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(July 23, 2020 at 7:56 am)Eleven Wrote: Here’s a peek into the beginning of the Incubus/Elf novel I’m working on. Chapter one:
Love was not in his DNA. He had literally been born without the capacity to feel the emotion, which probably allowed his genetic imperative for killing that much easier to accomplish.
Killing was precisely what was on his mind that early morning as he traversed the dark rooms of a stranger’s house. The rooms were meticulously clean, unlike the foul consciousness that drew him toward it like a field of delicious flowers naturally attracted bees.
The stylish, modern decor enticed his peripheral attention, imprinting in his mind ideas later to be adjusted in his portfolio, as he proceeded in genuine specter fashion despite being rather corporeal. He never felt freer, unburdened by the restraints placed upon him by society, than in his natural form while on the hunt.
He paused in the upstairs hallway when he felt as though someone had caught sight of him. There was an open doorway to his right, and to his left was a night light plugged into the wall socket. No doubt, a young child afraid of the dark resided in the bedroom to the right, and for some reason the child was awake.
His keen and preternatural peripheral vision penetrated the darkness and found the young girl sitting up in bed, knees and blanket up to her chin, and wide unblinking eyes staring at him with what appeared to be a mixture of wonder and fear. He slowly turned his head to face her directly, but their gazes never met as she quickly pulled the blanket up over her head as though it was some sort of magical protection against harm from what she likely perceived to be a monster.
There was no reason to bother the child. Anyone would dismiss her words as the nightmare imaginings of youth. Therefore, he returned his attention to the mind at the end of the hallway and continued along his way toward what was newly corrupted, freshly rotted from having recently made some poor choices.
The bedroom door soundlessly swung open at his mental command when he was still a couple of yards from the threshold, and the door came to an abrupt stop before the knob made contact with the wall.
The master bedroom, once he crossed into it, received only a cursory glance from him before he looked at the two individuals lying in the king size bed. Husband and wife, but it was the woman whom he primarily focused on as he approached her side of the bed.
It was immediately apparent that the little girl a couple rooms down the hallway resembled her mother more than her father, which was probably for the best considering that the man was not the most handsome individual. His was the kind of face that could be easily overlooked due to how homely it was. The woman, in stark contrast, had a classic attractiveness that could have better graced the silver screen than what shallowly passed for beauty in the twenty-first century.
He felt the weight of a familiar stare on him. Without taking his gaze from the sleeping woman who resembled an angel only superficially, he mentally nudged the door closed. In the morning, the girl would tell the authorities that a monster had killed her mother. No one would believe her, of course, because children were known to have fanciful imaginations. She would grow knowing the truth deep down while also accepting from everyone around her that she had merely dreamed the monster’s presence in the house.
He climbed up onto the bed and sat cross-legged atop the woman’s chest. He stared down at her and allowed fetid thoughts and memories to permeate his mind.
She was dreaming of her most recent adventure.
The beach was crowded, which made the prospect of what she was about to do that much more exciting. She took notice of her daughter playing safely in the sand with her friends, and then she slipped into the crowd of people both wading and swimming in the water. Her appearance tended to not draw much attention from anyone, considering that there were plenty of beautiful, scantily clad women at the beach. Their inattention to her movements, especially when she kept her breasts out of sight underwater, allowed her to search for the prime target of her deepest desire.
Even though their attention was elsewhere, she kept an eye on everyone as best she could. Three previous successes at what provided her with a rush as nothing else ever had did not ensure another success, after all. She still had to be vigilant, because no doubt as soon as she momentarily dropped her guard she would get caught.
When she found her target, however, she did not immediately rush into action. She surveyed the area carefully, made certain that no one was watching her target, and then she dove underwater. She swam quickly, grabbed those tiny little legs, and then dragged the kid underwater where she wrapped her arms tightly around the tiny body.
She held her breath despite the struggling body in her arms, but it was not long before she felt the final spasm of defeat as the child gave up and allowed his lungs to be filled with water. Feeling the body go limp sent a chill of ecstasy through her. She savored that feeling as she released the body and swam away as she put some distance between herself and her latest victim.
When the panic ensued, she would simply be another concerned parent in the crowd.
Her eyes snapped open, but she did not see him. She looked around, wondering why she was unable to move or speak. He allowed her to panic for a good minute before he added weight to his body that pressed down on her chest. The panic in her roving eyes increased as she realized that she was struggling to breath.
When she was perilously close to death that was when she finally saw him. Her eyes locked onto his gaze, and she would have screamed if she could. Rather quickly alternating emotions made themselves evident in her eyes as she neared death. First, she pled for her life and then she cursed him with a stare of anger. Finally, she resigned herself to the inevitable a mere moment before the life vanished completely from her eyes.
He commanded her eyelids closed with his mind, and then he took his leave.
Something that's remarkable to me about American media (movies, popular novels, etc.) is its focus on killing. So much of it revolves around killing, and the killing has been aestheticized, so that how the killing is done becomes the creativity and pleasure of the work.
So for example the John Wick movies have removed everything that isn't killing. He kills as many people as can be done in a two hour movie in the most stylish way possible. We cheer the stylishness of his killing. The new Tom Hanks movie about WWII is of course a war movie so they're trying to kill each other, but all the character development is reduced to a kind of shorthand -- just little symbols we're familiar with from other movies -- so that they can focus on the killing techniques.
Sometimes I wonder if we're all being trained to get ready for the next war and the mass death that's coming. Killing and watching people die becomes a main focus of our entertainment.
So that's what strikes me about your first chapter -- it's a stylized and stylish description of killing someone. It's an addition to one of the main themes in popular culture: finding creative portrayals of killing. It might sell a lot of copies.
