Today I went back and touched up the earlier chapters, editing them, fleshing out the culture a bit more, and read through it until I got back up to this chapter. I came to the conclusion that I like the 3rd-present version, and so I edited it down to 910 words. That's nearly 500 words gone.
I think this is one of the scenes where I'm just not going to win. There will be people that preferred I leave it as the old version, and then there will be people that like where I've gone with it. But the old version really didn't seem like a nightmare. This version does and it's a believable interpretation of what the mind could twist the memory into. It most certainly doesn't come across as just a retelling like the old version did.
I might as well post it back up for any who are interested in reading the tighter version, but you've all given plenty of feedback already, so I'm not going to insist on more. I tried taking out all the dialogue as suggested, but didn't like it, and in the end thought it had more emotional connection with the dialogue still there.
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Shouting and gunfire echo down the hall. A family runs from the Blackcoats chasing them, the mother pulling her daughter along by the hand, the girl trying so hard to keep up that her legs start to hurt. A toy bear dangles from the girl’s hand, tattered and well loved, its fur prickling her skin. Its right eye is missing. She wants to stop, but her father yells at her, his voice forceful, frightening.
The girl looks back, worried when her father’s voice isn’t as loud this time, and sees he has turned around. The walls swirl around him like a dark cloud born out of her imagination, strands of black smoke tearing away from the wall as if they are hands trying to reach for him. The girl panics, starts to cry, and her mother is forced to drag her along.
Her mother pulls her through a set of double doors and they slam shut. They run through a forest, the branches of trees twisting as they reach for her, but every time they get close, her mother turns away. The trees release a grinding cry in protest and the ground shakes whenever a branch comes to a stop.
With her chest freezing from shortness of breath, they stop, and only then does her mother let her go. They stand before a mountain that reaches all the way to the dark clouds above. The clouds flash, and thunder rumbles across the sky.
Her mother claws at the bushes and pulls them aside, revealing a hidden cave. She draws the girl close, and kneels before her. The girl feels her mother’s panting breath on her face, like a hundred tiny fingers dancing over her skin.
‘Listen, Kateryn. No matter what you hear. No matter what happens. Don’t make a sound.’ She shakes the girl. ‘Not a sound. Promise me!’
‘I promise!’ the girl cries, and then her mother pushes her inside the cave. Turning back, the girl sees her mother let go of the bushes. ‘No, don’t you leave me too!’ she says when she realises her mother wouldn’t be following her.
‘Mother!’
The girl tries to peek through the bushes, but it is pitch black, just like the cave. The thunder is deafening in her ears, growing so loud it hurts, and she hugs the bear close to her, feeling its fur tickle her face like a spider web.
Suddenly, light blinds her as the bushes are torn away. A dark shadow fills the cave entrance, a massive face peeks in, and glowing amber eyes fix on her. The monster’s mouth twists into a frightening smile.
With a booming voice it spouts demonic gibberish as its huge arm reaches for the girl and she starts to shuffle backwards, until her back touches the end of the cave. She swallows her scream, and the lump in her throat, then curls up into a ball, as if that might hide her from sight. The monster’s breathing is loud in her ears.
The light bursts into a thousand tiny snowflakes. The girl gasps and tenses as the world beyond the cave vanishes, the monster too, and even the cave. She floats in a pure white nothingness, yet her eyes are drawn to the woman in its centre.
A scar runs through the woman's right eye. She smiles, her silver eye sparkling with sympathy. Her long, brown hair floats around her head as if she is underwater, and wings, covered in emerald feathers, hang from her back. She stretches her wings out, arches her back and the nothingness shatters apart. The monster is gone, the bright light is also gone. Another woman stands in view of the cave entrance, looking at the girl.
The woman turns away, as if she has forgotten the girl is even there, and leaves her; just like her mother had. The girl crawls from the cave. She is surrounded by the bodies of those who’d chased her, their skin all red and black as if they’d died in a fire. Her eyes flutter from one to the next until she finds one familiar to her. She starts to cry as she crawls over to her mother and shakes her, saying. ‘Mamma… Mamma? Wake up.’
But her mother doesn’t wake. The girl’s hands come away red, and she notices blood everywhere, coming from her mother, and it just wouldn’t stop; the blood rising so high she’s drowning in it. Panicking, she struggles towards the surface.
‘Mamma!’
Fur brushed my hands and I grabbed hold. Paws pulled me up. I broke free from the ocean of blood, gasping for breath. Everywhere I looked, I saw red; covering the floor, my arms - my nightclothes. It wasn’t real, I told myself, still feeling the fur that tickled my skin, and squeezed my eyes shut. No, I’d lost him. I couldn’t even remember how, but he was no longer here. When I opened my eyes again, the blood was gone – the room was how it should be. That nightmare again. Every time, the same one.
I wouldn’t be able to sleep again; never could after the nightmares – I didn’t want to. My shift stuck to me, soaked with my sweat, making my skin itchy. I needed to get out of it, and get clean. There was one luxury I’d come to enjoy in Te kōkī; one luxury that would help wash away the bad memories.
*
It's actually quite significant in context. But I like demonic gibberish, considering the guy actually is a demon. Maybe I could add the pouwhenua in with the next round of nightmares and start later on so it isn't taking so long to get to that point. And I could make the Tierra - the angel - the 'new' element this time.
