By Sophia Argibay

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This story is a post-apocalyptic world where monsters (in the form of mutant animals) come out at night. Sunlight is weak and limited in this world, so the characters have to be wary.

Note: This is an excerpt. The background is: the two characters have had to separate after being chased by one such monster, called a Wrennet (essentially a giant bird). This follows one character, Poppy, who tries to distract it while her partner, Silas, goes to get help.

      — — — — 

      Poppy ran, and slid under the large bush. She clamped her hand over her mouth to muffle her panting. Her eyes flicked around, wide and scared. She didn’t see anything. She worried that they had gone after Silas. She waited, wondering if she should go look for him. 

      After waiting a few minutes, she decided to go look for him. She burst out of the bush and realized immediately that was a mistake. A wrennet was right in front of her, its intelligent eyes gleaming with hunger. She heard a noise behind her and knew she was trapped. 

      The three figures waited like that for a minute. 

      Then the wrennet in front of Poppy let out an ear-splitting shriek and flew into the air. It grabbed Poppy with its claws and she screamed as she was lifted higher and higher. 

      The wrennet threw her, and she stopped breathing, thinking she was about to fall to her death. 

      Then, the other wrennet caught her, sinking its claws into her shoulder. She yelled in pain. The wrennet flew higher, and tossed her again. The other caught her. 

      Poppy could feel the blood dripping down her shoulders. It registered somewhere in her mind that they were toying with her. Playing with their meal. This was odd behavior for wrennets, so Poppy figured they were young. 

      One tossed her far and hard, and she went slamming into a pine tree. 

      The pain in her head and back was horrible. It was as if someone had beaten her with a branch. She fell, and heard the wrennets screeching above her. They sounded disappointed, as if she were too beat-up to play with anymore. 

      Poppy gingerly touched the back of her head to try and assess the damage. She touched something warm on the back of her neck and pulled her fingers away. They were stained with a deep, thick, red liquid. Great, she thought dryly. She returned her fingers to the base of her neck and slowly moved them up. For a while, there was nothing but blood. Then she touched the base of her head, and a sharp pain went shooting through her skull. 

      She gritted her teeth and groaned quietly. 

      “Still not as bad as the time I climbed that tree, fell, and hit my head on that rock,” Poppy muttered to herself. 

      The wrennets had stopped their screeching and landed a few paces away from Poppy. They walked towards her, their long claws dragging on the ground. 

      Poppy looked around desperately, but there was no one there. For the first time, her situation fully registered in her mind. 

      She was going to die.

      She was completely alone. 

      Well, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. 

      She patted her pocket to check if the dagger was still there. It was. Poppy decided to use that later. For now, she was just going to use what nature gave her. She felt around and behind her, keeping her eyes trained on the wrennets. She found a bumpy, moist surface. She tapped it. Solid. 

      The rock was heavy when Poppy tried to pick it up. She held it in her hand and waited for the wrennets to come closer. When one came close enough, she let out a yell and swung the rock forward. It made contact with the wrennet’s eye. 

      It let out the loudest, shrillest, longest, most desperate cry Poppy had ever heard in her life. She staggered up and tried to find somewhere to hide. She started to run, but the other wrennet grabbed her before she could get too far. 

      It lifted her up into the air, and dropped her onto a large branch. It pressed on her chest, forcing her to stay down. It lifted its other paw, and Poppy could see the hunger glinting in its eyes. It quickly swiped, ripping open Poppy’s stomach. 

      She screamed, but it slowly petered out as she lost strength. Soon, all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears and her ragged breathing. The pain in her stomach had subsided. That must mean it’s not that bad! she thought foolishly. Then it registered; I’m in shock.

      She looked into the wrennet’s large, purple eye. It had a murderous glint. It was going to wait. Wait until the last breath had rattled out of her chest. Even then, Poppy didn’t know if the wrennet would eat her. She got the feeling that it was mad that she blinded its friend. 

      Poppy flopped down onto the branch. Maybe this wasn’t so bad. She had put up a good fight. No one could ask more of her. Sure, she didn’t live a very full life, but maybe she’d become a martyr. That’s a nice gig. 

      She closed her eyes, finally at peace with the truth, when she heard a loud battle cry. 

      “What the…” 

      Suddenly, Poppy saw a large group of people, led by Willow. They carried swords, nets, daggers, some just came with their hands. 

      Wait a minute… Poppy thought. Silas’ dagger!

      She grabbed it from her pocket. The wrennet was watching the commotion on the ground. Poppy lurched forward, dagger in hand, and stabbed the wrennet through the neck. 

      It shrieked and flew away, Silas’ dagger still stuck in its neck.

Process

For this piece, I tried to not have a strict idea on what it would be. I started by writing a vague backstory (almost like the description found on the back/jacket of a book) to get an idea of the world. When writing the actual piece I started with a description of the surroundings of the first scene, which is how I like to start my stories. I then just sort of let out whatever came out and edited later. This story is not finished yet, however, so I need to work on it more.