For today’s Writing 101 challenge, we were asked to write something based on one of four images.  This is the one that spoke to me:

 

What follows is a sneak peek at the second book in The Lokana Chronicles, which is still in need of major revision.  I hope you like it anyway. 🙂

***

 

Anna stumbled on a tree root. Her backpack flew from her shoulder and landed somewhere off to her right as she went sprawling forward and landed on her stomach. Groaning, she pushed herself up slowly, rising to her feet from a squat. She brushed the dirt and leaves from her clothes as she scanned the area for her backpack, but it was nowhere to be found.

With no flashlight to help her see, she gave up on finding her bag and took a step forward, causing her leg to throb. She explored her leg with her fingers till she felt something sticky on her right calf – blood. The sickly metallic scent was unmistakable.

Further probing revealed that the cut was about the length of her little finger and almost as wide. She pulled off the bandana she was wearing and tied it around her leg to stop the bleeding. I’d better have someone look at that, she thought, her bag now lost from her thoughts as well as her sight.

Sunlight shone through the trees in the distance. That meant a clearing lay ahead and where there was a clearing, there could be people. She hobbled toward it as fast as she could and made pretty good time, but when she reached the clearing, nothing looked even remotely familiar. As she surveyed her surroundings, she saw some houses off to her right and set off toward them, hoping to find someone who could patch up her leg.

Anna let her pace slacken as the pain in her leg increased. She looked up and saw that the sun was just peeking over the horizon, the same as when she had entered the forest. That’s odd, she thought as she limped along the side of a dirt road. The sun should be much higher than that!

She shook her head, puzzled, and kept walking. She crested a hill and saw a village tucked close to the side of a great stone wall. The wall encircled a vast city of squat, one-story stone structures. Everything was quiet; Anna heard none of the familiar city sounds she’d grown used to.

“What is this place?” she asked herself, beginning to worry. For the first time since she’d fallen, she wished she had looked harder for her bag so she would at least have her cell phone to call for help. But as she scanned the horizon, she realized that her phone would do her no good, because there wasn’t a single cell tower in sight.

Anna slowly descended the hill, hoping there would be a doctor somewhere in the city below. The road evened out at the edge of the village. She was halfway through it when she felt a pair of strong hands grab her from behind.

***

Well, that was rougher than I remember it being…Still, I hope you enjoyed it!  I can’t wait to start revising it properly.  Happy almost Friday! 🙂

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