Twin Moon Preview (w00t!)

[anasa]

My Creative Writing class has an end-of-the-year project, which requires me to submit some large piece of work like a book, a movie script, or a book of poetry. So, because I have been planning this story for quite some time, I decided to use this oppurtunity to get to work and write it, and I present it to you now! I have 12 pages typed so far, but rather then post them all here, I'm going to post the section which explains the book's setting as a sort of a preview. Enjoy! (And be nice!)

[anasa]

November 2nd

I have finally built up the courage to recount that terrible night. To relive it. But…I’m going to try to see it through Alex’s eyes Maybe then I can understand him.

He must have been as confused as I was when our family members faded in like spirits of the night, their faces stone and solemn.

He stepped closer towards his twin sister, protectively, though he couldn’t have known why.

“The time is nigh,” said his father, in a voice he had never used before, “When the evil must be sealed away-the lion and his sacrificial lamb.”

He felt dread and anxiety as he backed away towards the gate, a hand resting on his sister’s shoulder. She followed his lead, fear painted on her face as well, though neither of them could identify it. It was as if some primitive fear had made itself at home deep within their minds. It was the kind of fear that one felt when looking down from atop a steep cliff or an extraordinarily tall building.

Their mother brought forth their luggage, the mysterious men now preoccupied with opening the gate. However, the luggage was soon dropped to the ground as their mother, with a sudden outburst of emotion, ran towards them with outstretched arms.

“Stop that nonsense!” his grandfather roared, closing the gasp between them within three paces and knocking her to the ground.

Alex felt a tide of anger wash over him, then retreat back to sea to reveal his previous sands of fear and unease as the cloaked figures began to form a circle and close in on them. Every left hand was clasped in the hand of the person nearest to them, and every right hand held a silver cross. Adrenaline rushing to his legs, Alex grabbed on to his sister and ran, only to trip on a rock and send both of them crashing to the ground. They came in closer as the gates, with a silent scream, opened. Mia was the first to turn and gape. Alex soon followed.

Forgetting entirely about their previous fears, the two turned their backs to their predatory relatives. They then gazed into the threshold of destiny, something inside of them telling every fiber of their being, “This is where you belong”. Oblivious to the world outside of that gate, the two clasped hands and entered.

[anasa]

The slamming of the gate snapped the two out of their trance, leaving them to turn frantically and try to gather where they were and what was going on.

“What is going on?” Mia demanded, her eyes watering, “What has befallen us?!” Alex didn’t answer, because he had none to give. They were inside a dark village. The street beneath them was stone and formed a giant semicircle. The fence and gate formed its diameter while several narrower roads splayed off before them in between Victorian-style houses. The air sent a chilling wind which made the houses utter groans and sighs in their sleep.

Never in his life had Alex felt so alone and abandoned (at least, that’s how I felt, if I may have the audacity to assume the same for him.) It was as if he had lived his entire life in a cozy, warmly-lit room and was suddenly thrust out into a hailstorm, not knowing where he was, what he was feeling, or how much of a threat that feeling posed to him. Mia walked in front of him, inspecting the scene before them.

“Is this the menagerie?” she said, “Is this…is this where we are to die?”

Alex opened his mouth, preparing to assure her that, no, they were not going to die. They were going to be just fine. (I know not whether he was really preparing to do this or not, but it sounds like something he would do.) However, when his mouth opened, he was shocked to find it salivating. Had human flesh always looked this good? It seemed as if he could see through his sister’s plump, pale epidermis into the juice that coursed through her veins, cascading and rolling like current in a river, rushing to her tender heart and departing on its sacred journey once again. If only he could lower his parched lips to that water.

“Mi-” He quickly covered his sinful mouth with his hands. What was he thinking?! That was sick and wrong!! How could he possibly have thought something like that?!

Mia turned, her brown eyes connecting with his.

“What’s wrong?” she inquired. The feeling returned, more powerful then ever. He no longer had the strength to fight it. He licked his lips as his skin turned grey. His thick, angular fingers became long and bony, talons appearing and tapering into a slight curve. His round ears traveled up the side of his face to the top of his head. They then widened and grew into large, furry folds like that of a bat. Leathery wings then burst from his back as his canines expanded, no longer able to be concealed by his lips. It was time to feed. Through the red haze of his bloodlust, he could barely make out his twin sister. Struck with the horror of this new beast, she backed away into the shadows. He advanced, ready to pounce and mine all of that precious gold from her body, when a voice called out to him, enraged, “Leave her alone!!” He stopped, cradling his throbbing head in his claw. Who was that? The cry came again and he realized that the piercing voice was his own.

He retreated shakily, groaning as the war within him was waged.
Leave her alone!
Drink your fill!
Protect her!
Make her die!

Outside, he heard the voice of she who he had loved and looked after his entire life, calling to him.

“Alex…” she said weekly, approaching him and reaching for him with her hand, “Are you alright?” His eyes immediately focused in on her wrist. Even as a human, it was easy to see that blue thread. It was the vein which, once severed, would yield a bountiful harvest of blood. His strike was as swift as a snake’s. His teeth sank into her soft human flesh before she could react in the slightest. Her scream echoed throughout the lifeless town.

[anasa]

His thirst quenched, Alex threw Mia’s unconscious body to the ground. She must have fainted, he thought absentmindedly, looking down upon her. It was when that thought came to him that it dawned on him. A sickening feeling began to develop in his gut. He clasped a hand over his mouth as the truth behind his predicament dawned upon him. It all made sense now! The crosses, the “lion and the sacrificial lamb”…His family knew that he was…he was…a vampire…so they banished him! And gave up his twin sister to be his first meal! He fought the bile that rose up his throat and forced it back down.

“Gewd boya!” said a chipper female voice, “Iv jou had zrown oop, jou vould’ve gone blewd-zirsty ageen!”

He turned and saw a young girl who seemed to be his age with long, curly locks of gold and gray eyes. She wore a large tan men’s coat, which fell to the ground and concealed whatever outfit she had on underneath (if indeed she had any,) and pink pom-poms in her hair. She wore an expression of pure merriment and energy. He noticed one fang stick mischievously out of the corner of her mouth.

“It vould’ve been no good to twy to feed off of her ageen,” she added, bringing an index finger to her chin pensively, but still with a smile, “Ah zuppoze vee cewld’ve mahd you eat ze zrow-up. Oh, und velcome to ze Menagerie!”

Alex chose to ignore her comment about the vomit and asked her who she was, puzzling over her strange accent. Her voice was like a conglomeration of several European accents and had the upbeat tone of a valley girl.

“Ah,” she pronounced, placing her hand proudly on her puffed-out chest, “Um Beatrice Brisbois, ora Bubbly, az people like to call me.”

He could see why.

“Und zat,” she continued, pointing behind him, “Eez my evair-glamarous zeezter, Amarante!”

Alex turned, shocked to find another person crouched next to Mia. How long had she been there? The girl slowly turned and rose to return his glance, her expression as blank as a clean sheet of paper. She was anything but glamorous. Her hair was black as coal and as curled as her sister’s. Their curly hair and grey eyes were the only things the two seemed to have in common; for this girl’s skin was milky-white, her clothing was as dark as her hair, and her entire bearing seemed to be that of one who not only seldom showed happiness, but could not even comprehend how such a foreign sensation would feel. She simply inclined her head as a greeting.

“Vell, eet’s off to Tvin Moon ve go!” Bubbly chimed, “Let’s get ze leetle girly-kins!” She happily skipped over beside Mia’s passed-out body and started attempting to raise her off the ground. She grunted and yanked and pulled with all of her might, while her sister and the newcomer simply looked on.

“Um…ugh…could mahbe…hurngh…one of jou…gyah…help me??”

Amarante silently nodded and lent a hand.

“Come oon, Vampy!” Bubbly called out, “Help us carry jour zeezter!”

“Vampy?!”

“Vell, ah don’t knowa your name!”

“It’s…Alex…where are you taking her?”

“Deedn’t I zay alweady? Tvin Moon! Eesa place especially beelt vor peeopell loike oos. Trrrrust me, eef it veren’t for Tvin Moon, ve vouldn’t be here right nowa! Rrright, Amarante?”

“Un,” Amarante said.

“Will she…will she be safe there?”

“But, of carse! Now, heelp ooz.”

“I see…well, if that’s the case…” he began to head for one of the roads, “She’ll be safer without me around.”

“Oh, don’t-a-be such a gloomy vampeer! Vat if jou vere ze humon and she was ze vampeer?”

He paused, pensive. If he were to wake up, knowing that Mia was lost somewhere in this strange and frightening place…he wouldn’t care how much it hurt him to go join her. (Was that what he thought? If that were the case, wouldn’t he understand me now? Oh, I don’t know!) Well, whatever he thought, it convinced him to turn around, pick me up, and to carry me to Twin Moon, with Bubbly and Amarante in the lead. Strangely enough, he did not trip or bump into anything. Either that, or he did, and it did not wake me.

[anasa]

The latter part of the story I wrote not from observation and guesswork, but from what I heard from Bubbly. I can not say whether his first impressions were quite like mine. Perhaps they were, perhaps they weren’t.

We are now residing in Twin Moon, an enormous Victorian mansion run by a tall, good-natured man with long hair and square glasses and his mysterious partner. This woman…this Mistress Nosilla…her manner and appearance are all so mysterious and frightening. I get the impression she knows more then she tells. As for what she tells, well…I will save that lovely piece of writing for another day.

[anasa]

November 3rd

I awoke the day after that fateful entry to find a handsome man who appeared to be in his twenties. He pushed on the bridge of his square glasses to adjust them, then turned and smiled sympathetically at me.

“Where is Alex?” I asked groggily.

“He is safe,” the man replied, “As are you, for you are now within my heart and soul, the warm bosom of Twin Moon.”

“Are you…are you hitting on me?”

He chuckled.

“Not at all! Your situation is, in all likelihood, befuddling you, is it not?”

“Y-y-yes,” My brain was now awakening and remembering its inability to converse freely with others.

“How much did your parents reveal to you?” he asked, changing from amiable and pleasant to gravely serious.

“Nothing…” I said sadly, looking down and noticing the soft, white bed I was in. I squeezed the sheets with my fists, producing a soft crinkling of cotton upon velvet. All that I knew I had deduced on my own while traipsing in and out of slumber the previous night. We were sealed away because our family was afraid of us. Alex had turned into a monster and attacked me. But, what did that make me, and who took me to this place? Was it the man?

“Centuries ago,” the man began, clearing his throat, “All of the creatures of lore which men feared walked freely upon this earth. However, humans became so plagued by the fear of the unknown passed down from generation to generation that they cried out for those who could tame the untamed. This gave rise to the Zookeepers, a coalition of over-zealous persons who chased ghosts, hunted vampires, and slew dragons. By the Victorian era, they had gained tremendous power while still managing to operate in the shadows. They took all of the prisoners that they had not killed already and hid them within the enchanted walls of a neighborhood called the Menagerie. Now, don’t look so skeptical! It’s the truth! Besides, after what you’ve seen, have you any room for doubt?”

He was right. Unbelievable things had already happened to me, and yet I still found all of his information impossible to absorb.

“Continuing on,” He said, apparently oblivious to my sustained incredulity, “Believe it or not, I was once a zookeeper.”

He waited for a shocked and disbelieving reaction to come and satisfy his evident need for the spotlight. It did not.

“But then you had a change of heart,” a hollow female voice said, “You came to realize the travesties which you had committed and found yourself so ridden with grief and shame, you could hardly stand it.” Out of the shadows stepped a creature who was more bat then woman. She had the same characteristics Alex had had when he was “blood-thirsty,” as Bubbly calls it. She wore an ornate Victorian dress of black and dark green, and she turned her beady red eyes upon me as a slow smile crept across her gray, furry face. “He tells this story to all of the newcomers.”

“Mistress Nosilla…” the man said, after clearing his throat, clearly annoyed at the interruption, “How kind of you to join us. I trust you slept well?” I was grateful when she turned those red eyes upon him.

“Why, yes,” she almost hissed, “Until that Bubbly girl awoke me, going on about the new ‘vampeer’ and his ‘zeezter’. It’s almost as if she knows…”

I wondered who this bubbly girl was, and what she almost knew, but I was too frightened to speak. I was intimidated enough by people, much less bat-people!

“How careless! I neglected to introduce myself,” the man said suddenly, placing a bejewelled hand upon his chest, “My name is Professor Bernard, and this is my lovely assistant, Mistress Nosilla.”

“Charmed,” Nosilla said, curtsying to me. I did not find her all that lovely.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, “There are a few hours left before sundown, and I would at least like to spend them in my office.”

With that, she faded out almost as suddenly as she had appeared. Was it really day time? I scanned the room for a window. I saw a dreary-looking room with gray walls and a stone floor, with torches providing the only light and a bare, well-carved bookshelf in the corner. There was no window to be found.

“And now, my dear,” he declared, clapping his hands together, “We may continue our story. Stricken with guilt, I searched for a way to help those whom I had wringed and discovered, to my amazement, that some vampires and werewolves and other human-like creatures had escaped by blending in with human society! Through the generations, their offspring have become more and more human, to the point where they are virtually indistinguishable from the rest of human society! Occasionally, though, a child will be born which bears the characteristics of their ancestors and be banished to this place.”

I shivered, moments of the previous night flashing before my eyes.

“I came to know this because I was one of the Zookeepers hired to keep track of these families. When the time comes for the child’s fourteenth birthday, their true self will be awakened. We were required to convince these families to send their child here and escort them.” I realized that that was who those men with the red and yellow eyes were. They were horrific, but this man wasn’t. In fact, he was rather good-looking. Then, another realization grasped me.

“You were the ones…” I growled, a surge of anger and hatred chasing away my fears, “You were the ones who did this to us!”

“The Zookeepers were, yes,” Bernard said, melodramatically tossing a rebellious lock of hair away from his face, “However! I quit for that very reason! I simply could not abide forcing apart a family like that. Especially since…”

After a long dramatic pause, I rolled my eyes and said, resignedly, “Since what?”

“Especially,” he said, his eyes piercing mine, “Those children always die within these walls.”

My catty attitude melted away, I gulped nervously.

“The only children of humanity who stand a chance of survival in the Menagerie are those who have another half with them, a human half. I built Twin Moon in order to shelter ones such as these.”

“A-a-another half?”

“I mean…a twin. A human twin,” He walked over to me, his shiny, expensive-looking leather shoes squelching across the stone. He placed his index finger in between my breasts and brought his face close to mine. His breath smelt of cinnamon.

“Your brother is a vampire, and you are his human, heterozygous twin. He can not survive without feeding off of you, and you can not survive without his protection.”

He turned and retreated to the door. My head spun with all that he had told me, a red hot pain throbbing against my forehead. I tried to massage it, but to no avail. I bent over, fearing that I would pass out again. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening!

“Oh, and one more thing dear,” he said, turning to me with the door ajar, “You have the power to leave this accursed place, but you will have to leave your brother behind.” The sound of the closing door seemed to echo throughout the entire world. Should I board here with demons for his sake, or should I leave my vampire brother behind?

It has been five days, Alex still refuses to speak to or even look at me, and I still have no answer to that question.

[Lan]

Awesome. Lol I long to nestle in the bosom of that man's twin moons....wow that sounds so weird.

[anasa]

Ha! XD That's the point.

[Aeric Ecrai]

Oh good, thought this was concerning Twilight or Stephanie Meyer or something. *coughhack*

His bosom of full moon what? XD

[anasa]

What?! Ew! XP No Twilight from me, sir!

[Willow]

Thank you. I would like to make my opinion clear right now. Twilight has a good storyline, and it's for the romantic in all of us. We want Edward and Bella's relationship to survive.

But that doesn't change the fact that Stephanie Meyer can't write worth a crap.

[Willow]

Anyway. Beautifully written, I love the imagery. Good job, Anasa.

My creative writing class had something similar to that, a final project. I think mine was 14 pages, we had like three days in class to type it.

[anasa]

Why, thank you. ^_^ *purrs from compliments*

[Bastian Farix]

Not bad. Probably not the kind of thing I would read (I could be wrong, though), but well-written.
I may post something in this section sometime. I've got about...2 fan-fics, 3 or 4 books...yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Now you know what I do when I try to go to sleep. XD

[Arissa Warrner]

is this the one with Mist in it?