Wednesday, July 13, 2011

ROW80: Check-In #3!

Good news! I reached my first goal for this week! My goal was to finish and submit a short story to a writing challenge called A Love that Overcomes: A Need So Beautiful Writing Challenge and...I did it! It was extremely painful and I almost threw in the towel, I'll admit and I waited until the last second to get it done, but, lo and behold, I did! Now, it's out of my hands and into the judge's (aka Suzanne Young! EEK!) so all I can do now is...wait. Wish me luck! :)

And while I wait, I thought I'd share my contest entry with you!

I knew it was coming, that it was bound to happen sometime, I just didn’t realize how soon.
Sweat pours down my face and my body convulses in quick, jerking movements.
“Hang on baby, it’s going to be ok!”
My mother’s frantic, terrified voice penetrates my muddled thoughts as the thing that lives inside me fights to break free of my weak, useless human body, threatening to destroy me and claim my body as its own.
My mother sets me down on the bed, the scratchy wool of the blanket feeling like a thousand nails raking my skin.
I thrash and moan, the creature inside me becoming more restless as time passes, more deadly.
“Hang on baby, hang on!”
I hear my mother hurry around the room, gathering the supplies. And then I hear her begin the chant, her voice sounding muffled and far away as she recites the Latin phrases that slide off her tongue as effortlessly and as smoothly as water.
I feel droplets of water hit my skin, holy water.
Then my mother rips the wooden cross that hangs above the bed off the wall and the combination of chanting, holy water and the cross begin to work their magic…a demon’s kryptonite.
The demon rages from deep inside me, enraged at being attacked, threatened. My hands grip the sides of the bed until my fingers begin to ache and I scream in agony as the demon becomes more incensed.
“Just kill me…please! Just kill me now!” I scream at my mother, my voice choked with sobs.
“No, I won’t, I can’t! You’re my baby!” My mother is crying now too, pleading with me to be reasonable.
“You did it for Daddy…now-now do it for me, please!” I beg, my insides threatening to explode from the pain, the invasion, the violation.
I hear my mother inhale sharply at the mention of my father. “No, Holly, no, I won’t let you give up!” her chanting becomes louder, more rapid.
I scream and writhe in pain, the convulsions coming in waves. The sound that escapes my throat however is not the sound of my own voice but of its…the demon’s, unearthly and unhinged.
Then, just when the scream becomes so loud and the chanting so rapid that I feel as if I might split in two, the demon is released…and I am free.

Happy writing!
~Ella

1 comment:

Deniz Bevan said...

Ooh, a great entry! Good luck!