Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27018487-20150925195745

I'm working on a starter. I have the outline, but I stopped writing once I realized that just the intro to the story / characters / scene was already two pages.

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sludge

I was nine when it happened.

I grew up in a smaller town, with only about 800 people in, along the south of the Rocky Mountains. Our town was surrounded in forests, and during the summer it was the location for our greatest adventures as children. The older kids would accompany us, either out of entertainment, or at the very least a sense of responsibility to keep us from a bear's jaws. I wish it had been a bear's jaws.

When I moved to the town I was only six years old, and thankfully transitioning from the city life of Vancouver to the rural life of the mountains was easier because of that. My mother has introduced me to our neighbor, Alex, who was already seven. We instantly bonded, he was brash and daring, and could easily convince me to join him on magical quests through our yards chasing dragons and monsters. He always insisted on making me the damsel in distress, but I’d always make sure I still got one of his duct tape and cardboard swords in case I too needed to vanquish a beast. A year later we started to play in the forest. First only at the edges, darting in and out of trees, making sure our houses were always in view.

I was nervous at first, my mom always warned me about bears. Then during his short visits home, my dad would tell me frightening stories from his logging job. Stories about vicious mountain lions and spiders that could kill you before you even noticed their bite. It was this nervousness that kept us on the fringe of the forest for the first few months, and then the snow and danger of falling into a tree well, and finally the slick ground of the fresh melt.

By the end of spring though, even in my young age I could tell Alex was getting antsy to enter the forest.

I finally complied, on the condition we went with the older kids, as our peers always did. I think he was a bit jealous, it has always just been us two playing, but his curiosity about the forest's depths won him over.

The first time we went in, it was bright and sunny, and light filtered through the leaves into soft green hues, dotted with areas of inky black shade where the leaves and branches were to thick to let the early summer sun through. We were playing tag, and had been given sixty seconds to hide. I had played like this with Alex, and immediately found one of these inky spots so that I could scramble up its tree. In a few moments I was mostly concealed at the bottom branches, the pine needles and rough bark scraping at my knees and hands.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I heard a scramble above me and looked up to see one of the older kids little sisters. She was only three branches above me, and held a finger to her lips. I nodded, and looked back out of the branches.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I held a bated breath as I heard giggling approaching us. Watching silently from the branches, I saw that several kids had already been caught, but if I had counted right at the beginning, there were still three of us hiding. I would have been able to keep my spot, but at that moment a drop of sap fell onto the back of my neck startling me and causing me to lose my footing.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">In a long second I was lying on the spongy forest floor, a bit roughed up but okay. The the eyes of the groups eldest widened and they jumped back, before quickly moving to my side and helping me up. I was fine and young and already ready to help find the last few.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">It only took us a minute to find Alex, he had hidden only two trees away, and he blamed me for making him move when he saw me fall. I just punched him in the arm.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">Half an hour later though, due to my silly sense of honor to not share her position, my group had not found the girl. Because it was getting dark, the leader began to call out for her, and I quickly brought them to tree we had been hiding in.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“She’s a couple branches above where I was,” I pointed up the west side of tree, before cupping my hands to my mouth and hollering up. “Hey! Games over! Come on!”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">There was no response, only the light swaying of the tree’s branches in the evening breeze. The older kid, the one who was her older brother, quickly started climbing up, and there was a thick silence while we waited for him to return. The thick branches and the quickly dimming light left us blind but for the occasional rustle high above us. In a few minutes that felt like hours, the boy dropped down, landing easily on his feet, jacket noticeably stained in the same inky sap that had fallen onto my neck. I couldn’t help but feel jealous despite myself.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">“She’s not up there, I circled the whole tree.” He turned to me, “She probably thought you would rat her spot out once we walked away and moved.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">He counted us off, there were eight of us in total not including him. He pointed at Alex and I, and then towards the oldest person. “Take the kids home, if it gets dark I don’t wanna get in trouble for them getting hurt. The rest of us will go find her.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#ffffff;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">I looked to Alex, nervous he would talk back, but in the setting sun and the tense air around our group, he seemed to for once be frightened into submission. <ac_metadata title="Does My Starter drag on too long?"> </ac_metadata>