The Andromeda Strain...

So, like, I'm watching the movie 'Andromeda Strain' and it really just makes me want to read the book because while I bet they did as best a job as they could considering it's a two part television premiere, I feel like the book would probably flesh it out more (Then again, there's just something about Daniel Dae Kim looking all flustered and disheveled that just makes me go: mmmmmm....). Of course, you could probably say the same for every movie adaptation of any wellknown book. If I were the author, I'd say: Hey, I'm getting paid more. Then again, the whole copyright thing irritates me. If a person says they don't want their book made into a movie why is it that studios still by the rights to the book to be able to do it anyway? Do they actually have that right or am I just misinterpreting copyright law just so I can have something to fight for?

I don't know.

Anyway, I was just talking to myself as I am wont to do and I figured I post a smidgen of the stories I'm working on, just because this blog is...well...supposed to be a chronicle of me being a beginning author and all. I just wanna write!!! *twitches*

HERE'S A SAMPLE:

PROLOGUE - FAIRIES ARE AMONG US
Her heartbeat resounded in her ears like the rolling of coming thunder. Her blood turned to liquid fire in her veins. All of her senses were unnaturally honed to the world around her as her razor sharp gaze scanned the darkness, trying to pick apart shadow from shadow. This is what it must feel like to be hunted, she thought, wryly. Her ears were straining, her muscles were taut with the effort to keep perfectly still, perfectly watchful, wary of even the smallest and most innocuous sounds that leapt out at her from the gloom.

She didn’t know where the others were, separated from them quite suddenly, neither of them prepared for the attack that had come. She could only spare a glancing thought to them though, hoping that they were alright and sending up prayers to any powers that listened that she make it out of this alright herself. I swear I’ll buy everyone strawberry milkshakes if we’re just able to get out of this alive, she swore to herself as she stayed low to the ground and crept forward on all fours, still straining to listen and hear. At least the weird screaming had stopped.

It had started the moment she’d been separated from everyone else, a wild keening noise like an animal was being tortured alive. It had sent a shiver up and down her spine, rising and falling in tempo and volume until it was all she could do, but sing a little nursery rhyme to herself and keep moving: Moon, O Moon, in the empty sky, Why do you swing so low? Pretty moon with the silver ring, and the long bright beams where the fairies cling, where do you always go…
She could certainly use a bit of light now, even a sliver of it to help her see into the darkness better. Her hands slid over the ground, her knees scrapping against something that felt like concrete, but she wasn’t sure of that. She just had to keep moving, keep her mind focused on the forward and back motion of her legs, propelling her straight and true. It was all she could do to keep her fear in check, and she could feel it like twisting vines, curling through her system, trying to swamp her mind in panic. No, no, I have to just keep moving. That’s what he told me, she thought, beating back the fear. Just keep going. I should see some light soon. I should see…something.

AND THE OTHER SMIDGEN::

This one is kind of based on personal experience, even if it didn't quite happen this way. LOL!!! *shakes head*


CHAPTER ONE - WHICH WAY TO MURDER
The only sound the pigeons heard that morning was a loud screech and a crash as a cordless phone went flying across the room, smashing into the wall and splitting into two pieces, its coils and innards scattered across the floor where it landed. The pigeons cocked their heads, fluttered their wings and settled back into their places, but the morning could not return to its relative peacefulness for Keira Reynolds. Oh no. She glared at the phone as its dial tone droned before puttering off into a pathetic static-y sound before dying altogether. Her breathing was hard, her jaw set and her gaze livid.

How dare he—?!

Keira glared at the phone harder.

How dare he—?!

She wanted to scream, but aside from the screech she uttered nothing else would emerge. Nothing and she was a little disappointed in herself. After all, her boyfriend has just broken up with her. You’d think she’d be a little more livid than she was now. She just didn’t know. Two halves were warring within her: one side wanted to punch a wall, a pillow, a person and through a tantrum, where as the other half of her…just wanted to curl up into a ball in cry. Both sides were equally strong and equally tempting and submitting to either one was a tough, tough call.

So…

Instead…

She screeched indignantly and threw the phone. It was the best option for both sides, she supposed, and all she could do now was stand there in her PJs and bunny slippers glaring at a phone that she was going to have to replace. Great. A break up AND money out of her pocket to boot. Keira sighed in frustration.

She should’ve seen it coming. It wasn’t like there weren’t signs over the past couple of MONTHS that spoke and said: Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! But she was an optimist and she liked seeing the good in everyone. So, forget the fact that her boyfriend of TWO YEARS had been staying out later and later at his college working on his ‘project’ with friends. And forget that he stopped having real conversations with her about the things that mattered. Forget that she was trying her hardest to make him happy and all he could do was think about himself and his selfishness. Forget it all!

She’d overlooked everything because well…Let’s face it: that’s just the way she was, and it shouldn’t have come to her as such a shock that he would do this to her. It really shouldn’t, but it did and she wasn’t sure whether she should be hurt, angry or a heavy dose of both. Just last night she’d gone to sleep with, once again, the possibility that maybe things could work out, that maybe if she just pushed herself a little harder, she might come out on top and have him by her side.

Keira huffed, gripped her head in more frustration, sighed harder and landed with an unceremonious thump on her bed. She stared up at her ceiling, the painted angels floating within their artistic sphere; she could’ve sworn some of them were laughing at her. She glared at them too for good measure.

She just couldn’t understand how he could do this to her. Wasn’t she a good girlfriend? Hadn’t she been doting, considerate and kind? Hadn’t she been a model girlfriend the likes of which most men would kill for? This just could not be happening. Where did she go wrong? What in the last two years had she done?

She was cursed.

It had to be that.

Or something…

Definitely cursed.

Keira rolled on her back, shaking her head.

“And this morning started out so promising…”

And it was true. The morning had started out so promising. She’d woken to the rays of a bright, yellow Atlanta sun, shining in through her window, the sounds of a city shaking off sleep and preparing itself for the ordeal of another day. She’d gotten up, stretched in her morning routine to get the blood flow circulating. Her cat, Mr. McCavity, had sat up in his small bed near her wardrobe, with alert, sharp green eyes to watch her as she walked across her room, even in the first dregs of waking, her walk determined, and followed her with his gaze as she went to the bathroom that was connected to her bedroom, brushed her teeth and came out again, more wide-eyed and awake than she had been previously.

That was when the phone rang.

“Morning, Kei,” came her now ex-boyfriend’s phone resignedly over the phone. Keira frowned immediately, the bright and chipper greeting that she was going to utter, frozen on her lips. She swallowed.

“Morning, Rick,” she’d said cautiously, wondering why his sounded so down and out. She could almost picture him, and especially with that tone of voice (he always seemed to sound exactly the way he looked with any emotion): dark, curly hair framing his face, brown eyes downcast like a beaten puppy, lips turned down in that way of his that made her want to shake him sometimes and say, ‘Perk up!’

“What’s wrong?” she continued, but just as she’d gotten the words out, a sudden wash of feeling overtook her, a barrage of emotions that swallowed up her previous feelings of goodness about the day, and filled her with a foreboding sense of impending doom—

Didn’t want to… / Left me no choice… / Too many secrets… /Can’t do this anymore…

“Can’t do what—?” And she had to stop herself from speaking as Rick paused in a telling way that made her wince, even though he couldn’t see it.

“See? That!” he cried suddenly over the phone. Keira winced again.

“What?” she said, trying to feign innocence. “Rick, what’s going on?”

“You. Me. Us,” he replied. “I just…You’re a great girl, Keira. Really…It’s just that I…”

And that’s when Keira’s heart stopped and the flood of emotions that swept through her were more than just the feelings of impending doom. Doom had already come and darkened her morning, and now shock and disbelief were joining it, making the sunlight not nearly as bright as it had been and the bird song not nearly as sweet.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Keira asked. “Is that what you’re doing?”

There was a sigh on the other line and the sound of rustling clothing. Now, Rick was picking at his clothes, doing the whole beaten puppy act in full swing.

“You are, aren’t you?” Keira growled. A wave of guilt washed over her, and she knew point blank that that guilt wasn’t coming from her.

“I just…”Rick’s words faltered. He tried again: “You’re a great girl, Keira. You really are and I think you make a great girlfriend…”

“Just not for you.” Keira gripped the phone tightly, her knuckles turning ghostly white. Her jaw clenched and released, clenched and released and she could feel a hot emotion burning at the base of her stomach. “So cut the crap, Rick. Is it over? For you and me? Is it over?”

There was another resigned sigh over the line, and Keira could no longer stand Rick’s beating around the bush. She growled: “Fine. Then it’s over.”

Another wave of guilt and slight breeze of…was that relief?

“I guess so.”

“You bastard!” The hot wave of emotion rushed through her at those angrily shouted words and she screeched then, loud into the phone before hurling it across the room. The sound of broken machinery had been satisfying, but only for a minute, and Keira stared at the phone as a look of disappointment crossed her features.

“Damn him,” she muttered and let her face fall into her bedspread. “Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.”

Okay…

So it really shouldn’t have been such a surprise. After all, it wasn’t like she couldn’t tell his intentions when he called. She could…She could feel them even if he hadn’t been speaking the way he had that just screamed to her that something was up. She’d always been able to do things like that, and more often then not she wished she couldn’t. She’d blocked herself from him though, and maybe that was part of the reason. She didn’t want to see or know or hear anything of what was going on with him on the inside. She figured she was doing him a favor.

May be she should have done herself more of a favor.

The off-beat ring of her cell phone playing a snippet of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ brought her temporary out of commiseration and she glared at the offending piece of technology. At least, it wasn’t Rick. Although…He had joked once or twice about wanting to have that as his ring tone. Keira growled and sat up, as the cell phone began another round of ‘They just wannuh…They just wannuuuh…Girls just wanna have fu-un. Oh, girls just wanna have fuuuuun!’ She grabbed it and pressed the call accept button and grumbled: “Hello?”

“Okay, spill,” came Lena’s voice over the phone. Keira pulled away from the phone in surprise. “Hey! I’m talking to you, Keira Anise! Spill!”

“Spill what?” Keira replied, bringing the phone back to her ear and trying to feign the innocent tone that so obviously didn’t work on Rick.

“Don’t you play dumb with me,” Lena growled on the other end in impatience. “You were broadcasting all over the ether waves. I felt you. Andi felt you. And Erin especially. So…spill.”

“There’s nothing to…” Keira’s voice trailed off. She didn’t know why she was reluctant to tell Lena what happened; she’d known the other woman since they were little kids in junior high. And it wasn’t like they weren’t going to find out anyway; Rick’s friends were friends of her friends. Word would get out soon enough.

She sighed.

“Me and Rick…Well, we broke up.”

“WHAT?!” Lena screeched and Keira had to jerk the phone away from her ear in an attempt to save her eardrums. “YOU BROKE UP?!”

“Lena, calm down!” Keira pleaded. “It’s not that…”

“Wasn’t he the one talking about marriage and crap?” Lena continued her angry tirade. “Wasn’t he the one talking about moving in with you and what color your furniture should be? What the hell?!”