Promote your story but JUST with an excerpt that includes a character who never appears again

Leyelle 2024-01-14 13:44:28 UTC #1

The forecast hadn’t said rain. I’m going to get soaked through, and I’m so irrationally angry I want to spit - hugging my arms against the damp cold leeching its way into my bones. Familiar misery holds out one hand, and with the other, it reels in more clouds, thicker still, just to be clear that there’s no chance of the sun coming out any time today. I scan the skyline, my eyes burning in my head - soul wavering on the verge of abandoning this whole ordeal - if that’s even an option.

“Excuse me, big sister,” I turn to see a young Asian girl, even smaller than me, about fifteen, with bleached-blonde hair and a big, duckling yellow umbrella tapping my arm, “Are you heading to the mall?”

I let my expression soften, as I shrug, apologetically “No - a little building just behind it, The Precioso Veggera Foundation’s Washington DC office.”

“I know it,” the girl smiles a little bashfully, “I can walk you there if you like. It’s not far.”

Something about the cute, shy way she offers, evaporates my frustration, and I accept. It’s about five minutes from the station to the mall across the street, and from there, just around the corner to the little office where I’m supposed to meet with Mrs. King for my interview with the agent, Ms. Carmichael. The girl talks the whole way, little, meaningless statements like “Watch your step, big sister. These puddles are deeper than they look. Don’t I wish people would pick up their garbage - the sidewalks get so dirty.”

She sounds so much like a little old woman that I can’t help laughing a bit to myself, as she leaves me under the overhang by the front door printed showily with that same blue-green elephant.

“Thanks,” I smile. The small face looks up at me sweetly, with an expression that reminds me of Mrs. Moon.

“It’s no bother, I like walking in the rain,” then she hesitates and says in a hesitant, kiddish way, “Don’t look so sad, okay?”

Aeneas1 2024-01-14 17:41:33 UTC #2

Well, Archōn Stegg never appears after the chapter wherein he appears.

Leyelle 2024-01-28 23:03:50 UTC #3

I can feel my legs, but I don’t want to. An overwhelming burning scalds me from the outside in, like the Styx took up residence in my skin-

“His ribs are broken-” I hear someone say. Kattar’s face is as white as a specter. I’ve never seen him without his mouth moving, let alone asleep - if you could even call it that. The expression on his face is frighteningly angelic as a burly nurse gently yanks the long tresses back from his forehead to reveal a river of blood.

“Cuncussion” someone else yells.

Gurnies crisscross through my vision as Kattar vanishes into the white light at the edge of perception. One bears a stranger, the other driver no doubt - his face a massacre of bloodied flesh. I can’t tell if he’s young or old. Alive or dead.

“He was stinking drunk,” a nurse says. But so was I. And I can’t help but think that if it wasn’t for Kattar, this accident might have been MY fault...

“Careful! We are looking at severe spinal damage here!”

The prayers turn into a smothered wail, gentler than silence.

She’s going to lose her only son. I think to myself. And she’s going to know it’s my fault.

She’ll hate me for the rest of one of our lives.

“You’re one lucky girl,” the burly nurse tells me, as she props me almost upright, relaxing the pressure on my head and neck. My lungs fill reflexively as if I’ve been trapped underwater for ages. I notice a young-ish girl with a high ponytail clearing away the shreds of my red dress and tights. For the first time I realize that someone must have changed my clothes - cut the old ones away to prevent their sealing into the jagged blood clot I can feel extended across my shoulders and back. I can’t describe the sort of horror that washes over me at the thought. I try to swallow the gag rising in my throat but choke instead. The burly nurse wipes the dribble seeping into my collar, shaking her head in a motherly way.

“If your boyfriend hadn’t turned the car like that you would have been struck head-on. It’s a miracle he reacted so quickly.”

“He’s a stunt driver,” I wince, gritting my teeth against the pain.

Something halfway between a gasp and an “Ohhh,” thick with pity comes from one of the nurses on my left side, and too quickly, I realize the reason. Feel my heart sink.

The wailing has stopped. Like someone flipped a switch. A pin-dropping disquiet settles in my lungs. I lock eyes with the burly nurse as my vision comes into focus, but she looks away quickly.

“What’ll he do now?” Someone whispers.

Animal508 2024-01-29 03:34:40 UTC #4

I think I have only one 'character' in the entire story so far who fits this:

It happened late one day while I was watching the landscape in front of me. Then suddenly, I saw another beam of light. Nothing came of it—at least, at first.
But a few minutes later, a fish suddenly lunged itself out of the water in front of me. It was the first animal I had seen since I got here. But for some reason, it didn’t act like a normal animal. I watched the fish attempt to use its fins to propel itself further, as if it wanted to leave the lake. It was a puzzling sight to behold, to say the least.
Eventually, however, the fish retreated back into the water, presumably to breathe. But after that, the fish continued to pull itself out of the water, over and over and over again. For hours upon hours on end. It must be a very persistent fish, I assumed.
When the fisherman returned for his daily visit, his catch was right there waiting for him. But strangely, the fish seemed to look content. Perhaps for this fish, even death was preferable to being trapped in this place.

MercurySummer 2024-01-29 05:40:12 UTC #5

The character of the nameless girl in the following excerpt never shows up again. Her interaction with the main character is not complete here.

Son raised her head to be met by a faceless girl dressed in clothes so austere and barren of styles that Son was certain she had not met the girl before; the voice also did not contradict that conclusion. This was a stranger.

“Yes? Do I know you?” Son asked with an outwardly unfriendly tone.

“Yeah, yeah! We talked at that after-party, remember?”

The afterparty was filled with so much unbridled drunkenness, that even setting aside Son’s ailment, she would still not be able to recognize this stranger. She did remember, vaguely, that she shared a menial conversation about Indo-European food with some freshman girl just before she and Mark’s group took off into the woods.

“Fig jam? Almond butter?” The girl asked.

“Hmm… yeah, now I remember.” Son echoed, “ Meat pies are best served with fig jam and almond butter, and I remember saying something that offended you greatly, did I not?”

“Yes, you did. You said that was just a more pretentious, more British version of a PB&J.”

Leyelle 2024-02-22 02:43:42 UTC #6

What about this lady with the birds nest hair? or the male nurses?:

The instant I arrive in the hospital lobby I take my jacket off and fold it over my lap, giving the pits of my blouse a moment to dry as I wait to be able to speak to the receptionist. A heavy-set woman with a messy nest of weave all tumbled together on the top of her head is speaking intensely - frantically - to the poor gray-haired woman behind the desk. I try not to eavesdrop but stray words slip into my perception here and there -

Only family. So sorry. Maybe. Phone call. So sorry. And sorry again.

I bite my lip.

“Is Alicia Palmero on the visitor's list for Kattar Moon?” I ask the woman behind the desk, the second the big woman sweeps away, crying and muttering at the same time.

“Of course,” she smiles, exhaustedly. “You’re always on the visitor’s list.”

I’m taken aback, but before I can say anything she adds:

“He should be being brought back to his room about now, so he might be asleep, or trying to sleep, but Lucille can take you to his room.”

I know my way, but the rainbow-scrubbed ‘Lucille’ leads me around a nearby corner and three doors down to a room where the door is standing open.

He isn’t sleeping.

When we arrive two male nurses are helping him from a wheelchair into the bed. His face is twisted into something between a grimace and wince, and red as fire, as he tries not to cry out with pain, but when he sees me, he smiles in spite of himself, almost sheepishly.

I hesitate on the threshold, unsure whether to come in or to turn back and wait in the lobby until a better time. He needs his sleep. I shouldn’t be here-

“So this is the beauty everyone’s been telling me about,” one of the nurses says, a tall man with surfer-blonde hair. “I can’t lie. I’m kind of jealous. Are you a model, Miss?”

“No,” I say quickly - sharply, though I don’t mean to.

“You two a couple?” The other nurse asks, adjusting the position of the bed, as Kattar shakes his head.

“That’s too bad,” the blonde nurse throws in, in a mock-pity way that makes it clear that he doesn’t mean it. As they leave he winks at me.

Art by Mariel Leister

lignorice 2024-02-22 03:09:24 UTC #7

The two knights here never appears and they don't plan to show up again in the future. Their sole purpose is done on the chapter.

Two knights are passing by, their voice audible as they converse.

“Politics are sure dangerous. I know the prince’s a brat, but killing the Queen is too far.”

“Ssh, not so loud.”

“Why? He is a top fugitive now, a murderer. A little mock is nothing. It’s lucky for us to not have him as the king.”

“You don’t see anything?”

“No, I don’t see– wait, isn’t that Lord Atreus?”

‘His redhead is sure something,’ Cenric thinks to himself.

Both knights start to run, getting further away from Cenric and Erhard.

Leyelle 2024-03-14 15:31:54 UTC #8

some people want me to bring back the little girl with the umbrella, but if I do I'll have to edit my first post.

Leyelle 2024-04-02 13:49:07 UTC #9

The couple in the bg of this episode:

The rude teenagers in this episode (I can write rude teenagers, because I am one, so it isn't ageist. we are brats XD)

Leyelle 2024-04-17 01:08:03 UTC #10

“How much time do you have to decide?”

Even as he asks his eyes are following a baseball-capped tween whose attention seems to be glued to Kattar, despite a lousy attempt to look like he’s ‘not staring.’

“Six months,” I sigh, feeling my annoyance fizz over like a ravenous volcano - foaming at the mouth

Let it go.

I feel acutely serpentine, trying to keep this hiss out of my voice as I quietly seeth.

“I have six months to make a decision, but between preparing for that event I’ll be doing with your mom’s magazine and how packed my schedule daily is going to be when I start working with Ms. Howard, I’ll barely have a minute to breathe, let alone think.”

“That’s better than some alternatives…” he mumbles, and that strikes me dumb, like a hard disc error. I stare at him stupefied like I’m frozen in time.

LostKelp 2024-04-18 01:03:04 UTC #11

One of my favourite things is to make cool designs for bit characters and make them suffer
Giana is the main character of this mini-segment, and will not be returning at any other point in the comic. The two other characters were present only for this page.

The MC's just gotta do a lotta violence on some random guys sometimes.

Leyelle 2024-05-15 14:35:39 UTC #12

Would you look at that? Stunning.

I think I saw one of these pieces before…wasn’t it in Melpomene?

It almost looks like a photograph, doesn’t it?

The bodies swarm around me like some sort of cultish dance, sucking every breath of air from the small left wing. I’m surrounded by voices - laughing, talking. Admiring the art. Every few seconds there’s an “ooh” or an “ahh” as the ocean shifts and somebody new gets a glimpse at the painting ziggurat.

I hear the words ‘spectacular,’ ‘amazing. 'Magnifique' with fake French accents.

I shiver at every brush of someone pushing past me, hugging my arms against the touch of fabric - drowning in strangers. The mass swirls like a whirlpool -

How long has it been since I last glimpsed a member of the staff or Mrs. Moon?

At long last, I see someone beckoning me to the stage. It’s only been 15 minutes - it feels like an eternity.

Run - run away and go home-

But not this time.

Staff members corral the bodies away from the exhibit until there’s space for me and the curator to stand. Someone hands me a microphone with a reassuring smile, but I can’t make myself smile back. I hear the curator clear her throat but the sound feels a million miles away - like the memory of a voice that died out eons ago.

“Welcome art lovers to the grand opening of our brand new exhibit, “Spiraling.” As you all know, this is our first new exhibit in a very long time, so we wanted to come back with a bang - something that would really stretch our concept of what you can do with a canvas - and as we learned, even how you could assemble a collection. We couldn’t think of a better person to lead us in this project than this beautiful young woman,”

The shadow-

I swallow.

“The 2023 Winner of the Precioso Vegerra Award, and creator of more than 200 breathtaking pieces! We are so honored to have 15 of her originals here in our museum and to hear the story behind this masterpiece of an exhibit she has put together for us! So without further ado, I give you our very special guest, Ms. Alicia Palmero!”

The curator steps off to the side amid the applause, and I stand alone in front of the display, staring at the undulating sea of faces until my vision blurs-

(basically all the guests at this grand opening and the staff don't appear again so I'm cheating XDDD)

Leyelle 2024-06-05 15:49:13 UTC #13

Canonically, while Kattar and Alicia do exist in the same version of earth as Essence and Dominic, they never meet, so this teaser chapter is a scenario that will never happen again:

I spy the brand I’m looking for on the top shelf and there’s no way I’m getting it down.

It wouldn’t even be safe to try something stupid considering that all of these jars are made of glass, but I really don’t feel like asking somebody for help.

I glance up again like that could rescale the distance, and suddenly somebody is beside me with one hand on the back of my chair.

“Would you excuse me?” a short guy smiles like he’s laughing, his longish black hair bouncing as he shakes his head.

“My sisters sent me out for some ‘emergency’ jam for this pastry they’re concocting and they’ll have my hide if I'm not back in time to start assembling the layers.”

I slide out of his way with as good-natured an expression as I can manage and try to breathe out my frustration as he stands on his tip-toes to grab a jar of Welch’s and a jar of the strawberry jam off the shelf.