Untitled (Chapter one of an idea)

Chapter One

“Every end is a new beginning.” These words were typed across her screen. The dialogue for her wise old, wizard must be perfect and sound just like something he would say. But would that work out? It seemed too cliché for her. Angela quickly reached for the backspace button on her keyboard.

“No, no, no! This won’t be good enough for him to say! It’s too cliché for Xender…  I made him too cool and unique… and he’s saying something to console the hero before he goes off to the final battle!” Angela growled and started to rub madly at her temples, messing up her mid-length brown hair. She stood up from her black computer chair and paced rapidly toward her kitchen. This book would be her first release and she had already had a meeting with a publisher that was interested in the first half of the book. He’d even given her a deadline to finish her piece so that she could still have the book out by the end of the year. And as such, it had to be an amazing story with no insignificant details or unsatisfying scenes for the readers. If it wasn’t, then she wouldn’t ever have her big break and her characters would never be introduced to the world! Angela looked at her clock above the kitchen doorway, a cute cartoon-styled cow that mooed every hour on the hour. 8:45 pm… My deadline is next week and I don’t know how to explain the changes of my main character throughout the story or how to make the female character wish him well and confess her love… or even how to make the final battle flow! Should it be lengthy and descriptive with lots of blood and action or should it be short and decisive? Angela felt like screaming and ripping her hair out. She was so close and had just arrived at the climax of her story. Why was it so hard from here? She looked at her phone on the counter near the fridge and thought.

“I’m sure I could ask for another week to make sure it’s perfect. Derek is an understanding man, he’ll definitely say yes!” She reached for her phone and the card next to it with the number. She dialed the number and waited patiently.

Ring… ring… ring- “Hello, Derek Petti.” Angela heard him answer like he usually did on his business phone.
“Hi, Derek, this is Angela Signs. You know that deadline you gave me for next week? I was wondering if you could extend it for me? You see, I’m having a some serious pre-climax writer’s block and I need a little time to sort it all out and-”

“Angela… I can extend your deadline, but then your book won’t be released until next year. You said you were almost done, and I trust you are. But this isn’t high school anymore, you can’t just ask for a deadline to be extended and expect the teacher to take pity on you and agree. That doesn’t reflect well on you. This is the real world with adults that aren’t very happy when someone misses a deadline.”

“You couldn’t do that in high school… the teachers only extended a deadline if they were gone or if everyone in the class asks and backs it up with valid reasoning.” Angela started with an almost offended tone, but then cleared her throat as she decided to change the topic before Derek became even more upset with her. “I’ll try to come up with some more ideas for the climax and sleep on it for tonight. Derek, I’ll try to meet my deadline next week. I’ll call you again in a few days. Thanks again for your interest in my story.” Angela sighed, she sounded almost sad.

On the other side of the line, Derek took note of Angela’s tone and he almost felt bad since he was at the beginning of his career only a few years ago. “Angela, you’re a very creative young lady and your story is simply amazing and charming. I know you can come up with an ending that’s suitable for it. Sleeping on it is a fine idea. Good luck and good night.”

Derek sighed and looked at his desk with the first half of the book’s script on it. This story did show a lot of promise and she seemed very determined to finish it. He didn’t remember a time in his life when he had ever felt as determined as Angela seemed. He just kind of went into this job naturally. And after being out of college for three years and helping to publish a couple of novels, Angela comes along, a sophomore in college and trying to get a book published. She acted very immature and reminded him of a child, but it was refreshing for him to work with a girl like that. She was so energetic and confident in her writing for someone who hadn’t finished college yet.

Derek smiled and then yawned largely. Angela had woken him up from a nap at his desk. She had impeccably bad timing on her phone calls.

Angela heard the click and then hung up her phone on the receiver. She growled at Derek’s last remark. She knew he was telling the truth from his point of view, but why did he have to place so much faith in her abilities? This only put more pressure on her to not screw up the ending. She walked out of the kitchen and back into the living room that also served as her workroom. She looked at it from the doorway and saw all the papers from school and brainstorming on her desk next to the computer and on the floor near to the desk. And the couch facing the opposite direction toward the TV was littered with more papers and books marked on some pages for ideas. There was a somewhat clean spot on the light grey couch, though; it is the spot that she sits in.

“Didn’t notice that an author’s lifestyle is that close to a pigsty… I guess I should organize this a little bit. Maybe I’ll get a pet too. I sure could use the companionship so I wouldn’t be talking to myself like this.”

Things had been going well since Angela moved away from her parents. Two years ago she’d started in a dorm, which most colleges seem to require for the first six months. That had been Hell for her because her roommate was a really scary girl that dressed in all black and never spoke to her except to tell her about terrible and lethal diseases she was learning about it her health class. But after those six months while holding down two part-time jobs and schoolwork, Angela had scraped up enough money to rent an apartment for a few more months. An apartment that was only a few blocks from the college campus. The convenience made it better for her because she was also only a few blocks from one of her jobs. She worked at a movie theater on weekends and a clothing store in the mall on weekdays from two in the afternoon to eight in the evening. And because of her morning college classes and her novel, she usually got a total of four hours of sleep each night. For her, this was the real college experience since she escaped that dorm. She had to clean her own room and cook her own meals. This is what it’s like to grow up and not depend on parents for everything. She wasn’t sure if she liked this lifestyle all the time, but it was nice not having curfews and not being bugged to get a job and move out. Then again, her previous home had been much bigger. This apartment only had one bedroom, one bathroom across the short hall from the bedroom and a living room down the hall that’s only separation from the kitchen was a doorway. No dining room or guestroom.

Angela walked over to her couch and started picking up books and looking at the papers she’d jammed in-between pages when she’d found an idea she liked and wanted to somehow include the concept or style in her own writing. She decided that if she had already incorporated her idea into her works, she would take the paper out and put the book away in her bookcase.  Then she would take the papers and stack them in a drawer of her computer desk. It was the same with all her other scattered papers, except the drawers would be divided as follows: Brainstorming/Ideas, School Papers, and Other Stuff. This was her organization plan. And by the time she finished going through all the scattered ideas and papers and then putting them in their respective drawer, there were eleven moos filling the apartment, telling her it was late.

“Oh, it’s already eleven o’clock,” she yawned, “I should get to bed and think of my ending. But first I need to recap on what’s happened so far. Let’s see…” Angela used a hair tie that she usually kept on her wrist to pull her hair back so she could focus on reading her story. She scrolled up to the top of her Word document that she used for her story and began reading once she put on her glasses. She only needed them for reading but she didn’t really like using them because they magnified her plain, brown eyes. Most of the time Angela wore her contacts and people didn’t even notice. She preferred to use her glasses only at home when she didn’t feel like poking her eyes on accident because she was a wimp when it came to putting in contacts.

Angela read her story’s beginning, it started with her hero helping a group of travelers to avoid getting mugged by some street bandits. Then he left with no words at all. He was to be a quiet man and when he did talk, he would usually say something tough or somewhat vulgar, but usually relevant as well. He wasn’t interested in friendships or rewards, just protecting others when convenient and his own personal interests. Ever since he was young, he’d been training and honing his skills with bladed weapons. His past wasn’t well known to anyone other than himself and a few people he would go to for information sometimes. The story continued to follow him and his journey starting when he heard of a big revolution on the uprising because of the recently dead king’s brother’s power hungry drive. Prince Raymund had put his own niece on death row for false charges so that he could become king of the country. At first, the hero hadn’t been interested in this, but the princess’s personal attendant, the main female character, searched him out and she’d begged him to help and even promised a large reward. The reason he agreed to help, as he pointed out to her, was because of his want to stop any bad changes to the land, and eventually, his lifestyle. So they journeyed and faced many villains, magical and non-magical, until they came to a town not far outside of the royal city and were joined by a small army and the princess’s strongest bodyguard, the great magician, Xender. Xender warned of Prince Raymund’s newly acquired strength and sent the hero and the heroine to get an ancient weapon that will seal Prince Raymund’s soul away forever as long as he is taken down with it. Xender joined them and led them to the ruins in which the weapon was kept. They got the weapon and returned to the city in which they’d met the magician…

Angela felt drowsy as she reviewed all of this word by word. Because she’d always been an avid reader and it was her own story, it didn’t take her as much time to read as it would for most others, but she must’ve taken up another four hours reading this much of the story. She was to the point where her writer’s block had kicked in, but she was too tired right now to ponder ideas of what would happen next. She got up from her computer chair and tried to make it to her room but her legs gave up at the couch. Angela shrugged her shoulders and plopped onto the couch cushions. She pulled a pillow to her head and thought to herself. There’s got to be a way for me to finish this book by next week…

A voice could be heard as Angela stirred from her sleep. The tone was gruff and deep. She didn’t recognize it at all.
“I think we should sell ‘er in the market, she could go for a purdy penny even if she isn’t the beauty we found a fortnight ago.”

“We should break ‘er in a little first,” a different voice answered the first one, “What d’ya say, Boss?”

A third voice, this one much burlier and deeper than the first two, chuckled a bit before answering. “I like your idea, Gus. We, as salesmen, must be sure that too much playing won’t break the new toy.”

A few more voices, the ones Angela had heard before and at least four other ones were gleefully agreeing with cheers for this leader. Angela allowed herself to open her eyes for a peek and almost instantly regretted it upon viewing the burly men around her. One of them had seen her open her eyes behind her glasses.

“Boss! She’s wakin’ up!” The one that was called Gus sounded excited to Angela. Too excited for her liking. She found that her hair had been taken out of its ponytail and her jeans torn a little bit around her thighs. Everything else seemed intact. Her cell phone was still in her back pocket and her shirt wasn’t torn at all. Angela sat up slowly so she wouldn’t become lightheaded and she looked at her surroundings. This gaggle of poorly dressed men in old clothes that were torn and dirty was circled around her. Outside of the circle of men were walls made of weathered and decaying wood. Was she in a shed? This is strange. I know I locked my door… how did they get me out of my apartment? Angela wondered to herself. She looked between the faces of the men again and then determined the boss from that. She figured he must be the one that was wearing the nicest clothing, which she thought was only barely less dirty than the other men’s clothing. This boss had a vest made of furs that looked somewhat rare because of the way he portrayed himself. His pants were torn here and there and he tied a strip of cloth with an odd symbol on it around his forehead. He also carried two blades at his waist instead of one like the other men. Wait a minute… That clothing looks way too weird for anyone where I live. Why is he wearing so many furs? And only a few of them have boots… What is this? Is it some hobo gang trying to kidnap me for a ransom because nobody gave them change?

“She hasn’t said anything yet, is she mute?” the man referred to as Boss observed her aloud. The other men started to whisper among themselves as Angela adjusted her glasses on her nose.

“I’m not mute.” Angela said in her as-a-matter-of-factly tone. “Um, are you a hobo?” She pointed at Boss.

“A what?” grumbled Gus from the side. “I think she jus’ insulted ya, Boss!” Gus got his knife out of his small leather scabbard and pointed it towards Angela. She felt her heart rate increase drastically as she looked at the knife in front of her face. She felt a lump in her throat that wouldn’t let her object to insulting him. Though, some people don’t like being called hobos… Angela added as an afterthought.

“Calm, Gus. She’s our gold fer the next few weeks. And yer scarin’ ‘er with yer blade. We’re gonna take her to the market and see how she does in makin’ us some money. If she dun do well, then she can taste yer blade in ‘er mouth ‘fore her trip to Hell. How’s ‘at sound?” Boss told Gus with a growing smirk.

Gus put his knife away obediently and frowned. “Fine, Boss. I can agree with that.” He then started smirking as he let his mind wander to other matters.

With the dangerous weapon put away, Angela could now focus once again on the vocalization of her mind. “Excuse me… so you’re not hobos?” As an afterthought, she realized she probably shouldn’t ask that.

“I’m not familiar with that word, wench, what is it?” Boss asked her.

“Really? Because it’s usually used to describe a homeless person with little money, which is why I guessed you were dressed as you are… but I guess that’s not the case here.” She said, relieved that she hadn’t offended anyone yet, since the men had knives. “So what is this you’re talking about with a market?” Angela recalled the earlier mentioning by Gus and Boss.

“She’s a talker, and in a diff’rent, more sophisticated kind of speak. Think she’s noble blood?” the man to Gus’s right spoke up.
“That only makes us richer.” Boss smiled, showing his yellowed teeth.

“How does that make you more money?” Angela asked, even though she thought she knew. But there’s no way someone could do what she was thinking of in this day and age.

“Yer now our whore, wench. We’re taking ya to the market to sell yer services to whoever’s gonna pay the best prices. Course, if they wanna buy ya fer permanent then they gotta pay five times as much as they would for one night.”

“What? Whore? But that’s illegal! RAPE! RAPE!” Angela started toward the door. She’d started yelling that as loud as she could because usually if one yells the word ‘rape’ it gets attention, which most criminals don’t want. Someone was bound to hear.

Gus went after her and grabbed her wrist before she got through the door of the small shed. “Boss, she’s not behavin’. What should we do?” He turned to Boss without his hold on the girl weakening in the slightest. Angela found herself thinking about free women’s self-defense sample classes she’d missed at the college a few weeks ago. Oh, why did she think she wouldn’t need them?

“Just knock ‘er out an’ we’ll take ‘er to the market by the time she’s awake again.” Boss said this with an excusing wave of his callused hands. He stood up as Angela felt a strong blow to her head. The low chuckles erupted and the world soon went black.