Story Chain!

Deanna Barnhart's Gearin' Up to Get an Agent Blogfest is in its second week, and this one is awesome! All participants are helping to write a story, brilliantly pre-structured by Deanna. To see the list of participants, together with their prompts (and words-to-include), go here. To start at the beginning of the story (participants include a link to the blog after theirs, so you can follow straight through), go here. To just see the part before mine, go see Tayler Roseberry. (Fiona didn't post on time--or at all--so I skipped her. Sorry Fiona!)

My prompt is: Start the climax of the story. Your words are: song, prejudice, string


Here's my piece:


Dio was so startled, she didn't think. "Tony!"


"Dio? Where are you? I've been looking for you all day!"


Dio paused. What if this was the wrong Tony? "Um, I'm safe, I just--"


"You're at home?" Dio cursed the inventor of caller ID. Whoever it was must have been prejudiced against safety. "Hold tight, I'll be right there."


"No! Wait!" "Tony" hung up and Dio stared at the phone. Great.


Just then, in a flash of light, Roddern appeared in front of her.


"Roddern!" She rushed to hug him, but he grabbed her arms. 


"There's no time, Dio. The Grandoolex are planning an invasion. They want to destroy the fairies once and for all and they'll take mankind out with them. We have to seal all the portals. Now!"


"Seal all of them? How?"


Roddern shook his head. "I have no idea, but we only have about five minutes. I think I know what will help, though." He snapped his fingers and her book appeared in his hand. The Wish Granter. She'd never been one to trust in book titles before, but she fervently wished that this one was accurate.


Dio grabbed the book and frantically leafed through it, the smell of rotten eggs wafting up from its pages. There had to be something in here to stop the Grandoolex invasion.


From the couch, her mother cried out "Dio! Your necklace!" 


Confused, Dio reached into her shirt and pulled the circle out. It was glowing, pulsing in time with the frantic beating of her heart. "What do I do with it, Mom?"


Mom was breathing heavily. "You have to make it sing."


"Sing?"


Still panting, Mom gasped out, "Flowers open in your sun, rocks sing with your heart."


"What?" Dio had no idea what that meant, but mom was unconscious again.


She looked at Roddern. "Did you understand any of that?"


Roddern was staring at her mother and thinking hard. "I guess we need to make your heart sing."


Then he took two steps across the room, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her. 


Dio had been kissed before, but man! Roddern poured his whole self into the kiss. Despite the panic she'd been feeling a moment before, she melted into his arms and eagerly kissed him back.


After a moment, she felt a burning on her chest and pulled back long enough to see her necklace flashing a bright white light. Then it let out a piercing 5-note song and jerked upward. The thin chain broke like a piece of string and her rock hung suspended in the air for a heartbeat before bursting into a million pieces.




To continue on the chain, visit Angie Cothran next. She's scheduled to post at 11:30 PM EDT. Which means she gets an hour, so you know it'll be good!