Seeing as a new year has begun, a new challenge is due. Trying something completely different from poetry so bare with me as I start a 30 Day Fiction Writing Challenge.

Day 1

Select a book at random in the room. Find a novel or a short story, copy down the last sentence and use this line as the first line of your new story.

The book I found was Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry the last sentence is “The blue was gathered in her hand, and she could feel it quiver, as if it had been given breath and beginning to live.”

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The blue was gathered in her hand, and she could feel it quiver, as if it had been given breath and beginning to live. In fact it was alive, it had  life beyond her knowledge bestowed upon this blue, by a higher power. Which gave her a gift and a task. To create wonders and masterpieces like never seen to this world. She sketches the skies, so many different shades of blue and people still awe at the perfect simplicity behind her details. The water she colored with the reflection of the sky, light and dark, blues all around. She threw blue over rocks and flowers just enough to make them shine bright. Nature danced at every touch her hand let go. Happiness poured from her soul from her newfound gift. She painted starfish and through blue on top of the red jellyfish, all types of candy were created blue. Butterflies were given blue stripes, blue dots and blue wings; turkeys had blue all over their feathers . Blue was added to the rainbows in the sky, she wasn’t shy with her new powers. But she soon got greedy with her color and wanted to see everything blue. So she robbed the world of its perfect balance she took the beauty out of blue. She rid the world of the greens, reds, pinks, oranges, whites, blacks and purples.

Everything was blue, everything was the same, nothing was special; nothing that stood out and the world became pitiful . But He who gave her, her power, was not satisfied with the result of her actions, those actions that took the true beauty away from the world, the mix of colors. So he bestowed another gift upon a boy, young but with spirit, alive like all the colors that once lived upon the world. The boy did not understand the gift he now held but he understood what his purpose was, for he remembered the days when all the colors would blend together, the memories had been robbed from many but the blue girl hadn’t been able to rob his own. The higher being had protected him with hope that he one could  restore all that once was. But what was the point of restoring the world when Blue was still out there and could change anything he recolored back. So he had to face her, take away the blue from her hands because the higher power gave but he did not take away. For he too was created only with the ability to give as was Blue. So he gave the boy, Many-hued, the ability to not only to give color but also to take away. Many-hued desired with all his heart to see the different shades of the world again so he sought Blue on. She had created and impenetrable fortress so he drew he out with the changes of color he did around her world. She could sense the changes deep with in the walls of her blue castle. So she emerged from her home to face what she believed would be an easy target. Blue had no idea the power Many-hued truly possessed and it wasn’t long before he rammed his hand into her heart and robbed her of all her blue. She sobbed as she saw her prize possession be taken from her and begged Many-hued not the rid the world of her blue. He promised he wouldn’t take away all the blue but he would make it shine among the other colors of the world, so he left the blues of the sky of the ocean so she could see and gave her mystical mirror to contemplate there beauty where ever she may be. Many-hued had pleased the higher and was given power over all life so that he may do what was right for the rest of his life.

–M.A. Fernández

Copyright © 2016 Marlin Alicea Fernández, Soul to Ink. All Rights Reserved