Melissa Barker-Simpson

I’m taking part in the StoryADay September 2015 challenge. The main reason being to explore my characters from the Morgan and Fairchild Series. I will endeavour to incorporate the daily prompts, though, as it’s a continued tale, it’s not strictly a story a day. It’s more a story within a story. I’ve given myself a word limit of 600 words (slight over this time).

That said, today I felt like writing something different. So the story I wrote for Day 5 has nothing to do with my series. The continuation of Missing will return tomorrow.

Prompt: Sept 5th – Dark, gloomy forest. (Your character is alone in the woods and finds blighted trees, drooping plants…rot and slime everywhere. It once was beautiful but overnight is turning into a swamp–its not natural. Your character must get to the bottom of this and stop it before something they love very much is threatened also.

Path of Destruction

Okay. So here’s the thing. If your wings are screaming at you to stop, to take a break, to cease and desist (stay with me), then you should really take the hint. Thing is, though, I rarely listen to reason. It’s not surprising then, that I fell from the sky like a feathery missile all out of juice (it’s better than lead balloon).

That’s my way of explaining why I woke up face down in the dirt with a fractured radius and some seriously messed up primaries. Not only did I have no clue where I’d landed, I was effectively grounded. Sometimes it sucks to be me.

I guess this is the part where I introduce myself. That’s normally how these things work. So, whether you’re reading this as a character study, just for shits and giggles, or because you’ve been ordered to analyse the crazy girl, I’m Andromeda.

This journal is my way of atoning for my sins, apparently. My therapist insists that, if I ever want to control my anger, I have to write out all my angst for you to study. Basically, by order of the gods, I have to clean up my act.

I’ll admit that I brought the original curse upon my family – the one which involved snatching objects from the earth so the gods could appoint blame elsewhere. Not that I’m bitter or anything. And yes, I probably shouldn’t have made a deal with a sorcerer, especially when my sisters and I only had another century to endure.

But let’s get back to my face plant. I had a perfectly good reason for pushing myself beyond my limits. The deal I made came with a few stipulations, and it turns out the sorcerer who broke the curse has a twisted sense of humour. The spell meant I was bound to the fate of my sisters, and unless we stayed together – everything we touched would cease to exist. And I mean everything.

For someone who was trying to keep my treachery under the radar, there’s nothing like leaving a path of destruction behind like a flaming arrow. In my defence I had travelled for three days to find the damn mystical man, so I had my work cut out for me. I had forty eight hours to get back to my family before all hell broke loose.

It’s obvious at this point that I failed. If you’d been in the forest the evidence made for a pretty horrifying sight. I feel bad about that. I do.  The place was dying faster than an ogre caught in quicksand. The once thriving woodland became a dark and gloomy place – the stuff of nightmares.

I understand why the tree dieties took offense. I don’t even blame them for trying to snuff the life out of me. It’s basically what I was doing to them. The whole scene became a macabre fight to the death, and it wasn’t as though I could fly right out of there. Have you ever tried flying with a fractured radius?

Perhaps I could have found a way out of the quagmire eventually, but my rage took over. Hey, I’m in therapy for a reason. It’s tough to walk around with this demon on my back, a demon with the power of Hades. So, yes. I may have gotten a little carried away.

I’m sure you’ve read the details. They’re in my file after all. You’ll also know that I’ve tried to make amends. I rebuilt the land I destroyed, pledged my allegiance to Gaia, and will eventually join the immortal army.

So that’s my introduction. Not a great one, I’ll admit. But I’m not a writer, and I have no desire to be. That said, tomorrow I’ll tell you what I did to the sorcerer who got me into this mess. I think you’ll enjoy that.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mel