Primal Scream!

OK. It's time for another blogfest, and I'm not even done with the last two. (Thanks for the reminder, Roland!) Sometimes I feel like I just keep blogging by the skin of my teeth, you know?

Anyway, this is the Primal Scream 'fest, hosted by Raquel Byrnes. (With more to come--even this week, yet!) And I'm not completely sure what all I was supposed to do in this blogfest, except post a scene that may include a primal-ish scream. Self-explanatory, huh?

Well, I'm not so fond of this, for this scene, and I don't think I did the best with it, but it's from my WIP, and looking at it sure has been helpful. Pulling bits out really make you look hard at what you have, you know?

Here are a few bits of explanation, this time:
-Herrick wants the Stone
-Sallie knows how to use the Stone, and Herrick wants to know how
-they are not at this time known to Sallie, but she can hear them. Whoever they are.

So, anyway, I hope you enjoy it, at least some. Check out Raquel's page to see more, okay? Thanks!

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Herrick thrust the Stone into her hands. “Take it.” He folded his hands around hers, forcing her to curl her hands around the rock. “Think.” He snarled, his face inches away from hers. “Think,” he said again.

She felt like he had inserted a knife down her spine, into her vertebrae. Her mind turned white-hot, smoking, and she could see a pile of brown and ash, the ruins of her house on the Outside. She could see Trina, staring in horror at her, backing away, crying, babbling something. She could see Herrick, standing in front of her, bending over her. His mouth moved. Think. Think. She had to think, she had to do something. She was there, and she was here. She saw almost everything separately, then at the same time, then darkness, stars, fire, heat.

Pain, pain, hot, searing—

Circle, sphere, black, white, red-orange-red—

A long spire, a horse with wings of flame, a horse that was not a horse, but moved more gracefully, with fire in its eyes, brown, black—

“Don’t force it,” Amity saying, over and over. “Don’t force it. Don’t force it.”

She was screaming, she hurt, she screamed more.

“Let go,” they said, “let go!”

“No!” a woman screamed, and something whizzed past Sallie’s ear, and it was a knife, and it hit the man who was with her, the man who was Herrick.

She felt something fall away, and she dropped to her knees, to her palms. She pressed her forehead on the marble of the tomb and closed her eyes.

“Get the hell away from my daughter,” her mother said.