WIPpet Wednesday | Evolution

WIPpet Wednesdays is a blog hop where writers can share a snippet from their WIP. The only stipulation is that the excerpt is somehow related to the date. Be sure to check out some of the other lovely WIPpet snippets here. Thank you Emily Wrayburn for hosting.

So, I’m nearing the end of the first draft of my WIP. I’m having a little trouble getting over that final hump, but it’s SO CLOSE I CAN ALMOST TOUCH IT! I’m hoping that this post will get me a little more excited about this ending I’ve been working towards and get me across the finish line.

A little about this WIP, Evolution:

Faced with imprisonment, Kai, Coak, and Micah are given a chance to earn their freedom by working together to perform a series of heists. Simple for people of their considerable skills, except that they can’t stand one another. Not that it’s the fault of any one of them. They’ve each been raised by their people to treat the others of Fulcrum with disdain and mistrust. But what choice do they have? Whether the heists go right or wrong, the situation for the three youths will get nothing but worse as they figure out the true intentions of the heist and discover that nothing is as it seems.

So, on this 27th day of the 2nd month, I decided to share 27 lines from chapter 2. I hope you enjoy:

Micah never realized how much it sucked to travel by foot until his pack was too water logged to ignite. Flying wasn’t just fun, it was a much more efficient way travel. It took less energy and far, far less time. Sure, there were a certain level of intellectual requirement to flying, but he was used to excelling at anything requiring intelligence.

His fight with the web-head had ended on the coast south of the Mountaineers, but he couldn’t go there for repairs. Maybe if the casing needed some work, or if he needed a new short sword. They wouldn’t be able to do a thing with the delicate inner workings of the pack.

The Swimmer commune was the west of where he washed up, but he’d find no help there either. If he started talking about what the pack needed they’d probably look at him like he was speaking a different language and end up just offering him some kind of fish, like that would fix anything.

There was the chance of finding Kai at that commune, but probably a slim chance. A Flier comes calling and all the Web-heads would protect each other.

Micah decided to head northeast. That would put him on a path that run straight through The Festival. It wasn’t the most fun to be had in the Crucible, but there was usually a few people to mock, and a few to entice into a more private meeting. More importantly than that, he’d be able to find someone to repair his pack. Or at least someone he could buy a new one off of. His mother wouldn’t be happy about incurring that cost, but Micah was her burden to bear.

He walked all through the night. What choice did he have with no pack, no place to go, and nowhere to sleep? By the time he arrived at the Festival it was barely morning and everything was still being set up.

In the middle of the festival grounds men were erecting a series of tents for the cross-breeding ceremonies. Every year at the festival, each of the sub-species would offer a few of their most virile and fertile young people. Each person would be matched up with someone of another sub and they’d try to create a new life.

Micah considered himself a fairly open-minded guy, but the thought of ending up alone in one of those tents with a stranger, while people sat around the outside with expectations, made his stomach turn. Well, depending on the stranger.

The Festival runners always gave a long-winded speech about the historical unrest and the lasting truce. Apparently, trying to cross breed was an attempt to strengthen the bonds between the subs.

There it is. It’s very rough, but as I said, first draft. I hope you enjoyed it a little, or at least that it didn’t totally suck.

Fun fact about this post: Writing this Sunday night and watching the Oscars. Of all the people I thought would give an inspiration speech that hit home with me, I did NOT think it would be Lady Gaga.