the other and every time the letters would come out right, legible, no matter how drunk he was. He missed how he actually could write, back then, great big sweeping paragraphs just blotting out the white of the screen. Sure, there were the headaches and the nightmares and the hangovers - thanks to the visions, and Chuck's self-medication, for the most part - but he'd been a writer. Things had happened in his head and they'd stayed there. Or gone to live in someone elses.
Now, though, he had a clipboad full of lists and names and things they needed or had or wanted. He had a handful of splintering pencils and a couple of pens with caps so damaged they curled up on themselves. He had a couple of notebooks with everything in his whole world written down in other people's handwriting.
He wasn't a writer anymore. He wasn't even a prophet of the lord (and he refused to think of that title with even a hint of capital letters). Now he counted rolls or toilet paper and tubes of toothpaste and crumbling bags of pasta way past their expiration date.
All he wanted was to lock his cabin door, sit down at his desk with a good bottle of anything-at-all, and write.
Day 22 - What animals appear in your setting?
There were a lot of crows in the forest, flying overhead, leapfrogging from tree to tree, sitting on branches and cocking their heads as she walked. She did not pay much attention to them most of the time, focusing her attention on the way ahead and what be hiding there, but she kept an ear open in case they cawed. A few times a crow's call had saved her from a nasty surprise, giving her enough time to flip through the flight or fight options. They were better than dogs, honestly. Tracy tried to imagine her small terrier, Rumple, scuffling among the leaves and yapping excitedly at field mice. He had been a comfort the first few days, back when the two of them had still been in the city, but he had also almost gotten her killed a few times, barking at everything, attracting every kind of infected for yards around and then getting in the way.
No, crows were better. They followed and watched, waiting for her to cross paths with an infected. They were in it for the feasts she left behind, axe-hacked and twitching. The crows that flocked around her were fat, glossy and satisfied. Sometimes she tried to get close to them, holding out choice bits of meat she wouldn't eat. Once or twice one of the birds had hopped and pinned her with its shining black eye and she had been almost close enough to touch it. Its feathers, which looked black and boring at a distance, shimmered in the light and looked temptingly soft.
Walking through the underbrush, her boots slipping on roots and snapping twigs, stray beams slipping through the trees to warm the back of her neck, Tracy was comforted with the knowledge that, if it ever came to her being the one left on the ground, the crows would come for her. She would be taken up to the sky in pieces and fly through the trees, wrapped inside a hundred warm feathered bodies who knew a good deal when they saw it.
Day 23 - A unique place in your setting.
It started like a whisper, the faintest ripple in a vast ocean. But like the first drop of rain in a desert, its mere presence, no matter how small, was cause for alarm. The Host brushed shoulder to shoulder, wings flexing uneasily as the words of power rolled towards them like a war drum, coming closer and beating louder. The stir in the air turned into a howling wind, hungry and searching, wrapping itself around them as it flooded through heaven.
Suddenly there came a booming sound, like thunder or a battering ram, an ancient horn trumpet unfurling its call over them. The echoes of the impact shook through them, breaking over and into the angels like waves on the rocks, wet fingers reaching into every crevasse, hooking into them and their graces, and pulling them back out to the pounding sea.
The words spoke, the gate broke, and the angels rained down from the heavens like comets.
Day 24 - Where did you draw inspiration for the setting/story from?
They say writing is like world-building, adding up the layers and going forwards, laying down foundation, adding decoration, populating it with characters.
Or maybe it is like an oyster making a pearl, starting with a tiny little nugget of sand and wrapping it up, thicker and thicker. Maybe it is like a journey and you break your shoes on a small stretch of path, armed with a tiny little you are here. It all starts with an image, a phrase, a moment in time.
For me, that first step was the image of an angel lying in a burnt-out shell of a room, a man desperately driving away from something, and a little girl's voice saying, "There's an angel dying upstairs." And zombies. Because you've got to have zombies.
I don't know where the man came from, I just wrote a scene of him in his car like I was meeting a stranger, seeing everything he was doing but not knowing why. The angel came from a dream of exactly that, a man lying in a ruined and burnt room, unwounded or dying. The girl just whispered those words to me and set them in stone. The zombies were more a necessary by-product of the apocalypse, tinged with 28 Days Later and Supernatural's "The End" (5x04).
Day 25 - A character's proudest moment.
The first time Agatha hit her target, she whooped so loud it hurt her throat. This was the third afternoon Harper had let the children – Agatha, Pepper and Andrew – practice shooting after days of drilling them in weapon safety and maintenance. Each time, Agatha had barely skimmed her target, the post it was sitting on, or even the general area surrounding it.
But then, just once, everything lined up: her hold on the gun, gentle but firm like it was a live animal on a lead, her breath held tightly in her chest and her arms steady under the weight. The sun was low and golden and it glinted off the rusting can flew through the air like diamonds.
It might have been more luck than skill, but now she knew that it could be done. She could hold onto the memory – the feel of the gun jerking in her hands, the loud bang, the smell, the satisfying ping and the bullet hit the can – and she would strive for it each time she pulled the trigger, the gun heavy and awkward in her small hands. It was a memory strong enough and happy enough to bring forth a Patronus, she felt.
Except a gun was no wand and it would not bring forth a noble deer or charming otter. But now she would never again be that little unarmed girl caught in the melee, needing others to fight for her life. She didn't have to feel helpless ever again.
Day 26 - What special talents or abilities does a character have?
Dean was good with weapons. He could assemble a rifle in the dark and shoot down an infected on the run with just one shot. He was just as good with knives, throwing, parrying and thrusting them like it was child's play (which, of course, it had been, for him). He could even excel at archery, if they ever found a crossbow. He always said it was an important skill.
He was even better with his fists. He could beat any man to the ground before they even got started, and if any were fool enough to gang up on him, they would still have a fight on their hands. Once, over drinks, Dominique compared him to Wolverine which brought on a messy discussion over superheroes until Chuck declared the Honey Badger to be Dean's spirit animal because, he said, "When a cobra bites them, they'll eat its face right off." End of argument.
Even his words drew blood. Off on the battlefield, he spoke like a weapon drawn, words sharpened against a stone-hard core, cold and brittle. In the camp, they were steel vices, commanding and confining.
The son of an ex-marine, raised as a hunter, Dean was shooting bull's eyes since he was six and putting down monsters ever since. He was a hunter, a soldier who had somehow found himself to be a leader, although if you asked him, he was just a killer. No frills, no bells, just the plain truth.
Day 27 - An average day to a character.
Andrew was the first child to make it to Camp Chitaqua. They found him hiding in a pharmacy, in the little storage room where they kept all the drugs people had to prove their doctors said they needed. It was a good spot to hide, with heavy doors and locks and those little glass windows bank tellers sat behind. Being the only kid in a camp full of people who had a enough on their hands already just trying to keep it together had been scar and lonely the first few days. Then it had just been boring.
Most of the time he hung out with Chuck, who was too awkward to tell him to go away and anyway was secretly pleased when Andrew started reading his books – tattered and scotch-taped survivors – and latest stories scribbled on mismatching scraps of paper. One day Andrew asked Chuck if he could draw the pentagram and sigils he kept mentioning in his work.
Later that evening, sitting bored and alone in a corner of the cafeteria, he started carving out the pattern on the wooden table with one of the camp's dull, kid-friendly knives. He was half-way through, working on a particularly hard curve, when Dean saw him. He was so tall and stern – like Andrew's gym teacher who made them run laps until Frankie bent over and threw up – that Andrew was scared of him. So when Dean drew out a small switchblade from his back pocket, Andrew scuttled back and drew his knees to his chest.
"Easy there, kid," said Dean, flipping the knife around smoothly in his large hand and offering it to Andrew hilt-first. "This'll get the job done better."
When Andrew finally took it, the knife seemed to shrink down to normal size in his small hand. Dean ran a finger along a carved line and tapped the table.
"Keep doing these, don't matter where."
From then on, Andrew's days were still filled with endless hours of waiting, tagging behind people and reading with Chuck, but now he also had a task. He could feel like he was contributing to the camp. Once he got good at carving out the sigils and people got used to seeing him hunched over tables, chairs, posts, anything wood, he started branching out. Thomas, who was just as scary as Dean for the two seconds it took him to smile and crack a joke, gave Andrew a small chunk of wood and told him to try his hand at real carving. Andrew did little else now, and by the time more kids started showing up, he was feeling much better about where he had ended up, with friends and a mission.
Day 28 - A character's most embarrassing moment.
They were supposed to be working on some science project – Chip could never remember what it had been about, even though he could clearly see their old coffee table full of paper scraps and his dad's desk encyclopaedia. Instead, and in the time-honoured tradition of budding young teens everywhere, left alone with each other and bursting with hormones, he and his study partner were necking on the couch. Brian had been sucking on his neck for what felt like hours and the novelty was starting to wear off along with Chip's skin. Chip pushed him back onto the arm rest and kissed him full on the mouth, letting their hands wander between them.
Over their panted breaths they heard the apartment door swing open. Chip almost kneed Brian in the crotch trying to sit back. Both of them quickly rearranged their limbs and their clothes, pulling down shirts and buckling belts. Just before Chip's father walked into the living room, Brian hastily flattened down their hair while Chip squirmed in his seat, tugging at his jeans.
Chip's father draped his jacket over the bag of a chair and turned to greet the boys. "How's the project going?"
"Great, Dad," said Chip, his voice a touch too high.
His father nodded absently and unbuttoned his cuffs. "Good to hear. Brian, you staying for dinner?"
Brian cleared his throat and sat up straighter on the couch. "Uh, no. No sir, thanks. We were, uh, just – "
"Done for the night," said Chip. When the words caught up with him he fought down a blush.
"Alright." Chip's dad loosened his tie and headed towards the stairs. "Wear a polo or something tomorrow, Chip," he said, popping his collar and looking at them over his shoulder.
When his footsteps had gone all the way up the stairs and they heard the door to his bedroom click shut, Chip dragged a hand over the tender skin on his neck, groaned and burrowed his face between his knees. "Fuck," he moaned.
Day 29 - An important thematic element.
An apocalypse is marked, above all, by absence. It is more about what it takes than what it brings, be that fire, flood or any other fashion of ending. It strips the world of what little order it had, empties cities, homes and hearts, leaving silence and gutted buildings behind. Hungry, it takes from everything and everyone.
Sometimes the loss is tangible: a dead lover's clothes in a bag, a keychain bracelet, worn photographs in a wallet. Sometimes it leaves a mark on flesh: parallels scars running down a back, deep new lines on a face. Sometimes it was just the silence of a room and a phantom pain where there used to be a constant companion. The apocalypse leaves love notes wherever it passes, a notch on the bedpost to remind the world of what it has taken. In the end, loss by loss, the notches will cut right though and bring it all down.
Day 30 - A major event in the setting's history.
Agatha huddled under the blankets, her head propped up on the back of the sofa as she looked at the window. The dim golden glow of the candles in Saunders' living room accentuated the darkness around them and make it hard to see the world outside, but the sounds of the storm came through. Rain and hail pelted the glass and the wind rattled the window like a desperate man shaking prison bars. Suddenly the room was lit up by bright white light and Agatha ducked her head down as the sharp crack of thunder pierced the silence of the room. She could feel it tingling all through her body, as if she had been struck by lightning, struck by thunder.
Light flickered again and thunder crashed over them. Agatha whimpered.
A small candle bobbed out from the darkness of the kitchen as Saunders walked out with two steaming mugs in one hand. He sat down beside Agatha on the sofa and almost scalded them both with watered-down hot cocoa when Agatha quickly scooted close to his side. "Whoa, easy there darling, let me put these down first," he said. Agatha pressed herself against his shoulder and twisted around to look behind them at the window. Saunders set the mugs down and wrapped an arm around her. "Don't worry, sweetheart. Those are good strong windows, and it's only a storm." Saunders squeezed her tight and wondered if even half of that was true.
"What if we get hit?"
"We won't. Come on, have some hot cocoa."
They sipped their drinks in silence, Agatha balancing the mug on the back of the sofa with her cheek pressed up against its hot side as she watched the rain splash against the window and drive down sideways, lit up by flickering lightning. Saunders flipped through an old novel, squinting at the pages in the low light. Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder, the closest yet, and the walls around them shook. Agatha froze.
"Mister Saunders?" She turned from the window. "There wasn't any lightning," she whispered.
There came another crash overhead and Saunders looked up at the ceiling. Something cluttered upstairs, inside the building.
"Stay here," said Saunders, "and lock the door."
Life is made up of a Before and an After. Or at least that's how it is in stories.
In reality, things are not that simple. There's not just one Before, one after, one single defining moment when the stone is thrown into the water and after that it's nothing but ripples. Instead, there are many moments, little bends in the road, sharp twists and even sharper turns. Although numerous, these moments of change are not, of course, all equal in size.
Like everyone else, Chip had small Befores and Afters. Before he lost a tooth at age seven with his legs hanging in the air high up in the ferris wheel. After he punched Ryan in the stomach for all the times he didn't.
There were bigger ones. After he got his first job selling soft ice cream at the mall. Before he decided to go to college. After he kissed Jake.
Then there were the really big ones, those deserving the capital letters. After Mom died. Before he told his father. After he met Steve.
Then there were the Befores and Afters that split his life into pieces. Before the world ended. After Steve died. Before the angel.
Day 2 - A Main protagonist’s love interest(s), their bio(s).
You wouldn't think it to look at them, but Steve and Icarus had their similarities.
Down on paper, they couldn't be more different. When Steve had been a cheeky boy from Bowen Island, skinning his knee in the woods and hopping over fishing lines, Icarus was a multidimensional wavelength humming hosannas in one corner of Heaven. When Steve went to college across the border and discovered economics and weed and the big city of Seattle, Icarus was praising his Father, ever unseen. When Steve reveled in a new relationship he could see being new forever, Icarus was watching his brothers and sisters whisper around him and without him. When Steve struggled with the distance and the absence, Icarus fought in a war and saw his kin fall. Steve lay in bed with Chip when Icarus chose man over God. Steve waited by the luggage belt when Icarus paid for that choice.
But life isn't lived on paper.
The world ended as Steve found himself fighting against a world gone mad, the man he would always choose fighting alongside him. Miles away, Icarus was doing the same. The war was hard on both of them, and seeing their chosen companion become brittle under the pressure made it harder still. One of them was taken, one of them fell. Neither of them would ever take to the sky and reach home.
When Icarus bled himself half to death in the back of Chip's car, it was over Steve's weathered bloodstain. When Icarus stumbled down worn dirt paths to a cabin, Chip's muscle memory knew what to do. And when Icarus molded himself against Chip's side, his heart remembered what to do, too.
Day 3 - A main protagonist’s best friend(s), their bio(s).
When he was young, Clarence always wondered whether he would make a good father, the kind who took their kid to the park on weekends for a round of catch, who clapped and cheered misty-eyed at the end of ever school play, who sat by their bedside and told them fanciful stories. He'd read about that kind of father in books when he himself was just a boy and, while he loved his Pop, he knew he didn't want there to be that distance between him and his future child.
When it turned out that Cedric had hayfever and stagefright and read under the covers by the glow of a flashlight, Clarence took it in stride. He was older now and what he wanted from himself as a father was harder to gasp and even harder to describe, but seeing Cedric grow up was evidence enough that he was getting close.
Close enough was probably as far as he would ever get. He had alsmost come to terms with the fact that he would never see Cedric grow old - never see him again, in fact. Almost, of course, because a father always hoped.
Sometimes, with Chip, he felt the old paternal echo, felt it in his bones and chest, the hollow curve of a bell still faintly humming with vibration.
Close enough.
Day 4 - A main antagonist, their bio.
When the Lord claimed vengeance as his own, he forged a sword, and named it Kezef.
He had siblings - brothers and sisters who shared some corner of Heaven with him. He would watch and judge and wait, keeping himself separate of them save for his closest kin, his fellow Swords of God.
When Lucifer fell, he forged a lock and hid the key. When his kin plotted for the End, he gathered his strength. When the fighting began, he watched, judged, and exacted vengeance.
Now he fought alone and there were still many left wanting in the eyes of his father.
He would bring them all down.
Day 5 - The place a character sleeps.
It was cold. There was a thin breeze trailing in through the crack Chip left in the window, more so he could hear if anything came close than for ventilation. It was early June but he was still far enough north that the nights were still more spring than summer. He shifted uncomfortably - the seatbelt buckle digging into his side - and tugged the blanket further up his shoulders. He tried not to think about the stain on the upholstery.
He was lying in the back seat of his worn-out Alfa in the middle of a highway. He'd lost track of which highway, exactly. He would have to squint at his map in the morning and try to remember what kinds of turns he took. He stopped caring for a while - a few days, a week maybe - not paying any attention to where he was going or what he was doing, just keeping his foot on the accelerator and trying not to remember. Once his fuel gauge started blinking at him and his jerry cans sloshed emptily more than was wise, though, he had to drag himself back into some semblance of action.
He tilted his head back and looked up at the sky through the window. It wasn't the clearest of views - the clouds covered what the grime on the glass didn't - but there was enough moonlight that he didn't get a sense of there being nothing out there.
He clung to that idea.
Because he was sleeping in the back seat of his car in the middle of the highway in the middle of nowhere and he was alone.
Day 6 - The place a character works/goes to school/hangs out whatever.
Chip fiddled with his empty coffee cup. He was early - he was always early, sometimes even sneaking out of work so he could drive to the airport early and sit on the edge of the hard plastic seats in the domestic flight's arrival lounge and drink over-priced coffee and stare at the screens, checking and rechecking flight numbers and times and praying the words delayed or worse, cancelled, never showed up by his own personal lottery number. He always sat in the same seat, or tried to. Always drank the same coffee - a latte with two sugars, unstirred - downing it in erratic, impatient gulps, leaving two inches to cool at the bottom so he would have something to do with his hands while he waited. He always ended up mouthing along to the overhead announcements despite himself, hating how they hammered into his head over and over again about gate openings and changes and how not to leave one's luggage unattended.
Chip didn't mind being a regular at the airport's arrivals, having an almost intimate knowledge of the tiny details of what made the lounge tick, spending whole evenings just waiting. Because the wait, the back-aching chair and the last dregs of cold coffee were all worth it once that one magical word - arrived - flashed by Steve's flight number.
Day 7 - A major story location.
Chip walked around their bedroom - because it was, irrevocably, "theirs". He ran a hand down the empty bookshelf where Icarus put his clothes every night. (Chip dropped his on the floor by the bed more times than not.) He straightened the green blanket on the bed and dug his thumbnail into the broken bedpost. He wondered whatever had happened to the top bed - the other half of the mutilated bunk bed he and the angel slept in. He imagined bodies up on the top bed - naked and tangled, or maybe clothed and reaching for the roof through the window. Either could have broken the bed, although he doubted there were all that many orgies going around, end of the world and all.
Chip sat down on the edge of the bed, shoving the single lumpy pillow to the side, and opened the drawer of the bedside table. Most of the time - whenever Chip wasn't in the room - it was empty. At night, before crawling in to bed, he would slip his Sigma out from under his shirt, the small of his back instantly feeling cold and exposed, and store the gun there until morning. The extra case of ammunition he carried in his pocket - the right one, not the left, where he kept his keys and lighter - went in after.
Chip toed his duffel bag out from under the bed, snagging the crowbar along with it. He stared at the sad bundle for a moment, looked at the empty drawer and shelves, and started to unpack. It was the first time in almost half a year that he did so, never really stopping long enough to warrant unpacking. No. Never feeling he'd stay long enough. But now he had a bedroom and was part of a "we", an slap-dash little family, and he wasn't going anywhere. Not in a hurry, and not without them.
Day 8 - A character’s parent(s) or guardian
Saunders almost spilt his coffee down his front when he heard a soft knock at his door.
"Excuse me? Exucse me, hello?"
Saunders held his dripping mug over the coffee table but didn't set it down, afraid to make a noise. The knocking came again followed by what he realized now was a child's voice.
"Is anybody home?" More knocking, but softer. "Hello?" The voice was almost a whisper now, and sounded as if it did not expect an answer anymore.
Saunders closed his eyes. His ears rang in the silence of his apartment. A soft shuffling in the hallway brought him to his feet.
Opening the door a crack, Saunders saw the back of a young girl - somewhere in her pre-teens - walking away with a pair of keychains in her hand. Her hair was wild, a mess of curls that had disentangled from each other and wafted around her head like a halo, making her seem even smaller, swimming as she was already in an oversized sweater.
Saunders gripped his Winchester tight, then took a breath.
"Little girl?"
She twirled around instantly and took a few stops towards him, but then stopped short, her hands clasped under her chip. She bit her lip.
"Do you have anyone with you?"
She shook her head.
Memories of the days before flooded Saunders - the weight of his rifle, the growls and screams coming in from the streets and through is locked door. He didn't really have a choice.
He opened his door wide. "Come in," he said.
The girl broke into a run halfway towards him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Saunders patted her hair and closed the door behind them.
Day 9 - A minor antagonist.
They were sleeping in his cabin, for once. They'd been planning a search mission, working out the final kinks, and then Risa stayed so they could work out some kinks of their own. That had been a few hours ago, somewhere around the start of second shift. Dean figured it was getting close to third shift now, the air around the camp taking on that heavy blanket of silence that came with the tail end of the witching hour.
Neither of the two had dozed off afterwards, hadn't even disentangled their limbs from each other, but that didn't mean they were lying in the bed together. Dean was lost in his head, running through memories and plans and could-have-beens. Making contingency plans for events that would never happen and for events he knew, given their luck with worst-case-scenarios, would undoubtedly come to pass. He didn't care what Rissa was doing, as long as she eventually pulled herself together enough to go back to her cabin.
"It's too cold here," she said once, zipping up her jeans and buckling her bra. But the way she'd looked down at the last minute, eyes running away from his face to land at her feet, betrayed her meaning.
Day 10 - Your character when they were young(er)
Chip stood on his tip toes to slip the quarters into the slot and hestitated, not sure what he wanted. He stared into the vending machine, his nose pressed up against the glass, until the machine gave a beep and dropped his quarters back out through the change slot. He reached up again, fed the coins back into the machine, and pressed two buttons at random.
Dad had told him to go get something from the machine, after all. Chip didn't know why - he wasn't hungry or thirsty or anything. What he was was tired and homesick. He didn't like this place - the sharp too-clean smell that never faded, the strange people waiting in the hard, bright orange chairs or rushing down the halls lined with door upon door, the fact that no matter how late it was the flourescent lights were always on, always bright and humming.
Chip reached into the vending machine for his purchase - it was rootbeer, which he hated - and pressed the cold metal can against his cheek. The clock on the wall said it was almost eleven-thirty at night. Chip wondered what happened at midnight - he'd never been allowed to stay up so late.
Picking a chair - hard, orange, ugly - that faced the clock, Chip settled down cross-legged and opened the can. He didn't drink any, just sat there playing with the tab until it snapped off, and sloshing the liquid around to hear it fizz.
At a quarter to midnight, almost the witching hour and almost tomorrow and way past Chip's bedtime, Dad came to get him.
"Hey there, buddy," he said, trying to smile. "How are you holding up?"
"'M sleepy," mumbled Chip, rubbing his eyes with heel of his hand.
"Come on," said Dad, scooping his son in his arms, mindful of the open can of rootbeer, "Mom wants to talk to her little Chip'n'Dale chipmunk."
He didn't add that it was to say goodbye.
Day 11 - What kind of people show up in the background in your world?
"Hey, Chuck, what brings you into my little corner this late at night?" Harper swiveled her chair from side to side behind her desk, its rusty creak filling the tiny office.
Chuck shrugged, hugging his clipboard to his chest. "Couldn't sleep," he said, walking towards a chair topped with folders and notebooks. He pushed it around with his knee so it faced Harper and sat down on top of the paperwork. "Wanted to make some coffee-" Harper snorted. "Alright, Irish coffee," Chuck admitted. "Or, well, coffee-plus, but there were no clean mugs, so I washed some, and we're low on detergent, so I made a note of that, and then I checked the pantry and..."
"And bye-bye sleepy-time," finished Harper with a soft smile. Chuck shrugged again and lay his clipboard carefully on his lap. "And the coffee?"
Chuck looked confused for a moment, then threw his head back. "Crap," he sighed, obviously having forgotten in in the midst of his pantry checking.
"Here," said Harper, "have some of mine. It's gone cold, but it's still got a bit of a kick to it." She set a badly chipped mug on the notebook in front of Chuck.
"Thanks," he said, taking a sip, then, with an appreciative sound, taking a larger gulp. He pointed at the notebook. "We get any newcomers?"
Harper leaned back in her chair and fiddled with her hair, threading it between her fingers. "Yeah, three guys and a kid."
"Family?" asked Chuck, flipping through the notebook.
"Nah, just after the fact. I put them in Elk with the redheads."
"Two guns, not bad," said Chuck, reading down a list. "No shells, but then you can't have everything. A working car - obviously - and blunt weapons. Nice."
"Nice folks," said Harper, reaching back across the desk for her mug. "Came in from Kansas City."
Chuck, who was jotting down a few notes on his clipboard, nodded absently. "Poor fucks."
"Ain't we all," murmured Harper, taking another swig of her spiked coffee.
Abruptly, Chuck edged forward on his chair and held the notebook open with both hands. He stared at the page, one index finger tapping lightly at an entry in the left-hand column. "That's an odd name," he whispered. "Icarus."
Day 12 - How does a character comfort themself?
Chip woke with a start in the middle of the night, muscles along his arms and legs twitching erratically in a panic that hadn't yet reached his sleep-befuddled mind. Some noise must have woken him up.
He tried to sit up, squinting in the darkness and trying to reach down for his crowbar, but a hand on his chest kept him down. It wasn't a forceful gesture - just a light, reassuring touch that had obviously anticipated his reaction. It was Icarus, who must have woken up moments before him. The fallen angel was looking at the bedroom door. Chip craned his neck to look over the foot of the bed and made out a small figure huging the side of the door.
It was Agatha standing in the doorway, her hair a wild bed-rumpled mess and the corner of her pijama - an oversized shirt inherited from some poor soul in Kansas - in her hands.
"Hey, Aggie," whispered Chip. "What's wrong?"
Agatha twisted the cloth in her hands and focused her eyes on her feet. Beside him, Chip felt Icarus move away from him, his hand slipping off his chest. It wasn't until Agatha was climbing over the end of the bed and slipping in between them that Chip figured it out.
He dragged the covers up over Agatha's shoulders, giving her arm a reasurring squeeze before dropping his hand down between them. Agatha curled herfingers around his and closed her eyes. From the other side of the single bed, he heard Icarus whisper a gentle, "Sleep well."
Day 13 - What kind of foods are popular in the setting?
Chip poked his head around the kitchen door. "Whatcha cooking there, Harper?"
"Stew," she said, bending over the bubbling pot. "Would you just smell that? Fresh herbs!"
"The guys found some, huh?"
"Yeah, they had a good run in a little town up west. They left you and the angel a few bags - y'know, from the list."
Chip shuffled uncomfortably at the reminder. "Oh, yeah. We'll get to it." He turned to leave.
"Hey, don't you want a taste? It's got real meat and everything!" She proffered him the full wooden spoon, a small brown hunk sitting in a little clear pool of broth.
Chip hesitated. "Real meat?" He bent closer towards the spoon. It smelled good. "What kind of meat?"
"A bit of a few things, really," said Harper, moving the spoon insistantly towards Chip. He could do nothing else but obligingly open his mouth.
"That's good," he said, mildly surprised. "Kinda chewy."
"That'd be the squirrel, then."
Day 14 - What is a character's biggest regret?
He won't let himself think that it should have been him. It shouldn't have been either of them, and he wouldn't wish his pain on Steve, wouldn't wish Steve in his place, this grieving, lost, lonesome place. He wouldn't want Steve to hurt like that.
He didn't want Steve to hurt at all, for all the good that wishing did. Because it shouldn't have been Steve; that much he knew, and that much he could shoulder. Not Steve.
He won't let himself think about what he could have - should have - done, either. All the little things that might have - would have - saved Steve. If only he'd been faster. Or stronger. Or better.
If only.
Day 15 - What are a character's bad habits?
Chip was a social smoker for a few years in college - Fridays and parties, noisey bars and cold mindnight streets. He never really liked smoking all that much and needed it less, just liked how it gave him something to do, something to hold, let him stand and watch and think without questioned by others.
When the apocalypse started and he saw a pack lying on the asphalt, crushed under a bootmark, cigarettes strewn on the ground like they'd seen a party and not a masacre, he thought, Why the hell not?, and scooped them up. He smoked on the road, alone, with no pattern or ritual. It gave him something to do.
Chip played with the cigarette, flipping it over and between his fingers like he would a pen. It didn't matter that he bent it, the ciggarette was already all bend to hell and off-white, little tuffs of tobacco floating out of the end on the occassional twirl. He had four more in the equally tattered box squeezed into his back pocket but thought maybe this one will be the last one. For now.
He stopped fidgetting - at least his hands stopped, his right leg was still twitching a rhythm into the dry leaves littering the ground - and pinched the end of the cigarette closed, twisting it around to keep the tobacco in. He reached into his pocket for his lighter and flipped it on, then off again. *click* *snap* It was an oddly satisfying sound, so definite and solid - a closing door, a twisting key, the end - so he did it again, and again, watching the flame shiver in the cool air.
Chip looked out across the empty field and into the woods, and beyond that, the lake. He got the feeling - slowly, creeping up and over him like a heat wave - that one day he would have to run down that small dirt path, down to the trees, over roots and branches, until he reached the water or his lungs burst. It was a strange feeling, inevitable as a dream and just as tangible.
He lit the cigarette, cupping it gently in his hands pressed against the cold wire mesh fence, and took in a deep drag.
Day 16 - What was a character's first romantic and/or sexual encounter like?
Steve knew this sort of thing couldn't have happened back home, on the island. The intoxication of freedom and discovery, of being in the big city of Vancouver, wandering the streets and prowling the nigthclubs, made them reckless and impulsive - made things possible.
He and the guys had barely landed when they ran off the ferry and into the streets, whooping like the small-town boys they were, feet pounding asphalt instead of beach, lungs taking in air that smelled nothing like kelp and fish and salt. They flew around corners, hooking their hands on every pole - street lamp, sign or stop light - and each of them laughing because they were in the city, just the four of them, with money lining their pockets and shoes, time on their side.
Anything could happen. Everything could happen. They would chase down every adventure, every whim, every story, and place themselves front and center.
One of those things that happened was Justin. He happened to Steve, sudden and bright, like a thousand other things that happened to them that day. They were in a shop, the four of them giggling in the aisles, losing and finding each other, drunk from the ferry and the run and the city. Steve turned a corner, one hand trailing over packets of hard candies, looking for a jawbreaker, when fingers hooked themselves on the edge of his shirt. He turned and Justin kissed him. He kissed Steve full on the lips, quick and sharp, teeth clicking against his.
Then just as suddenly Justin ran off, back the way he had come, and seconds later the little bell over the shop's door rang twice - open, close.
Steve forgot about the jawbreaker.
A few minutes later, following Frankie and "Limpet" Luke out of the shop, the other boys arms full of sweets, Steve found Justin. He kicking at a fire hydrant, his sneakers giving a short-living squeak with each jolt against the metal. Justin didn't look up when the boys reached him, so he missed the medley of emotions that flickered over Steve's face.
He got it later, though: Steve had turned a corner.
Day 17 - What are popular sports and hobbies in your setting?
Chip glanced down at his hands and felt his heart jump. He couldn't be that lucky. Chip shifted in his seat and glanced at the other people sitting around the table, wondering if any had been watching him, if they'd caught something in his face that would give him away. He saw Rissa's eyes flicker away from him and settle on her hands resting folded on the table. Chuck poured himself a drink, sliding the bottle to the right where it bumped against Steve's huge hand.
Chip took another glance at his cards. It looked good. Really good. He might be able to go somewhere with these. He didn't have much in the way of bottle caps to back him up, but maybe he could squeeze past Rissa's keen eyes this time and get some of his earnings back. He didn't want to have to do anyone's chores if he could help it.
Icarus leaned into his shoulder and Chip lifted the corners of his cards to let him have a look. Icarus had played been kicked off the poker team after the first time and his caps redistributed. No one, not even Rissa, could decipher a single thing from the angel's face, so he'd invariably beat them all. (For much the same reason, nobody looked forward to playing poker with Dean.) Had it been strip poker, the whole gang would have been stark naked and Icarus wouldn't have even taken off his shoes.
Day 18 - What would your protagonist do if they saw your antagonist on the street?
The little things he could fix, mused Chip. The broken headlights and the rust were nothing he hadn't dealt with before. Hell, even the chipped paint could be fixed after a word with Chuck and the restocking crew. The tires were trickier: the treds looked pretty worn out and they probably had more punctures than were worth fixing. It wasn't that replacement tires were hard to find, it was just that they took time to extract and that time was spent in areas where any time spent was too much.
Those things Chip could fix. It was the bigger things - the caved-in roof, the trunk so warped it barely closed, the side-view mirror hanging down like a bloodhound's ear - that were out of his league. He wondered if they weren't out of Thomas' league as well. The camp's mechanic could probably resurrect the Imapal's engine, but Chip doubted either of them could get the car looking halfway decent again. Someone - Dean - had put their back into putting her out of commission.
Chip pressed a hand to the hot metal, running his fingers along a crease in the hood, brushing off paint chips and dust. These mental exercises - tallying up the hurt and how to fix it - were pointless, he knew. He had no doubt Dean would rip him a new one if he took so much as a screwdriver to the car. Chip patted the car gently in appology. Well, maybe one day, he half-promised, like he promised himself a hundred little things. Things he was saving for later, for after, although he didn't know when that would come. But one day, he'd get that car running again.
Chip ran his hand along the Imapala's side, leaving a clean streak amidst the dirt that no one would notice because no one ever went close to the car. He walked down to the next row of cars, dusting his hands and trying to pick out a small red pick-up he was working on. Working on a particularly stubborn grease stain on his palm, he almost bumped into Dean. Chip took a step back and half-raised his hands apologetically.
One look at Dean's face and Chip raised them in earnest. He took another step back and felt a side-view mirror dig into his back. "Hey man, sorry," he said, while inside he was thinking a panicked guilty mix of shit, he saw me with his car and oh God, he's going to punch me.
Dean glared at him, his jaw clenched and shoulders tense. For a moment he looked about ready to snarl and Chip seriously considered either dropping to his knees or reaching for his iron wrench. Then Dean licked his lips, chewed on the bottom one for a moment, and his face went blank like a windshield wiper in a storm. "Forget it," he said, pushing past Chip and walking down between the broken cars.
When Chip looked back, his heart thumping so hard it choked him, he saw Dean press his hand to the Impala for one split second, his unreadable face hidden by the upturned collar of his jacket. I'll fix it, Chip thought, and this time it was a promise, one that counted, one made of iron and engine grease and now.
Day 19 - What would your antagonist do if they saw your protagonist on the street?
He heard the drumming through others' ears, the steady four-beat of flesh on metal that called to his creations. Kezef slipped into body after body, cascading down alleyways and sidestreets along with the running bodies answering the pounding that echoed through city. His latest vessel reached the mess of limbs and reaching hands that was the flock of infected bodies running towards a fading angel and Kezef let it go.
Back in his own version of a body, Kezef smiled. His brother was alive. More than that: his brother was on the move, or would be, once the infected reached his latest hole. Kezef could take his time preparing things now that the most important ingredient had been located. He could let his brother run for a little while yet: he knew the little angel would inevitably fly back to Dean like a moth to a flame.
Day 20 - Demonstrate a character and their best friend and/or love interest interacting as they most commonly do.
Chip looked down at the mess in front of him, his oil-slick fingers just itching to start. He felt Icarus's hot breath on his neck as the angel pressed up against his back. A shiver ran up Chip's spine.
"Dean won't like it," said Icarus, looking over Chip's shoulder at the engine below.
"Dean won't notice," countered Chip. This was probably true. Despite Dean's initial outburst at Chip when he first went within five feet of the Impala with a wrench, Chip knew the car was a blindspot for their leader. Dean would never look at the car long enough - would never even think of cracking the hood - to see that anyone had worked on it. At least, not until Chip started fixing the frame.
"Alright," breathed Chip, "let's start with a little recon first." He wiped what looked like a year's worth of dirt, grease and all-around neglect away with a rag and flexed his fingers.
"Here," said Icarus, right by his ear as he pressed close against Chip's back and took the rag from his hand, slipping a wrench in its place. Chip waited a moment as the angel carefully pushed the cloth into Chip's back pocket, Chip's fingers flexing hard around the wrench an instant. The moment over, Chip turned his attention to the Impala, keeping up a running commentary as he inspected the engine and fixed the smaller problems, and every so often the angel at his back would nod into his shoulder, absorbing the information like a sponge.
It never occurred to Chip to question having Icarus literally at his back throughout the whole process. The angel never hindered his movements and would instead hand him tools at just the right moment - without Chip even needing to ask for them, once the morning wore on and Icarus learned the basics of car repair. Sometimes when his head was deep inside the engine and his hands were struggling with some damn piece or other so he couldn't see or hear anything other than the car, it calmed Chip down to feel the warm of Icarus legs against the back of his own, the gentle weight of a hand at his hip. The angel had his back. He was safe.
Day 21 - What is a character's deepest desire?
Chuck chewed steadily on the pencil clenched between his teeth while he tap-tap-tapped at the table with another sorely chewed pencil. He missed his computer. He missed the keyboard especially, how his fingers would fly from one button to the other and every time the letters would come out right, legible, no matter how drunk he was. He missed how he actually could write, back then, great big sweeping paragraphs just blotting out the white of the screen. Sure, there were the headaches and the nightmares and the hangovers - thanks to the visions, and Chuck's self-medication, for the most part - but he'd been a writer. Things had happened in his head and they'd stayed there. Or gone to live in someone elses.
Now, though, he had a clipboad full of lists and names and things they needed or had or wanted. He had a handful of splintering pencils and a couple of pens with caps so damaged they curled up on themselves. He had a couple of notebooks with everything in his whole world written down in other people's handwriting.
He wasn't a writer anymore. He wasn't even a prophet of the lord (and he refused to think of that title with even a hint of capital letters). Now he counted rolls or toilet paper and tubes of toothpaste and crumbling bags of pasta way past their expiration date.
All he wanted was to lock his cabin door, sit down at his desk with a good bottle of anything-at-all, and write.
Day 22 - What animals appear in your setting?
There were a lot of crows in the forest, flying overhead, leapfrogging from tree to tree, sitting on branches and cocking their heads as she walked. She did not pay much attention to them most of the time, focusing her attention on the way ahead and what be hiding there, but she kept an ear open in case they cawed. A few times a crow's call had saved her from a nasty surprise, giving her enough time to flip through the flight or fight options. They were better than dogs, honestly. Tracy tried to imagine her small terrier, Rumple, scuffling among the leaves and yapping excitedly at field mice. He had been a comfort the first few days, back when the two of them had still been in the city, but he had also almost gotten her killed a few times, barking at everything, attracting every kind of infected for yards around and then getting in the way.
No, crows were better. They followed and watched, waiting for her to cross paths with an infected. They were in it for the feasts she left behind, axe-hacked and twitching. The crows that flocked around her were fat, glossy and satisfied. Sometimes she tried to get close to them, holding out choice bits of meat she wouldn't eat. Once or twice one of the birds had hopped and pinned her with its shining black eye and she had been almost close enough to touch it. Its feathers, which looked black and boring at a distance, shimmered in the light and looked temptingly soft.
Walking through the underbrush, her boots slipping on roots and snapping twigs, stray beams slipping through the trees to warm the back of her neck, Tracy was comforted with the knowledge that, if it ever came to her being the one left on the ground, the crows would come for her. She would be taken up to the sky in pieces and fly through the trees, wrapped inside a hundred warm feathered bodies who knew a good deal when they saw it.
Day 23 - A unique place in your setting.
It started like a whisper, the faintest ripple in a vast ocean. But like the first drop of rain in a desert, its mere presence, no matter how small, was cause for alarm. The Host brushed shoulder to shoulder, wings flexing uneasily as the words of power rolled towards them like a war drum, coming closer and beating louder. The stir in the air turned into a howling wind, hungry and searching, wrapping itself around them as it flooded through heaven.
Suddenly there came a booming sound, like thunder or a battering ram, an ancient horn trumpet unfurling its call over them. The echoes of the impact shook through them, breaking over and into the angels like waves on the rocks, wet fingers reaching into every crevasse, hooking into them and their graces, and pulling them back out to the pounding sea.
The words spoke, the gate broke, and the angels rained down from the heavens like comets.
Day 24 - Where did you draw inspiration for the setting/story from?
They say writing is like world-building, adding up the layers and going forwards, laying down foundation, adding decoration, populating it with characters.
Or maybe it is like an oyster making a pearl, starting with a tiny little nugget of sand and wrapping it up, thicker and thicker. Maybe it is like a journey and you break your shoes on a small stretch of path, armed with a tiny little you are here. It all starts with an image, a phrase, a moment in time.
For me, that first step was the image of an angel lying in a burnt-out shell of a room, a man desperately driving away from something, and a little girl's voice saying, "There's an angel dying upstairs." And zombies. Because you've got to have zombies.
I don't know where the man came from, I just wrote a scene of him in his car like I was meeting a stranger, seeing everything he was doing but not knowing why. The angel came from a dream of exactly that, a man lying in a ruined and burnt room, unwounded or dying. The girl just whispered those words to me and set them in stone. The zombies were more a necessary by-product of the apocalypse, tinged with 28 Days Later and Supernatural's "The End" (5x04).
Day 25 - A character's proudest moment.
The first time Agatha hit her target, she whooped so loud it hurt her throat. This was the third afternoon Harper had let the children – Agatha, Pepper and Andrew – practice shooting after days of drilling them in weapon safety and maintenance. Each time, Agatha had barely skimmed her target, the post it was sitting on, or even the general area surrounding it.
But then, just once, everything lined up: her hold on the gun, gentle but firm like it was a live animal on a lead, her breath held tightly in her chest and her arms steady under the weight. The sun was low and golden and it glinted off the rusting can flew through the air like diamonds.
It might have been more luck than skill, but now she knew that it could be done. She could hold onto the memory – the feel of the gun jerking in her hands, the loud bang, the smell, the satisfying ping and the bullet hit the can – and she would strive for it each time she pulled the trigger, the gun heavy and awkward in her small hands. It was a memory strong enough and happy enough to bring forth a Patronus, she felt.
Except a gun was no wand and it would not bring forth a noble deer or charming otter. But now she would never again be that little unarmed girl caught in the melee, needing others to fight for her life. She didn't have to feel helpless ever again.
Day 26 - What special talents or abilities does a character have?
Dean was good with weapons. He could assemble a rifle in the dark and shoot down an infected on the run with just one shot. He was just as good with knives, throwing, parrying and thrusting them like it was child's play (which, of course, it had been, for him). He could even excel at archery, if they ever found a crossbow. He always said it was an important skill.
He was even better with his fists. He could beat any man to the ground before they even got started, and if any were fool enough to gang up on him, they would still have a fight on their hands. Once, over drinks, Dominique compared him to Wolverine which brought on a messy discussion over superheroes until Chuck declared the Honey Badger to be Dean's spirit animal because, he said, "When a cobra bites them, they'll eat its face right off." End of argument.
Even his words drew blood. Off on the battlefield, he spoke like a weapon drawn, words sharpened against a stone-hard core, cold and brittle. In the camp, they were steel vices, commanding and confining.
The son of an ex-marine, raised as a hunter, Dean was shooting bull's eyes since he was six and putting down monsters ever since. He was a hunter, a soldier who had somehow found himself to be a leader, although if you asked him, he was just a killer. No frills, no bells, just the plain truth.
Day 27 - An average day to a character.
Andrew was the first child to make it to Camp Chitaqua. They found him hiding in a pharmacy, in the little storage room where they kept all the drugs people had to prove their doctors said they needed. It was a good spot to hide, with heavy doors and locks and those little glass windows bank tellers sat behind. Being the only kid in a camp full of people who had a enough on their hands already just trying to keep it together had been scar and lonely the first few days. Then it had just been boring.
Most of the time he hung out with Chuck, who was too awkward to tell him to go away and anyway was secretly pleased when Andrew started reading his books – tattered and scotch-taped survivors – and latest stories scribbled on mismatching scraps of paper. One day Andrew asked Chuck if he could draw the pentagram and sigils he kept mentioning in his work.
Later that evening, sitting bored and alone in a corner of the cafeteria, he started carving out the pattern on the wooden table with one of the camp's dull, kid-friendly knives. He was half-way through, working on a particularly hard curve, when Dean saw him. He was so tall and stern – like Andrew's gym teacher who made them run laps until Frankie bent over and threw up – that Andrew was scared of him. So when Dean drew out a small switchblade from his back pocket, Andrew scuttled back and drew his knees to his chest.
"Easy there, kid," said Dean, flipping the knife around smoothly in his large hand and offering it to Andrew hilt-first. "This'll get the job done better."
When Andrew finally took it, the knife seemed to shrink down to normal size in his small hand. Dean ran a finger along a carved line and tapped the table.
"Keep doing these, don't matter where."
From then on, Andrew's days were still filled with endless hours of waiting, tagging behind people and reading with Chuck, but now he also had a task. He could feel like he was contributing to the camp. Once he got good at carving out the sigils and people got used to seeing him hunched over tables, chairs, posts, anything wood, he started branching out. Thomas, who was just as scary as Dean for the two seconds it took him to smile and crack a joke, gave Andrew a small chunk of wood and told him to try his hand at real carving. Andrew did little else now, and by the time more kids started showing up, he was feeling much better about where he had ended up, with friends and a mission.
Day 28 - A character's most embarrassing moment.
They were supposed to be working on some science project – Chip could never remember what it had been about, even though he could clearly see their old coffee table full of paper scraps and his dad's desk encyclopaedia. Instead, and in the time-honoured tradition of budding young teens everywhere, left alone with each other and bursting with hormones, he and his study partner were necking on the couch. Brian had been sucking on his neck for what felt like hours and the novelty was starting to wear off along with Chip's skin. Chip pushed him back onto the arm rest and kissed him full on the mouth, letting their hands wander between them.
Over their panted breaths they heard the apartment door swing open. Chip almost kneed Brian in the crotch trying to sit back. Both of them quickly rearranged their limbs and their clothes, pulling down shirts and buckling belts. Just before Chip's father walked into the living room, Brian hastily flattened down their hair while Chip squirmed in his seat, tugging at his jeans.
Chip's father draped his jacket over the bag of a chair and turned to greet the boys. "How's the project going?"
"Great, Dad," said Chip, his voice a touch too high.
His father nodded absently and unbuttoned his cuffs. "Good to hear. Brian, you staying for dinner?"
Brian cleared his throat and sat up straighter on the couch. "Uh, no. No sir, thanks. We were, uh, just – "
"Done for the night," said Chip. When the words caught up with him he fought down a blush.
"Alright." Chip's dad loosened his tie and headed towards the stairs. "Wear a polo or something tomorrow, Chip," he said, popping his collar and looking at them over his shoulder.
When his footsteps had gone all the way up the stairs and they heard the door to his bedroom click shut, Chip dragged a hand over the tender skin on his neck, groaned and burrowed his face between his knees. "Fuck," he moaned.
Day 29 - An important thematic element.
An apocalypse is marked, above all, by absence. It is more about what it takes than what it brings, be that fire, flood or any other fashion of ending. It strips the world of what little order it had, empties cities, homes and hearts, leaving silence and gutted buildings behind. Hungry, it takes from everything and everyone.
Sometimes the loss is tangible: a dead lover's clothes in a bag, a keychain bracelet, worn photographs in a wallet. Sometimes it leaves a mark on flesh: parallels scars running down a back, deep new lines on a face. Sometimes it was just the silence of a room and a phantom pain where there used to be a constant companion. The apocalypse leaves love notes wherever it passes, a notch on the bedpost to remind the world of what it has taken. In the end, loss by loss, the notches will cut right though and bring it all down.
Day 30 - A major event in the setting's history.
Agatha huddled under the blankets, her head propped up on the back of the sofa as she looked at the window. The dim golden glow of the candles in Saunders' living room accentuated the darkness around them and make it hard to see the world outside, but the sounds of the storm came through. Rain and hail pelted the glass and the wind rattled the window like a desperate man shaking prison bars. Suddenly the room was lit up by bright white light and Agatha ducked her head down as the sharp crack of thunder pierced the silence of the room. She could feel it tingling all through her body, as if she had been struck by lightning, struck by thunder.
Light flickered again and thunder crashed over them. Agatha whimpered.
A small candle bobbed out from the darkness of the kitchen as Saunders walked out with two steaming mugs in one hand. He sat down beside Agatha on the sofa and almost scalded them both with watered-down hot cocoa when Agatha quickly scooted close to his side. "Whoa, easy there darling, let me put these down first," he said. Agatha pressed herself against his shoulder and twisted around to look behind them at the window. Saunders set the mugs down and wrapped an arm around her. "Don't worry, sweetheart. Those are good strong windows, and it's only a storm." Saunders squeezed her tight and wondered if even half of that was true.
"What if we get hit?"
"We won't. Come on, have some hot cocoa."
They sipped their drinks in silence, Agatha balancing the mug on the back of the sofa with her cheek pressed up against its hot side as she watched the rain splash against the window and drive down sideways, lit up by flickering lightning. Saunders flipped through an old novel, squinting at the pages in the low light. Suddenly there was a loud clap of thunder, the closest yet, and the walls around them shook. Agatha froze.
"Mister Saunders?" She turned from the window. "There wasn't any lightning," she whispered.
There came another crash overhead and Saunders looked up at the ceiling. Something cluttered upstairs, inside the building.
"Stay here," said Saunders, "and lock the door."
