Excerpt #2

Because I don’t have much to write about, and because I forgot to post an excerpt yesterday, here it is now.

This is the book I’m currently working on. Basically she’s being contained and interrogated for answers about a “rebel” group she is a part of. This is a dystopian novel which I hope to eventually become a series. The excerpt is real short. I don’t want to give too much away. Enjoy (:

I wake up with a start. The light from under the door illuminates a book lying directly in front of my face. I look around. The door is closed. No one is in here with me. I would have been able to sense them otherwise.

I hesitate before reaching for the book. It could be a trap. I don’t want to fall for anything so obvious. But nothing seems justifiably obvious about a book, besides the fact that it shouldn’t be here.

I touch it quickly. Nothing. I inch toward it, and breathe in its scent. Smells right. I touch it again, resting my hand against the cover. Nothing. All is well. It’s just a book.

I trace my finger across the spine, and lift it into my hand. I cradle it on my palms, weighing it. It feels like a book. Heavy, balanced by its pages. Nothing out of the ordinary.

There is no title on the black cover.

I open to the title page. There is no title there, either. There is nothing. It is a blank page.

I flip through the pages. All blank. No ink. Nothing. I smell it again. It smells like a book – musty and well, sort of new.

I turn each page over in my hand, and stop when I see, upon the first page, one small word.

Hi.

I immediately wonder what it means. Other than a common salutation, what could this one word mean? Clearly they are still trying to get me to crack, but what form of torture is this? How could –

And then something rolls into my room, from under the door. I jerk away from it, and scramble backwards into the wall, waiting for the explosion that will end my death.

Nothing. It just sits there.

It’s skinny. Black. As long as a pen.

A pen.

It must be a pen.

I scoot forward and snatch up the mysterious object. It’s a pen. An actual pen, in this cursed world of technology and well, restrictions on such things as a pen. Why is it being given to me? Along with a book?

Hi.

Are they expecting me to write back? Is this a trick or a practical joke? I don’t see the harm in responding. I write “hi” back.            

I shove the pen and book back under the door.

I wait.

 Later that day, before I receive an answer from the mysterious pen-pal, I am hauled away with a bag over my head. The blinding light sears my vision as the interrogation room reveals itself to me.

I tell them I won’t ever tell them anything. I refuse to cooperate with any offer. I go to sleep that night with new bruises on my arms and legs.