Activity

@andrew Sorry I’m a little behind. I’n not sure when this would be after reading everybody else’s post. You can fit it in whereever you like.

If you want to make any of you’re characters meet her, just let me know. But I usually get on here only once-maybe twice- a week, so I’ll be a little slow in responding.

Here I go . . .( please critique me. I need it.)

A shriek split the silence. Megyn jerked awake, and rolled to her knees. She glanced above her, then murmured “Where’s the dark and gentle blue heaven? Why this cloudless, brazen blue? I could smell the refreshing scent of rain when I laid down to watch the storm rise. But now the air is dry and lifeless, like a desert.”
Another shriek rang out.“It sounds like . . .like someone it terrible pain. Where’s it coming from?”
She sprang up. “Why, even the bed of wildflowers I’d laid down in is gone!” She stood in a hollow between two hills, all covered with dark green grass.
Her face hardened like a flint as another shriek resounded in her ears. She muttered,”I going to help you. But where are you?”
She swept her gaze across the landscape about her. “No one in sight. The shrieks don’t sound very close. They might be coming from beyond one of these rises.”
Crouching low, she crept up the rise to her left until she knelt just below the crest. She hesitated a moment, then lifted her head above it. No one was in sight. She slowly rose over the crest and stepped to the edge, only to stand still and stare in awe. In the valley below her lay a castle. “A castle!”
What a castle it was! Its walls and towers, built dark granite and roofed in red sandstone, rose up out of the plain like a mountain. “It has buttresses and gates and a portcullis, moat and drawbridge, just like castles I used to imagine and pretend to be a princess in! And it’s so grand so . . . so spacious. I can’t even see the whole of it!”
“Where in the world am I?!” Her forehead creased with a confused frown as she closed her eyes. “Have I been transported back in time to German manor or to a Scottish highland fortress?”
“But no, this place looks nothing like any of the German or Scottish castles that I can remember. One thing’s for sure; this is NOT Colorado!!”
She clenched her teeth as another shriek rang out.”I must find out what is going on! Someone is being abused inside that castle and, Lord allowing, I will help them . . . somehow.”
She started running down the slope, then stopped. Something was thumping against her back. “In fact, she realized, “it has been this whole time.” She had something on her back! She reached her hands behind her. Her fingers slid over the firm smoothness of nylon. “What on earth-
Her cello! “That’s right. I’d brought it with me. At least that has stayed the same. But how did I-Oh this is so confusing!” Another shriek. “Never mind the ‘how’ for now.” She told herself. “I’ll find out the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ first.”
She ran down the slope and paused behind a small tree to survey the situation. Guards stood all along the top the wall-and many of them! “Oddly, they’re all looking down into the court of the castle, not out in this direction. Maybe . . .I could make it.”
She crept from behind her tree and darted to the wall. She pressed herself against the wall and held her breath. No shouts of alarm. No orders to halt. No one had seen her. “Now to get inside.”
Another shriek rang out, louder now that she stood beside the wall. But now a new sound rang with it. She’d heard it before on the ranches back home, the sound of cowboys cracking their bullwhips. “But cowboys don’t dress like Romans.” She thought aloud. “And they DO NOT live in castles.”
The whip cracked again as someone shouted, “Cry on, you dirty slave!! You helpless, no-good knave!!” Such harsh speech and cruel words! “How could anyone with a heart speak to another like that?! The bullies!!-“
“I’m going to get it!” She glanced up the wall. No possibility in climbing up. It towered above her at least fifty feet or more. And with the guards up there-She shook her head. “I must find another way.”
She glanced down along the wall. Nobody. If she went along the wall, she’d probably find a gate. “Lord, please let it be a open and unguarded one.”
Slowly she slid along the wall, pressing herself against it as she went. She must be very quiet and not draw any attention to herself. “If any of the the guards glanced down the outside wall” -Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. “Lord Jesus,” she whispered. “Keep me safe.”
Minutes later, she turned a corner and found herself by a narrow gate. Each stroke of the whip cracked very loudly now. “They must be just on the other side.” She crept to the bars of the gate and peered through.
“How could he-that-that–!!!” She clenched her teeth and her grip around the bars. A soldier stood over the bloody body of a young lad, lashing him with a whip. No, it was more like a scourge. And the poor victim-maybe eleven or twelve-lay rolling and writhing with agony. He struggled to breathe every breath and choked on sobs. Tears filled her eyes at the sight of that face, so pale and streaked with blood mixed with tears.
Her heart bled with him and cried for him, all at the same time. “I’ve got to do something,” she whispered fiercely. But what did she have? A few stones lay about her feet but-but throwing stones? Would it really help?
A scene of a ruddy-headed shepherd standing before a mighty giant flashed into her mind. “The Lord had used a stone and a humble shepherd to slay a giant. He could use several stones and a girl like me to save this boy.”
She bent and gathered several stones, stuffing some into her cardigan and jean pockets. “Lord, I know You can save with many or with few. If You want me to rescue him, help me and grant me strength,” she whispered.
She began to push the gate open, then paused. “I should leave my cello outside. I don’t want it to be damaged.” She slid the gig bag from her back.
As she leaned it against the wall, a thought struck her. “The cello bow! I can use it for a weapon. It’s no match for the swords and spears the soldiers have, but it’s still not fun to slapped with it.”
With the bow in one hand and a stone in the other, she slowly inhaled. “For Your glory.” With one more whisper of prayer, she pushed gate aside and stepped into the dark castle.