The Highest Hope - Prologue

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As of today, I will begin serializing a novel I'm working on, both on this blog and on FictionPress.com. I can describe it best as Pokémon meets the Southern Gothic genre.

The description:

Mysterious deaths have shaken the small community of Lexington Hill to its core, and while no one is sure who could be committing the murders, it’s more than clear the perpetrator used a Compture to do it.

Comptures are creatures that are different from ordinary animals, even though some may look like dogs, or horses, or even dragons. They are intelligent, bond with the people who can tame them, and are deeply ingrained into the stratified society young Charlotte Colter lives in.

But when a Compture who can speak, and possesses unbelievable, almost divine power chooses to bond with Charlotte, she becomes more aware of the dark and ugly underbelly of her society than ever before.

Sound interesting? Read on under the cut! I can't promise an update schedule because of other things going on in my life, but I'll do my best to keep it at at least a chapter a month.


The Highest Hope

Prologue

The woman screamed as the worm twisted inside of her. She hadn’t even known it was there three days ago, but it had gotten larger. Much larger. Suddenly, she felt hungry, so hungry, and thirsty as if she hadn’t had a drink in days. Vaguely, she remembered reading something about Avaworms, and how dangerous they could be to people, but she’d never expected this could happen to her.

It was dark, in the waning moments of twilight, but the air was still warm and moist with the humidity of the day. Warm blood poured from the woman’s mouth, mixing with the dew in the grass. She righted herself, wiping the corner of her mouth with the sleeve of her blouse. The blood left a red stain, but even someone like her, who had spent thousands of dollars on her wardrobe, didn’t pay it much heed when her life was in such danger.

She coughed again and stumbled, realizing with a sickening feeling that with the infestation having gone on for this long, her death loomed near. No, she wasn’t going to die! She struggled across the lush park, trying her hardest to get to the medical clinic across the street. A sob forced its way from her lungs as she felt a rib crack, and she fell to the ground in pain, no longer able to keep moving. The worm was getting bigger inside of her by the second, and her hands shriveled to nothing right before her eyes as the thing fed off her. It was eating her body away from the inside out.

She screamed again, both in pain and in helplessness. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She wasn’t supposed to die yet. How on earth had her family’s private physician missed this?

“Disgusting,” was the last thing she said before the Avaworm burst from her gut, spreading her mangled, bloody intestines across the ground in front of her. The worm slithered across the slick grass, its body thin, lithe, and white. That body was used up. It needed another.

A dog the size of an ordinary horse, with long, ribbon-like ears and coarse black fur appeared out of nowhere and lunged at the Avaworm, sinking its teeth into the worm’s vulnerable area near its front. The Avaworm screeched and fought back, mashing its fanged, circular mouth, but the dog held tight. Now frantic, the worm attempted to burrow underground, its natural instinct when its life was threatened, but the dog lashed out with the sharp claws on her hind legs. The claws sliced open the Avaworm’s underbelly, blood and juices spraying everywhere. With a last pathetic shriek, the Avaworm gave one last twitch and died next to the body of its human victim.

Laurence knew his Selkhund’s every instinct was to avoid combat with a creature as dangerous as a fully mature Avaworm, but she had obeyed her master’s commands all the same. He was pleased, and even more so when she came back to him, favoring her left front paw but victorious.

He couldn’t, however, say he was as pleased at what had just transpired before him. Such a perfect example, wasted.

He sighed, turning to the young woman who stood beside him. “This one isn’t going to work. Let’s move on to the next specimen.”


The Highest Hope © 2015 Karen Lofgren. This text may not be reprinted in any way without permission.

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