Here’s a sample of my writing style in the form of a short story. I wrote this at the start of the year and… yep, reading my own work again made me think. There was so much that wasn’t explained to the reader! I’ve polished this piece since then – hope you enjoy it!
Trapped in a cult and forced to mine every day, Finn is concerned when a naive ‘tourist’ appears in the town.
Finn loved those mornings.
Those mornings when he was early enough to see the fields turn to gold under the sun’s touch. When the dead greenery was revived beneath him. The sun could revive plants, bring smiles to anyone who wandered down the country paths or fill a traveller with energy and hope. It could not repair broken glass or spark a human life after it had been extinguished.
Finn had one tree for company. It waited at the end of the road, in front of the mountain. The tree remained a silhouette as the sun rose and unmasked the road. Under the sun’s warmth and life, you’d be forgiven for forgetting any tragedies. Finn’s pain had dissolved, but so had his breaths, leaving him to limp along the last patch of road.
He had spent the past year skirting death, finding any path to avoid it. He had no choice now. Staring at it now revealed that death was not a shadow, but a light like the ever-present, ever-waiting sun ahead. Finn took one last breath and stepped forward.
Finn had been drinking tepid coffee when a shadow floated around his table. He tensed; he was taking a break, and he knew how much his superiors despised that. He worked for the great town of Eliodene and was forced to spend each day mining. The town’s bosses believed that Eliodene’s mines concealed a key, but Finn did not believe this. With bosses such as his, though, he had to put on an act.
‘Some water, thanks.’
This was not one of his superiors. Her voice was new. Confident. Even filled with humour.
‘Are you a tourist, Miss? Did you hear about the mountains past this town?’
‘I did. I’ll be going there in a few days.’
Finn moved his head. Blonde hair cascaded down the newcomer’s face as she smirked at him.
‘Honestly, I ask the townspeople for a tour, and nobody will give me one! I’m telling you; they haven’t had a guest in a while.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Finn said.
She laughed and sat at his table. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m Elegance, by the way.’
‘A lovely name,’ Finn said. ‘Are you passing through town?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘I’d welcome you, but there’s nothing here. Enjoy what you can of Eliodene.’
‘Oh? Is everyone so cynical around here? There must be something interesting to see.’
The light shifted when Elegance smiled. Finn took his eyes away from her to see the ring around her. A plain silver ring.
Elegance left a few minutes later, leaving Finn to stare into his coffee again. He did not have long to do this; a few of his superiors broke down the bar door.
‘Drinks, again? Shame,’ one of them said. ‘Follow us. Some people would love to search for treasure in your places. You don’t need to stay in Eliodene.’
The naïve workers would hide under tables. Or they would try to enter the bar’s kitchen. A firm lesson was taught to the other workers when the hiders were never seen again.
‘We still have not found the key or the gates. I sense that some of you are not meeting Eliodene standards. You need to work harder.’
Silence. Finn tried to linger in the bar. He gazed at the last glimmers of sun past the telegraph poles, but someone hooked their arms around his. Finn scanned the line but could not find Elegance. She was a tourist anyway. Eliodene hadn’t recruited her yet. She needed to leave before they could do so.
‘Finn,’ one of the bosses said. ‘You were chosen as the leader of today’s expedition. Do you have anything to say?’
He spun a key in front of Finn. Finn hadn’t paid attention to the walk, but the fiery surroundings below him meant they had arrived at the volcano.
‘You will lead the search until further notice,’ he continued. ‘You may descend now. All theories point to the Last Ruby being underground. Do you have any other information for us?’
‘No, sir.’
The Last Ruby was the key to the supposed lost city of Esperanza. With so many theories claiming that the key could be found in the volcano – the underworld – it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that one had to go through hell to unlock heaven. The true hell, however, was above the ground, in Eliodene itself. None of them could leave Eliodene now that they had joined the mission to find Esperanza, and their superiors’ treatment of them only worsened matters.
‘You know what happens to those who fail, Finn. Esperanza shall be found with your leadership, I am sure.’
The glass floor retracted. All eyes landed upon Finn, none of them that familiar. Finn shivered when he slipped into the abyss. Forgetting about Elegance, Finn instructed the other workers on where to go.
There had been a couple hundred members of the Eliodene search to start. Finn could count the lost leaders by judging how deep the volcanic ravine went. With each leader, a new layer was dug under the previous one. It was hard to miss how quiet the bar was nowadays.
Finn tightened his grip around the pickaxe, the distant screams bouncing around him. He did not flinch when he heard the harsh sting of skin being struck. Scars still marked his upper arms, but Finn had no fresh wounds. He’d continue to work. He’d continue to convince his superiors to keep him around, keep him alive long enough to do some good for them. He couldn’t help them find Esperanza if he was dead.
‘Oh, are you looking for something? Where are the old mines I heard about?’
Finn crushed his hand in the corner of the wall. Elegance waited behind him, unharmed and without one drop of sweat on her face.
‘Elegance. Why are you here?’
‘Your name’s Finn, right?’
‘Come here,’ he hissed.
‘What?’
‘Come here now. You need to get out of Eliodene. The gates open at midnight.’
‘Gates? I thought this was a harmless village,’ she said.
‘There’s nothing to see here. The mines are not a tourist site. Don’t stop walking after you leave Eliodene.’
‘Really, there’s much less to see back in my hometown.’
‘Don’t you get it yet, Elegance? This town isn’t real. There’s nothing here.’ She was one of the naïve ones. Typical.
Elegance shrugged. ‘I don’t care if there’s a lot here. The land is beautiful. What more can you ask for than peaceful plains, a little community, and a sunrise over the mountains?’
Finn snorted. ‘Peaceful. Sure. That’s a happy ending that nobody here will get.’
‘Finn? Have you gone crazy?’
Finn turned around. Elegance had disappeared. In her place was one of his confused team members.
‘Back to work,’ Finn muttered. ‘We’ve got to make up for the break we took earlier.’
The sky’s last dance. Streaks of red filtered in between the clouds until any hints of grey dissipated. Smoke-like clouds were replaced with burnt hollows around stars.
Sharp heels struck the broken slabs behind him. He faced the source of the sound. She had been slashed across her forehead, likely with a sword. She was bleeding, if only for a moment before the light concealed it.
‘Finn?’ Elegance shielded her eyes. Something red was on her ring finger, he noted, but she spun it out of view. ‘You’ve finally been given a break? How long has it been?’
‘You took my advice,’ Finn said, glancing up at the gates beside him. ‘Have you realised that Eliodene isn’t a real town?’
She swallowed. ‘I’d rather not talk about that.’
Maybe Elegance was one of those people who would mark each daytime on the walls like a prisoner. Such lines were food for whatever higher power decided that Finn and many others should be enslaved for a useless cause. They could only draw marks when noon rolled around – every worker woke up too late to see the sunrise, considering Eliodene’s curfew. It was always either midday heat or the sunset and subsequent night they would see.
‘I was supposed to spend a month travelling, just walking,’ she said. ‘I thought Eliodene was an old, quaint town. I should’ve realised the gates meant a prison rather than a former prison turned tourist site. Tell me about this town.’
‘If I told you everything,’ Finn said, ‘what would you do?’
‘Escape. The gates were open when I arrived. They’ll reopen soon.’
A scarlet glow hovered above them, but the sky remained unchanged. Finn glanced back down in time to see Elegance turned away with one hand covering the other. The same scarlet light rushed through her fingers.
‘Elegance?’
‘What?’
‘Have you heard the story of Esperanza?’
She stopped breathing. ‘It’s a lost city, isn’t it? They have to open the walls guarding it, I think.’
‘Yes. There’s a key. A key in the form of a ruby,’ Finn said, edging closer to Elegance and not taking his eyes off the glow. ‘If they find wherever Esperanza is supposed to be, they can enter. We can’t find the key. I think it’s been removed from the mines. It is supposedly the same colour as the light in your hands.’
‘Finn,’ she warned.
‘What you don’t know, and what I don’t know, only causes pain,’ he said.
She laughed, her expression destroying any naïve or sweet disguise. ‘Pain. Yes. Being taken from everything you know fits that definition pretty well, don’t you think?’
‘You said you were here for a weekend visit. You know about Esperanza, and you’re trapped here.’
‘Don’t mention this, Finn. You’ll risk your life at the hands of your bosses. They always tell us to keep our mouths shut. Now it’s time to do that.’
‘Elegance.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Is that the Last Ruby?’
Silence.
‘I’ve got a place,’ he said.
‘So, you gave into temptation to come here. You threw your life away for glory. I did.’
‘It sounded like a dream,’ Finn said, closing his eyes. ‘A new, simple life in Eliodene in exchange for my help, and rewarded with fame.’
‘It’s a cult. They’re supposed to fool us.’
‘We’ve got one chance,’ Finn said. ‘I’ve got a house about thirty minutes from here. When the gates open tonight, we’ll wait for the guards to leave, then we’ll run. We’ll reach my house when the day breaks.’
‘Sunrise…’ The word made her shiver. ‘I haven’t seen a real sunrise in a long time.’
‘I’ll show you,’ Finn said. ‘Drop the Last Ruby.’
Elegance gulped but did as Finn instructed.
The gates opened at midnight, as Finn promised. Elegance had dropped the ruby, but it remained close to the gates. The bosses’ celebrations led to them partying around the gates, and the ultimate discovery of Finn and Elegance who had hidden nearby.
The bosses drew the inevitable conclusion – Finn and Elegance had concealed the Last Ruby from them. In response, both were tied to the gate and left there for a few hours. Finn and Elegance had been separated, so Finn did not know where she was. The Last Ruby had long been seized, but dancing scarlet shades lingered behind his eyes. When someone finally untied him, Finn was led further along the gate.
‘You know what’ll happen now, eh? I’ll ask again.’
A slap followed.
‘Where is Esperanza?’
‘I told you,’ Elegance pleaded in a whisper. ‘I found the ruby, but I don’t know where Esperanza is.’
‘We found one of your associates. She said you’ve been researching Esperanza on your own for a long time… Then you came to Eliodene to finish your work. Is that correct?’
‘No. That’s not right. I wanted to find the ruby, but I don’t know where to go next.’
Finn was pushed forward, causing the rest of the guards, and a hunched-over Elegance, to face him.
‘There’s probably no point asking you,’ the leader muttered, ‘but I will. Finn, do you know where Esperanza is?’
Finn drew a breath. ‘Yes.’
Elegance jolted. ‘What?!’
‘You found it? You found it before joining us, yet you said nothing.’
‘I wanted the ruby, that’s all. I’ve long since changed my mind about finding Esperanza,’ Finn said, and Elegance lowered her head.
‘Lead us to Esperanza, Finn.’
No one else was in town when the gates were reopened. All eyes homed in on Elegance’s fingers as she guarded the ruby. The volcanic smoke cleared, revealing the landscape of plains and a distant mountain. A persistent silhouette of a cottage waited on the horizon.
‘I hope you are not wasting our time, Finn.’
‘I would die if I did so,’ Finn said, earning a huff of laughter.
How could Finn forget where the supposed city was when it was next to his hand-built cottage? He’d been trying to start a farm when he’d found a wall under the ground. This wall had a jewel-shaped hole in the centre. Finn peeled back the patch of ‘grass’ beside his garden, which he had dug into once before. The guards laughed when some stairs were revealed. The ruby was torn from Elegance’s hands. The team pushed past the couple, laughing. Finn, standing on his doorstep, kept his eyes low.
There was no lost city behind the walls. Only one room waited behind them. Gold and jewels filled Finn’s vision when the walls opened. Silence lingered until the guards emerged and grabbed Elegance’s neck.
‘You’ve done everything you can, Elegance. Or, should I say, Iris?’
Whether Finn blocked the next part out or didn’t see it, he would never know. Iris choked and clutched her heart. He only needed to stare at her, and the bottle forced against her lips, to know what had happened. No amount of fear of his superiors could stop him from yelling her name.
‘She fooled you,’ the leader said, ‘and you both fooled us. Accept that as you leave this planet.’
The leader grabbed the back of Finn’s head and forced his face against another bottle. Finn made no attempt to resist as his head, with the bottle over his lips, was tipped back. Sour liquid filled his body.
‘Finn,’ Iris choked when the bosses went back underground. ‘I-I’m sorry.’
‘There’s not long until the sunrise.’ Finn glared and picked Iris up. ‘Hold on.’
Finn carried her past his cottage, down the road and to where the sun would rise. The sun struggled to appear, and Iris struggled to keep his eyes open. Finn’s own heart was disintegrating, and his breaths were slowing, but he continued through the burning pain.
A small glimpse of red dotted the horizon. Finn looked down. Iris, facing the sun, had closed her eyes. With the team nowhere in sight, Finn found himself alone, staring at the sun with Iris in his arms.
Fighting the urge to slump forward, Finn laid Iris on the ground and continued into the light. Into the last dawn.