Look What I Made!

My NaNoWriMo novel is behind, but today was still a productive day. I got my entire biology project laid out, I filled out two forms for Science Fair, and I completed my English homework.

Let's talk about that last one. In English, we are focusing on flash fictions, which are miniature stories. They're 750 words at most. Honestly, that's not that much. We had to revise some stories we wrote about a week ago. And now, I present, a sample of my writing.

Darren walked cautiously through the forest. He was running away from Town, a place where the only true noise was spoken word. Darren left because he discovered something: music. It was like words, but different. Longer, sweeter, like honey. In Town, "music" was blasphemy, they'd burn your ears if you fell under it's spell. Darren left not only fearing the punishment, but thirsting for more of this forbidden fruit.

Something startled him. Darren glanced towards the direction of the sharp sound. A twig at his feet was in two pieces. The twigs in Town snapped with barely audible thuds. He was fascinated, and stepped on several more. Each made a slightly different sound. Pop, click, snap! After a while, he kept moving. He had to put as much distance between him and Town as possible.

There was a strange rumbling. Darren's heart pounded. He hesitantly looked where the noise came from, only to find water. He'd never seen nor heard water like this before. It was stretched long, left and right, in a shallow ditch. It made a lot of noise, and Darren just stared at it in awe. There were odd little creatures in the trees. They were a roundish shape, and they made beautiful, high pitched little sounds. All together, the twigs, the water, the creatures, they made a unique symphony. Then there was a new sound. It was like words, but longer and sweeter, and just like honey. It was music.

He looked everywhere for the source of the thing he longed for, but all he saw was another boy. The boy looked fifteen, the same as Darren. The melody seemed to come from the boy, though he had no speakers nor devices. Was the boy actually making the music?

The boy noticed Darren, "oh, hello. Sorry, I didn't see you there." The music stopped as the boy spoke. Darren took a step back and the boy spoke again, "did you escape Town? I left a while ago." Darren remembered the disappearances that started happening several months ago.

"I'm Jon," the boy smiled, "are you looking for music?" Darren nodded. "You can go ahead and cross the river if you want, it's really shallow today. What's your name?"

"I'm Darren," he said as he crossed the strange, yet beautiful water.

"Come with me," Jon said, "I'll show you where the music is."

Ta-da! It's only about 370 words. I'm quite proud of it. I think it could classify as a dystopian, which are my favorite types of books to write.

What do you think? Leave a comment. ☺
Hannah Renea