Photo credit: freestock.ca ♡ dare to share beauty via Visual hunt / CC BY

Here is today’s Warm Up Exercise. Hope you enjoy it.

A whip struck hard across her face. Dagma didn’t stop. She could feel the thin line of her flesh begin to burn and knew the unseen branch had drawn blood. A howl rose from the rabid dogs behind her as the scent carried through the woods. They wanted a taste of blood. Her blood.

Her lungs burned, her legs trembled from fatigue and she could feel a muscle spasm in her side. Her mind told her she could not falter now. Dagma ran. She envisioned herself as strong and fresh as she had been days ago, when she had first begun her escape. The woods were misty gray. Great black sentinel trees rose in front of her to cut her off from her destination. The ground beneath her was covered in slick leaves and slimy mud.

The thinning of the trees didn’t seem real at first. The mist began to part, clearing the way for her. The baying of the tireless dogs grew louder, closer now. Dagma ran. The woods gave way to the setting sun steaking amber hews across a silver meadow. In the center, she saw the white orb and raced to where it stood, sinking to the ground next to it. She had to be careful, disturbing the delicate orb in any way would ruin everything. She cupped one hand around the orb and gently plucked it from where it grew.

She stilled her ragged breath and tilted the fluffy orb into the sunlight. “Come on. Please,” she silently begged. A golden flash shot across the face of the orb tracing a path along the fine filaments that the connected to each seed. No, not that one. Dagma waited. The golden path changed, again and again, and still she waited. She could hear the unrelenting dogs, they would be on her shortly.

The meadow trembled from the pounding of the giant dogs racing towards her. They crashed through the edge of the woods snarling in delight at the sight of their prey in front of them. She didn’t look up, seeing only the golden path as it chased across the orb. There, that was the one. She raised the orb to her lips, closed her eyes and blew gently. Dagma was gone. The monstrous dogs came barking and yelping into the center of the meadow, vainly searching for what was no longer there. Above them, dandelion seeds floated in the last light of the setting sun.

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer