Stumbling out of bed, Jenny hobbled over to the lightswitch and flicked it. Warm light flooded the room and momentarily blinded her.
"Yes!" she cried, snapping awake in an instant.
The power had at last been restored; it was glorious! No thanks to Joey, of course. She'd spent her entire fortnight's earnings on paying his bill just so she could have a hot shower in the comfort of home instead of stumbling to the damned gym every morning.
Tripping over her own feet, she raced for the bathroom and giggled gleefully as she flicked the lightswitch on and off. It worked -- it truly worked! Humming beneath her breath, she turned on the hot water... this time touching it to make sure it was the correct temperature -- it was -- then prepared to throw off her clothes and leap into its warm embrace.
The room darkened; the light disappeared. So did the water.
"No!" She wailed. "Why? I paid you!"
"Behold," Joey murmured. "Ten years of darkness are now upon us, as was foretold."
Jenny whipped around, suddenly grateful she hadn't yet tore off her clothes.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
He didn't answer.
"Are you prepared?"
"Prepared?" Jenny shouted, unable to control her hysterical tone. "Prepared for what?"
"We spoke about this last week, remember?" Joey raised an eyebrow and sent her a look as though he thought she was acting like an idiot. "We were outside, enjoying the campfire. We giggled at the neighbours. And we spoke about what would happen during an apocalypse. You happily stated that you would be the caffeine queen, and I -- I will be the cucumber wine king!"
Jenny buried her head into her hands.
"That conversation was hypothetical, Joey."
"Nonsense!" He waggled his eyebrows. "Now, are you prepared to do what must be done? Are you prepared to take your rightful place as the caffeine queen?"
"No."
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down the hallway, away from what would have been a glorious shower. She released a mournful sigh.
"Do you have any black clothes?"
"No."
He pulled her into his bedroom, rummaged through a dark closet that was darkened further by the fact that once again there was no bloody power. "Here," he said, throwing a shirt at her. "We will be as one with the night as we liberate Blair of all of his caffeine! You will be queen!" He paused for a moment, pondering to himself. "We'll grab an extra bag. I might need more cucumbers to fulfil our customers needs."
"It's just a power outage, Joey. We can't go ransacking Blair's."
He shrugged.
"Strike while it's hot, Jenny. There'll be no caffeine left when everyone else ransacks the only grocery store in town."
"Guess I'll have to live on your disgusting backyard wine then, won't I?"
"It's made in the basement, Jenny."
✨An in-your-face advertisement!
Read Chapter One here on Hive!
This is the first book of a series that has been in my heart and mind since I was 10-11 years old and I'm so excited to finally be sharing it with everyone in its entirety. Please give Chapter One a read and if you enjoy it please consider laying down a pre-order. Thank you so much! ❤️
If you have Kindle Unlimited and fancy some in-your-face politically INcorrect Australian humour, you can also read Half Past the Moonfall for free. Or pick it up for $2.99!
Hellooooo! It's currently day 1002 of @mariannewest's daily five-minute #freewrite challenge. Today's prompt is -- baby powder -- but I decided to work with the prompt from DAY ONE THOUSAND. Ten Years of Darkness.
I wrote all the dialogue in the five-minute window, then spent another 10mins or so expanding it.
Joey and Jenny are at it again, slowly giving me more and more content and information and general events to go in their novel that'll one day come. If you were following my first few days of Maynia then this would be somewhat familiar, hehe. Can't imagine Blair will be pleased. 😆
You can find the freewrite challenge here:
https://peakd.com/hive-161155/@mariannewest/day-1002-5-minute-freewrite-sunday-prompt-baby-powder
✨JOIN US!!!!
In other news... I'm stil working on the final edit of Vengeance. Have been doing so good. For the first time in my writing life I'm actually enjoying the editing process. Cut this bit here, remove that there, add this more active sentence and delete the passive, remove that superfluous word, rearrange this sentence. It's cathartic in a way.
I also ordered a brand new super duper laptop thanks to end of financial year sales!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED. It's a custom built gaming laptop, with an rtx 2060, and a high-end gen 10 cpu, and and and, STUFF, and I'm looking forward to doing some proper gaming posts up on Hive soon! 😁
Exclaims exuberantly in a Big Kev voice that only Aussies will understand -- "I'M EXCITED!"
Until next time,
Thanks for stopping by and having a read! 🙃🤗
There truly could be eternal darkness. Jenny doesn't know it yet. Perhaps there was a nuclear experiment gone wrong!
😉 Exactly!
Maybe not a nuclear experiment, but I've been contemplating throwing in a coronal mass ejection that's far more powerful than the Carrington event. 😁
Even better. The more devastating a post-apocalyptic world is, the more dire tales it invokes. 😉
Guess Joey is lucky that Jenny isn't like me as if I'd associated him with the blackout and hot water disappearing he would have been punched where it hurts XD
Yay for new laptop! I need one of those before the end of the year when it looks like we're still going to be heading to my parents but didn't have quite enough money to make use of eofys x_x
Joey is very lucky that Jenny is so... willing to look past his flaws whilst at the same time complain about them. 😆
I'm so super stoked for this new laptop!! There are so many things that I want to do but can't because this little itty bitty thing can't handle it. I can barely edit a photo without it hiccuping. So rude.
A pity about not being able to make use of EOFY sales 🙁🙁 I umm'd and ahh'd about this a lot. Then. Bought it. Then screamed with joy. Then screamed with horror for I'd just actually spent money. I never spend money. 😬
When you do get a chance to look at laptops, I don't know if you've heard of them but check out https://www.metabox.com.au/ ~ They're located in Perth and everything I've read about them is fantastic. Fantastic enough for me to give them a chance right now! 😁
I know about them, that's where I was thinking of going if I couldn't get a Macbook Pro for whatever reason because they're the only place that sells laptops without operating systems :)
I am so glad that you are enjoying the editing process. And congrats on the new computer.
I so hope that you are going to be part of the contest :)
Thank you! 😀 I hope to be! So excited that we've gone past day 1000 when I first joined on day 193 -- so many days have passed!
The editing is actually kind of fun -- I think it's because I know it's the last time I'll ever do it for this particular story. 😅 Finally releasing it out into the world after so many years of repetitive re-writing. Will not be making the same mistake with Books 2/3/4!! But then, thanks to so long writing this one, I have all the others plotted out and prepared. 😁
I am sooooo looking forward to reading your book and hope that you will turn it into an audiobook as well. Chirp is a good place to make an offer on it to break into the market...
I am just selfish since I get most of my fiction now via audiobook :)
We have! 😄🤗
I wasn't too sure on how to go about turning it into an audiobook without ravaging my own voice, haha. I would love to be a voice actor, but at the same time if I talk for longer than 10 minutes I get very gravelly no matter how much water I drink or apples I crunch (read that's what proper voice actors do, doesn't work for me.)
I will find a way - I know a lot of people prefer to listen to audiobooks. 😊
Wow this story just gets better for each new chapter @kaelci, so caffeine queen Jenny and cucumber wine king Joey will get real, thanks for sharing, it's awesome.
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Thanks! 😊 One day this is going to be some story, haha!!
Wow, what a great read! I really enjoyed it & now I am wondering what will happen on Jenny & Joey's adventures. The Caffeine Queen LOLOLOL ...I can so relate as I sip my coffee, typing this 😉☕ Thank you so much for sharing & can't wait to read more. Keep up the great work! You Are Awesome! 👍🙂💚
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