Once upon a time I wrote a story called Darkling, a novella length fic that was on a computer that then crashed. I plan on rewriting it and getting a notebook for it and rebranding it to its new name. While it’s probably a bad idea to put it on the Internet, here be the notes for Darkling, which is due to become Sometimes in Fog.
- World where some people have powers but most do not. Those who do can easily find one another because those with the ability set up mental networks to catch those with other powers and bring them all together to breif one another on what’s happening and who they can tell stuff to and who they can’t.
- There are a set number of available abilities that people can have. Telepathic (human/animal), telekenetic, elemental, seer. When they start to discover they can do something, they either specialize in one of the afore mentioned or they stretch themselves so thin that their powers wear out prematurely.
- There other powers people can have that are related to control of people and spirits, but these are generally considered darker abilities and contribute to certain aspects of chaos that most would rather avoid completely.
- Rinnai, the main character, is oddly mature for sixteen, though fully still just a teenager and more than ready to angst over just about anything that comes her way. She’s also insanely powerful, able to wield all of the separate abilities and the chosen one.
- The chosen one comes around whenever the world is about to go to shit. When things get really bad, they are sacrificed so that the world normalizes again.
- Rinnai is the daughter of an alchoholic mother who has no idea who Rinnai’s father is and no intention of finding out. She seems to care about her daughter more in passing than anything else, preferring to just live her own life and let her daughter do the same now that she’s old enough.
- Her best friend, Mackenzie, works in the same video store as her, though Mackenzie’s parents run the place. She portrays herself as a Wiccan more because she likes the witch style and personal than because of the religion, but she is fine with doing a little practise of it at her leisure.
- Emory is Rinnai’s partner when they have to go out and police the guys who are trying to cause chaos, havoc and generally expose the people with powers to the rest of the world. I can’t remember offhand what Emory can do, though it was non-offensive and I think he was a seer. He’s in his mid to late twenties and acts as a bit of an older brother figure to Rinnai, though depends on her for these little missions.
- The story starts off with one of said missions, Emory calling Rinnai in for back up and catching someone they know and whose name I’ve forgotten digging up bodies in a grave yard. They dispose of him quickly, but he mentions that the time is coming for things to change
- There is mention in the news of strange people with strange abilities seeming to pop up, though this is mostly downplayed and kept to the conspiracy theorists with little credibility. Still, people are beginning to stir because these reports are becoming more pervasive and are making their way into regular conversation.
- The other side of thinking, the people who want to make them public and practicing the controlling arts and such are beginning to act more aggessively and oddly, more forceful.
- Rinnai decides eventually to cut her boyfriend loose, thinking their relationship only casual anyway and not linking how anti “freak” he is in light of how common the special powers people are becoming now in regular news.
- Rinnai talks to her cat, Magdelena aka Lena, a lot and her cat talks back with some good advice from an animal perspective, though essentially stays out of the way of her work
- Meeting happens at the coffee shop announcing that they need to find the chosen one person because if the sacrifice doesn’t happen soon, some horrible stuff will happen. Rinnai tries not to panic over the fact that her allies are looking to kill her. It als becomes apparent that her enemies also want her dead before the sacrifice ceremony so that they can stop it from happening and essentially win at last.
- A large event happens elsewhere, making national news and being played over and over of a scene where a man burst open a water pipe and used it and a fire hydrant to stop a living wall of flame from hitting an oil tanker. Attention focused on the water man as the enemy, saying he had been put into custody for questioning, ect. ect.
- Warning put out that the dark side is trying to draw the light out into public battles and they all need to be on high alert.
- A ghost comes after Lira in her home, oddly, and tries to take her out. With the aid of her cat’s knowledge of how they banish ghosts in the animal kingdom, she managed to get rid of it but not before her mother returns home in a drunken stupor.
- She shows up late at Emory’s apartment looking for a place to crash, beaten and in no mood to talk about it. She refuses to go home at first, Emory dealing with her for a while before she finally goes home to confront her mother, who won’t look at her anymore.
- Ghosts hit the school cafeteria. They start a food fight, a few people retaliating while most duck for cover. When the doors are discovered locked, panic ensues amidst the chaos and Rinnai manages to discretely take out the causing ghosts despite Mackenzie being with her the entire time.
- Mackenzie is strangely absent from work and she finds out that the girl is in the hospital. Rinnai goes to her, not wanting to go home anyway, and discovers that she was severely beaten by a group of anti-freak people who were trying to preemptively get rid of all of them. She is barely conscious and not focusing as Rinnai talks to her, Rinnai vowing to take her revenge. Mackenzie says something cryptic like a final goodbye and to do something else.
- She goes after her ex-boyfriend who was a part of the attack on her friend, finding him drunk at a friend’s apartment and barely coherent. With the mindset to beat the living shit out of him, she gets surprised and knocked out, wakes up and ends up escaping out the window.
- Attempting to get the hell home, feeling dizzy from the smacks to the head and someone comes up behind her with a white van and chloroform. KIDNAPPED! OH NOES!
- Same guy from before wakes her up and roughly demands that she tell him everything she knows about the location of the chosen one, since everyone is looking for “him” (because everyone thinks it’s a guy) and they had a leak that someone around there knew who it was. They know he hasn’t died yet, so it’s only a matter of time before they corner the person and they want the person first.
- She is in a warehouse full of zombies and reacting negatively to the chloroform, developing a high fever and barely consious when help finally arrives. She managed to get herself part of the way out, though does not unstrap herself from the chair and ends up collapsing at the door, leaving someone else to take her out of there.
- She wakes up in the hospital with Emory looking over her, telling her that it was all right and the rest of htem were going to take care of things while she got some rest, but it was not going to be long before they butt heads. He tells her it’s coming only a few days from now and they were getting ready and she was free to not be there if she was not up to it.
- Rinnai leaves the hospital shortly after and goes to wander around the forest late at night to a nice spot on the bridge to stare at the water. Someone else is there, looking up at the sky and pays no heed until it gets chilly and he gives her his coat without saying a word, then smiles at her and walks away. Rinnai knows what she’s going to try and do, and what she will eventually have to do.
- Skip to school, she is wearing the jacket again and has to go to detention. Sighing, she uses her powers and breaks the hell out, going through a window and laughing as she leaves. She hesitates, but cannot head back home again remembering the painful morning where her mother wouldn’t look at her or speak to her and simply goes to the fight, ridiculously staged on a street and just beginning.
- Zombies, ghosts and powers fight. She uses only telekinesis for a while, then decides to end it completely by performing something that came to her that night and Mackenzie’s words echoing in her head again, and she puts an end to the whole goddamn thing, as well as putting a stop to all the control based magic things.
- Epilogue in the form of Rinnai’s funeral circa the agic people. They found a spot in the forest with a statue of her that was not there before, and here they read the words she left behind for everyone read by Mackenzie, who was one of them all along but a part of a different group in the same town/city.
THE END
Now, lets see if I ever actually get around to writing it again. It’s a total Mary Sue, but it’s a fun one.
Tags: darkling, notes, project, sometimes in fog, story, writing
